Production Supervisor is a Brick Wall when it comes to Lean Practices

[bspraw]

Recently we started testing the productivity and labor cost savings of an assembly process with zero WIP to that of one person completing the entire job with multiples steps with large amounts of WIP. One problem, the Production Supervisor continuously fights this testing because of 9,383,924 different reasons (seriously it feels as if the person comes up with a new one everyday). This testing is producing amazing results and has raised morale with the assemblers...however, that morales seems to lower when she sends out mixed signals.

What do I do????????????

[Jill Jusko]

What does that mean, "This testing is producing amazing results"?

[TonyR]

You need to generate a comparison matrix showing the before and after condition. This would include time savings (timestudy), production increase, and per piece savings. This must be presented to upper management. One cannot understand why the resistance to such an improvement.

Another aspect, is you may need to speak the the Supervisor on the side and show that you are on her side. Explain that is is to make things better and easier for her and her department. Did you include her in this project? Ownership goes a long way.

Good Luck!

[Ruth Renee]

I am a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt who has recently (9 months ago) been promoted to Manufacturing Manager. I can tell you that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.

Time taken for "testing" is time that your production supervisor has to make up for elsewhere. You need to make sure that you are throughly vetting your testing requirements with all parties in your production process. The production supervisor probably has conflicting priorities. Scheduling has promised a customer a product within a certain time period and then you want to interrupt production for "testing." Now that I am on the other side of the fence, I can tell you that I'll put the order before the testing even though I have a thorough understanding that you are trying to make a improvement that will eventually help them out.

You need to make sure that all upper management are onboard with what you are trying to do. If my GM tells me that the testing has priority over what orders I have....then I'll do the testing.

[Be Ware]

@ Ruth

I find that very interesting as it may show at your firm management (or at least the Supervisor's boss) still sees improvement as 'add on' work that contradicts production requirements (as opposed to a necessary compliment to production, standard work which is just as important as production).

Don't get me wrong, I've worked and lived on the shop floor and know production is king. The experiment must be clearly laid out, efficiently run, and scientifically verified. There is nothing worse than a 'tinkerer' who takes up valuable production time for no or marginal gains. This is why many lean shops do experiments on overtime or off-shifts.

However, in order for lean to truly work management at all levels must understand it's not a nuissance...its the way to your future survival. You must make time, and protect it. On the other hand you must keep people accountable for results(see tinkerer above).

Making your numbers today won't assure the firm's medium or long term survival. It's subtle, but if you can change management's attitude towards C.I. you'll get less resistance.

I agree with other posters and suspect this person is getting pressure from her management to make the numbers.

[bspraw]

Thank you all for your responses, each are valued and I will do my best at responding as a whole to them. This process was meticulously processed and thought through rather than just laying something on and saying, "we're going to do this". I felt that including him/her was my best option and felt that if this could be his/her own "thing", this would yield best results of being received by the production supervisor. Doing so, the President of the company created her Quality Objective for the year to increase productivity and decrease labor costs (doing so, was fairly simple in designing a non-complicated matrix that includes cost, productivity, max. output, and a variance based on the amount of laborers it would take). We met as a group with all of this and talked about the importance of each variable and how we could retain these results. Further, we all collected and orchestrated the best possible layout for our testing.

Everyone is onboard with this except for the production supervisor (including all upper management). The results have come out extremely positive in that we are seeing an average of a nearly 500% increase in productivity per job tested and an average labor cost savings of nearly 80%. However, there is still resistance. I am only asking for this because I fear that the next option is for this person to lose their job. That is not something that I wish and I am simply looking for a way to educate and motivate this person and process.

Thanks,
BS

[CI Guy]

I do not want to make any assumptions here so I will ask a basic question. Have you spoken with this supervisor to understand why they do not support this change? I don't mean a conversation where you talk about why it's good and try to sell them, but a discussion about their concerns or the problems they see.

I've noticed throughout my career that often times when change is not supported it is because the right communication has not taken place. Now this does not mean that communication has not happened it just may not have been done in an effective way. When managers, or us as change agents, talk about change we usually focus on selling or defending it instead really talking about it.

If the change has resulted in the numbers you've shared with us then it's hard to understand why someone would not support it. If it was a change that seems like it was easy and should have been obvious to someone looking at it, maybe they feel disgruntled because they missed it and fear that it reflects poorly on them. They could feel that with the new system in place their position may not be needed much longer. It's impossible to say unless the right conversation has been had and this person has had the opportunity to truly share their opinion and they may feel they cannot do that in a group setting.

Is this resistance to change a pattern with this person or is it out of the norm? If it's unusual then they probably have concerns they're not voicing. If it's a pattern then you idea about losing their job may be the right one.

[bspraw]

Thanks for the comments. Much of your assumptions are correct. The communication was very clear and much of the program as said before was given to her to implement, expand, etc. "make it her own". When the initial numbers came back however, it seemed that there was an attitude change; it fits very well with your thought of this person "missing the boat". On more than one occassion we have had problems with the supervisor adapting and accepting any type of change. Thank you all for your comments, I apologize for being so vague in the beginning and appreciate the depth of conversation. I hope to meet some of you in Cleveland in April.

Regards,
BS

[ez_at_large]

BS,

I can see from your text all portions of this experiment were structured as best practices recommend. There is ONE glitch here. And I think you will see it now. Was there any consideration of how it would reflect on this particular supervisor's job performance should the idea prove wildley successful? Obviously the numbers support your hypothesis for the experiment. But does this not say in a disguised way she is an ineffective supervisor at present?

[bspraw]

EZ,

Thanks for your comments, I will attempt to explain. What we have is a person that is very jealous. She will be totally on board with everything that anyone throws at her until it goes well. It's almost as if she is mad the it was not her idea...I know it sounds childish, and it is. However, in the past few weeks I do believe that she has either turned the corner on this project or realized that if she didnt that there may be consequences. So, we have been thoroughly running tests in all areas of our assembly and have been yielding great results. We have noticed on average 1.53 times more productive per day based on our data. The worker morale is up and many of the assemblers have asked to move into full swing. However, we are not ready to jump the gun until we have tested all facets of our production. Again, thank you all for your comments, they have been very helpful and useful in implementing lean practices.

BS