Most manufacturing systems are an amalgam of routine activities and specialist knowledge but where these activities require a lot of day to day management attention they are unstable.

Managers caught in this firefighting trap will understand that by not dealing with the root causes of such problems, costs will be higher but the issues can span the whole organisitation. These can range from poor customer forecasts to supply problems, the task is simply bigger than an individual manager or department. Breaking out of firefighting requires a collective will. Also known as Leadership.

Lean TPM provides the technical and leadership framework to break out of firefighting and make progress towards market leading capability. Delivering long term improvement in business performance is line the old football cliche, a game of two halves. The full article sets out the first half task of breaking out of firefighting.

The take away
Stabilisation is the first significant milestone on the road to world class performance. The goal is to clear the technology landscape of the debris of poorly designed systems and working practices. The benefits include increased capacity, flexibility and reduced costs. As important is the release of specialist and management time from day to day crisis management so that they can focus on more strategically important issues.

The "how to" steps to assess areas of policy weakness, define priorities and develop countermeasures are included in the full article.

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