Newsletters

Details: Category: Newsletters

Imagine a workplace where every process is streamlined and every piece of data is at your fingertips.

That's always been the goal of TPM and Lean but it is now much easier to achieve by integrating TPM, Lean, and Digitisation. In addition, the outcomes include an internal network of improvement leaders to champion the change, engaging the workforce and embedding a proactive improvement culture.

This helps your team to release the synergy between TPM Lean and Digital. A journey of discovery where real-time data unveils lost effectiveness, deciphers cause and effect, and validates countermeasures within the daily workflow.

To find out more watch the video or read the content of this newsletter about how we can help your team to accelerate the pace of improvement and deliver the full potential of your operations.

The Promise of Digitisation

Imagine a workplace where every process is streamlined and every piece of data is at your fingertips. That's always been the goal of TPM and Lean but it is now much easier to achieve by integrating TPM, Lean, and Digitisation. A programme where you can:

Use the power of a digital ecosystem.
- Connecting legacy systems and applying machine learning will unveil insights that drive operational effectiveness.
Craft a new operational blueprint.
- To customise how to use the digital ecosystem to improve current performance and systematically enhance every aspect of future operations.
Establish a digital backbone.
- Linking legacy systems with web-based platforms to deliver shared workstreams.
Use this ecosystem to revolutionise plant and workflow effectiveness.
- It becomes the bedrock for boosting productivity and fostering collaboration across value streams.

In addition to performance gains, the transition creates a connected internal network of improvement leaders. The enhanced connectivity and quality of feedback helps them to embed a proactive improvement culture.

Our role is to raise awareness of new opportunities and facilitate the change process. We do that by working with your team to identify potential gains and develop a road map to deliver it. That includes the creation of a new blueprint to define customised new ways of working and develop internal capabilities as part of the day to day routine. See articles below for more details.

Next steps include support for practical projects to demonstrate how to release the synergy between TPM, Lean and Digital connectivity. A journey of discovery where real-time data unveils lost effectiveness, deciphers cause and effect, and validates countermeasures within the daily workflow. That is covered by our Newsletter on Make TPM Lean and Digital: Implementation.

Contact us to find out more about how we can help your team to accelerate the pace of improvement and deliver the full potential of your operations.

Where the Smart Technology Gains Come from

The gains come from linking up systems to create slick ways of working not pockets of technology.

The popular image of Smart Technology typically features the hardware. Robots, 3D printing and Headsets.

The reality is that the gains are not just down to the tech; the true value of Smart Technology comes from how it changes the dynamics of day to day operation, enhancing connectivity between people, plant and processes to transform manufacturing for the better.

Adapting to Smart Technology developments is a continuous path, one that award-winning organisations tread to achieve operational excellence.

This is a journey of discovery where real-time data unveils lost effectiveness, deciphers cause and effect, and validates countermeasures within the daily workflow.

To thrive and grow in this environment involves learning how to use the new ecosystem to identify opportunities to remove waste and release the full potential of the operation. Which is why TPM and Lean continuous improvement frameworks are a key part of the recipe for the successful selection and adoption of Smart Technology.

Creating Your Digital Blueprint

This is a journey not a destination. Create an Operations Blueprint to Navigate Past Legacy Ideas and Adapt to the New Ecosystem.

Digitisation creates a Digital Backbone which links up traditional IT software with Cloud based services and apps to:

Provide slick systems that meet the complex needs of users across the organisation.
Automate routine administration tasks and provides information where it is needed based on the task in hand.
Enhance understanding of causal factors to accelerate progress towards industry leading performance.
Release management and specialist time to deal with more complex problems such as meeting the challenge of new products, services and technology. Releasing them to manage the future rather than react to past results.

Digitisation does this by "Closing the Loop" between the physical and digital worlds to remove legacy barriers to best practices such as individual systems or data collation by spreadsheet. That changes the day to day reality of internal improvement leaders as illustrated in the table below.

	Plant	Workflow	Benefits
Senior Manufacturing Leaders	Fewer unexpected costs, stability of output and resource control.	More flexibility of labour, ease of task transfer, more engaged workforce	Release of skilled resource for other duties,
Local Production and Maintenance Leaders	Routine delivery of planned output, Improved coordination of labour and materials	Higher team morale, opportunities to develop team potential	Reduction in the causes of reactive management, Greater workforce flexibility and productivity.
Support functions	Clearer technology landscape, easier to separate signal from noise	Machine to Machine (M2M) learning to improve productivity and safety. Reduced risk of human error.	Improved workforce engagement and cross functional teamwork, Shorter skill development learning curve,
Material Supply	Less urgent jobs, more consistent workflow, fewer lost or missing materials	Less inventory to count, fewer reconciliation issues	Reduced quality defect, improved yield.
Production and Maintenance Work planning	Less call for last minute changes	More flexibility of who can do what task	Reduced unplanned downtime and full lifespan use of parts.
Maintainer	Less time on breakdowns	Easy to do routines, time to focus on raising process effectiveness	Simplification of routine complex and difficult to do tasks
Operator	Less unexpected problems	Systematic reduction in pain points and problem hot spots, more autonomy, better job satisfaction	Systematic reduction of complex and difficult to do tasks

That releases time to focus on higher added value activities but the transition of these roles is not automatic. Without a clear plan and support to develop new skills, the risk of resistance to change is high.

To manage these transitions well, our programme involves practical activities that engage those in the above roles in the development of a new Operations Blueprint. That starts with reviewing current practices and setting out ways of working that utilise the new ecosystem.

That highlights where changes in roles and responsibilities need to be supported to raise skills, transfer tasks and deliver those new practices.

This is a journey of systematic improvement rather than an overnight change. It takes time for people to develop new skills and adapt to the new normal. The creation and update of the Digital CI Blueprint is an important vehicle for capturing lessons learned on that journey and aligning the priorities of the internal improvement network at each step.

Developing the Internal Improvement Leader Network

Build Better Working Relationships, Change Outlooks and Establish a Proactive Improvement Culture

In organisations that do this well, the outcome is the creation of an internal improvement network where improvement teams, leaders and support personnel collaborate to develop and share best practices that stabilise and ratchet up performance.

Their role is to engage all levels of the organisations in delivering the gains of the digitised ecosystem by:

Communicate business priorities
Envisioning connectivity transitions
Supporting
- Collaboration across shifts on reducing the causes of breakdowns by tracking progress along the improvement glidepath to guide their teams to sustain basic conditions as part of day to day management,
- Sharing lessons learned to develop their collective skills to sustain basic conditions and prevent mis operation.
- Best practice development to reduce recurring problems
- Transitions of roles to release time for higher added value activities
- Value management plans target investment at the right areas and deliver enhanced customer value to support business growth

The development of this internal improvement network is a central part of Digitisation programme. That provides the vehicle to transfer the lessons learned from the pilot programme to the rest of the organisation.

That systematically develops front line capabilities and releases specialist and support function time to:

Identify opportunities to use digital tools to leverage the pace of improvement.
Align priorities across functions.
Support teams in real time with the removal barriers to problems.
Identify resources such as the roles, skills and tools to support each step of the programme.

That change of focus also develops internal support function capabilities as set out in the table below.

Traditional roles	New Digital Ecosystem Accountabilities/Skills	Purpose
Front Line Roles	Define and track data capture points to support administration, coordination and early problem detection. Includes providing feedback on problem hot spots and the effectiveness of countermeasures.	Plan/Do support to enhance current performance and translate user experience into best practice plant and workflow routines. That includes work on digital "Use Case" specification and task transfer.
Local Leaders, Quality and HSE managers	Translate business goals into local improvement actions. Includes specification development and testing to confirm "Use Case proof of concept" and transfer of lessons learned across the operation.	Check/Act support to facilitate data clean up and analysis to improve insight into causal factors and refine Decision Models to enhance future performance.
Process Engineering, IT and CI	Solution architect, data engineering, analysis and cyber security, identify available and needed data capture points. Support introduction of Standardisation, micro planning, skill matching, Material control and over the shoulder support as part of dynamic scheduling.	Oversight of Digital ecosystem, work organisation, shared workflows and task transfer. That includes system linkages, data structure and analysis. Support development of user dashboards and microservice applications as part of job design, work instructions, standards, learning plans and competence standards to set and enhance ways of working.
Production coordination and planning	User experience enhancement. Includes oversight of low/no code app development to automate routine workflows.	Ensures user experience supports business goals, Enables data exchange and system/app integration for routine planning and scheduling tasks.

Table 1: Making TPM Lean and Digital Improvement Network Roles

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

A common reason for the failure of advanced technology to deliver expected gains is too much focus on the technology and not enough on how it will be used.

For example, technology to support condition monitoring is often presented by providers as a way to reduce downtime. The reality is that gains are only achieved when the digital alarm is underpinned with actions to respond to it. In addition, more alarms are not necessarily a good thing because a large number of poorly organized alerts can overwhelm human sensory and information processing capacity.

A countermeasure to this “Siren call” of technology is to link advanced technology selection to the steps of the TPM road map.

Although often presented as purely operator maintenance, TPM has the goal of “continuous improvement in effectiveness through cross functional teamwork”. At the heart of TPM is a process to engage production, maintenance and relevant support functions in working through a structured road map to firstly stabilise effectiveness (zero breakdowns) then optimise asset performance.

Underpinning the road map process, is research which highlights that only around 25% of downtime is due to poor inspection routines. Roughly double that amount of stoppage time is due to

Accelerated wear due contamination or lack of lubrication
Human error due to weak work routines, skill and knowledge gaps.

Without improvement to these 2 areas first, advanced condition monitoring is unlikely to deliver lasting gains.

The Journey to Zero Breakdowns

The first phase of the TPM road map involves actions to establish basic condition standards, reduce equipment wear rates and prevent the causes of human error. In addition to reducing breakdowns, this also improves collaboration between production and maintenance, encouraging new thinking and innovation.

An advanced technology tool that supports this first TPM road map phase is the Digital Twin improvement glide path. That is used to compare actual performance against improvement glide path targets which have been set to track the gains from actions taken to improve:

Basic Conditions,
Work routines/compliance,
Contamination control.

The improved quality of feedback from Digital Notifications can then be combined with the use of data modelling and machine learning analysis tools to support the development of understanding about how to achieve asset stability. That includes

Clarifying the notifications that indicate Normal conditions and the response needed to deal with abnormal conditions.
Providing recommendations for planned maintenance windows
Providing suggestions for refining process parameters to deal with factors such as variation in material quality or environmental conditions.

Digital Notifications can also be used to coordinate

Work instruction review cycles
Change request progress
Work completions
Learning and compliance steps

Find out more about how to remove the causes of unplanned downtime by creating TPM centres of excellence.

Ratcheting up Performance

During the next phase of the road map, the Digital Twin Glide path is used to define and optimise process capabilities to remove the causes of unplanned interventions.

This phase is characterised by actions to understand and eliminate the causes of minor quality defects. In addition to the increased time between intervention, the outcomes includes fewer defects, improved material yields, lower energy use and a greater understanding of the mechanisms that impact on process control.

The gains from the TPM optimisation phase extended time mean time between intervention for one manufacturer such that they were able to run additional night shifts during peak demand months without additional labour. That lowered inventories, increased material yields, improved flexibility to demand fluctuations and reduced development time for new products.

Find out more about what it takes to Ratchet Up Performance here

The application advanced technology as part of a TPM programme could accelerate progress towards such gains from the 3 to 5 years taken to around half of that duration.

Contact us to find out more

Make TPM Lean and Digital Implementation

Details: Category: Newsletters

Adapting to Smart Technology developments is a continuous path, one that award-winning organisations tread to achieve operational excellence.

This is a journey of discovery where real-time data unveils lost effectiveness, deciphers cause and effect, and validates countermeasures within the daily workflow.

To thrive and grow in this environment involves learning how to use the new ecosystem to identify opportunities to remove waste and release the full potential of the operation. Which is why TPM and Lean continuous improvement frameworks are a key part of the recipe for the successful selection and adoption of Digitisation and Smart Technology.

The Digitisation Roadmap

The Digital Ecosystem provides a bridge between physical and virtual worlds. This makes it easier to coordinate the people, processes and plant activities involved in manufacturing. This impacts on:

Performance Drivers
- Real time coordination of labour, material logistics and data provision where and when needed to improve productivity.
Cultural Drivers
- Enhanced data analysis and modelling of actual vs expected results to optimise current operations and provide the insight to improve future performance.
Routine administration tasks.
- Automation of usage and performance reporting.

As mentioned earlier, this is a journey not a destination. In part this is because to it takes time to develop new capabilities. In addition to avoid data overload it takes time to find the 20% of information that gives 80% of the control. That involves using the new ecosystem to gain new insights about causal factors and learning how to move away from legacy rules of thumb and historically prudent ways of working. Typically, this also highlights gaps in accountabilities and changes in key roles. See article below.

The first step involves a 3 day hands on training workshop involving cross functional personnel. Suring the workshop they work in teams to apply "Make TPM Lean and Digital" principles to selected live assets. Through this they identify priorities for plant and workflow improvement based on the current shop floor reality. That highlights where improved standards and data clean up activities can deliver the biggest gains. They also identify where gaps in accountabilities need to be plugged.

The outputs from the workshop are used to mobilise a pilot programme to enhance plant and workflow standards and establish a the digital ecosystem for the pilot area.

This typically this involves the use of web based data analysis platforms which have the functionality to link up systems such as CMMS, SCADA, Forecasting, Order processing, Financials. That includes tools to simplify the clean up data, provide intelligent analysis and create charts to make the outputs easier to digest.

This linked up data can then be used to automate routine workflows using low/no code applications provided by Microsoft or others as part of their standard packages. That means goodbye to the spreadsheets developed to collate data from multiple sources.

The use of low/no code applications also provides access to automated investigation cycles to support real time analysis of causal factors and confirmation of countermeasures.

Again the use of TPM and Lean improvement frameworks for pilot and roll out cascades provide a framework to identify and test out how best to do this in a model areas first to create standards and training plans that support the transfer of lessons learned.

Creating the Digital Backbone

The approach used to link up traditional IT systems with web based platforms and applications is known as the Digital Backbone.

For example web based data analysis platforms are designed to combine data from traditional in house IT systems with trapped data (available but not easy to access), stranded data (only available locally) and data from plug and play smart sensors to provide data and analysis to support decision making and performance management.

What we are most interested in tracking is the comparison of actual performance against standards using rule based limits to trigger Notifications where conditions are not as expected or to provide feedback and analysis to support:

Planning
- Micro planning of materials and resources based on real time activities
- Condition based asset care planning
- Dynamic scheduling /risk management
- Skill matching
Fault finding and over the shoulder support.
Optimisation activities to reducing problem hot spots, process pain points and unplanned interventions

The success of the digital ecosystem will depend not only on the technology but also on the skills and experience of individual users.

The lessons learned during the pilot programme are used to update the Operations Blueprint to reflect the insights gained and best practices developed.

In addition the outputs from the Pilot programme includes a phased Roll out cascade to manage the transition to the next Digitisation Roadmap milestone.

Contact us to find out more about how we can help your organisation to implement Make TPM Lean and Digital.

TPM and Lean as Levers to Drive Digitisation Gains

Start by linking up what exists to remove problem hot spots and pain points to achieve more with less effort.

Combining TPM and Lean with the Digital Ecosystem expands the scope of Lean and TPM to include the selection and use of data, analysis and model development to support:

Top Down Priorities
- Programme Leadership
- Systems Infrastructure
- Change Management
Improvement frameworks
- Process Review
- Workflow Review
- Learning Process
Bottom up priorities
- Daily Management
- Real Time Workflow
- Problem Prevention.

The Digital Ecosystem uses Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) data and the Focused Improvement tactics associated with each of the 6 hidden losses to create Digital Twin standards that reflect current levels of demonstrated capability.

Digital Twin Standards can then be used to generate Notification triggers if the reading exceeds a set amount. This stream of information can then be used to support work planning and TPM improvement teams as they systematically reduce the gap between current and optimised performance.

The Lean TPM road map, based on the practices of well respected and award winning organisations, recognises that only around 25% of downtime is due to poor inspection routines. Roughly double that amount of stoppage time is due to

Accelerated wear due contamination or lack of lubrication
Human error due to weak work routines, skill and knowledge gaps.

The Digital Ecosystem is used to track and resolve these fundamentals first and then progress through the improvement roadmap steps of:

Maintain basic conditions.
Prevent misoperation.
Enhance process control.
Task transfer.
Reduce unplanned intervention/running adjustments.
Reduce planned intervention.
Deliver new added value from operations.

SmartTech Improvement Cycles

Adults learn best through practical activity where they can learn from each other.

DEVELOPING DIGITISATION CAPABILITIES

Technology is moving at such a pace that academic courses to develop these skills are always playing catch up. Recruiting people with these skills is also difficult for the same reason. Even when this is possible, one of the biggest tasks involves developing data layers and improving the condition of data. Something that is difficult to do without a good understanding of the business processes.

As adults learn best through practical activity where they can learn from each other, a better alternative is to develop these skills using practical workplace learning projects.

TPM provides Digital Transformation programmes with a practical road map to engage all levels in making progress towards a slicker more connected way of working.

Through that they can identify and deliver the gains come from using the enhance connectivity of digital systems by:-

Identifying opportunities to use digital tools to leverage the pace of improvement.
Aligning priorities across functions.
Supporting teams in real time with the removal barriers to problems.
Assessing resources to dealing with programme:
- Do we have the right skills.
- Do we have the right tools.

The 90 day improvement cycles develop capabilities through cross functional team using practical projects.

The improved quality of feedback from Digital Notifications combined with the use of data modelling and machine learning analysis tools speeds up development of understanding about how to achieve asset stability. That includes

Clarifying the notifications that indicate Normal conditions and the response needed to deal with abnormal conditions.
Providing recommendations for planned maintenance windows
Providing suggestions for refining process parameters to deal with factors such as variation in material quality or environmental conditions.

This provides practical learning activities for local leaders, front line improvement teams and Senior Leaders as set out in the tables below.

Tools to Provide Leverage for Change

Programme Leadership	2. Systems Infrastructure	3.Change Management
Define priorities, brief teams and provide support	Creation of the Digital backbone linking systems and processes that coordinate what is done, when it is done and how people work together	Digital ecosystem, work organisation, shared workflows and task transfer.

Tools to Break Paradigms/Improve Added Value.

4.Plant Review	5.Workflow Review	6.Learning and Compliance
Criticality assessment and condition appraisal.	Standardisation, micro planning, skill matching, Material control and over the shoulder support as part of dynamic scheduling.	Job Design, work instructions, standards, learning plans and competence standards to standardise and refine ways of working.

Tools to establish and refine new ways of working

7.Daily Management	8.Real Time Task Management	9.Problem Prevention
Check/Act improvement ideas as part of the daily routine.	Plan, Do improvement activities. Includes administration and coordination of all front line activities.	Capture of problem hot spots and feedback re countermeasures including early problem detection

Early cycles are used to set basic condition standards, reduce equipment wear rates and prevent the causes of human error. In addition to reducing breakdowns, this also improves collaboration between production and maintenance, encouraging new thinking and innovation.

Plant Criticality analysis provides the way to identify what the data can be used for and where additional sensors can be used to drive Notification alerts concerning:

Basic Conditions,
- Indicate Normal conditions and the response needed to deal with abnormal conditions.
- Recommend planned maintenance activities.
- Contamination control.
Best practice work routines
- Feedback re problem hot spots
- Confirmation of skill levels
- Work instruction review cycles
- Change request progress
- Work completions
- Compliance control
Process Control
- Changes to process parameters to deal with factors such as variation in material quality or environmental conditions.

Workflow review activities include:

Identify and remove non value adding activities.
Refine complex tasks to reduce the risk of human error and accelerate skill development.
Automate administration tasks.
Coordinate the provision of materials and tools based on current status and next planned activity to support dynamic scheduling.
Provide over the shoulder guidance from specialists as required.
Make work instructions and task related information is visible at a glance.

The outcome is the removal of functional silos by facilitating the flow of knowledge and skills through the engagement of teams in delivering practical improvement ideas. This also increase responsiveness to change by:

Reducing bureaucracy and ensuring user engagement to embed new ideas into existing work routines,
Supporting the design and delivery of more effective ways of deliver customer added value.

"Use Case" Evaluation of new processes and assets.

New or upgrades to systems, assets, products are subject to more formal project governance stage gates during the 90 day cycles covering:

Concept:
1. Idea generation.
High Level design:
1. Proof of concept and specification design,
1. Pilot activities to iron out the ideas and project planning to transfer lessons learned,
1. Vendor Selection/Pilot Application.

Detailed Design:
1. Collaborating with Vendors on detailed planning and knowledge transfer.
Manufacture/Procurement:
1. Factory readiness planning,
2. Includes systemisation of routine work and training for new users.
Installation and Commission:
1. Prove new asset/product/service offering,
2. Transition from old to new workflows.
Full Operation
1. Ramp up operation.

Details: Category: Newsletters

Research in to the improvement journeys of well known and award winning organisations indentifies four management processes that contribute to their success.

Setting Direction
If your improvement process could release an hour of shop floor labour what would you do with it? How would that gain be converted into bottom line benefits?

For example, one organisation in the survey delivered the following increase in performance:

8% productivity gains worth £3.4m per annum due to improved reliability, lower absenteeism and less staff turnover.

5% less material usage worth £4.0m due to improved process capability, reduced scrap and defect/rework reduction.

20% less power usage

Increased capacity of 15% worth an additional £2m net profit.

The bottom line benefit almost double net profit levels.

In this organisation, although there were technical improvements, around 90% of the gains were delivered through low cost or no cost changes in ways of working.

This included

changing the sequencing of tasks to reduce set up times,

standardising practices to reduce human error and skill development time

improving work place organisation.

These gains involved an investment of around 5% of front line team time in improvement activities. Headcount did not increase, the investment in time saved the time to make further improvements.

To deliver the return on investment, first line managers were coached to coach.

Performance management processes were enhanced to incorporate progress of improvement actions and skill development.
Building Capability
On the path to industry leading performance, exemplar organisations develop learning plans matched to two progressive challenges

How to Stabilise work processes, break out reactive management and establish an improvement mindset at all levels.
How to Optimise work processes and match the responsiveness of their operations to future customer needs.

During the stabilise challenge, capability development areas include formalising work routines, the use of simple problem prevention techniques and raising standards of ancilliary activities such as cleaning and asset care.

The outcomes include shared knowledge about cause/effect mechanisms, better improved flexibility.

During the optimise challenge, capability development areas include project management, more in depth anaysis tools to address complex problems involving multiple factors, option evaluation and capital project delivery.
This is characaterised by improved processes to:

Develop capabilities matched to improvement accountabilities (See table below)

Refine and reinforce best practices

Capture, share and transfer lessons learn
Performance Management
In the real world there is never enough time to do everything. That is why urgent items take priority. In an organisation where there is a steady stream of such problems, there may be little time to do anything else.

In exemplar organisations, the role of performance management systems is to align strategic top down goals with bottom up front line delivery of improved performance. It also provides a lever to reinforce core company values and direction.

To achieve this, their performance management processes gives equal weight to

Day to day order fulfilment, reporting and compliance activities;

Actions to deliver changes either due to
- Improved ways of working/processes;
- New product/service introduction or in response to external customer/legislative requirements.

This is characterised by a consistent level of resources allocated to meet problem/improvement accountabilities covering

Operational problems and improvements (allocated to front line teams);

Technical or Support problems and improvements (may require the creation of a cross functional project team).

In this way the performance management process ensure that sufficient resources are directed to the systematic improvement of product process, and management capability.
Execution
When Fords plant at Halewood progressed from being the worst to best Ford plant, the shop floor execution routine progressed from one where strangers were viewed with suspicion to one where workers speak to visitors with pride about what they are making. This open proactive work execution culture is one of the distinguishing features of industry leading organisations.

The programme of change took two years. After a further 5 years the site achieved the accolade of best Ford plant by because their programme met 4 principles of engagement

Give people a purpose to believe in

Provide support for change

Recognise success at each step of the journey make expectations clear and reinforce progress

Manager/improvement leaders provide consistent role models

A typical 2 stage road map followed by exemplar organisations on their improvement journey involves:

Stabilise

Engage all personnel in the improvement process and establish basic disciplines and management processes

Formalise and refine best practices and release management and specialist time to support the optimisation process.

Optimise

Learn how to optimise current operations, increase performance measurement precision and raise standards to systematically reduce defects

Stabilise operations at the new level of performance, release specialist and management time to raise standards further.
Developing Improvement Leaders

The early steps of Lean TPM are characterised by enhancing management processes to stop problems from happening. This includes information flows, performance management and workplace discipline which in turn support the improvement in material flow, process flow, labour flexibility and profit improvement.

Traditionally such workflows are carried out through a transient network of internal improvement leaders across the organisation for each project.

Organisations that do this well, formalise this network and support the development of their capability to deliver business transformations set out in the Lean TPM road map. These roles are....

Front Line Improvement Leaders

Operational improvements are best carried out by front line team leaders and their teams. They are the ones who can give the attention to detail needed to refine and improve best practice so that they become robust.

Improvement leaders at this level benefit in training for Lean team leaders, Fundamentals of maintenance, Maintenance planning.

Cross Functional Improvement Leaders

As Operational improvements are implemented, technology weaknesses become more visible. Technical resources can then focus on improving process control. This in turn deliver the potential for higher customer added value and flexibility.

A characteristic of this evolution is an increase in collaboration across functions and management levels

Improvement leaders at this level benefit in training for TPM, Lean Maintenance Strategy, Beyond 5S. Engagement skills for managers and team leaders.

Enterprise Improvement Leaders

The key to long term growth through the introduction of improved new products and services. Typically, this involves working with suppliers to raise standards and collaborate on new products and services.

As each level of capability is achieved and stabilised, new opportunities for further value enhancement become possible. It is this ratcheting up value adding capability and leadership of the customer agenda which helps industry leaders to remain as industry leaders.

Improvement leaders at this level benefit in training for Creating the lean enterprise, Manufacturing Project Management, Early Equipment Management and Innovation
Take the Survey
The Lean TPM research generated over 300 improvement journey case profiles. Each had its own story but a number of common themes emerged making it possible to identify an organisations CI journey current status and next steps using just 10 simple points of observation.

Follow the link below to access a simplle Hidden Factory self assessment template covering these 10 points of observation.

Return it to us to receive a free, no obligation benchmark report setting out:

Your organisations CI status together against Lean TPM benchmarks;

Recommendations on how to accelerate the pace of improvement to the next transition step.

To download the self-assessment template Click here

Details: Category: Newsletters

Combining the power of Lean and TPM within a structured change process delivers firstly stable and then optimised operational performance to ratchet up the full potential of Lean workflow and customer responsiveness. Below are a series of short articles to explain how to combine Lean Thinking tools to;

Make waste visible
Improve the flow of value
Systematically increase responsiveness to customer demand

The (Lean) TPM Road Map

The table below sets out transitions that organisation must navigate as they achieve stable operation to progress towards higher levels of Effectiveness.

For example once zero breakdowns are achieved, performance indicators based on mean time between failure become meaningless. The achievement of stable operation also releases management and specialist time previously used to react to problems as they arose.

The TPM process anticipates such changes and supports the realignment of priorities and development of capability to progress to the next level. The benchmarks shown below are based on our work with well respected and award winning organisations that have progressed to industry leading performance.

This is also the basis of our free Hidden Factory diagnostic. It takes about 10 minutes to complete and will provide you with a insight into where you are on the journey and what it will take to accelerate the gains.

The (Lean) TPM Road Map
Achieving Stable Flow
Root causes analysis of over 500 years line production running time identified that 2 factors contribute to 85% of the causes of breakdowns. Both of these are avoidable. The causes are...

Poor Equipment condition

Human error

Moving parts will deteriorate over time and as that occurs the likelihood of failure increases from possible to likely. The foundation for reliable operation are the maintenance of basic equipment conditions.

Research into component failure in aircraft identified that random factors contribute to failures. The study was unable to identify causal factors but it was able to confirm that natural deterioration was a factor in less than 4% of components. Further analysis of failures in a manufacturing environment has identified that accelerated deterioration is a significant factor in component failures. This can be due to, for example, contamination or scattering of dust and dirt.

Our research mentioned above shows that reducing causes of accelerated wear stabilises and extends the life of around 80% of components. Further more these components can also be serviced using a condition based trigger. That in turn means that maintenance of these components can be scheduled on before a failure occurs. For that reason condition based maintenance is the most value adding and therefore Lean approach to equipment maintenance.

Another major cause of accelerated wear is Human error. This is responsible for around 50% of component failures including installation errors as well as misuse. In fact the original research into aerospace failure modes identified that 80% of component types are susceptible to installation error.

The factors that contribute to human error risk are:

unclear or incomplete instructions

complex working methods

lack of training.

Developing work routines that are easy to do right, difficult to do wrong and simple to learn not only reduces the likelihood of failure but also provide a vehicle to improve process precision, reduce defects, reduce energy waste and improve material yield. We call this activity Problem Prevention.

Condition Based Maintenance and Problem Prevention are the key to stable operation. That is achieved by the systematic development of best practice for correct operation and asset care by front line improvement teams.

The heart of this process is the Asset Improvement Plan (AIP) template, a toolbox designed to assess, stabilise and then optimise equipment performance.

This template is designed from our work with well known and award winning organisations to systematically remove the root causes of failure to free up time to optimise process capability further.

The Visualise Cycle

Helps the team to understand the asset or system under review, how it should work and what its potential is. This cycle provides foundation knowledge to support the development of condition and best practice standards. It also raises understanding of cause/effect mechanisms to supports the development of lasting solutions to equipment problems.

The Restore Cycle

Guides the team in the assessment of asset condition standards and development of best practice for operating and maintaining the asset. This includes the use of Single Point Lessons to structure training and standardise the application of best practices.

The Innovate Cycle

Supports the selections of appropriate focussed improvement and problem prevention tools to systematically increase effectiveness.

Included in this cycle are tools to encourage innovation, improve process capability and apply visual management to make tasks easy to do right, difficult to do wrong.
Towards No Touch Operation

Exemplar organisatons are able to extend average time between intervention to 8 hours or more.

How do they do that?

Lean TPM provides a practical route map to set define basic condition standards, reduce equipment wear rates and prevent the causes of human error. This not only lowers costs but also extends mean time between intervention (MTBI) and releases management and specialist time to carry out more value adding tasks.

In addition, the journey to reducing breakdowns improves awareness of process cause/effect mechanisms. That also lays the foundations of improved collaboration between production and maintenance, encouraging new thinking and innovation.

After breakdowns have been reduced to zero the TPM improvement process targets a reduction in the causes of quality defects. The outcome is increased the time between intervention.

One manufacturer of lighting applied the TPM optimisation toolbox extend time mean time between intervention so that they were able to run additional night shifts during peak demand months without additional labour. In addition to lower inventories and increased material yields, they also increased flexibility to customer demand and reduced development time for new products.

Here optimisation delivered true competitive advantage because it was targeted at areas which enhanced customer service capabilities.

Developing Shared Equipment and Process Ownership

Few of the problems which impact on reliability can be resolved by purely technical improvements.

The challenging but achievable Lean TPM goal of stable flow requires as much attention to raising standards and outlook (i.e. behaviours) as it does to addressing technical weaknesses. It is a journey characterised by shared equipment and process ownership. Click to read more

Uses practical team based improvement projects to engage shop floor functions in a shared improvement agenda. Although the core of the Lean TPM programme involves production and maintenance, the changes delivered through these teams will impact on all operational functions. Involve those functions based on the needs of the project.

These team based activities, use the Asset Improvement Plan to systematically resolve the causes of reactive management and deliver stable and then optimised operations.

As part of this journey, what was previously thought of as management or specialist tasks can then be simplified and transferred or delegated. That delegation encourages engagement and problem ownership. It also releases management and specialist capacity to focus on longer term issues such as process optimisation, capital projects, growing the business or dealing with changes in legislation.
Delivering Better Capital Projects
Early Equipment Management is part of the Lean TPM toolbox that has a direct impact on capital project delivery. The goal is to deliver flawless operation from production day 1 and lowest life cycle costs to systematically increase capital project return on investment. This includes.....

Investment avoidance

A leading engine manufacturer resolved 9 equipment design weaknesses on current equipment to reduce investment spend by over £15m.

Improved project added value

A waste disposal company improved new equipment designs to increase mean time between intervention by 30%.

Faster speed to market

A multinational innovation leader improved equipment design to increase capacity of new product line by 25% and material yield by 10%.

As any experienced designer will explain, the starting point for good design is to gain an insight into the day to day reality of the current user. Likewise, the most common causes of design weakness are

limited understanding of design performance under operational conditions

Lack of reliable design standards.

This is the domain of Early Equipment management principles and techniques which are used to set design standards and clarify operating methods to support the systematic evaluation design features. This leads to superior performance such as:

less operator intervention including zero jams, one touch/no touch change overs;

Predictable component life through the achievement of optimum component wear and removal of sources of accelerated wear/human error;

less QA testing of product because of confidence that the process is in control.

This last point is hard to achieve if the science behind the manufacturing process is not fully understood. To use a military expression, time spent is reconnaissance is seldom wasted. A relatively small effort to analyse and experiment with existing processes can provide a gateway higher performance gains.

In addition to the financial gains, EEM benefits include:

Better, slicker, simpler processes for project design, specification and management;

Unlocking of operational tacit knowledge;

Increased Innovation;

Proactive ownership of strategic goals.
Implementing TPM Best Practice

Learn how to apply Total Productive Manufacturing principles and techniques to release the full potential of your people, procedures and work processes. Turn theory into practice using our structured Asset Improvement Plan workshop to apply lessons learn't to production assets live factory floor.

Find out more

Details: Category: Newsletters

Delays between what is happening and what is reported has resulted in different views of the current reality.

In addition, format and detail level of information are different to those in Operations, Commercial or Technology functions. The one size fits all approach to information flow, like any average number, gives a general indication of direction but doesn’t meet the needs of anyone.

In this information fog, to maintain control individual managers have resorted to work arounds.

This has resulted in a proliferation of spreadsheets and rogue systems to supplement information provided by the core IT systems

1. The Information Fog

Delays between what is happening and what is reported has resulted in different views of the current reality.

In addition, format and detail level of information are different to those in Operations, Commercial or Technology functions. The one size fits all approach to information flow, like any average number, gives a general indication of direction but doesn’t meet the needs of anyone.

In this information fog, to maintain control individual managers have resorted to work arounds.

This has resulted in a proliferation of spreadsheets and rogue systems to supplement information provided by the core IT systems

2. Closing the loop

At the heart of the dilemma are their Core IT systems. Despite utilising the latest integrated software, these are designed around a traditional top down command and control management approach. That results in a fragmented feedback loop involving up to 4 processes. What we want to happen, planning, execution and performance management. Its like driving in the fog whilst looking through the rear view mirror.

Digital CI (Continuous Improvement) is based on the practices of well known and award winning organisations. They have learned to systematically Close the Loop between the physical and digital worlds to capture lessons learned and speed up decision making. That delivers control without bureaucracy and as a result more of the routine management process can be delegated to users

3. Lifting the fog

Digital CI was developed from the findings of the World Economic Forum review into successful Industry 4.0 applications.

The Digital CI process expands the scope of Operational Excellence tools like Lean and TPM to include the selection and use of targeted digitisation to close the loop between the physical and virtual worlds.

With support from internal improvement leaders, and facilitators, problems are detected and dealt with when they are small. These activities also increase productivity and quality performance through closer collaboration across the end to end process.
4. Our support
Our Digital CI support plan will be developed to meet your specific needs

This can cover

Leadership programme design

to guide the development of practical ideas and delivery of investment in time and resources.

Improvement team coaching

to enable systematic improvement of plant, processes and people by local improvement leaders and facilitators

Execution and hands on support

to increase operational effectiveness and develop high performance team capabilities
5. The outcome
The outcomes of improved connectivity and interaction builds on existing core IT systems to:

Create slick systems that meet the complex needs of users across the organisation.

Allow more of the routine tasks to be handled by the front line team. That puts responsibility for the solution close to the problem.

Free up management and specialist time to deal with more complex problems such as meeting the challenge of new products, services and technology. Releasing them to manage the future rather than react to past results.

Details: Category: Newsletters

The journey to industry leading performance is characterised by three improvement transitions

These are:

Achieve stable operation and zero accidents;
Release time by standardising and simplifying routine tasks;
Systematically extend time between intervention.

1. The Improvement Journey Steps
The journey to industry leading performance is characterised by three improvement transitions

These are:

Achieve stable operation and zero accidents;

Release time by standardising and simplifying routine tasks;

Systematically extend time between intervention.
2. The Mindset Transitions
Organisations that deliver outstanding levels of performance achieve that through a network of internal improvement leaders able to meet the overlapping challenges of:

Taming Technology

Maintenance Improvement Leaders:

Raising operational performance

Manufacturing Improvement Leaders

Delivering business growth and new skills

Support Improvement Leaders:

That journey is characterised by transition in mindset from

From continuous improvement to business led focussed improvement

From top down driven improvement to local area cross functional improvement as part of the daily routine

From preventing downtime to preventing defects

On that journey improvement leaders benefit from support to;

Set improvement priorities based on an understanding of what is possible and the gaps in capabilities needed to deliver that potential.

Define improvement tactics and mobilise resources to deal with those gaps.

Train and coach improvement teams to progress along that improvement path with confidence.

Enrol and engage those impacted with the change with the compelling need to adopt and refine the improved approach.
3. The Focussed Improvement Ladder
Just like a telephone number needs to be dialled in the right sequence to get a connection, the steps of the focussed improvement journey need to be completed in the right sequence to get a result. Each step releasing time and developing capability to progress further on the journey.

The journey starts with getting the basics in place, covered by the Taming technology processes. Once in place attention moves to standardisation and improving process control. This progression involves a capability learning plan covering 30 areas of development support across the complete improvement network including:

improvement team members;

team leaders and business sponsors;

Improvement specialists and support department
4. High Performance Team Development

Individuals can only achieve limited results on their own. Locking in the gains is a team sport. One which not only delivers improvement but develops team capability in the process. The litmus test for those wanting to ratchet up improvement is the state of teamwork capability. As teams become more capable of solving problems they also become engaged with daily management routines. The outcome is the systematic development of self managed high performance teamwork capability. Our audit coaching Team Review and Coaching process is designed to accelerate this progress and with it the pace of improvement.

Details: Category: Newsletters

Research into the leadership journey of award winning organisations on their way to best in class performance reveals similarities in their transitional steps from zero to hero. Only around 1% of organisations that start that journey achieve success. Below are Four things that the Leaders in those 1% of companies do better than the rest.

Develop People Centric Leaders
Although each improvement journey is unique, a number of common themes emerge from research into successful improvement journeys. Those that made the fastest progress did so by creating the opportunity for local leaders to adopt a People Centric Leadership approach using workplace projects. That provided a real world opportunity to change mindsets and build new workplace relationships whilst systematically resolving the causes of recurring problems.

The outcomes included more stable and resilient performance allowing the delegation of routine tasks to front line teams. That in turn released more time for higher added value activities. Below is an overview of the common transitions on that journey. Each one building on the previous one.

Workplace projects also provide evidence of engagement and changes in outlook that signpost progress towards the next stage of the journey.

From Problem Solving to Focussed Improvement

This is a stage characterised by a shift from fixing problems as they occur to systematically delivering a specific improvement result. The most successful organisations are those who strive to achieve a specific operational future state vision. Those that approach each problem as a series of unconnected issues do less well.

From Supervisor to First Line Manager

As organisations progress out of reactive management, First line manager accountabilities transition from keeping watch over direct reports to one of management of processes to:

Set standards and assure adherence

Simplify procedures using visual management

Formalise best practice through training and on the job coaching

Identify and address gaps in front line management processes.

The fastest progress through this transition is achieved by those using cross functional team based wokrplace learning projects that include the development of First Line Management competence to:

Coach direct reports

Develop self managed team capabilities

Improve customer and product profitability by targeting technical/process improvement priorities as part of a cross functional improvement team.

From Problem Solving to Minor Defect Prevention

As unplanned downtime is reduced, to maintain a creative pressure for improvement, exemplar organisations develop front line skills to reduce the causes of minor quality defects. The outcomes are

Changes in performance management mindset from managing past failures to targeting future opportunities

Engagement of front line personnel in routine area management tasks to release engineering, management and specialist time

Changes in the accountabilities of engineering and specialist personnel to carry out higher added value tasks.
Engage the Power of People
Few of the problems which impact on operational performance can be resolved by purely technical improvements. The challenging but achievable goal of year on year improvement requires as much attention to raising standards and outlook (i.e. behaviours) as it does to addressing technical weaknesses and workflow mapping.

Furthermore 90% of improvements that deliver stable operation typically involve low cost or even no cost improvements by engagement of all those who impact on effectiveness in improvement team activities. Build on this to improve the flow of added value and simplification of work planning and the gains can be extended into all elements of the supply chain (plan, source, make and deliver). The gains are clear enough but where to start? Click here to find out more

Those that do this well approach the challenge of improving performance using improvement teams. Team members carried out their improvement activities alongside normal duties and their activities are integrated into the day to day fabric of management. That is then used to simultaneously support two capability development streams:

Leadership development to encourage new thinking and a proactive culture

Front line development to improve work routines and raises tandards.

The focus on common improvement goals supports the development of proactive working relationships which impact on the day to day activities. This also helps local leaders to gain an insight into the causes of poor performance and how to release the full potential of the operation.

Common performance inhibitors include weaknesses in the following processes.

A Plan for Every Asset (PFEA) setting out routine practices for correct operation and asset care

Standardisation of working methods including setting standards, simplification, training, competency assessment and compliance management

Daily management of operational routines, improvement huddles and coaching activities

Focused improvement activities to deliver current year and progress towards 3-5 year vision

The lessons learned from the initial projects include actions to:

Reduce breakdowns, management firefighting, operating costs and quality defects

Increase capacity and customer service flexibility

Match and exceed future customer expectations

Reduce inventory and improve door to door operations flow

Achieve a cleaner, safer workplace with less effort

Sustain improvemed performance.
Coach First Line Manager to Coach
It is not uncommon to find organisations where senior managers support the need for change and improvement but where first line managers struggle to make it happen.

Thomas Edison is credited with the adage that “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”. We may change the percentages but anyone who has tried to apply a new idea to their workplace will agree that getting new ideas adopted is more difficult than generating them in the first place. In organisations that do this well, Managers, Team Leaders and Key Personnel work together as improvement leaders to ..(click to read more)

....engage the workforce with the new thinking and then refine ideas through practical team based improvement projects.

This approach succeeds because those that are impacted by any changes are coached by team leaders as a team to;

understand the end to end process and what contributes to the problem first hand,

reflect on the changes needed

learn how to adopt the new approach into their work routines using a hands on iterative approach.

A typical workplace learning project passes through 3 measurable quality milestones:

The first milestone is achieved when the potential improvement areas are identified, prioritised and improvement tactics are defined;

The second milestone is passed after the improvement team has been mobilised and they are tracking the impact of their programme;

The final milestone is achieved when sustained improvement has been delivered and formal recognition can be made of their success.

Developing First Line Managers to Coach Improvement Teams

Workplace projects provide immediate feedback on barriers to progress (real and imagined). First Line Managers need to learn how to help teams overcome problems, refine ideas and progress them further. This makes the workplace project a learning and develpment vehicle for first line managers to develp their ability to:

Set improvement priorities based on an equal understanding of shop floor issues and key business performance drivers;

Define improvement tactics and mobilise resources against a realistic and achievable timetable;

Train and coach improvement teams to progress along that improvement path with confidence

Enrol and engage those impacted with the change with the compelling need to adopt and refine the improved approach.

The learning plans below provide examples of how this development can be supported using DAK Academy short courses combined with practical workplace learning projects to deliver business gains.

For Production Team Leaders and Managers

3 day Implement Best Practice TPM Workshop plus workplace learning projects covering:

Improving Asset reliability and OEE

Standardising work routines and problem prevention

Local Area Management and Focussed Improvement

3 day Practical Lean Leadership for Team Leaders and Managers plus workplace learning projects covering:

Mapping waste and developing programmes that engage

Visualisation to communicate with meaning

Practical Problem Solving Leadership

For Maintenance Team Leaders and Planners

3 day Maintenance Planning and Scheduling work control workshop Plus workplace learning projects covering:

Work routine definition and frequency

Maintenance systems and processes

Maintenance task management
Move Beyond Problem Solving
As the causes of failures are dealt with, a different action trigger is needed to maintain engagement with the year on year performance improvement goal. This involves a shift in mindset from solving problems that prevent downtime to learning how to optimise operations. This transition has significant impact on the roles of managers, engineers and specialists. Instead of reacting to problems as they occur, these key improvement leaders need to learn how to release latent process capabilities. This change in focus releases the full value adding potential of those roles, drives up the self management capabilities of front line teams and delivers higher added value to customers at lower cost. Read more

The technical outcomes are:

Reduced contamination and extended component life

Improved material yield

Improved process precision and quality assurance

Improved equipment condition and simplified operating and asset care practices to first stabilise and then optimise technology performance;

The impact on the work routines includes

Increased time between interventions for production, hygiene, engineering and quality. This makes it possible to delegate more of the routine to front line teams;

The option of running additional shifts with minimal labour cover;

Shorter order lead times and reduced inventories. Naturally to take advantage of that involves changes to order processing cycles and Quality Assurance protocols.

The release of maintenance engineering time from routine activities to focus on long term solutions to technology problems;

This doubles the value to the organisation of traditional maintenance engineering role and puts the maintenance function at the heart of Lean improvement process;

The systematic development of front line team self management capability including routine work planning and coordination.

As well as lower costs and improved flexibility, the gains from this transition include gains in the speed with which new products and services can be brought to market.

Details: Category: Newsletters

The theme of this newsletter is how organisations with effective Project Management Practices are those that have learned to blend both the art and science of project management to avoid common project pitfalls. (see examples below)

The Art of Project Management: processes that impact on outlook, interaction and decision making
The Science of Project Management: Tools and techniques to plan, organise and Control the delivery of project goals.

Logic alone is seldom enough yet project management methods such as Prince2 (Project in Controlled Environments) specifically exclude the knowledge/creative management, project quality assurance mechanisms and value engineering processes that characterise more than 50% of the recipe for success.

Project Management Disasters
Project management disasters are not new. but what can we learn from them?

As early as 1628 when the technologically advanced Swedish Flagship Vasa’s sank on its first sailing killing about 50 sailors. A catalogue of design modifications during building meant that the standard test of stability (30 sailors running from side to side to rock the boat) was canceled because it showed the vessel to be unstable. More recent projects that have suffered similarly include the Mars Climate orbiter (1998) that got lost in space because different parts of the project used imperial measures and another metric measurement. In 2015 SNCF, the French railway company spent $15bn on a new fleet of trains that were too large for the stations they were supposed to service. It turns out that the trains are also too tall to fit through some of the tunnels in the French alps.

Ultimately these failures are due to weaknesses in one or both parts of the project journey i.e.:

Part 1: Developing the right specification (80% Project Management Art, 20% Project Management Science)

Part 2: Delivering that specification. (50% Project Managment Art, 50% Project Management Science)

The above failures point to weaknesses in part 1. A journey characterised by uncertainty, the need to collate knowledge, gain insight, engage stakeholders and work with them to make smart choices.

Some traditional project management methods such as Prince2 (Project in Controlled Environments) specifically excludes the Project Management Art of knowledge/creative management, project quality assurance mechanisms and value engineering processes that characterise over 50% of the building blocks of Project Management Success.

Get both parts of the journey right and the gains can be significant. An oil and gas extraction company investing in a floating platform to extract oil and gas from under the Atlantic estimated that the additional output produced by achieving their goal of “flawless operation from day one” was enough to recoup the total capital investment costs in the first year of operation.

Organisations that do this well use a blend the project management Art and Science to avoid common project pitfalls.
Pitfall 1: The Project Scope

Those that don't understand their history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The Art of Project Management

Capital projects fit the definition of what has become known as a wicked problem. That is a problem with many potentially conflicting design goals.

At the start of a project, it is important to spend time defining the outcome needed rather than jumping to a solution too early. We may think that we know what is needed but to use a military term, time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

After committing to an additional spend of £10m on new assets a major supplier to the aerospace industry identified that the additional capacity it needed could have been achieved by spending less than £100k on actions to deal with design weaknesses and improvements to the condition and maintenance of existing plant.

A similar assessment at a soft drinks bottling plant identified the opportunity to avoid capital investment of around £5m.

In both cases, the trigger for the original investment brief was traced back to a knee-jerk investment decision made in haste in response to a shift in market demand.

The Science of Project Management

As any experienced designer will explain, the starting point to unpick such complex problems is to gain an insight into the day to day reality of the current user. Then identify what is it that helps and hinders their efforts to deliver the desired outcome.

The table below sets out 4 techniques to support this assessment.
Pitfall 2: Project Expectations
Managing cost rather than project value

The Art of Setting Project Expectations

Behavioral research shows that when faced with a choice between options that we have no previous experience of, under pressure our unconscious mind will make a decision by answering a similar but different question. For example, some might select equipment based on purchase price rather than the total value to the organisation. Low capital cost can result in later operational problems which cost more in the long run. The pitfall here is to assume that the specification can be defined in detail at the start of a project.

In reality, every initial project specification is a work in progress. Even specifications for similar projects will differ due to the unique circumstances of different sites and the desire to apply improvements due to lessons learned. Be clear about what decisions need to be taken at each step of the capital project journey and make only those that are necessary to progress to the next milestone. At concept step, we need to select the right type of solution (get the right design) at the high-level design we work with a vendor(s) to get the design right. That is where the detailed plan is defined. The delivery steps will add further detail to how the organisation can deliver the full potential of that solution

Once the desired outcome has been defined (See pitfall 1) set out a stepwise milestone plan with clear expectations for each milestone. Add detail to the path between each milestone as more is learned about the options and a preferred solution is revealed.

Milestone plans include the definition of criteria to confirm that the desired outcome has been achieved before progressing to the next step.

For example, do we have buy-in from all stakeholders to the High-Level Design specification which will be used to develop the ITT (Invitation to Tender) document?

Once past the stage gate, we can then circulate it with confidence. These milestone exit criteria provide project quality assurance framework.

The use of milestone plans provides a framework for project governance to manage the iterative, evolutionary linkages between the people, procedural and process related development activities of part 1 of the project journey.

The Science of Setting Project Expectations

Use Milestone plans to set out the signposts of the project journey.

Start with a preferred concept based on an evaluation of at least 3 options. Add detail to that to create a high-level design which makes clear the benefits sought and the cost justification. Use this to explore what vendors have to offer and what they can provide. Work with the vendor to develop a realistic and achievable project quality plan to:

Support the identification of skills and resource levels for each supporting activity/task;

Allow detailed planning to be left as late as possible;

Simplify progress measurement and reporting;

Confirm progress.

Support the milestone planning activity with:

Activity schedules which define what has to be achieved to progress to the next milestone;

Tasks which set out how the activities will be completed. These are also used to identify skills and resources levels;

Briefing notes set out guidelines for the aims, approach, and outputs for activities /tasks.

These are techniques are covered as part of the Manufacturing Project Management and Early Equipment Management Courses.

For more information contact
Pitfall 3: The Project Team Culture

The Art of Project Management

The success of a project depends as much on the project team culture and the teams working relationships with the rest of the organisation as it does on their knowhow. A project manager needs to be able to facilitate this network interaction to deliver the full project potential. Part leader, part teacher and in some cases part social worker.

The Science of Project Management

The process of how team members are inducted to the project has a major impact on the speed and level of their engagement with project goals. The behavioral signposts that mark the steps of this transition are

1.Team member able to understand the task and visualise what needs to be done
2.Team member makes plans to achieve the task
3.Team member implements those plans

The progression from signpost 1 to signpost 2 above, is an important transition. It is not unusual for team members to wait for tasks to be allocated and then later complain that they had nothing to do. Their ability and willingness to make the transition will be influenced by the culture within the project site. Particularly for front line personnel involved in projects for the first time, they need help to move from a directive, defined production environment to one of uncertainty and discovery.

To accelerate this progression, give new team members the opportunity to develop plans or define their role in the team from an outline brief. Once their plan has been developed they have made the behavioral transition from step 1 to 2 above. This sets the foundations of the psychological contract between the team member and the project manager. The project management role is then to help refine the plan and support the delivery of it.

Get the team engagement right and the project management role is transformed from one of policing to one of project leadership. A much more effective and rewarding approach.
Pitfall 4: More Haste, Less Speed
The Art of Project Management

During the normal day to day routine, the direction of information flow is downwards. Those involved in a day to day shop floor reality are the ones who can make or break investment performance. That means opening up channels of upward communication. This includes allowing time and space for reflection for managers and their direct reports on challenges faced, options selected and plans made. Without this outlook, project teams may be working on the wrong tasks or ignoring the areas which are outside of their comfort zone.

The Science of Project Management

The cross functional core team members work best when they provide a communications conduit between the project and the rest of the organisation.

Project war rooms are a great place to do this. Here key project information is visible and the links between issues can me more easily considered. Toyota considers Oobeya (Japanese for big room/project war room) to be the backbone of the Toyota Management System. This is where the project sponsors and project teams meet to carry out develop briefs, carry out design reviews, review progress and agree on actions. Just like in a CSI investigation, a place to look for connections and solve puzzles.

Project Governance benefits of Project War Rooms include:

Better visibility and engagement

Improved communication, visibility of plans and workload

Improved engagement of leaders and teams

Ease of priority setting

Greater accountability

Focussed targets drive team activity and proactive behaviour

Clarity of metrics and alignment of commercial, operations and technology team goals

Increase team awareness of parallel work streams

Better cross functional collaboration

Quicker problem solving

Everything to hand

Problems made visible and shared

Creates the conditions for innovation and new thinking.
Project Management Training
Find out more about our Project Management Training

Find out more about our Project ManagementTraining for those who want to deliver operational improvement or engineering projects where there is a need to

Refine existing operations, introduce new assets or systems

Collate internal knowledge

Plan, Organise and Control project resources

Facilitate decision making and project governance

Guide internal project teams

Commission new assets and operations

Engage people with changes in ways of working.

Projects where in addition to traditional project management science, the project manager needs to apply the project management art of leadership, facilitation, and collaboration

FOR FURTHER DETAILS OF OUR NEXT PROJECT MANAGEMENT TRAINING COURSE