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(+)+(+) Setup Minimization Improves Line Efficiency
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(+)+(+) The Quick Changeover e-letter
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(+)+(+) Published monthly by Changeover.com
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(+)+(+) Written by John R Henry, CPP
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### JUNE 2004
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=============================================================
Norman Bodek is president of PCS Press, a Vancouver, Washington,
publishing, training, and consulting company. He discovered and published
the works of the truly great Japanese manufacturing geniuses: Dr. Shigeo
Shingo and Taiichi Ohno, the inventors of the Toyota Production System now
called JIT and Lean manufacturing and many others. From his numerous trips
to Japan he introduced to the western world the Kaizen Blitz, SMED, TPM,
QFD, Hoshin Kanri, Poka-Yoke, Visual Factory and other new manufacturing
methodologies that have helped companies improve their quality, and
productivity. In 1988 he initiated the Shingo Prize for Manufacturing
Excellence with Professor Vern Buehler at Utah State University.

He has been kind enough to share the following story from chapter 17 of his
book, "Kaikaku: The magic and Power of Lean". You may order the book or
find more information at


SOME THOUGHTS ON...

FIRE THE QUALITY MANAGER!

A problem cannot be solved with the same
consciousness that created it.”
- Albert Einstein

Whose fault is it when you can't solve quality problems? Who do you blame
when you see all of that scrap? In the early 1980’s when a company had
severe quality problems they would often try to solve the problems by
firing the quality manager and hiring another one.

Back in the early 1980’s I was recommended by C. Jackson Grayson, president
of the American Productivity and Quality Center in Houston, Texas to be a
consultant for Jack Katzen, senior Vice president with AVCO Corporation. I
would meet with Jack for one day a month. He wanted me to teach him all
about quality and productivity. He would ask me a few questions and then
we would dialog for the next six hours. It was lots of fun for me, for
while I was teaching him I was really learning about the subject.[1]

A few years later Jack Katzen became the assistant secretary of defense and
invited me to the pentagon. He introduced me to the other assistant
secretaries and a number of generals and said, “I want you to meet the man
who saved my former company AVCO $400,000,000.” I smiled at the
introduction and only wished I could have gotten my share. What do you
think, would 10% have been fair?

At the time AVCO had a severe quality problem in their Connecticut plant,
where they were manufacturing engines for the M1 tank. The tanks in
Germany were breaking down during the war games. AVCO was getting a bad
reputation in the US Congress. In fact, there was a group of senators that
wanted to take away this sole source contract from AVCO and give the job to
another manufacturer, or at a minimum to have half the engines made
somewhere else. This could have meant the loss of over 1000 jobs.

Well, to solve the problem, AVCO (to show the US Army that they really
meant business) found the culprit, and fired the quality manager. It is
obvious, isn’t it, that when something goes wrong it must be someone else’s
fault.

As you read about my attempt to help them with their problem – remember the
old saying, “Solving one problem always leads to another problem.” How true.

I remember on one of my later Study Missions to Japan I was sitting next to
Don Ferrar, President of AVCO Corporation. On the flight over he turned to
me almost tearfully and said, “Norman, why can't my people solve the
quality problems?”

We spent the next two weeks visiting a number of Japanese manufacturing
plants, and on the way back on the airplane I again sat next to Don
Ferrar. After reviewing the highlights of the trip he turned to me and
said, “After these two weeks I now realize that I am responsible for
quality in my company. I must lead the effort to get it done.” It was an
amazing revelation and was the beginning of a great transformation for AVCO.

From being introduced to quality circles and Japanese management, we were
now beginning to learn that to solve quality problems, everyone had to be
involved and everyone had to be responsible. In fact, if we want to ‘point
a finger,’ it should be at the CEO[2] , not the Quality Manager.

Jack invited me to help the Stratford plant to move along their
productivity and quality efforts. A group of senior managers met weekly
and were somehow unable to get their program moving in the right
direction. Jack got all of the directors together into a meeting room and
at 8:00AM one morning told them that I would help them establish a
productivity and quality process.

I first asked all eleven of them to give me a commitment that we would not
leave the plant today until we could set up this agenda even if we had to
work throughout the night. Nine of the eleven gave me their commitment and
we got started. I then asked them to tell me the barriers that stood in
the way to their productivity and quality improvement. Slowly, they came
up with 34 barriers and we listed them on the blackboard. With some
discussion this took around three hours. Then I asked them to vote on
which barriers we should remove first. I gave them all three votes
indicating that they could use all three on one item or spread them around,
but they preferred to spread them around.

Curiously, the highest votes related to removing the barriers that
separated people in the plant. They wanted to involve all of the workers
in improvement activities, but felt there were things getting in the way.
They wanted to remove the private parking spaces for executives; they
wanted the office employees and the factory employees to both use and
remove the time clocks that separated them; and they did not want the
president to build an executive dinning room. I then told them to act
cautiously. First go back this week and meet with your staff and talk
about the barriers that stood in the way of open communication but do not
do anything until you get approval from your senior managers.

Well, someone squealed on me and phoned the president of this division, who
was in Germany at the time. I received a call from him and he was
screaming at me, “Norman, I told you to get me a productivity and quality
program. I did not want you to take away my parking space and kill my new
dining room.”

Unfortunately, that was the end of my consulting assignment at the AVCO
plant. We all want to improve productivity and quality, but we have those
subtle hidden things that we are not always willing to surrender. The
president could not correlate how his parking space and dinning room had
anything to do with removing barriers to improvement.

But, what we learned from the Japanese was that there are many subtle
barriers to improvement. They all wear the same uniforms and very rarely
do they have a separate office, but I have seen some great executive dining
rooms.

[1] Strange, that if I am teaching properly it is my most important
learning moment, as so many new ideas come to me.

[2] A year later I asked Bob Bowman, the chairman of AVCO, to keynote my
"Productivity the American Way"conference in Washington, DC. To really
transform AVCO to become a high quality company, the leader (as the
company's chief spokesperson) had to tell the world about their quality
efforts. You must as they say, "Walk the talk." Also at that conference
both Phil Crosby and John J. Hudiburg CEO of Florida Power and Light spoke
about quality.


TIP OF THE MONTH...

COLORS FOR LEVEL CONTROL

Most plants have magazines and hoppers that need to be manually refilled.
The question for the operator is when to do it. If they try to keep it too
full, they spend too much time replenishing small amounts. If they wait too
long, they run the risk of running out components.

One way I recently saw this addressed is to put color codes on all
magazines and hoppers. The client used colored red-yellow-green tape to
indicate levels. When product is in the green, no action is necessary. When
in the yellow, the operator needs to be refilling. When in the red, the
need to refill is urgent. In reality, it should never go into the red.

Simple ideas, big paybacks.

Best,

John R Henry CPP

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