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(+)+(+) The Quick Changeover e-letter
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(+)+(+) Written by John R Henry, CPP
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### DECEMBER 2004
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A PRESENTATION YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO MISS
The Institute of Packaging Professionals (IOPP) and Packaging World magazine will be sponsoring a 1 hour web seminar by yours truly on December 12. The title of the seminar will be “Pitstops in your Plant” and will discuss how to make changeovers more like a racing pitstop.
For more information, visit http://www.iopp.org/pages/index.cfm?pageid=740
Registration is at https://www.iopp.org/forms/form.cfm?id=23
I look forward to seeing you there.
SOME THOUGHTS ON...
WHY?
There is a story about a typical American family gathered for the holidays. The wife was out in the kitchen preparing the roast. Her teenage daughter was watching and learning. Mom takes the roast out of the refrigerator and the first thing she does is cuts an inch off the end of it. The daughter asks, "Mom, why do you cut the end off the roast?"
"Because that's how my mother taught me", mom replies.
"But that doesn't make any sense. Grandma is in the living room, let's ask her", says the daughter.
So, they bring grandma into the kitchen and she tells them she doesn't know why she did it. It's just the way here mother had taught her.
Naturally the teenage daughter is not satisfied. Great Grandma is in the living room so they bring her into the kitchen. "Why", they ask, "did you always cut the end off the roast?"
"Because I had a short roasting pan and that was the only way it would fit."
While this particular story may be apocryphal, I am sure that on reflection, each of you will discover similar examples in both your personal and work lives.
“Why?” may be one of the most important words in our vocabulary but it is also a word that is not used anywhere near often enough. There are many reasons for this and perhaps one of the most important is societal. Young children have a reputation for driving parents and teachers nuts by continually asking “why?” about everything. In school, at home and later at work, how often is the answer along the lines of “Because I said so. Don’t ask so many questions.”? Often that is the easy way out. We may not know the answer, may be busy doing something else or just may not have the time to answer the question. There is also the possibility of misunderstanding the question, like the father whose young son asked him “What is sex?” After a rather lengthy talk, the boy said, “Well, that’s all very interesting. Now, how do I fit that in this little space on the form the school gave me to fill out?”
It is very easy to train a person to stop asking why. Just blow them off enough times and even the most curious person will get the message and shut up. That is a tragedy because it is only by finding the answer to that question that we can progress.
Its not enough to ask why just once. At Toyota Motors they pioneered a system called “The 5 Whys”. The point of the system is to assure that you get to the bottom of the problem or the “root cause”. It is only by resolving the root cause that the problem can be made to go away.
Here is an example adapted from the McNally Institute www.mcnallyinstitute.com dealing with the failure of a seal on a pump:
WHY did the seal fail?
BECAUSE the faces opened and solids got between them.
(OK, so far so good. We know why the seals failed but not how to resolve the problem)
WHY did the faces open?
BECAUSE the setscrews slipped
WHY did the setscrews slip?
BECAUSE the seal was installed on a hardened sleeve.
You could stop here and you would have sort of solved the problem. You could establish a procedure to make sure that only a soft sleeve is used. There are two problems with this: First it requires establishing a procedure, training the troops and making sure it is followed. Second, it is as sure as green apples that there will be a breakdown at some point and the procedure will not be followed.
In other words, the procedure is a BandAid that will help but will not eliminate the problem. For this reason, you must continue asking “why?”
WHY was the seal installed on a hardened sleeve?
BECAUSE the hardened sleeve and the stock sleeve were both stored in the same bin and the mechanic did not notice the difference.
WHY were they stored in the same bin?
BECAUSE they had both been assigned the same stockkeeping.
It is only now, after having asked these 5 questions, using the answer to each to develop the next question, that the root cause is identified and a good solution possible. The solution in this case is to make sure that parts are not assigned the same stockkeeping number unless they are truly functionally equivalent. If there are two parts, there must be two numbers.
In this example, there is actually a sixth “why” that needs to be asked to prevent a recurrence. That is, why was the same stockeeping number assigned? I would speculate that purchasing did so because they thought the parts were functionally equivalent. That may represent a failure of communication between purchasing and engineering.
“Why” needs to be one of the most important words in our vocabularies. Failure to ask why dooms us to making mistakes. Even worse, it dooms us to making the same mistakes over and over again. Subordinates, at all levels, must overcome their fear of annoying the boss by asking why. Bosses, at all levels, must encourage subordinates to ask why, no matter how annoying it may sometimes be.
We should also ask “Why not?”. As in “Why not implement this improvement idea.” But that’s a topic for another newsletter.
TIP OF THE MONTH...
BOTTLE NECK HANDLING
Lightweight PET beverage bottles have been conveyed by their necks for some time now. At PackExpo Hartness International ( www.hartness.com ) showed an interesting conveying system that kicked this idea up a notch by using a series of grippers that capture the necks on bottles that might otherwise be hard to handle.
What really caught my eye was an Italian(?) company showing a monoblock rinser, filler and capper that carried bottles through the entire machine by their necks. If I could find the name of the company, I would mention it but I seem to have misplaced the info.
Handling the bottles by their necks instead of their bodies allowed the machine to run 12oz to 2 liter bottles (all 28mm neck finish) with no changeover at all except for adjustment of the transfers in and out.
This caused me to wonder if this might be possible on other types of product. For example, one company I know runs tablets in a series of different bottle sizes but all have the same neck finish. It seems to me that it might be possible to build a conveyor to capture the bottle necks and carry them through the entire packaging line.
At the moment, this is just blue sky thinking and I throw it out here for consideration. I'd be happy to discuss it further if anyone is interested. Drop me a line at john @ changeover . com if you think this idea may not be completely nuts. Or, if you prefer, call me at 787/863-9134 during EST business hours.
John R Henry CPP
Visit the Quick Changeover website at http://www.changeover.com
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