Manufacturing Manager

1. Understand and analyze the current state: work to establish standardized processes as the basis of continuous improvement, by understanding the current processes in place, and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each to identify areas of improvement.

a. Station Shadowing: the primary method of understanding the production cycle is by being on the shop floor to witness the work first-hand. You’re expected to constantly shadow the working stations to analyze their behavior and actual processes adhered to.

b. Shop Floor Drawings: visual flow of production cycle to act as a base for improvement

c. Standardized Work Sheets & Job Breakdown Sheets to be created for each station based on the current state.

d. SWOT analysis for each part of the production cycle

2. Optimize production process to achieve single-piece flow: aspire to achieve a production flow that eliminates all waste.

a. Define the ideal state process flow for each item

b. Build a gap analysis and set incremental goals that enable you to get there

c. Run experiments related to process design or space design to iterate

d. Involve and train your workers on any process changes to allow them to contribute and demonstrate it until mastered.

3. Empower workers to stop identifying out-of-standard conditions: adopt a culture of build-in quality where team members are empowered to stop and fix issues that prevent problems in the future.

a. Problem Identification: Build a quality process that surfaces problems and tackles them in real-time

b. Root-cause analysis: use first principles thinking (5 Whys) to tackle problems from their core

c. Defect logging: build a system where defects are logged on time and define the corrective and preventative actions taken.

4. Use visual control to support people

a. Clean the shop floor and keep it tidy, and make it everyone's job to do so

b. Implement visual systems to direct production stages (kanban, downtime, etc.)

c. Use data dashboards to monitor any setbacks and