Manufacturers, like other organizations are constantly being faced with the challenge of developing a growth strategy. When developing this strategy, it’s important to consider technology options. Two ways technology implementation can be successful are: 1. Bringing new technology into your company to increase your offerings to your current customer-base (they already know and trust you) or 2. Taking a technology you already have, that is proven, and introducing it to a new market.

Have you ever tried to do either of these? Maybe both? Have you ever responded to a customer’s request to develop a product with a promise of great market potential, only to be disappointed in the results?

Both of these approaches can lead to significant growth for your company, but each has risks. By taking a disciplined and orderly approach, these risks can be minimized. Here are some key points to consider before you get started:

If you plan to bring a new technology into your company:

1. Reach out to your customers – see if there are trends in unmet needs; then see if there is a technology to help fulfill those needs.
2. Research the technology – search patents, academia, and the government. Don’t forget to interview experts in the technology field.
3. List your options. Then use a tool (such as a SWOT analysis) to rank them against the customer criteria list, cost of capital, and competence in that new technology.

If you already have a technology that you want to bring to a new market:

1. List your technologies capabilities. Even though you think you know what your technology can do, you may be surprised what you discover.
2. Be creative in seeking new markets. Conduct numerous market scans and then rate them based on industry, size, growth, and geography.
3. Note the market leaders, channels to market, and major suppliers and customers.
4. Look for new or proposed government regulations that will cause markets to be willing to adopt products or services using your technology.

No matter which path you decide to take, it is important to take the following precautions when jumping into technology growth strategies:

• Search patent literature of the market leaders. You may discover areas where there is a gap between need and solutions.
• Establish your rules of confidentiality up front – agree on what to disclose and what to cover with Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs).
• Review all of your ideas with the possibility of protection by patent or recognizing them as trade secrets.
• Use a collaborative tool like a Mind Map to collect and organize all information from your entire team in one place.
• Make sure you record everything.
• Hold regular, scheduled, but brief team meetings to review progress and make commitments to next steps.
• Don’t jump at the first thing that sounds good – complete your research before committing to a course of action.
• Walk the floors of tradeshows.
• Pick your development partner (customer) very carefully.

These steps will help you avoid wasting time and valuable resources. The last you thing you want to do, as it could be detrimental to your business, is developing a product for a new market or bringing in a new technology only to find that the market is not as big as you were told or that you can’t practice what you wanted to because someone has a patent that prohibits you.

 

By: Ed Murphy, Project Manager, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

The practices of safety management and Lean production have for many years been implemented separately in most industrial plants. The complexities of regulatory compliance have in large part dictated that separate specialists be dedicated to each area. Over time, in fact, these two essential functions have diverged to the point of being adversaries in many plants due mainly to their seemingly opposed agendas.

So how can workers be kept safe while maximizing production? Seldom have these issues been approached together in a concerted way, but recently some managers have discovered the common ground through a method called Value-Added Safety. Manufacturing companies that realize they need better collaboration between their safety and production people have even begun to merge the traditional roles of safety professionals and lean leaders.

To be effective in both roles, however, each group must be proficient in the practice of the other’s discipline. Designing a process or workstation from the start with good safety practice in mind can make for more robust standard work documents, as many of these documents do not now include safety procedures. Conversely, the approach to safety protection can be simplified, and sometimes eliminated, when a process improvement change does away with the hazard or reduces the frequency of dangerous tasks in the workplace.

Examples include:

• Saving money on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) if the process improvement changes the procedure
• Getting a production line up and running faster by simultaneously addressing both safety and production needs, both of which are essential to good manufacturing practice.

Bridging the gap between the best way and safest way to do a job is what the Value-Added Safety method seeks to do.

Recognizing the Impacts of Safety

“Safety is value-added, and hazards are waste,” says Damon Nix, Group Manager – Operational Excellence at GaMEP, one of the innovators of the method. This phrase helps us visualize the integration of safety and process improvement in the familiar language of a Lean practitioner. Consider the Eight Wastes and their impact on safety hazards:

• Defects – Increased maintenance activities, hazardous material exposure, machine exposure
•  Overproduction – Overexertion, extra handling, unnecessary machine interaction
• Waiting – Setups/Changeovers – hazardous energy exposure
• Not Using Employee Ideas – The company misses out on potential safety improvements
• Transportation – Extra handling, slip, trip and fall hazards, exposure to fork lift traffic
• Inventory – Falling loads, traffic congestion, trip hazards, extra handling
• Motion – Overexertion, poor ergonomic design
• Extra Processing – Unnecessary machine interaction

In a technique similar to the way that lean production managers now conduct “waste walks,” the method equips users with the tools to expand the scope of these walks, having “eyes for hazards and waste,” and beginning to naturally identify opportunities for improvement in Lean and safety at the same time. This will lead to a culture in which the safety professional and the production manager are not adversaries, and where safety improvements come built in and are not just a regulatory measure or afterthought to your workplace layout.

Identifying Projects

In many plants, safety statistics are aggregated into facility-wide performance indicators. This practice homogenizes the data and does not provide the information needed to identify and address problems. This often leads to broad-stroke safety policies and delayed solutions to potential hazards. Using the proven tool of Value Stream Mapping (VSM), the Value-Added Safety method helps you get to the root of the activities from a process level, not just a plant level. So when improvement teams collect their initial data, they will compile statistics on each step of the process, highlighting the riskier areas of a production operation. Each process will continue to be evaluated on production measures such as cycle time, work-in-process inventory, and set-up time. In addition to these typical production measures, data will be gathered on measures of:

•  Productivity Impacting Safety Wastes – Lost days, lost productivity
• Quality Impacting Safety Wastes – Total incidents
• Cost Impacting Safety Wastes – Direct costs paid, indirect cost impacts

This will bring into focus where the hazards lie within your plant and allow you and your managers to focus attention on improving the areas found to be of most concern.

Safety by Design

One of the primary objectives of the Value-Added Safety method is to design safe processes from the start. By combining the tools of 5S/6S and the Hierarchy of Safety Controls, you can seamlessly integrate the countermeasures of Elimination, Substitution, Engineering Controls, and Administrative Controls within the context of the 5S/6S program before having to resort to PPE (personal protective equipment) for equipment operators. For instance, during the “Set-in-Order” step that dictates the process for a new workplace layout, potential safety hazards can be considered right alongside concepts such as point-of-use-storage and material presentation.

Implementing Lean principles and good safety practices together should be a gradual process for companies that have historically operated the two separately (or not at all). There are many considerations to be made in terms of production expectations, safety regulations, and existing company culture. The Safety Integrated Process Improvement method allows safety professionals and Lean production managers to speak the same language and solve problems similarly.

Contact

For more information on how to successfully account for both safety and lean while implementing process changes contact Damon Nix at ude.hcetag.etavonninull@xin.nomad.

By Tom Sammon, Project Manager, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

Whether a project involves cleaning out a storeroom or organizing an office or work space, the 6S process of Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Safety, Standardize, and Sustain is typically the same. The initial effort of sorting, cleaning, and organizing yields the greatest visible results, as well as the satisfaction of seeing improvements. After the flurry of this “3S” activity, however, many organizations falter in their improvement efforts. It is after the tour or audit has come and gone, and after the boss has moved on to another priority that the real test of 6S comes.

To succeed in the long term, 6S must move beyond the project stage to become the way an organization operates, that is, to be part of the culture of the workplace. For that to happen, the users of the system must understand the reasoning behind the process and agree with its usefulness. Simply demanding compliance will yield short-term results at best, with an eventual return to the original state.

Addressing questions like these in the Standardize phase of a 6S effort should drive your team to implement lasting changes in the target environment.

• Why are we changing? Discuss the benefits of the effort in practical terms of safety, inventory costs, searching time, space, etc. Making the place look nice is a great benefit, but it’s unlikely to be a strong motivator.
• What is the new standard? A clear definition of the new expectations will be helpful, especially in the form of pictures and checklists of the ideal state.
• What new procedures do we expect people to understand and follow? Think specifically about what people are expected to do differently, and make sure they have the necessary training and coaching to do it.
• How will we communicate these procedures? Don’t assume that everyone will know what to do – think about how they will know and plan appropriate team meetings or other methods of communication and follow-up discussions.
• Is the new standard condition obvious? If the proper visual controls have been installed, it should be clear to users and managers if a non-standard condition exists in the target area. Problem recognition should be immediate.
• Have we made it easy to do the right thing? If the new process places a burden on employees, it is unlikely to be followed for long. The design of the work should facilitate the process, not obstruct it.

Put yourself in the position of a person who works in the 6S target area. At the end of this process, could you answer these questions: What am I supposed to do differently? How am I supposed to do these things? Why is this important?

Thinking through these people issues during the Standardize phase can make all the difference in whether the 6th S – Sustain – is successful. Considering how people understand and respond to the 5S changes establishes the foundation for further success in the organization, and that starts with people.

By Paul Todd, Project Manager, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership