Read a plant fast

오늘은 MBA 과정에서 자주 접하게 되는 HBR Case 중 하나인 "Read a plant fast"에 대해서 알아봅니다. 

 

To the trained eye, even a quick plant tour can reveal a lot about a company.

Here’s how to tell if a factory is truly lean – in as little as 30 minutes

 

 

 A Tool for the Tour

 

The RPA rating sheet presents 11 categories for assessing the leanness of a plant and the

RPA questionnaire provides 20 associated yes-or-no questions to determine if the plant uses

best practices in these categories. During a tour, team members will be observing all aspects

of a plant’s environment, talking with the workforce and managers and looking for evidence

that the plant adheres to best practices.

It’s important that team members not take notes during a tour, because note-taking detracts

from picking up visual cues and impedes communication with employees on the plant floor.

Instead, each member of the team is assigned primary responsibility for a few categories,

and the team should meet immediately after the tour to share impressions and fill out the

worksheets.

 

Customer Satisfaction: Workers in the best plants clearly know who their customers are –

both internal and external - and make customer satisfaction their primary goal.

 

Safety, Environment, Cleanliness, and Order: In a clean and orderly plant, parts are easy

to find, inventory is easy to count or estimate, and products move safely and efficiently. The

plant should be well lit, the air quality is good, and noise levels low. A visual labeling system

should clearly mark inventory, tools, processes, and flow.

 

 

Visual Management System: Tools that provide visual cues and directions are readily

apparent in well-functioning plants

 

Scheduling System: The best plants rely on a single “pacing process” for each product line

and its suppliers.

 

 

Use of Space, Movement of Materials, and Product Line Flow: The best plants use space

efficiently. Ideally, materials are moved only once, over as short a distance as possible,

inefficient containers.

 

Levels of Inventory and Work in Process: Internal operations seldom require high

inventories, so the observable number of any part is a good measure of a

plant’s leanness

 

 

Teamwork and Motivation: In the best plants, people consistently focus on the plant’s

goals for productivity and quality, know their jobs well and are eager to share their

knowledge with customers and visitors

 

Condition and Maintenance of Equipment and Tool: In the best plants, equipment is

clean and well maintained

 

Management of Complexity and Variability: many companies collect much more data

about their operations than they need; if you observe many people manually recording data

and a large number of keyboards for data entry, the company may be doing a poor job of

handling complexity, especially if the data collection is done by hand.

 

Supply Chain Integration: The best operations keep costs low and quality high by working

closely with a relatively small number of dedicated and supportive suppliers

 

Commitment to Quality: The best plants are always striving to improve quality.

 

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