Sudhir G

Management by Objectives – MBO.
How does Lean six sigma principles integrate with the MBO framework.
 
Right from our schools we know the word objective. Before doing any practical / demonstration for science we had to write objective of that exercise. Objective specifies the purpose, expectations, and need of that exercise.
In corporate this word has a great meaning as it defines the direction for the organization for growth. It defines the specific goals to be achieved by the organization to fulfill short term (annual) and long term (as per vision of the organization) goals.
In all this process the word – GOAL – is having complete emphasize and it is at the driving seat of the organization. It further percolates to the senior leadership – middle management and upto the last associate of the organization working on shop floor.
Simply the senior leadership has a vision for its organization for may be next 5 years. This is split into annual target. Accordingly different areas, departments are assigned the targets. Here comes the RACI matrix of lean. To fulfil the sales target, production has to manufacture the required volume and quality has to ensure that the product meets customer satisfaction. Purchases need to maintain the required inventory along with stores and so on for other functions.
One thing to be noted- The goals are SMART.
As an organization visualizes its specific growth (e.g. achieving preferred partnership status with customers) in numbers (increase in volume sold) according to its strength, capabilities, skill sets available within specific time duration of one year. The goals set are-
S – Specific for CEO, every head of function/ dept, manager, engineers and shop floor associates.
M- Measurable – Every aspect of his role and responsibilities, accountabilities are figured in numbers. E.g. per day production, number stoppages of machine, number of new customers brought in for business, volume sold per quarter, cost reduction in %, projects completion within specific time etc.
A-Assignable  – Clearly mentioned who will do what.
R- Realistic – Goals are close to reality of market scenario, available funds, resources etc.
T – Time bound – there should be a time limit to achieve every goal to fulfill all short term projections.
Thus, by setting SMART goals for every individual, every organization starts its financial year. Employees are provided all required resources. The goals are reviewed at defined frequency and there can be small corrections as per reality. Finally, the performance of every individual right from CEO, COO, CHRO, Senior management, middle management, engineers and shop floor associates is measured compared to initial targets given in goal sheet at the start of financial year. Every individual is given a performance rating and accordingly his next year salary hike and bonus is decided.
This system was first popularized by Peter Drucker in his book in 1954. Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, DuPont, intel were the few companies implemented these practices many years ago. Presently there many companies following these practices and getting the required productivity, profitability and growth by systematic tracking this process.

 
In ACG Associated capsule it is a well-documented process and completely digital. Every year from December the strategic meetings are started to finalize Business score cards, to fix Functional score cards. They are split according to different functions and further it is divided into all managers, engineers and shop floor associates. This process is completed in the month of March. From April everybody works for his goals in complete collaboration with all CFT to achieve daily, monthly targets for the organization. In the month of October, the mid-term progress is reviewed and work is done on the gaps. Finally next year’s June annual appraisals are done, and a performance rating is given. There are four categories for performance rating – Basic, good, excellent and outstanding. Previous year’s performance becomes basic for next year’s performance, Naturally excellent and outstanding performance levels are higher than previous year.
To achieve excellent and outstanding performance, every individual has to think out of box, stretch his physical and mental muscles. Every organization need growth without expanding every year, without adding substantial manpower and funds every year.
Then, how come growth comes?
Here Lean six sigma integration supports-

 
Voice of customer – The objectives for the organization are mostly driven by the voice of the customer. What quality (specifications) exactly he wants, how much volume at what time he needs are the key factors to set the goals. What delights him is the hygiene factor. It largely helps to define FSC (Functional score card) and BSC (Business score card)
Value stream mapping / Pareto charts – We always keep track of the flow of materials, process to see the wastages and opportunities to optimize resources. Pareto helps us to focus on specific areas to improve upon.
Control charts – They are the mirror of our regular production, indicating what is going correct and where need correction to produce continuous quality product to delight the customer. It helps to monitor critical quality parameters to keep them on target.
Five why – It helps us to get the root cause of any quality defect or breakdown of machine. With the help of Poka Yoke, Error proofing, OPL we avoid it and sustain the manufacturing of quality and volume to meet the productivity. This is part of weekly review for continual improvement of machine continuity and product quality.
DMAIC approach – The essential tool for six sigma projects, emphasizes the major improvements in the system and gives multifold benefits with respect to cost reduction. It involves lots of Data collection plans – it is essential for the accurate analysis of the process. Project charter – guiding what to achieve from current situation within what time and with which team. Fishbone diagram helps to identify different elements of the process and find where to focus. These are the vital tools in this approach. We improve the productivity by reducing losses by 2 to 3%.
Kaizen – Personally I have made few modifications in the process, methods, spares or developing altogether new components to achieve better quality of product. To get better continuity of machines for on time delivery to the customer. Brainstorming is key to getting valuable insights from all stakeholders. By modifying or introducing new components we improve the continuity of our machines by 1.2 to 1.6%.
 
Conclusion:- The vision and mission of the organization is systematically achieved by dividing it in the annual mission. These are the objectives for the entire team in the form of goal sheet. They are SMART and reviewed by the immediate superior for keeping the employees aligned to the goal of the organization. The performance rating at the end of year is the reward for the employee and achievement for the organization.
The lean concept helps to achieve more, better productivity within same resources with the help of improvements in the system, methods, processes, components, machines. Most of the tools of lean sigma can be integrated to achieve the mission and vision of the organization.

Water Spider in Lean Manufacturing.
 Productivity is the biggest objective of the Lean Manufacturing philosophy. There are so many aspects in lean to achieve productivity which leads to Profitability and Growth to organization.
Water spider plays the important role in lean to improve productivity.
  
 
Who is the water spider in lean?
AS the term suggest a water spider in lean is the person skimming all around the shop floor and entering in any cell as per requirement. He not only enters there but also helps the operators for small challenges they are facing.
In every production activity there are different workstations and operators are working on them. They require raw material, billets, blanks, semi- finished goods, tools for their operations. They transform them as per requirement and send it to next station. This is the flow going on up to the finish product. Imagine if every operator must visit another station to collect the raw material for his station –
How much Time he will spend?
How much distance he will travel?
How many components he will be able to finish on his station?
What if he faces any challenge?
The answer to all these questions is Water Spider – A person who keeps rounding all the stations, cells and keeps filing its inward trays by blanks, semi-finished goods to be transformed. Picks the worked upon goods and moves them to another workstation. The operator never needs to wait for the inputs (good) and need not to worry about the outputs (goods) he has transformed to next stage of shape. If any operator is facing any small challenge of adjusting tool, settings, this person is the great help to reduce his trouble and increase his productivity. So, this person allows the operator to spend all their working time on their station, no waiting, no movement, complete output as per time study. Complete Value-added Job by operator. Here we get the answer – Water spider for all above questions.
Roles and Goals of a water spider: -
1.      JIT – Very important to control inventory on shop floor so he has to fix his schedule and supply the goods, tools, blanks etc. at the right time and in exactly required quantity to avoid any blockage or starvation.
2.      He must be having knowledge of the production process and sequence of operation so that he can plan his rout and schedule for smooth flow of production line.
3.      He also, to have knowledge about tooling and machines so that he can help in between to the operators is they are facing any challenges.
4.      He must know about Kanban – he should pick and place the cards and update them for further information. In case of ERP he must be able to operate the system and keeps the data updated for replenishing the goods at main stores.
5.      Time management – He should standardize his route to save his time and be able to use spare time for other stuff.

 
1.One of the beautiful examples I had seen in Israel in one the cutting tool manufacturing company – It was an AGV, moving continuously in a particular sequence and picking the semifinished cutting tips- moving to the next station- and so on. Picking the finished tips and keeping them at a designated place to be sent to stores by another AGV. Its sequence was so balance that all 16 automatic unmanned machines were completely synchronized.

2.  I was Fortunate to visit one of the two-wheeler company in India manufacturing a scooter every three minutes. There I saw water spiders moving around the different shops and feeding all spares and components. They had kept the movements of operators so mechanized to get the maximum output from them and they were able to assemble a scooter in three minutes. The same person helping the operators to change the tools and adjusting the air required to pneumatic tools.
In the same company there were a Robot managing ten CNC machines machining the complete spares required to assemble an engine.
Conclusion- Transportation, Inventory and Motion are some of the wastages on shop floor and they eat productivity of the productive operators. By eliminating them with the help of line balancing and Water Spider an organization gets tremendous benefits. Water spider maintain JIT technology and keeps the shop floor neat and clean from unnecessary inventory. They keep productive operator adding their value addition in work to get accurate and quality production.
 
It helps organization to achieve Productivity – Profitability and Growth        
 

Few years back I was attending one of the assessments for pre qualification for promotion assessment. There were presentation of a case study and then a personal interview on presentation and finally feedback for result.
 
A) In feedback session I was been told that my communication was very poor; I was interrupting the panel so many times. I was starting to speak before panel finish.  And so many other things related to communication panel hammered me.

I was just speechless as I was knowing pane giving feedback with data points they had collected when I was talking. It was a new information I was not knowing which panel highlighted.
 
B.) I was bit late to the feedback session and panel was critical about delay. I explained the valid reason for the delay as I was busy with my departmental activities and arranging the spares for one of the machine which was down. Secondly panel was curious about my writings between the lines on presentation chart papers. I explained all those content and panel was impressed.

With my explanation (which panel was not knowing) about delay, my concepts and contents panel cleared me and I was qualified for the final assessment.
 
C) Now I had to prepare for the final assessment from behavior, competencies point of view for which I did not know much, I had to study with others experience.
 
Above A, B, and C what does it indicate?
A – indicates that I was not knowing about my communication style which I came to know from the panel as a feedback.
 
B – Panel was not clear about my thoughts written between the lines and reason for my delay. I make them know about it and I got the marks and I cleared the assessment.
 
C- Study for final assessment, I did not know, peoples around me also not knowing. I had to explore it by all means.
 
Actually above event was one of the most important events for me as it was related to all my hard work, performances, results I had achieved for last few months.

It was related to my Self Actualization – Achieving full potential including creative activities – Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.

 It was related to my Emotional Intelligence. Accepting feedback and work on it. To explain my situation so that others can understand and I can achieve my goal is very important aspect of this event.

Explore something that is completely unknown to me as well as for others is also a critical aspect of the life to Progress, to grow, to get matured, to understand others, make others to understand for overall wellbeing.

To help me fulfilling my needs, achieving my goals - Johari Window Comes to help scientifically and psychologically.
So let us discuss what is Johari Window Is?
                  

The above figure shows the Johari Model which is developed by American Psychologist Joseph  Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955. Johari= Jo (from Joseph) + Hari (from Harry).

In today’s industry it is very important as more and more emphasize is given on developing soft skills along with hard skills. Managerial behavior, fundamental competencies required for effective personal growth, team development, integration of new employee; Johari Window model gives accurate information and plays a effective role.
 
                                      There are four quadrant in this model

1. Open / Free Area – This is the area of one’s behavior, competencies, attitude and emotions known to him as well as others and they can have mutual connection and co operation built on this area.

2. Blind Area – This part is very crucial as others know about oneself but he do not know about it. It creates a major challenge for ones acceptance by others. Others accept only when it is fine tuned with their views, requirements, fulfillments etc. So a person has to know what others think about him.

3. Hidden Area – This is the area world do not know about oneself which he may be expert, he may be facing a challenge; it may be his potential etc. Unless world do not understand you, your potential it is worthless for world as well as oneself.

4. Unknown Area – This is the area everyone want to acquire but do not know how to achieve. This needs real discovery of unknown potential, competencies of self as well as what others can do for oneself.
 
So it is clear from above, to progress, grow with complete understanding of one’s potential, attitude, capabilities, competencies, behavior, emotions, aptitude, goals etc. to the world and simultaneously what world can do, how world can accept is very essential. Basically there should not be a blind area, hidden area and unknown area in the life. Practically it is not possible so one can do his best to enlarge the quadrant 1 – Open or free area of his nature and accept others and make them accept for complete co operation and support.
 
Usage:- To enlarge the quadrant 1 – Open area –
ASK – for the feedback from others for things not known to self,
Discloser – Disclose about self to others to make them know yourself,
Discovery – Self introspection, study the behavior and counseling.
*** The Johari Window model is a simple and useful tool for illustrating and improving self-awareness, and mutual understanding between individuals within a group. This model can also be used to assess and improve a group's relationship with other groups. This model is particularly useful in team development.

Example:- We used this model extensively to develop a team in my last experience.

a. ASK - It gives me required insights what team expects from me by transparent feedback.

For this we use 360 degree feedback in a common team. I had allowed team members for their free and frank critics for my action. Company also had a system of survey to collect feedback from team members and peers.
 
b. Disclose - Team can explain their challenges to get helped.
 
Our weekly meeting used to focus on team development only. They were allowed to express their challenges, good work done to get know about their potential, attitude and aptitude.

c. Disclose - Team members also get chance to explain their challenges to other team members. Continuous improvement was one of the major missions. While doing why why analysis team members used to express their challenges, co operation and help getting and expected from other team members. It also used to get highlighted while doing common presentations and projects.

d. Team members had opportunity to give honest feedback to other team members about their potential, ability aptitude which we used to use in work and get benefits.

e. Discover - Most important area was reducing Unknown area of team leader, team and individual team members. This was the major area to be discovered.
 
i. Generally this was covering unutilized potential, fear someone has for some work or assignment, subconscious feeling or some typical behavior pattern.
 
ii. To reduce this area to enlarge open area – Counseling was the best tool used after careful observations while doing some task, project or routine pattern of doing some activities.

Conclusion: - with the help of 360 degree feedback, open feedback sessions in free and frank meeting one can get true feedback for self improvement. By expressing one’s challenges and potential he can be a good asset for the team. By discovering unutilized potential, hidden fear and effective counseling unknown nature of one’s own behavior can be discovered and utilized for the benefit of team. Johari Window gives an effective tool to get all above benefit. Softer skills are the foundation for everybody’s growth, every organization’s growth, Nation’s Growth.
 

IPO-FAT - Tool
 
Hotelling is one of the favorite occasions for every individual. He likes to visit Hotel, have a delicious food – Lunch or Dinner. Everyone has a comment about the taste of the meal, time taken for the meal, neatness while preparing the meal, ingredients used, quantity consumed and left over etc. There are few aspects associated to that meal. Every meal is graded on all above factors and it is termed as overall Tasty, delicious or not so good meal. Meal received in time. Meal received in presentable way etc, etc.
 
Most of the quality conscious hotels conduct survey and always keep improving themselves for all above aspects to have customer delight. This delight is going to keep them running and serving more and more customer. There is the Growth for them. Surveys give them overall picture. Where exactly to improve is the Big Question. The answer to this question is not so easy and Hotel management and staff have to really work hard to find the area for improvement.
 
This is just one example, this is the case everywhere, and there are processes involved. Process is the basic part of every manufacturing; it may be food or machinery.
 
So to find the step, stage where to focus for improvement for better quality, we need to divide the complete set of steps or stages of whole manufacturing and look at all steps with specific observations, analysis and then actions and improvements. These are the big activities involving compilation of the data from the survey, analysis of the data with the help of statistical tools, making inference from the tools, deciding different line of action for the improvement and achieve the results. In this case tools used for improvement may be Six Sigma DMAIC project, PDCA, Lean tools etc, depending upon the data, improvements required, importance, timelines available, feasibility and available resource.
 
Again after some time same cycle keeps repeating as taste of customer, situations in market, advancements in technology keeps changing rather improving better and better. Every business has to keep evolving to sustain in the competitive market.
 
Generally speaking there are following major aspects for every manufacturing –
I – Input – the starting ingredient for every manufacturing
P – Process – The value addition activity performed to get final (or semi finished)       product.
O – Output – Is the final finished (or semi finished for other process) product.
 
Likewise every aspect is having three perspectives associated with it. These perspectives are very important to look at these aspects, observe them, analyses them and check for improvement.
F – Flow –  The way these aspects are moving.
A – Accuracy – Check for the correct specifications and quality at each stage.
T – Timeline – Most crucial from engagement of resources point of view.
 
So every manufacturing is viewed through glasses of above three aspects and three perspectives – making a 3 x 3 matrix as below. The important steps are numbered 1 to 6 as shown in the table. Each one is analyzed as per sequence of 1 to 6. As per significance the sequence may be changed or some steps may be escaped. Once the steps are analyzed improvement may be done with the help of following methodology.
-       Six Sigma (Effectiveness)
-       Lean (efficiency)
-       Lean & / or Six Sigma
-       IPO-FAT Tool
              
Aspect
Perspective
Input
Process
Output
Flow
1. Incoming Volume
2. Work flow Rhythm
Production Rate / RTY
Accuracy
4. Readiness
3. Quality / Value Add
Defect – DPMO
Timeliness
5.  Arrival / Set up time
6. Handle time
Turn Around time (TAT)
 
Practical use of the Tool.
Recently we had conducted a study to reduce the Turnaround time of one of the activity as follow.
The initial duration of the activity was 300 minutes and task was to reduce the duration of the activity to reduce downtime to improve Productivity. This was the activity done every month on 5 to 6 machines and hence was having most impact on productivity.
 
1. Incoming Volume – What opportunities are there to reduce the incoming volume from the prior output? - 
- After brain storming with team there were no much scope for incoming volume for the activity.
 
2.  Work flow Rhythm - How can throughput (takt time) be optimized by evaluating FIFO, batch
Processing or schedule balancing? In this case flow of work is analyzed
 - Yes there were scope and with the help of effective sequencing and balancing of activities nearly 50 minutes were reduced.
 
3. Quality / Value Add - What process steps don't add value, aren't required or don't meet policy/specs? All the activities are analyzed for the value addition as customer pays for only value addition.
  - Yes, there were scope and all non value adding activities were eliminated and 20 minutes were reduced.
 
4. Readiness - How complete or accurate are the inputs before the process? This is very essential. Simple steps of 5S helps a lot to arrange all the input spares and bought out required in easy accessible manner. The team was trained for doing first time right to reduce rework.
 - The readiness of spares and tools in a systematic and easy manner helped to reduce search time which further reduced 15 minutes.
 
5. Arrival / Set up time - How much delay between prior output and current input? How much setup or lead time is required before process? Offline and online activities were also bifurcated and most of the activities taken offline.
 - This was the major contributor and after systematic study it saved another 40 minutes.
 
6. Handle time - How much time to perform value-added steps in process?
 - Setting of the machine was one of the crucial activities.  With the help of PDCA the activity was re defined and few one point lessons were given and displayed. This activity needed lots of accuracy. The effectiveness achieved by further 20 minutes saving.
 
( Due to confidentiality no much details are revealed)
 
Conclusion:- In IPO-FAT tool - Distributing all the activities in simple easy to analyze manner. Brainstorming with team and deciding the tools to be used depending upon the criticalness and suitability the required improvement is brought in. This tool is  most effective and easy to decide the project.
 
 
 
 
Ref- StatStuff.com
 

Andon!
Everyone knows his child hood stories of Alarms given by  elders about not doing something by some typical facial actions, sounds or even by showing something. It was to warn a child for not doing something else he may get hurt, he may get injured or there could be an accident. And it used to work; the child will remember all those actions, alarms and will not go near those things, will not touch and this way his life was saved. He continued the same thing when he was matured enough to teach other children’s.
 
Really a very powerful technique of teaching, alarming and warning someone not to do something or in better way – To Do – “Not go near, Not to Touch etc.”
 
In actual practice happening something wrong, variation in the process, small or major accidents are the part of a regular smooth, nonstop, productive process.
 
We are in manufacturing sector so let us discuss about Manufacturing.
§  In manufacturing set up there are so many different processes running continuously and at a very high speed. These high speed processes are producing million tons of products or units in million. The pace is such a high; the variation in process will lead to heavy losses.
§  If there could be a small addition of Friction in heating of moving parts – it can lead to a bigger accident in near future.
§  If it is not monitored for its output, there could be wastage of resources.
Today we are in most competitive, cost conscious, quality conscious, delivery conscious world and will never afford all above wrong things from happening.
 
Fortunately we are in the most advancing era of technology, manufacturing techniques are evolving day by day and we have got a powerful tool at our help to save manufacturing process is – ‘Andon’
 
Andon – Is the Alarming, Notifying systems developed for managers, Supervisors, workers etc to highlight the health of the manufacturing (or any system) system.
Lean production system is the boon to the modern age manufacturing, Andon is also one of the principle developed by lean only.
 
An Andon system is the one of the principle elements of the Jidoka quality control method pioneered by Toyota Production system and therefore now part of the Lean Production approach.
 
Jidoka – Is the automation with human touch or simply Intelligent Automation –
It is the combination of Automation and human interference.
As fully automatic systems are not cost effective to make it more cost effective and also to produce effective quality products human interference is essential.
So – Andon – it  gives the workers the empowerment to stop the production line, production machine if any abnormality is detected.
 
There are so many techniques available by which a worker can detect rather come to know about the abnormal operation is the system.
 
A.   Audio Visual – With the help of different types of sensors system can detect any sort of abnormality happening in the system. It could be small displacement in the components, it could be more load (stress) coming on the components, it could be temperature variation. There are lots of digital gauges available and they keeps monitoring the system round the clock and keeps alarming the workers, supervisors or even managers about health of the system. With the advancement in automaton there are visual displays (HMI - Human Machine Interface) which gives the exact location where there is malfunction happening. With this alarm ( there is whistle with notification) the operator stops the machine and attend the challenge and avoids major losses. If the challenge on the machine or in the system is sever, even in that case machine stops with alarm and notification display. The operator, maintenance team can act immediately to save the major losses.
               All these notifications are coded and in SCADA system all those notifications are recorded systematically and gives the frequency of each notification along with the duration it took to rectify. This analysis gives way for Kaizen which leads in reduction in such uncertainty and eventually uniform uninterrupted production.
               Recently machine learning is also coming to our help by giving or poping notifications before taking any action which may lead to loss of data or any uncerytainty.
 
B.   Manual – In so many assembly lines there are provisions to stop the line if there is any abnormality found in any spares, shortages of spares etc. With this complete system gets alarm and work in down the line is adjusted accordingly. Simultaneously the concern department heads get the alarm to replenish the stocks.
Manual systems though tedious, troublesome,  still essential in some cases. Everyone knows the great Titanic disaster. There are few sensory alarms human eyes, nose and ears detect very rapidly and need immediate action. This is most effective activity only humans can do with inbuilt system.
 
Advantages-
The alarms, the moment malfunction or variation in system starts stops the system and major losses are saved. It helps to keep the wastages in control, saves cost and keeps profitability in control. The systematic records of abnormality gives ways for Kaizen Burst and scope for Continual Improvement which the only way to keep progressing towards growth. Once there is continual improvement, there is uniform production at specified productivity which is very essential to maintain oneself in today’s competitive market. It improves moral of the employees with safe working atmosphere. Less defects – less stops, less stops – happy employees, Happy employees – less accidents. Let’s continue to explore!
 

OEE – Overall Equipment Effectiveness is the net effective production on (or net Utility of) equipment. There are 24 hours or 1440 minutes in a day available for production. Ideally this complete time is to be used for production of the components or any commodity for which equipment is meant for.
 
Practically it is not possible as equipment also need some rest in the form of servicing, it also need to be dressed up for new type of setup or sometimes it falls sick by breakdown. It may also not work accurately due to minor misalignments and need small adjustments or may want to work at slower speed. Its health to be maintained at optimum level.
 
 Millions of Rupees investment is done in every organization and every entrepreneur want it back as early as possible and start earning profits for future investment in all resources. This is the cycle every industry runs.
 
So to have maximum return on investment every organization need to extract 100% utility of the equipment. In simple words every organization need to use the equipment 100% and not a single percentage of wastage or loss. This is the ideal scenario.
 
So we need to consider all losses on the equipment, reducing its effective use.
The net effective use of the equipment is the Overall Equipment Effectiveness or OEE.
For every organization OEE is very important so it is essential – What is OEE?
 
Overall equipment effectiveness is the measure of the production of right specification in available running time of the day.
 
OEE = Availability x Equipment Performance x Quality
  Numerically
 
A)     Availability = Run Time / Planned Production time.
Run time = Planned production time – Stop losses
( like breakdown, Planned Maintenance, Change over etc)
 
Equipment Performance = Net Run Time / Run time
Net Run time = the exact time available for production after reduction of small stops for adjustment, reduction of machine speed etc. = Ideal cycle time x Total number of product.
 
C)      Quality = Number of Good Products / Total number of products produced.
Number of Good Products = Total number of products produced – Rejected/reworked products
    After Simplification
OEE = (Ideal Cycle time x Number of Good Products)/ Planned Production Time
   
 
 
 
 
 
100% OEE = 100% quality in 100% available time with 100% performance.
It is possible when there are no losses or minimum losses to have OEE close to 100%.
 
Different Losses and their elimination or reduction.
 
1.      Equipment Breakdown or Failure:- It is the most significant loss on equipment and major contributor in OEE. It has to be kept in control and practically no uncertain breakdown. It affects parameters Availability and Quality also. To reduce or eliminate it –
a.      All different type of breakdowns to be categorized and to be given a code. All instances to be neatly recorded.
b.      There has to be a Root cause analysis, 5 Why analysis for all reasons and effective actions after brainstorming to be initiated to arrest the repeat occurrence.
c.       Focused improvement projects, kaizen, OPL to be initiated and all solutions to be implemented for long term results.
d.      Effective Preventive, Scheduled and Autonomous maintenance gives big advantage in minimizing uncertain breakdown.
 
2.      Set up or Change over time:-  It is another major challenge affecting Availability of the equipment. It is essential before starting new product on the equipment. It may be from few minutes to many hours and hence one of the critical loss. To reduce it –
a.      SMED approach – Single minute exchange of Dies.
b.      There are number of activities done while setting the machine for new product after last good product of old batch and up to first good product of new batch.
c.       All Activities are neatly separated so that maximum activities are done offline while previous batch is running and it saves lots of productive time.
d.      The on job activities are done with the help of Jigs and Fixtures to reduce the time.
e.      While in running also components are unloaded and loaded in quick change manner in few seconds.
 
3.      Small Stops or Reduced Speed:- There are few adjustments on equipment to be done to run the equipment smoothly to produce accurate product. Sometimes machine speed may have to be reduced due to worn out spares, bearings, changing essentials like film, blades etc.
a.      To reduce small stops there has to be a perfect preventive maintenance plan and also timely lubrication and monitoring critical performance parameters.
b.      Generally there is a pattern for small stops and one has to monitor them and apply 5 why analysis and find Kaizen Blitz and implement. Effective OPL helps reduce small stops by proactive practices.
c.       Standardization of machine operating practices by effective training and coaching of operator helps reduce machine small stops.
d.      Effective Cycle Time – Machine has to be run on its maximum speed by maintaining its health to optimum level.
 
4.      Defects and Yield reduction:-  In some cases there is wastage of product at the start due to initial adjustments and settings. It directly affects the yield. Some times in stable process there may be defective parts (either complete reject or rework) due to variation in dimensions. It is the major contributor to affect the quality.
a.      Start up rejection is majorly reduced by standard machine setting before start up and standardization of material.
b.      Defects are the variation in the specifications of product. It mainly happens due deterioration in the machine setting over the time. To avoid this, monitoring the machine parameter is very essential. In modern age automation is there to monitor the settings and alarms to indicate the variation in setting. Auto corrections are also available to reduce the defect generation.
c.       Process Control:- There are statistical process control of the product and machine operators monitor critical parameters and keep doing fine tuning of the machine to keep the output as per specification. This improve quality and reduce the rejection to large scale.
 
5.      Total Productive Maintenance:- Planned maintenance affects total available time. With systematic implementation of TPM philosophy it can be streamlined and frequency of planned maintenance can be reduced.
a.      Autonomous maintenance by operator using the machine, increases the effectiveness of the machine to great extent as he always knows the critical points and always observing the machine very closely. The feeling of ownership makes him accountable.
b.      Preventive maintenance:- The frequency of the preventive maintenance need to match the life cycle of the spares and critical assembly. High frequency unnecessarily increase the stop time.
c.       5S:-The most simple tool but equally effective to identify the challenges on the machine for preventive maintenance. Control inventory of spares and loss of time to search spares for maintenance. Cleanliness and standardization boost moral of employees to motivate them to improve machine performance.
d.      Mistake Proofing helps in reducing defective production as well as facilitate in improving availability of equipment.
 
                     As highlighted earlier all above challenges are the integral part of every system of production lines and hence losses are there. Hence we can’t get 100% OEE in any situation.
                  
   With implementation of above controls in place OEE can be increased and maintained for longer period. Visual management always keeps highlighting the Process parameters, performance indicators to catch the attraction of concerned employees. It allows timely actions taken on equipment which in turn save major losses to be happened. 

The covid 19 pandemic highlighted 3 waste Muda, Muri, Mura in Health care sector.
Muda – This is the waste comprising of other few waste on shop floor, In this case let us consider Health care system.
It is denoted as - WORMPIT.
W = Waiting time for the patients to get admitted – Taking lessons from other countries suffering from this pandemic, State Governments has to be prepared well in advance regarding facilities for patient like, beds, dedicated Hospitals or wards in the Hospitals.
O = Over production – It was been observed the excessive documentation in processing every individual traveling to other places and it had created lots of burdon on the system. They had to apply few specific and effective testing system to keep it simple and specific. Less than 1% people travelling were detected positive.
R = Rework – There were complaints about quality of PPE kits and it may have resulted in infection to the doctors and nurses wearing them. This point had to be taken care well in January and February 2020.
There had have to be strict standards for the quality of PPE lits with SOP for their quality check, and it had to be followed very seriously. It was like Sharpening the saw, few deaths must have been saved. Few health care workers might have been infected due to low quality kits.
M = Motion – The patients had struggled a lot to find vacant space, beds and ventilators in suitable hospitals and there were no common place or control room to guide them in such painful situation. This led to few deaths as no facility were available and patients kept searching for facility.
There has to be a central control room in every district particularly giving information on essential facilities with transportation facility.
P =  Over Processing – Though Quarantine was a essential thing, it was applied all across without giving due consideration on the place person coming from, the situation there the possibility of might be having infected, all were sent to 14 days quarantine and it increased a heavy load on the system with respect to manpower, expenditure and delays in results after testing. At so many places they could not manage basic facilities to the peoples.
Local administration had already devided the localities, town and cities in Green, orange and Red zones, instead of focusing on complete districtor state health care staff had to consider the individual area from where person is coming, its own health and the way he had kept himself in isolation before traveling.
I – Inventory – It was the biggest issue. In this case it was shortage of inventory of PPE kits for doctors and it also led to infections to the doctors, nurses and other staffs, police etc. It was really a serious challenge.
Also beds for patients were not available and they are forced to take care at homes increasing chances of spread to other family member. Also due to non availability of beds in time there were few deaths.
Health ministry had to plan the sufficient number of PPE kits and beds well within the time taking lesson from other countries.
T – Transport – Transportation of dead bodies was a major issue and they remained on the beds around the patients creating threat and tension to the common patients.
Hospitals had to keep dedicated staff for the transportation of dead bodies to their destination. Even a common team handling this operation would had given effective results with less manpower.
Muri – This is the overburden, excess workload and things which are not directly visible.
                Yes in this case it was been repeatedly heard that few doctors, nurses, Police staff were working excessively round the clock with very less rest. They were forced to take rest on work place. They could not visit their families due to fear of infection. This all were adding lots of Psychological and metal tension. It was also heard few deaths of health workers due to heart attack, it must be due to panic conditions they were handling.
                This all could had been saved if right from the beginning Private Hospitals would Had been given SOP to operate with respect to Bed charges, general hygiene conditions and social distancing and most importantly they had to be instructed to keep operating as most of the Private  Hospitals were closed.  
Mura – Interruptions, Unevenness, Instability and Inconsistency in the system.
                Repeated changes in the controlling power, inconsistency of the controlling power were few cases to worsen the system and adding cases of Covid 19.
                No doubt increase in the covid cases were not linear and it didn’t allowed system to plan the infrastructure in sufficient numbers. This led to scarcity of valuable resources.