Anyone in manufacturing can tell you about breakdowns. From the simplest screw not being in stock to get the half million dollar machine up and running, to sending your control head back to the OEM for a one month rebuild at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars.
Well my team and I have been suffering a rash of breakdowns. What did we do? That is the question I'm sure everyone wants to know, right. It is a multi part answer yet as the old saying goes, "Wait there's more." Anytime I have a machine online my first instinct is what piece of equipment do I have to cover the load in case of a total breakdown or those pesky gremlins decide to show up and read havoc on our operation. We had that part covered. Yes there is added labor in manufacturing parts outside of a dedicated area per se, but protecting the customer is worth it.
Now we can ask, "Cowboy don't you have a PM program and 1 terabyte worth of data to predict any and all breakdowns you may encounter? Don't you have a PM cycle and know what are high wear parts? Why don't you keep high wear parts on hand so in the event of a breakdown, there is an immediate swap out to minimize downtime and increase uptime? Why haven't you involved your maintenance department in your findings? What are you doing with your maintenance department to help them understand what a Lean journey is? Why aren't you involving everyone?
Yes these are all valid questions that I know some of you have postulated in your mind as you read this. Here is the kicker, a Lean journey is a marathon not a sprint. When you move an organization forward it doesn't happen all at once. Sure you may hire new people with ideas who proclaim on their LinkedIn page they know "true lean". Heck you may even hire people that have a "belt certification". All this doesn't matter if you don't involve people who do the work.
I still haven't answered the question now have I? Here is the answer short and sweet. The parts were ordered, and we were back up and running in an amount of time that would make the Pony Express cringe. Did we loose anything? Sure we did, yet here is the best part. We as an organization learned. My team learned. We learned that we don't have alignment in all facets of our operation. When problems arise there isn't a direct line of communication to get the help one needs to alleviate or better yet prevent problems before they occur.
Well folks thanks again for stopping by my campfire and remember this, if all your wagons in the wagon train don't know where you are going or where the spare parts are then chaos may ensue when you have a breakdown. I could go on about uniformity and standardization of your wagons to help reduce inventory of parts, but I'll save that for another post.
Thank you for dropping by,
Cowboy
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