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| Stage 1: Basic Development |
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Planned Production helps us get control of the variables involved in production to assure we are prepared to set and meet targets. Most production variances can be traced to a handful of Causes:
- Unavailability of input materials of the right quantity and quality
- Equipment and control systems fail to meet the manufacturing process requirements or are unavailable for the process
- Unclear specifications (process variables, volumes)
- Operators unprepared or unwilling to assure all aspects of process fulfilled
- Lack of coordination within all parties to the production plan
In most instances clarity of pre-planning and specification can alleviate resultant variances. Coordination of purchasing, production planning and scheduling, operator teams, maintenance and engineering are designed into this stage to assure each party knows their responsibilities and expectations. These are documented in procedures that are "best in class", according to the readiness of the organization, and in specific outcomes (quality, timeliness, volumes, etc.). Variances are tracked, reviewed, and changes identified to constantly improve the manufacturing process.
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| Stage 2: Operational Readiness |
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| Proactive Production builds upon the success of Planned Production. Based on our refined measurement and history of events and variances, we now work on these on a Pareto basis. We can do this because we have a functional production process with fewer interruptions and expediting activities. Finding the root cause of high value interruptions and slow-downs increases throughput and takes pressure off production target attainment. These interruptions we may find to be poor communications and scheduling, operator error (commission or omission), equipment failure, control system defects or maladjustments, etc.
Because we know the nature of our issues, we can work on solutions. We improve our operating procedures and mastery where issues exist. We can work on improving and standardizing production process parameters (which often vary by preference between shifts). This is a good time to implement control system improvements, because our mastery of base processes is understood and documented, and we know where our shortfalls are. Now that we know what we should reasonably able to produce on each shift, we can look to optimize production throughput by adjusting equipment and process. Finally, we are able to identify methods to continuously optimize product mix according to market pricing.
By the time that Stage I is fully implemented, we now know what work we have, what our backlog is, and the types of skills we need to enhance in quality and quantity.
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| Stage 3: Organizational Excellence |
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| Organizational Excellence explores resources optimization within production, maintenance and engineering to improve production reliability. In most cases operators can play a far greater role in managing equipment health than they do. By Stage III there is enough control of the work and the equipment that decentralizing some of the maintenance staff is valuable. Teams of operators and craftsmen increase the effectiveness of all the area work and the operators learn to accept and perform some of the work that was performed by the craftsman.
We now find an opportunity to cross-train operators with operators, and operator and craftsman. We can reduce total staffing by substituting from within other areas during peak usage time or high absence time like vacation season.
By Stage III we have made significant progress, and it is now most appropriate to look outside the plant (or mill or mine) for models of excellence, and external benchmarking may have a significant impact.
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| Stage 4: Engineered Reliability |
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| Our intention in Engineered Reliability is to proactively eliminate both failure modes and the need to operate against failure modes. We are actively reducing causes of failure for operators through RCM, visual factory, and behavior safety programs.
Because we are consistently efficient in our operations and our equipment failures are dramatically reduced, eliminating WIP and intermediate product storage becomes feasible. We can review the overall product flows in the plant and identify sources of waste. Overall Plant Optimization becomes our goal, using tools such as:
- lean manufacturing
- 6 sigma
- major debottlenecking
- asset rationalization
- cycle time optimization
- synchronous manufacturing
- supply chain integration
Operators are involved in RCM and MORS (maintainability, operability, reliability and safety) teams identifying possible failure modes, frequencies, causes and consequences. They are part of the teams that take corrective action to eliminate both routine maintenance and equipment failure modes.
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| Stage 5: Operational Excellence |
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| Those companies who choose to distinguish themselves by being outstanding operators recognize that advanced manufacturing practices depend on reliable people, processes and equipment, all working to optimize the value of production in a real time environment.
In this stage, we develop a comprehensive approach to asset management. SAMI's approach, which we call Strategic Asset ManagementTM , integrates the cycle of annual business planning with the conditions necessary for each unit to meet the requirements of the business plan. Manufacturing under TAM has little mystery or guesswork in it. We have developed operating specifications for all systems and components, and developed a zero-based cost strategy for each manufacturing element in the plant. Operations minimizes contingency worked into costs, because of a complete understanding of process and equipment condition, and the specifications required to maintain these conditions. Virtually no event can happen of consequence where we haven't prepared and eliminated risk.
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