Production Machining - Your access to the precision machining industrial buyer.
Issue link: https://pm.epubxp.com/i/105154
Maintain to Improve By Miles Free, Director of Industry Research and Technology, PMPA :: mfree@pmpa.org ontinuous improvement begins with understanding and maintaining the capabilities of what we have. Deciding what to do as a business manager is a highrisk, low-reward activity. We lack certainty about the future and our future needs, we are faced with ambiguity at every turn, and the penalties for a poor decision can be substantial or even career-ending. "Maintain to improve" is an idea to help you maintain the foundation of your business while you continuously improve despite the lack of certainty about the challenges you face. Continuous improvement is incorporated Maintaining just might be into all of our the best approach to the companies' mission uncertainty and volatility or vision statements, we face today. explicitly, or implicitly. Te idea of improvement is cultural, progress is the American dream. So how can shifting gears in our shop to "maintain" instead of "improve" be appropriate or recommended? Our job as managers is to help our companies "intelligently manage risk." In an abundance of risk, uncertainty and volatility, should we be out there thrashing and kicking? Or should we have a plan to marshal our resources, pick our spots, and in the end, say, "do no harm?" C • Maintain to Improve • PMPA Member Solves Precision Management Problems • Come Visit PMPA's Booth • More Tan a "Band-Aid" Approach • Craftsman's Cribsheet: Management • Why Join PMPA? • Listserve Topics • PMPA Calendar Now is the time to maintain what you have. Intelligently managing risk doesn't necessarily mean taking risks. It can also mean minimizing your losses, loss of capability, capacity or talent, for example. How can you improve if you are declining in capabilities or capacity or if you are losing talent? Maintaining just might be the best approach to the uncertainty and volatility we face today. Here are some ideas for maintaining capability: Document what you have. Yes, you know that you have X number of machines and X number of accessories and employees and … and …, but how does your company use that information? How many spindles are turning right now? Tis moment? How many should be? Why aren't they? It is one thing to know intellectually what you have. It is quite another to deploy that knowledge to assure greatest returns. What is your capacity? What is your capability? Are you running jobs requiring that? How is your equipment being utilized? How do you know? Assess and address performance to nameplate and records. Each machine, each employee was brought on board based on a stated capability or capacity. At what percentage of that capacity or capability are these performing now? If you are not using your people and CONTINUES ON PAGE 18 16 PRODUCTION MACHINING :: FEBRUARY 2013