Process improvement
Five steps: baseline the floor from video, trace lost time to its root cause, propose ranked changes, quantify each one, and track adoption and impact as the measures keep updating.
Step 1 of 5
Baseline
Video from the floor, joined to existing plant data such as MES and ERP records, is converted into measures for each station.
Time use by station
Share of shift, ten shifts pooled
- Working on the product
- Setup and handling
- Waiting
- Walking
- Breaks, or nobody there
| Station | Working on the product | Setup and handling | Waiting | Walking | Breaks, or nobody there |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fit-up Station A | 39% | 29% | 13% | 6% | 13% |
| Weld Booth 3 | 18% | 38% | 17% | 11% | 16% |
| Weld Booth 5 | 26% | 37% | 14% | 9% | 14% |
| SAW long seam | 31% | 36% | 12% | 6% | 15% |
Shift profile
Share of covered stations with hands-on work under way, by half hour
| Time | Hands-on |
|---|---|
| 06:30 | 31% |
| 07:00 | 58% |
| 07:30 | 71% |
| 08:00 | 74% |
| 08:30 | 72% |
| 09:00 | 38% |
| 09:30 | 61% |
| 10:00 | 73% |
| 10:30 | 75% |
| 11:00 | 69% |
| 11:30 | 22% |
| 12:00 | 49% |
| 12:30 | 68% |
| 13:00 | 70% |
| 13:30 | 41% |
| 14:00 | 57% |
| 14:30 | 29% |
- Time use
- The share of the shift spent on value-added work (the work that changes the part), on support such as setup and handling, and on waiting or walking.
- Utilization
- The share of the shift in which a station has both work and a person at it.
- Cycle time
- How long one unit spends at a station, and how much that varies.
- Throughput
- Units finished per day, against plan.
- Rework
- Time spent redoing work already done.
- Shift profile
- How activity rises and falls across the day, including the breaks.
Step 2 of 5
Root cause
Lost time is traced to what caused it.
Idle by cause
Fit-up Station A, minutes per shift
Load by station
Scheduled hours as a share of available hours. Under each bar, the units queued in front of that station.
Bottleneck: Fit-up. It is loaded above its available hours and has the deepest queue.
- Idle by cause
- Waiting time, split by what was being waited for: parts, the crane, an inspector, an answer.
- Queues and work in process
- Where units accumulate, and for how long.
- The bottleneck
- The one station that limits the output of the whole line.
- Method differences
- Where the same job is done differently at different stations, and what the faster method consists of.
Step 3 of 5
Propose changes
A ranked list. Each item states the change, the station, the expected value, and the video evidence. First-round changes are usually inexpensive: staging, sequencing, scheduling an inspection earlier, relocating a tool crib.
Ranked changes
Estimated value in canisters per week
- 1+0.4 / week
Stage kits and consumables with one material handler
Fit-up, weld booths
Cam 1 · 07:12Cam 3 · 09:41 - 2+0.3 / week
Book the hold-point inspector when fit-up starts, not when welding ends
Fit-up
Cam 1 · 10:26 - 3+0.2 / week
Check the fit-up gap before the assembly leaves the station
Fit-up
Cam 1 · 13:05Cam 4 · 13:48 - 4+0.2 / week
Adopt the best-observed circ seam sequence at all four booths
Weld booths
Cam 3 · 08:15Cam 4 · 08:22 - 5+0.1 / week
Stage the first job of the shift the afternoon before
All stations
Cam 2 · 06:34
Step 4 of 5
Quantify
A working model of the plant, built from the baseline: stations, capacities, rework loops, crew and cost. Changing an assumption shows the effect on units per day, cost per unit and the location of the bottleneck. Capital requests are tested in the same model.
Throughput model
Baseline
Load: scheduled hours as a share of available hours.
- Throughput
- 3.3canisters per weekMeasured
- Constraint
- Fit-uplimits the whole lineMeasured
- Cost per unit
- $21,400labor and overheadMeasured
Throughput model
With changes 1 to 5
Load: scheduled hours as a share of available hours.
- Throughput
- 4.5canisters per week+36% against baseline
- Constraint
- NDElimits the whole lineMoves from Fit-up
- Cost per unit
- $17,900labor and overhead-16% against baseline
Step 5 of 5
Track
The same measures as the baseline, updated continually, so that results before and after a change are comparable. New changes keep being suggested, and each one is tracked from adoption to its effect on the numbers.
Week-over-week time study
Fit-up Station A, share of shift by week
- Working on the product
- Setup and handling
- Waiting
- Walking
- Breaks, or nobody there
- Change made after week 4
- Material handler starts staging kits
- Value-added work
- 39% to 47%
- Waiting and walking
- 19% to 10%
| Week | Working on the product | Setup and handling | Waiting | Walking | Breaks, or nobody there |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 39% | 29% | 13% | 6% | 13% |
| Week 2 | 38% | 30% | 13% | 6% | 13% |
| Week 3 | 40% | 29% | 12% | 6% | 13% |
| Week 4 | 39% | 29% | 13% | 6% | 13% |
| Week 5 | 43% | 30% | 10% | 4% | 13% |
| Week 6 | 45% | 30% | 9% | 3% | 13% |
| Week 7 | 46% | 30% | 8% | 3% | 13% |
| Week 8 | 47% | 30% | 7% | 3% | 13% |
Other capabilities
Process documentation
A value stream map of how a unit moves through the plant, and illustrated SOPs for the work at each station. Both are produced from the same video.
Read morePlant layout simulation
A 3D model of the floor, used to compare layout options and their expected throughput before equipment is moved.
Read moreSafety monitoring
The same video is reviewed for unsafe conditions. Observations are reported by area and shift, with the clip behind each one.
Read more