Wrong Part on Siemens

Bach,

I was previously an SMT Supervisor with 5 years battling this issue. The following formula has worked well for me after I figured it out - whoich took a long process of trying out new approaches.

1. Production Supervisors must believe they can achieve both productivity and quality. If they don't, you'll NEVER approach peak performance and you'll spend gazillions trying to idiot proof part loading with varying degrees of less failure. If wrong parts are "part of the business" or if you are asked, "what do you want productivity or quality," look out.

2. Production Supervisors should find out what process, if followed, will allow for near perfect part loading. My company required a load plan check, a part to part check a part log and a scan. We also required that operator stamp the reels they changed. I had rampant wrong part problems - appropximately 1 per month. we made high volume product - approximatley 5000 placements per minute per top/btm cell.

i personally went out to the line and changed parts myself to verify that the process was robust. i learned 2 things. 1. the process was good. 2. if you didn't follow it, you would load a wrong part eventually - guaranteed. I was also the ONLY Supervisor willing to load parts and take the wrong part risk that my employees took on daily. That meant something, imho.

3. There has to be accountability. If there is a wrong part, the person responsible MUST be held accountable in a real way. For best results, the "correction" should include positive reinforcement by the Supervisor. "Your a great operator, but you have to follow procedure 100% of the time instead of 99%. I'm confident that once you make this decision you will be fine. However, if you don't, I GUARANTEE you we will be discussing this issue in the future. Now, here is what you need to do 100% of the time to be successful..." I'm not talking witch hunt, either. My counterpart told me one of my operators loaded a wrong part and left the reel on my desk. You see, my counterpart's "thorough" investigation consisted of checking for the stamp. When i REALLY looked into the matter, I found that the reel contained two reels worth of parts - the inner reel being the one my operator loaded and the one without any parts being used. Since we couldn't find the old reel (because my counterpart didn't investigate thoroughly) we were unable to find the culprit. However, that is when I suggested making the reel to reel check mandatory. My employee would have checked the reel and noticed the part number was different than the one she was loading. We would have then had a much improved chance to find the culprit.

4. It has to be important. If a Supervisor spends 2 mintues "investigating" and blaming the wrong person then what are employees going to think? However, if you do a full investigation and literally show the employee exactly what they did wrong then you have credibility. This is especially true because operators rarely ever try to load wrong parts and they are unaware they did it. One operator argued they didn't load part A (wrong part), but loaded part "B." When I pointed out that part "B" was in "A"s location and that part "B" was almost out of parts, the look of recognition came over the operator.

5. If the process is in order and accountability is handled so that there are consequences without whacking an employees pride or self confiedence, the next step is to realize that the people most likely to load a wrong part are the ones that didn't load this wrong part! I learned to get everyone off the floor and make wrong parts as public as possible. I never mentioned names of guilty parties - though folks knew. I never blamed people, rather, I blamed poor choices that anybody can make. I never let wrong parts be called a mistake. Rather, it was a choice. I had to provide a "strong cup of coffee to wake up" (my term for verbal warning) about 20 machine operators. I NEVER once saw one of those 20 people load another wrong part.

6. Fairness is key. If you nephew (friend, golfing buddy, whatever) loads wrong parts they must face the EXACT same consequences or you have no credibility. Why should your employees take pride in their work when their Supervisors don't? I wrote up my best machine operator and a good friend when they loaded wrong parts.

The results? Unbelievable. I took one shift from 7/8 to first in wrong part loading. My last 6 months we loaded 1 wrong part due to operator error in approximately 75k part loads - this was down from about 8-10. This was done on two shifts. We ran our lines twice as fast as Sony considers a maximum rate for operator effectiveness.

Did productivity suffer? Both shifts also led the billion dollar company in productivity and one shift shift held every production record on all 5 lines when we left for our weekend the vast majority of the time. Our output was 15-20% greater than average - translating into several tens of millions in extra revenue per year. Both of these accomplishments were achieved on the grave shift - 5 PM to 5 AM.

Was morale a problem? Do the Lakers have a morale problem? Do the Rams have a morale problem. Being the BEST is a great morale boost. It was a great time. I would put that shift up against any group in the world - for both quality and productivity. We produced at a lower cost than Mexico as a company. The cost of our shift was much less than the average cost of the other shifts because we had 15-20% more production and we had the best quality by far.

We had a great time. PEOPLE are part of the equation and if you respect them enough to give them a good process, motivate them to achieve their potential and develop new skills, and set an excellent leadership example and show enthusiasm for work then they will achieve amazing results.

If not, you will always have problems. While I took two shifts from second to last to first in quality, the shift in last place stayed that way - for two years. Sure, their productivity was good - but not better than ours! "Wrong parts is part of the business" rolled off his lips more than once and he was never held accountable. In fact, he was either related to or a good friend of a big boss and got promoted. You can have it all. You have to visualize it, believe it, try better approaches and execute fairly until you get the results you want. You have to get better week, month by month. Eventually, you'll get there... if you want it.

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