Empower Your Plant with Digital Tools
Empowering plant floor employees shouldn’t have to be expressed as an important matter. Millions of dollars are invested into providing support, services, training, and many other resources for the production floor environment every year to help improve work conditions and production results; but, what if we empowered employees in a more digital way? What if we gave them more responsibility (the good kind)? What if we could improve their accuracy? And what if we could see time-savings skyrocket? In this short blog, we will cover high-level strategies to empower your plant with digital tools and create an effective culture in doing so.
With the type of tools referenced, there are major areas of improvement in floor operations to collect, distribute, manage, and interpret operations data. First, you’ve got to be able to Identify the Vital Signs. Vital signs are typically high priority data points within a given department of operations. So, vital signs will look different in Quality and Safety than they do in Shipping or something like Line Production. You can identify vital signs by using consultants, internal reviews/ audits, or by evaluating what metrics most effectively impact your bottom line. You may already be aware of what your vital signs are. If you are not, please click here to redirect you for a KPI Matrix and see what metrics are most commonly tracked for Operational Excellence in your market. Once you have this, you are ready to shift some responsibility on our favorite scapegoat, the technology.
Responsibility can now be our focus to make sure that we are implementing the right digital tools in the correct areas of business. Evaluating key roles that participate directly in the data collection, management, and distribution of these “Vital” areas of operations will prove helpful when assigning operational tasks. How is data collected, how is data distributed upward, and how is data utilized in these roles? Also, what type of alerts, calculations, and criteria need to be followed for areas like compliance? All of these types of bottom-up questions will allow you to create specific roles to become responsible for the “machine” that empowers your men and women on the plant floor. In many cases, blame is usually shifted from the employee onto the system or software applications. With timestamps, user accounts, custom ranges, picture submissions, electronic signatures, and more, you can find ease in receiving data points from anywhere throughout the plant or company with BluWave Forms. It is important to find a system that will keep your employees accountable and your results improving.
Once a good digital tool or tools is identified, you then need to be sure that this system or software will be able to fit your current culture, as well as the operation that you’re growing into. Adaptability really matters when you are dealing with a group of diverse employees that are already most-likely comfortable with your current systems. Not only do you have to find a system that is beneficial for both employees and management, you have to find a software that will be easily adaptable to both parties. What does an adaptable system look like? Good question. A system that would be easily adaptable for a diverse group could include, but not limited to: multi-lingual, easy navigation, automated tasks, customizable platforms, create unique data rules, make changes after entry (within compliance), and view immediate responsibilities, just to name a few. Adaptability will largely rely on your current culture and types of changes that have been previously implemented with your organization.
Sustainability of Empowerment: creating a culture of continuously identifying and executing on opportunities enabled by smart systems, new insights, and other operational tools.
After switching to a new platform and environment for employees to become more engaged, empowerment must be sustained and continuously improve over time. As we look at your plans for operational excellence and continuous improvement, what is on the list after digital systems? This may include process improvement consultative services or other resources to better the operational efficiency. An important factor to remember is that once tools are established and momentum gained, to continue to celebrate successes and reinforce digital and continuous improvement strategies. You must now sustain the innovation and the culture that you have changed for the better and be sure to offer new ways to empower plant floor employees with hardware, software, consulting, and process improvements. To learn more about sustaining continuous improvement strategies, click here for a short contact form.