Shopfloor-based productivity monitoring - intensive care for machine efficiency

Considering Lean philosophy, eliminating waste and improvement of key figures is part of standard every-day business of each employee. In practice there is a major gap between claim and reality - with trouble shooting and hectic rush often dominating daily work. This case study demonstrates, how Dresden located GFC AntriebsSysteme GmbH introduced an employee based process of continuous improvement: By means of mobile display panels close to the machines, the machine operators record and visualize loss times. Immediate, regular analysis of main down time reasons assure reliable transparency based on hard facts, instead of gut instinct. Within regular on-site shopfloor meetings, collected figures are discussed and improvement measures are determined. A3 project charts and action plans support tracing and control of progress and success of improvement. Shopfloor-based productivity monitoring is no isolated, one-time-only scheme, but rather a structured, systematic approach to install a sustainable, continuous and employee integrated process of improving machine productivity.