Lean RFS (Repetitive Flexible Supply)

103

Chapter 6

The Lean/RfS Center Pieces

Most people are familiar with Lean tools like SMED, 5S, VSM, TPM, and others.

(See Glossary at end of book.) It is these tools that many companies focus on in

their Lean initiatives. These equate to the center pieces of the Lean/RfS jigsaw

puzzle. They are important if we are to understand the whole picture, but they

are not a critical part of achieving the logic change of batch to flow. Indeed,

many organizations successfully use these techniques while still using batch logic

in their planning systems. However, it does mean that they have the issue of

a different plan each week, which then usually changes, and this makes sus-

tainable improvements difficult to achieve. But that does not mean that these

tools shouldn’t be used. They are all good techniques aimed at helping improve

performance, which for many people means increasing line efficiency. This is

where Lean/RfS differs from what many people would consider the right thing to

focuson: line efficiencies. With Lean/RfS there are two key points of focus:

◾ Conformance to plan, not efficiencies

◾ People, not machines

The Lean/RfS center pieces are specifically aimed at ensuring that the plan

is met. This is paramount. Second to this is identifying and then resolving the

issues that frustrate people, especially operators. These are the issues that make

their working lives harder than they need to be. Of course, the overall objective

is to increase performance, and that means line efficiencies. However, that should

not be the prime focus for people looking to improve performance, as efficiency

is an output KPI affected positively by Lean/RfS.

104  ◾  Lean RFS (Repetitive Flexible Supply): Putting the Pieces Together

Why Is Conformance to Plan the Prime Focus?

Firstly, whenever data has been collected on where the most requests

for plan-changing come from, it is always from production itself.

Ifsomething goes wrong with not enough being made, or if all goes

well and too much is made, it’s back to the planner to sort it out, and

the plan is changed. It is a constant source of variability. Production

should be focused on making the plan—not too little, not too much.

Secondly, precisely because it’s easy to change the plan to compen-

sate when things don’t go to plan, there is little or no root-cause iden-

tification and resolution of what went wrong to attempt to stop it from

happening again. There is a lot of symptom-solving going on—other-

wise known as firefighting.

The third reason is around inventory and customer service. If one

wants to get inventory levels down, to have JIT deliveries, and still have

high customer service, one needs frequent reliable manufacturing. Make

the plan—every time. The production schedule should not be seen as a

guideline on what gets made; it should be exactly what is required.

Consider the railway systems. In the UK, the train service is seen as

unreliable and expensive, with frequently late or cancelled trains. The

high cost of fares is a direct factor caused by relatively low customer

numbers, precisely because it has poor customer service. Contrast this

with rail networks in Switzerland or Japan. They have extremely high

punctuality rates, fares are considered a good value, and trains are

clean and enjoy high passenger numbers. And, whenever a train is late,

operatives carry out investigations into the reasons why. So many com-

panies seem to be more like the UK rail network when they should be

striving to emulate those in Switzerland and Japan—and it can be done.

Rockbusting

The term rockbusting originated at Kimberly-Clark. As part of implementing a

green-stream fixed cycle, a team was looking at ways to ensure the green-stream

plan was achieved—the focus being make the plan. Someone made reference to

an old Lean analogy of the river of rocks, with inventory representing the water

covering the rocks. The original analogy suggested dropping the level of inven-

tory to expose the rocks and then tackle those problems first. Following this,

the inventory could be dropped again to expose the next rock, and so on until

all the rocks were broken. The team at KC saw rocks as disrupters of the green

stream that were stopping it from flowing smoothly. Rockbusting consisted of

actions to get rid of these disruptive factors, with the logo and slogan borrowed

from the film Ghostbusters (see Figure6.1). The term just stuck.