Operational Excellence: Journey to Creating Sustainable Value

CHAPTER 13PROCESS RELIABILITY TECHNIQUES HELP MAKE MORE MONEY

PAUL BARRINGER

Barringer & Associates, Inc.

This chapter uses production data of a finished product as a proxy for revenue to fund the manufacturing process and produce profit for the enterprise. Improving production processes so they consistently produce a uniformly high output makes for a predictable money machine, which functions to the advantage of investors and employees. Methods are described for how to use daily production data to find areas for eliminating problems and establish benchmarks for improvements using an understandable graphical method, with a statistical basis, for identifying and quantifying problems.

INTRODUCTION

Well-known positions exist in every factory:

1. Production “knows” most of their severe problems have maintenance roots to their issues.
2. Maintenance “knows” most of their severe problems have production roots to their issues.
3. Management “knows” from Covey's 7 Habits: “The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” Where we should work for opportunity improvements is significantly different from where we want to work.

Settling these adversarial issues requires quantification, in money terms, for a “To Do List” of 10 or so things that makes sense to the warring parties. Then, working on these costly items first requires good ideas for correcting the problems in conjunction with the will to solve the money issues. Keep in mind the following lost ...