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Shop floor productivity issues

3/1/19       
Bash Member

In the last month I have had a very close look at shop productivity and generally my 7 man shop is performing below industry level..or are they? What do you all expect from your crew? How many hours do you allow to assemble a cabinet box (already cut on cnc), edge the parts from the cnc for that cabinet box? hinge and mount door? what about solid wood machining? I have always looked at 2 min/ft per operation (i.e. jointing, thickness plane, straight line ripping, shaping, etc.). I am becoming very frustrated with our crew as of late.

3/1/19       #2: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Larry

Maybe some training is in order. Do you need to up-grade your methods, equipment? 2 min. /ft. seems extremely long for solid wood. Everyone's methods will depend on how they are equipped. Our solid wood process: buy hit or miss planed (allows you to see what you've got and also lets the suppliers machines eat most of the dirt) random width. The office provides a cut list. Machining: Straight line rip, put through molder.

Assemble a cabinet box: all parts handled on a conveyor system. Parts are sorted by next operation as they come off the bander. All case parts are moved to the bore & insert machine for doweling. Then are stacked on the conveyor with all the parts per case together. At the assembly bench they get their hardware installed, then glue is injected into the dowel holes. The case is loosely knocked together and slid into the case clamp (Gannomat Concept Primus 90). If there is a case already in the clamp it is pushed through to the other side, checked for any stray glue and moved to final assembly where it gets doors and drawers. The timer on the clamp is set for 3 min. Then the clamp opens. That's less than the time it takes to get the next case ready. Drawers are also doweled but assembled & clamped at a Doucet clamp.
We don't make kitchens, just commercial work but a box is a box. There are faster methods but at $2+ million sales we haven't been able to justify the cost.

3/1/19       #3: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Bash Member

Our cabinet box assembly is mortise and tenon off the CNC, with full 3/4" backs. all screwed/glued assembly.

we are a full custom shop, that does mostly commercial with some higher end residential.

our 2 min / ft is from rough to finished stock, as one operation, second operation (i.e. shaper / moulder) is another 2 min/ft.

then there is the install times...those are really out to lunch!

3/1/19       #4: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Larry

We no longer install. Too difficult to control costs. Much of our work is out of state.

3/2/19       #5: Shop floor productivity issues ...
B Member

Get your hands dirty, work down in production and figure out where time is being wasted.

Whenever I begin to get frustrated with our work flow, this has helped me. For one thing, it reminds me how difficult some of the tasks are, but also opens my eyes to better solutions.

3/2/19       #6: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Larry

Someone a long time ago posted this or something similar. I've used it. It can be pretty eye opening. It can be done by just walking the plant floor. No stopping required. The form didn't reproduce well here but just make it into a grid. With the items shown across the top and employee names down the side.
Just put a check mark opposite the employee name in the appropreate column.

Work Sampling Study
Procedure: Walk thought the plant Looking at the floor, look up and observe what is happening at that instant at that work station, record it (check mark). Do this over a 20-sample exercise in 2 or 3 days. Compile the % of time each employee is engaged in each activity. Very revealing and a good tool to use for evaluations especially if it’s done over several months.

Operator, Working, Idle, Missing, Talking, Other, Notes

3/2/19       #7: Shop floor productivity issues ...
rich c.

I'd look at the factory before the employees. All upgraded/modern equipment they need to perform at the best. Smooth work flow or are parts and carts stacking up? Are employees looking for the right cart and all parts delivered to the work station in order? Look for any wasted motion. Then ask the employees for improvements needed. By a bunch of pizza for the help. Don't you mean how many minutes for a cabinet box instead of hours? If you are seeing hours, you'll need to find a lot of improvements!

3/3/19       #8: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Pat Gilbert

Shouldn't the workers know how much of they are supposed to produce?

One way or another a target has to be placed.

E.G. a waitress has a goal of getting tips her target is to deliver food fast and correctly in an amiable manner.

The tacit goal of hourly wages is to be there for a certain amount of time often with no connection to how much is produced.

For bonus points go really slow and get more compensation...

Setting individual targets is very tedious.

Having an overall target is useful which is often set by the customer we need this job done by... Or we need to produce this many dollars/units per month to break even, everything above that number goes to the owner.

Not that bonusing works out all that well and usually causes more problems than benefits.

But some sort of a target is imperative

3/3/19       #9: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Rob Young Member

Website: nutekmachinery.com

Bash- So far, the replies have focused on two primary areas you need to consider. Employee work ethic and machine efficiency. There are other points to consider but work ethic and machinery efficiency are the big two. You should also consider the environment and work flow through out your plant to determine where the bottle necks are.

1. Employee work ethic. Do you have employees that are motivated and work hard? Is it a question of motivation and work ethic or is it due to lack of organization in the shop? Are they spending time looking for tools or materials that aren’t always in the same location or do they stop and talk with their buddy? Is the shop layout geared towards proper work flow? You can’t control an employee’s work ethic, but you can control the environment they have to work in. Make certain your shop is organized and there is a logical flow to the process.

2. Machinery efficiency. I’ve repaired machinery for 37 years now and have been easing into the sales side of the business the past several years. If you find your employees are constantly trying to adjust and tinker with an edgebander that is worn out or cutting on a CNC at half the feed rate your competitor is cutting at then you would improve efficiency by providing your employees with newer efficient machines. Shop owners aren’t always aware of technology that can increase their efficiency and profit. Here’s an example of a solution I helped one of my customers find. I sold and installed a fully automatic Giben by Anderson G4 512 for him back in December 2018 (link to the installed machine at the bottom of post). One operator was able to process 27 panels on both the CNC and the drill and dowel machine in less than an hour and a half! The fully automatic mode allowed the operator to load a job folder with multiple programs, hit cycle start one time, place bar codes on the finished parts at the end of the off-load table, scan the parts and feed the machined and labeled parts into the drill and dowel machine. Depending on your construction method the parts could run through an edgebander or any other machine that is placed at the end of the off-feed belt.

Start with the obvious, look closely at the work flow through your plant. If employees are moving parts from one end of the floor to the other end, then back again place those processes closer together if possible. If you’re interested in looking at machinery solutions, I’m more than happy to talk with you about that. I’ve found I really enjoy that side of the business. If you find it’s an employee work ethic issue, hopefully it isn’t, then you’ll need to address this with them and give them an opportunity to perform to reasonable expectations. It’s true what Pat stated, sometime employees just don’t know what’s expected of them.

https://www.facebook.com/NuTekMachinery/photos/a.258499475060400/258499455060402/?type=3&theater

3/3/19       #10: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Bash Member

Thanks guys, definitely some great points and suggestions to begin the process of getting this sorted out. There I definitely some worker ethic issues to work on as there tends to be a lot of time spent at the bench discussing the approach or reviewing the shop dwg's. This seems to be a challenge of some of our guys, in that they have difficulty visualizing the end product. I also know there is a bit of communication problem between the shop foreman and the bench workers and some of the finer details are being left out on the tasks required. I am already working on improving this.

Right now our work flow is a follows for cabinet boxes / sheet goods: shop dwg's and Cnc fabrication dwg's produced by our tech and given to our Cnc operator who cuts the job batch(Es), as each sheet is cut and the offloaded pushes the parts off onto the table they are all tagged and stacked on carts for edge banding. They are put through the edge bander and again put on carts and taken to the benches for fabrication (sometimes the Cnc operator edge bands but most times it is the guy taking the job for fabrication). Boxes are assembled (mortise/tenon, screwed). If MCP boxes and doors the doors are also cut on the Cnc and taken to the Blum machine for drilling and mounting hinges. If laminates we apply laminates to one side of MCP sheets before Cnc fir the appropriate parts and then apply the additional laminate faces on doors as example during assembly.

Currently it takes better than an hour and a half to edge a box, assemble, drill and hang doors and Friday I timed a guy drilling doors and it takes 2-1/2 mins per door from the time it is picked off the cart to the time the hinged door is stacked on another cart. So the time is in the edge banding and assembly.

We had issues where guys would tinker with the edge bander setting and it would leave and edge that had to be filed, I nipped this quickly and no man other than the designated guy who maintains the edge bander is permitted to make any adjustments, eliminating the time spent on filing edges.

I have had the coffee and donut discussions asking what the bottlenecks are but there is always pushback indicating not enough time is given, yet we know what our pricing has to be for the local market and we all buy the same materials and we have competing wages so the difference is in the productivity/efficiency.

Next week I am posting a productivity board in the lunchroom listing all the individual jobs, the allotted hours, and each week I will post the hours spent.

The straw that broke the camels back so to speak is a job that is just cling up where we had to clad the stringers and posts of a steel pan stair with wood (primed only, painted on site by others), treads and risers were not included. Fabricate a cap rail (stained/ pre-finished) to cover the steel flat bar between posts with a fillet underneath, and handrail both sides. It is a two flight stair turning 90 degrees with one intermediate landing. I started with two guys and had to put two more on it to meet our deadlines. They approached 700 man hours to clad an existing stair. Not too long ago I outsourced a so,I'd mahogany stair with two intermediate landings, which required stringers, treads, and risers c/w turned balusters and bastrades, easing so, etc. And the cost of that stair, all materials, supplied and install was just over the labour cost of this most recent stair, suffice to say there was no profit retained on this one!

I have a lot of soul searching and fixing to be done and will be back looking for some feedback I am sure. I find this to be a wonderful forum for hearing about similar experiences and suggestions/critics of process.

Thanks!

3/3/19       #11: Shop floor productivity issues ...
rich c.

I'm not convinced you have the production equipment to meet your time expectations. I would do some private time studies rather than a public productivity board. If you don't have morale problems now, you probably will after that. No one likes public shaming.

3/4/19       #12: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Puzzleman Member

Most of the responses have to do with LEAN in the operation. Look at some books & videos concerning LEAN production as they will help give clues to how to look for waste.

I was in the same boat as you that I just knew it was taking too long to move product out. Couldn't get people to move quick enough to be profitable. Then I discovered LEAN being talked about on this forum. What an eye opening ride it was. Changed a lot of the processes and took advantage of some of the government programs that were promoting manufacturing in our state. All of this helped me to see the little things that were blocking my path. Then we lowered the batch size and more rocks appeared. Figured out how to reduce them to a manageable size. Then we lowered the run size still further. Now we run into problems but we have been learning how to solve them together.

At our morning meeting everyday, one of our topics is discovering what slowed someone down yesterday. Then as a group we discuss potential solutions. Then we try them out to see if they work, if they don't we try something else or modify what we did. It is an ongoing process that will never stop. Our meeting last about 10 - 20 minutes. If it is going longer than that, it continues till the next day. Also at our meeting the daily goal for the shop is discussed as well as individual goals and how they fulfill the shop goal.

One of the things I would look at right off the top of my head, is how the material is being stacked on the cart. Is it just piled on top of each other or is it being organized by cabinet? If organized by cabinet, are they stacked horizontally on top of each other or could it me stood on edge vertically grouped together? Might have to modify the carts but it might be easier for someone to find all of the parts for the particular cabinet.

Concerning the stair tread issue. Did everyone working on the project know the goal of time allotted? Is there a possibility that the job was underbid?

Sorry for the length but lots of questions come to mind about this topic.

3/4/19       #13: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Prasad Velaga

Website: http://optisol.biz

I may adopt the following steps.

Identify major operations involved in each job / project.
Find meaningful estimates of operation durations and resource requirements of operations
Generate a meaningful schedule of workload without overloading resources
Compare the actual progress on shop floor with the scheduled progress on a regular basis like once or twice a day.
If actual progress falls behind, investigate and find the causes of deviation and mitigate those causes which could be due to issues related to machines, workers, material, rework/rejection, etc.
Identify bottlenecks in production and add capacity appropriately to improve overall shop productivity.

A good production schedule should give you a target and lead your shop towards the target.

3/5/19       #14: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Derrek

Go spend a day in the shop just watching. That will tell you a lot. I Also have security cameras in hat I review every now and then. That idle conversation between 2 employees can kill productivity. Put a screw in look up and talk for a second put another screw in repeat can take hours of productivity away.
The actual value added time is normally very small compared to the waste in the process. Drilling doors and installing them has 3 values added point, when the hinge bit is touching the wood, when the hinge is placed in door and when door is snapped on the cabinet. Everything else is non value added motion. Look at all of that stuff first.

3/5/19       #15: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Bash

Again folks, thanks for the feedback. we had a coffee and donut meeting this a.m. and there were some good points thrown out. I took the approach of team effort and not looking to point fingers but to solve problems, out of that came discussions of productivity and time wasted, every man admitted to probably discussing too much at the bench, but then there were also good points to optimize workflow. we will start implanting the easy ones first and build on the rest. I'll keep you posted in a months time to see where we are.

3/26/19       #16: Shop floor productivity issues ...
Jay Member

Bash,
Lot of things I see in your post, but some things to consider:
What are your guys discussing at the bench? Are they questions that should be answered already on the drawings? You are running cnc so I presume you have a capable cad program that can accurately show things in 2-d & 3-d with notes as needed for any clarification? If there are questions on the shop floor then IMO there are things that did not get done right in the design & engineering offices.

What is your cnc operator doing while the machine is cutting? Our CNC and EB are closely linked, and one operator does both machines and then parts get sorted onto carts by cabinet for the assembly area... If your cnc operator is needed at the machine to baby-sit it while running, time for a better machine or better procedures or programming perhaps?

You have been given a ton of good thoughts on this thread, but realize most constraints, at the core are policy constraints. Whether written, or implied. Ie, in a small shop it is usually the owner (me, you) that is the constraint and is creating (or allowing) the problem(s). The good news in that is, it is in our power to correct them!

Best to you!

 

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