Author Archives: Dr. Ron

About Dr. Ron

Materials expert Dr. Ron Lasky is a professor of engineering and senior lecturer at Dartmouth, and senior technologist at Indium Corp. He has a Ph.D. in materials science from Cornell University, and is a prolific author and lecturer, having published more than 40 papers. He received the SMTA Founders Award in 2003.

Thoughts on Lean

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Six Sigma has been with us for about 25 years and while embraced by many is not without controversy.  Lean, however, has few critics.

The essence of Lean is:

Lean manufacturing or lean production, often known simply as “Lean,” is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, “value” is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. Basically, lean is centered around creating more value with less work.”

I just returned from IPC’s first Lean Sigma Conference.  It was my privilege to be one of the folks who helped IPC’s Dave Torp in organizing this event.  I attended all the workshops and sessions at the conference.  To say that it was inspirational was an understatement.  The presenters mostly were people who have implemented Lean with considerable success.  They were passionate about its success and promise.  Many of the presenters were from companies that have not only weathered the economic strong, but are prospering.  One company has doubled in size in the past 18 months — to 400 or so — at the expense of a competitor that went out of business because they could not compete with a Lean company.

An interesting aspect of Lean is that almost all the companies practicing it, require their suppliers to be lean organizations, too.  The reason: Lean works.

I see Lean as a significant trend, embraced by management and workers alike.  If you are not Lean now, you must be, and soon!

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

An Interview with Patty

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Folks,

While at SMTAI a few weeks ago, I ran into Patty. She agreed to sit down for an interview. Here it is.

Dr. Ron (DR): Patty, it’s great to see you here at SMTAI. Congratulations on your promotion and many accomplishments over the past year.

Patty: Thanks. BTW, I really enjoyed your talk, “SMT: The Next Twenty-Five Years.” Was there really a song, when the transistor radio came out, called “Transistor Sister?”

DR: Absolutely! “Transistor Sister” was a part of my youth. It was sung by Freddy Cannon in 1961.

Patty, a number of folks wrote in saying that they liked my blog postings about you, but they felt that the stories couldn’t possibly be true in a modern electronic assembly company.  Can you enlighten us?

Patty: Yes, I saw those comments. All the blog postings have been real case studies; if anything, they are understated. The Professor claims that 10 to 15 years ago, when profit margins were higher and OEMs did much of their own assembly, assembly optimization was viewed as a science and assembly was orchestrated more like a ballet. Process discipline existed. As assembly left the OEMs and profit margins decreased, there was little money for assembly process optimization analysis. Electronic assembly entered the era of “hockey” management. Much of assembly became disorganized and subject to “the tyranny of the urgent.”

DR: So I gather your point would be that right when we need process science the most, we aren’t investing in it?

Patty: Process science would be nice, but I’m convinced if management just had a sense of urgency about line uptime and productivity it would make a world of difference.

DR: “Hockey Management?” “Tyranny of the Urgent?”

Patty: “Hockey Management” is a term developed by Phil Crosby in his book, Quality is Free. He tells us that electronics assembly should be orchestrated like a ballet. Everything is planned ahead, we know where the stencil is for the next job, the parts are on the feeder racks or at least the reels are ready, etc. This is “Ballet Management” (everything organized.) An example of Hockey Management would be a case where the team has lined up the next job, all set up is complete … management calls and tells the team to run another job … 6 hours is lost. In an assembly line, that is a loss of at least $15,000-$75,000 of product. Profit lost, never to be found again.

DR: “Tyranny of the Urgent?”

Patty: You are so busy doing what is urgent (i.e., switching the job that lost 6 production hours) that you never do what is important (i.e., setting up a system that minimizes such job switching.) By the way, as you can imagine, I learned all of this stuff from The Professor.

DR: He’s an interesting guy. I know him a little, I’ve seen him a few times when I visited Ivy University. Give us your perspective.

Patty: In addition to being super smart, he is very kind. But, I have to admit that traveling with him is a little stressful.

DR: How so?

Patty: Well, in addition to being smart, he is strongly convinced that it is important to be able to perform calculations in your head. He claims that if Fred [see “Saving a House, Losing a Mansion”], could do this and practiced it, he would have known instinctively that the solder paste that “Saved a House” was “Losing a Mansion.” His first thought would have been to estimate what the minutes of downtime, caused by the cheaper paste, cost.

DR: I’m still not sure I understand why traveling with The Professor stressful?

Patty: Oh yeah, I forgot. He wants to make sure I am an “ace” at doing math in my head. He is always giving me problems to calculate when we travel. It can be a little stressful when he is disappointed when I don’t know something or can’t perform the calculation.

DR: Can you give us an example?

Patty: On our last trip he asked me to calculate the amount of times the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia would fill Cayuga Lake. He gave me the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia as about 300 billion barrels and the dimensions of Cayuga Lake as approximately 50 miles long, 2 miles wide and 200 feet deep. You should have seen the look in his eyes when I told him that I didn’t know that there were 40 gallons in a barrel and one cubic foot of water weighs 62.4 pounds. Knowing this and the fact that a gallon of water is 8 lbs., you can calculate that a cubic foot is about 8 gallons, hence a barrel is about 5 cubic feet. He thinks that everyone knows things like this that; of course, they don’t really know.  How many square feet per acre, how many acres in a square mile, yada, yada, yada? But he means well.

DR: Well we should probably go back to the conference. Can you close by giving us a summary of the key things to do to improve productivity?

Patty: Sure, in order of importance:

1.       Measure line uptime

a.       Set continuous improvement goals for line uptime

b.      Have a plan to reduce downtime, especially for changeovers and line assists

2.       Use the best-performing materials (solder paste, underfill, flux, prefroms, etc.) and supplies (stencils, squeegees, etc.).

a.       Remember the lessons in “Saving a House, Losing a Mansion), the best performing materials and supplies are always the cheapest.

3.       Have a “Line Down Management Escalation Plan.”

a.       Senior management should be alerted if the line is down for an unplanned reason for more than 30 minutes.

4.       Ensure that your lines are time balanced.

There are a few more points we can discuss at another time, but these are likely the most important. Oh, and all of Saudi Arabia’s proven oil reserves would fill Cayuga Lake 2 to 3 times!

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

Saving a House, Losing a Mansion

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Patty and The Professor agreed to work with two of the local process engineers to develop a plan of attack to try and find the lost productivity.

Patty spoke first. “It’s tempting to look just at the new solder paste, but this approach wouldn’t be thorough.”

The Professor and the two process engineers, Joe and Ann, agreed. So they went ahead and developed a thorough productivity assessment plan, including uptime and line balancing measurements and evaluating changeover and assist times. Ann pointed out that one of the five lines was still using the old paste. All agreed that this situation was good news as they would have a new paste to old paste comparison. It was already lunch time and everyone was hungry, so off they went to a local Outback. While riding in the car, Patty’s cellphone rang. It was Rob.

“Hey Patty,” Rob cheerfully started. “Guess what I shot last night at the Golf Club of New England — a four under par 68! The pro told me it was the best round this year at the course from the back tees.”

“Rob, that’s great!” Patty cheerfully responded. Truth be told, she was really happy for Rob. He was the No. 2 golfer on the men’s team at Tech a few years ago as a senior. She was a junior then and was the best women golfer in Tech’s history. The few times they played then, she beat him. Ever since her dinner date, after their success at AJAX, they had been a couple. At the time she had been thinking of breaking up with Jason and Rob’s invite to dinner was all the catalyst that she needed. In the past year or so, Jason would just watch sports on TV and drink beer. He didn’t have a fitness program or a real plan for his life. Rob was so much different. He worked out, mostly to improve his golf game and he was getting a master’s degree part time.

After they started dating, Rob and Patty played golf together with some other guy friends from Tech. She usually shot the low score, but the three other guys were longer off the tee than she was. Her superior iron play and short game made the difference.

At lunch this working foursome talked about the audit they were about to perform.

“There is one comical thing we should tell you before we start,” Joe said with a twinkle in his eye. “I’ts about the ‘Saving a House Program.’ ”

At that, Ann started laughing and inadvertently started choking on her “sweet tea.” Patty was about to perform the Heimlich maneuver when Ann revived.

With Ann still red in the face and laughing, The Professor requested, “Yes, please tell us.”

Joe chimed in, “So that Ann doesn’t choke to death, let me take a stab at it. The new cheaper solder paste has not been very popular and has generated many complaints. The new COO, Fred, decided he had to do something. He estimated that the new paste saves $100,000 a year on all five lines; that’s about what a modest house costs locally. So he tells all of the complainers that using the new paste saves enough money in a year to buy a new house. He even found a house for sale on the internet for $100,000 and had posters of it made with the saying: ‘Saving Enough for a House.’ It worked; people stopped complaining.”

“Joe, can you tell us what some of the complaints were about the solder paste?” asked The Professor.

“Well, for one thing, it is stiff coming out of the tubes or jars, we have to knead it or it won’t print,” Joe responded.

“Hmm,” both Patty and The Professor mused.

“Also, if we stop a line for a few minutes the paste stiffens up and we have to perform some dummy prints to kneed it,” chimed in Ann. “Sometimes even after this, the first print has to be discarded due to poor hole fill. It wastes time and solder paste.”

“Don’t forget the smell,” Joe teased.

At that, Ann just about spit up her sweet tea.

“The new paste literally stinks,” Joe added. “Fortunately, the vendor added some perfume recently.”

“What about reliability of the finished product?” The Professor asked evenly.

“That’s what is surprising. It’s as good as the old paste.” Ann replied. “We performed some tests and asked around, the reliability is very good.”

“A pleasant surprise indeed,” The Professor said.

The little group finished lunch and headed back to get to work on the audit. Ann and Patty and Joe and The Professor formed teams and went off to the factory. They performed detailed analysis of changeover times, assist times, line balancing, uptime, etc., on the four lines using the new solder paste and the one line using the old solder paste.

As Patty approached one of the lines she saw a cheerful looking gent about 45 years old replenishing the solder on one of the stencil printers. Ann introduced her to Wilbur and asked if it was OK for Patty to ask him some questions.

“Darlin,” he said to Ann in his backwoods drawl, “Anything you gorgeous gals want to ask me is jus fine.”

“How does replenishing the new paste compare to the old paste?” Patty asked.

“Well, it takes a lot longer, stirring the paste and all, but to “Save a House” I’m willing to put up with it, sighed Wilbur.

After a day-and-a-half of work, the team reassembled. The Professor suggested that Patty lead the discussion. Many calculations and comparisons were performed, finally after several hours they were ready to meet with Fred Perkins and Jane Wilson. Patty agreed to speak.

Patty, addressed the small gathering. She presented the approach they used to collect data, their analysis techniques and the fact that they had reached a consensus. The evidence, she said, is persuasive that:
1. The site productivity is down about 8%, which will reduce profits about 12%.
2. The main culprit appears to be the new solder paste.

At this Fred slammed his fist on the disk. His face a bright crimson, he shouted at Patty, “Liar, you corporate types are all alike! You come here from your Ivory Tower and tell us how to assemble a product. You have never had to meet a payroll and make a profit in your life. I’ve been out on the line. It only takes two or three minutes longer per changeover with the new paste and replenish times are even less.”

At these comments Jane rolled her eyes and glared at Fred. It was clear she wasn’t intimidated by him.
Patty shot back, “Fred you are correct; let’s look at the numbers. We measured your average uptime at about 25%, which is quite good. That means the lines are running two hours in an eight hour shift or 120 minutes. Eight percent of 120 minutes is about ten minutes a day. A typical line has two changeovers a day each requiring 2 extra minutes and 6 solder paste replenishments ,taking an extra 1 minute each with the new paste. This totals 10 minutes, hence cuts production by 8%.”

Fred screamed back, “This is mathematical gobblygook. I saved the company $100,000 a year.” At this he stormed out of the room.

The remaining folks stared at each other. Finally Jane broke the silence, “It never occurred to me how precious a few minutes here and there can affect profit. With the new paste, we will lose about 12% of our total profit of $10 million, or $1.2 million per year. It appears that while Fred was ‘saving a house,’ we were ‘losing a mansion.’ ”

Epilogue: Three weeks later Fred was “promoted” to corporate compliance officer. Jane became the new site CEO/COO. The old solder paste was reinstated a day after Fred left. A few of the old-timers kept some of the “Saving a House” posters for future reminiscing.

Patty Gets Her Man

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Patty and Rob went to balance the line. They found that this very complex board had 1350 passives, 24 simple ICs (SICs) and nine complex ICs. Currently the chipshooter (CS) is placing all the passives and nine of the SICs.

The flexible placer (FP) is placing the nine complex ICs and 15 SICs. The placement rate for the chip shooter is 60,000/hr. for passives and 3,000/hr. for SICs. The CS cannot place CICs. The FP places complex ICs at 4,000/hr. and passives and SICs at 8,000/hr.

To balance a line, Rob and Patty start by seeing how long it will take the CS to place all of the passives and the FP to place all of the SICs and CICs.

For the CS to place all of the passives

timeCS = 1350 passives/60K passives/hr. = 0.01945 hr. = 81 sec.

The time FP takes to place all of the SICs and CICs is

timeFP = 24 SICs/8K SICs/hr   + 9 CICs/4K CICs/hr = 0.003 hrs + 0.00225 hrs = 18.1 seconds

Since the FP is waiting for the CS, Patty and Rob should move passives to the FP. They will determine the number of passives, x, to move to the FP by equalizing the CS and FP times

tCS = (1350-x) passives/60K passives/hr  = x passives/8K/hr + 18.1 secs/3600 sec/hour

Solving for x:

(1350-x)/60,000 = x/8,000 +18.1/3600

1350 – x = 7.5 x + 301.667

8.5 x = 1048.333

x = 123.33

In other words, 123 passives go to FP (the reason Patty and Rob round down to 123 is due to the much faster placement speed for the CS).

So Patty and Rob moved to 123 passives to the flexible placer.  Each machine’s time should be about the same now.  They performed the following calculation to check their results

tCS = (1350-123)/60,000 = 0.02045 hrs = 73.62 sec.

tFP = 18.1/3600 + 123/8000 = 0.02043 hrs = 73.45 sec.

Patty and Rob then went to the line to physically move the passive feeders to the FP.  They then measured the placement time of the both the CS and FP and found them to be 73.4 and 73.5 sec., respectively, quite close to their calculations.

A meeting was held to discuss the results and the tremendous productivity improvement (81 vs 73.5 second cycle time, an (81-73.5)/81 = 9.26 % improvement.)  Everyone at AJAX was pleased (maybe not Charlie!) and felt the experience was one of great learning.

At the end of the meeting Patty and Rob had a brief chat.

“Patty, I really appreciate all of your help,” said Rob said.

“Don’t forget The Professor. I don’t think I could have handled Charlie without him,” responded Patty.

“Anyway, to show my gratitude, will you allow me to take you to dinner?” asked Rob.

Finding Your ‘Herbie’

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“Your chipshooter is “the Herbie” in your process…, ” The Professor continued.

“That’s it!” a confident voice boomed from the back of the room.

“Who’s that?” Patty asked Rob.

“That’s Chris Conrad, our general manger. He’s a pretty sharp guy.”

Chris continued, “I remember “Herbie” from reading The Goal when I was at Tuck in the 1980s. Herbie was a chubby boy scout, during a hike, he held up all of the scout troop because he was loaded down carrying all of the soda. Finally the scouts realized that they had to help Herbie to make good time in the hike.   My professor assigned us problems to find where there is a constraint in a process. He even called it, ‘Finding the Herbie in the process’.”

“You don’t mean to tell me you’re  gonna take work off them chipshooters are ya?” Charlie impatiently inquired?

“No, the chipshooters will be working just as hard,” The Professor calmly replied.

“How can this be?”asked Charlie in disbelief.

“I made some calculations,” responded The Professor.  “In them, I estimate that if you move passives from the chipshooter to the flexible placer, both machines will have a cycle time of about 73 seconds. Your productivity will increase by about 10%. The chipshooter will be working full time, but the flexible placer will not be waiting for it.”

“Wow,” chimed in Chris, “Our CFO, Tom Stevens, will be thrilled … as am I.”

“Your increase in profit may actually be more than 15 percent,” The Professor added.

The Professor went on, “My calculations were only estimates,  Patty knows how to balance a line.  Give her the exact metrics and she can calculate the actual minimum cycle time. Patty, can you do this?”

“Sure thing Professor,” responded Patty.

Patty and the AJAX team, led by Rob, went off to perform some calculations. Stay tuned to see the results and how they got them.

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

‘The Goal’ of Line Balancing

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The day of the line balancing telecom with AJAX had arrived and Patty was nervous. She had a feeling that the meeting might be contentious.

She felt some relief that The Professor would be teleconing in. The Professor had asked Patty to request a brief tour to measure the chipshooter and flexible placer placement times on one of the lines.

Patty arrived at AJAX an hour before the telecon. Rob took her for the tour. After the tour Patty and Rob went to the meeting room. While they were setting the computer projector and telecom equipment up, the attendees started to arrive. Patty had agreed to give a short presentation on the importance of line balancing, to kick things off. Rob had already told her that Charlie, the lead senior engineer, would be a hard sell.

After everyone had arrived and Patty had called The Professor, she began her brief presentation on line balancing. AJAX has three similar assembly lines each with a $2 million Pinnacle ultra high speed chipshooter and one of Pinnacle’s top of the line flexible placers.

On her tour, Patty measured the placement time for the chipshooter at 81 seconds and the flexible placer at 18 seconds. Patty mentioned in her presentation that for maximum productivity the chipshooter and flexible placer should each take the same amount of time. Upon hearing this comment, Charlie hit the roof.

“Let me tell you something about running a manufacturing facility, little girl,” Charlie fumed at Patty. “When I bought them three $2 million chipshooters, I promised Tom Stevens that I would work them puppies to death. Everyone knows that to minimize costs you must use your expensive equipment the most, so I make sure every feeder is full on all them there chip shooters.”

Patty couldn’t tell whether she was more intimidated or annoyed, but was ready to speak when The Professor intervened.

“Charlie, have you read The Goal?” asked the Professor.

“The only ‘Goal’ I have is to down a few cold ones after I finish wit youse guys.” Charlie shot back.

Patty looked a Charlie’s ponderous beer gut and thought to herself, Now that is something I believe!

Was Charlie right? How does The Goal fit in? Will the meeting take a more productive turn? Who is Tom Stevens?

Stay tuned for the latest.

Cheers,

Dr. Ron

The Professor at AJAX

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In contemplating the events that transpired in the nine months since The Professor’s last visit, Patty had to chuckle.  John, her boss, received ACME’s company-wide Manager of the Year Award. The citation accompanying the award read, “For Conspicuous Leadership, Creativity and Innovation in Tripling Assembly Line Uptime.”  John received a $25,000 cash award and a trip for two to Belize.  Right!

Well, at least John was grateful to her.  He called her into his office after he received the award and told her that the award should be hers; she thought it should really be The Professor’s.

Anyway, he put her in for a promotion and she got it.  She was five years ahead of her peers; since she had just received a promotion last year.  She was also getting along well with Pete and company morale was high, even in these tough times, as the company was doing very well financially.  Three months ago, she presented a paper at SMTAI on the work they did to triple their line uptime from 10 to 30+%.  It received the “Best Paper” award.  She had wanted the Professor to be a co-author, but he refused.  Pete, however, was pleased to accept a co-author opportunity.   She was told that, at 24, she was the youngest recipient of this award — by eight years.

Several months ago she was asked to give a presentation on this work at a local SMTA meeting.  At this meeting she met Rob, a peer at AJAX.  AJAX was a local company that performed dedicated electronics assembly for its parent company in the automobile industry.  Hence, AJAX wasn’t a competitor to ACME.  She had heard rumors that the senior managers from ACME and AJAX even played golf together and shared ideas on improving their companies.  Rob was really interested in Patty’s talk and seemed to “soak up” everything that she said.  She couldn’t help but sense that he was more than a little interested in her in other ways.  He had been one year ahead of her at Tech and they both remembered each other.  After Tech, Rob had gone to work in aerospace, but had recently been RIFFed.  He has only been at AJAX for a few months and appeared determined to make his mark at the company as soon as possible.

As Patty was daydreaming about all of these good events, she saw a new email arrive on her laptop.  It was from Rob.  Upon opening it, she read that Rob asked her to call.  Patty immediately picked up the phone.

“Hi Rob, it’s Patty. What’s up?”

“Hey, Patty, how about our Red Sox losing six in a row, after leading the league?” said Rob.

“I’m devastated,” replied Patty.  “However, I’m cautiously optimistic, because when The Professor was discussing statistics in a workshop I took, he mentioned that even if a team is winning 60% of it games, there is more than a 50% chance that the team will lose six in a row in a season … it is just the nature of statistics.”

“Well, I hope he’s right,” replied Rob.

“Patty, your talk at the local SMTA meeting was really great.  I went back to AJAX and measured our uptime, and it was only 15%.  By following the things your team at ACME has done, we are up to 32% uptime.  But, I still sense we are missing something.”

“How so?” Patty responded.

“Well,” Rob started, “I’ve read some of The Professor’s papers and books, and performed a few calculations. These calculations suggest that AJAX should be able to produce at least 20% more product than we do.”

Hmmm, Patty murmured. “It sounds like your assembly lines may not be line balanced. Have you checked to see it they are?”

“How do we do that?” Rob queried.

“Well, I did it for ACME after attending The Professor’s workshop at last year’s SMTAI,” replied Patty.

“Could you help me do it at AJAX?” pleaded Rob.

“Gee, Rob, I don’t want to goof anything up at AJAX,” Patty said thoughtfully. “Why don’t I call and see if The Professor can help? You can check with your manager and see if involving The Professor is OK on AJAX’s end.”

Patty got The Professor on her first call.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t come, but suggested he could teleconference with her and Rob and develop a plan to audit AJAX’s line balancing. At Patty’s insistence, The Professor agreed to teleconference in to the meeting that Rob and she planned to kick off the audit. Patty felt it was important to have The Professor’s credibility to legitimize the audit.

Later, Patty had received a summons to the general manager’s office.  She was very nervous, but the GM put her at ease.  He told her that he and the AJAX GM were golfing buddies and he had heard that she was asked to help Rob.  He then went on to say that it was great that she was helping Rob as he always wanted the AJAX GM to “owe him one.”  The GM then congratulated her on her recent promotion and finished by saying: “Patty, the future of ACME is in the hands of young, bright, curious and hardworking folks like you. I sleep a little better at night knowing you are on my team!”

Will AJAX’s lines be balanced?  What will the characters at AJAX be like?  Will there be a Pete there?  Will Rob make a move on Patty? Stay tuned for the latest in the adventures of The Professor and his protégés.

The Professor, Part IV: The Price of Changeovers

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So far the meeting with The Professor had proven very valuable John thought. He was anxious to hear the other suggestions The Professor had.

The Professor began to speak. “Changeovers are what really hurts ACME’s uptime and hence productivity.”

Pete was surprised. “Even you were impressed with our system of having a white board to document logistics status for each future job.”

“You are correct,” responded The Professor. “However, a changeover takes you about 2-3 hours and you have one or two changeovers per line per day.”

“We have a high product mix business; it’s what we do,” said John.

“The good news is, you can cut your changeover time to 30 minutes,” shared The Professor.

“How?” asked John.

“By using feeder racks,” explained The Professor. “These racks allow you to set up component reels for the next job while the current job is running. Admittedly they cost about $30,000, but they will pay for themselves in weeks. Right now you lose more than two hours per changeover loading feeders onto component placement machines. With the feeder racks, you just roll them and lock them in place.”

Pete moaned, “We already have feeder racks. We only used them once, because they stick on the carpet when we move them.”

This comment caused The Professor to groan internally, but he hid it well. He had noticed the frayed carpet near the component placement machines.

John was beside himself. “It’s a good thing we are not The Professor’s students … I don’t think we would be headed for an ‘A,’ “ he thought. “Pete, let’s get facilities to remove that rug and start using the feeder racks ASAP.”

Patty listened to all of this with comical fascination. She had harassed Pete about using the feeder racks several times. While the meeting was going on she drew a sketch of The Professor, who is notoriously camera shy. Oh, and she decided on the restaurant, Olives in nearby Boston. Maybe they can pick up a Red Sox game while they’re there.

Epilogue: Six months later ACME’s uptime was a respectable 30.4%. John never had to buy another line. The improved productivity enabled ACME to increase its market share. Patty’s dinner and ballgame were a complete success. She handled her victory modestly and she and Pete became best friends. Pete also joined the ranks of The Professor’s admirers.

Dr. Ron’s note: I know that a story like this seems too comical to be true. However, every point and the associated uptime numbers, lost time, etc., is based on a real situation with no exaggeration. The names have been changed to protect the innocent (guilty?) What is your uptime?

The Professor’s 2d Visit, Continued

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“Well, what should we do Professor?” John said weakly.

“Clearly, not shut the line down over the lunch hour,” The Professor responded quickly.

“We can’t,” said John. “The operators are all friends and they count on having lunch together.”

“How much are they paid per hour?” asked The Professor.

“Ten dollars,” replied John.

“You can pay them $15 per hour and still make more profit if they keep the line running over the lunch hour,” The Professor opined.

“Fifteen dollars per hour for the lunch time or the 40 hour week?” John asked nervously.

“For the whole week,” was The Professor’s reply.

“I find that hard to believe,” John shot back.

“Consider this,” said The Professor.” Your line is up only 9.7% of an eight-hour shift; that’s only 47 minutes. Today you lost 95 minutes over the lunch hour. You may be able to increase your uptime to greater than 15% by keeping the line running over lunch. I modeled your business with ProfitPro3.0 cost estimating software, and your company will make millions more per year if you keep the lines running over lunch. I have worked with other companies to make this change, and it is really easy with a 30-minute lunch hour. If five people normally run the line, you have just one stay back over lunch hour; that way, each person only misses the lunch hour once a week.”

John thought optimistically, “There is such a thing as a free lunch.”

“Now let’s talk about what we can do to double the uptime from the 15% we will get by running the lines over lunch,” said the Professor.

Patty listened to all of this in amazement. The Professor was helping ACME more than she thought possible. Yes, John will keep his job. What is The Professor’s plan to get uptime to 30% or more? Where Patty will go to dinner?

Stay tuned for the latest.

Cheers, Dr. Ron

Dr. Ron note: As surprising as this may seem, this story is based on real events. The uptime numbers and improvements are from real examples. A company that can acheive 35% or more uptime can compete with anyone in the world, even in low labor rate countries. Sadly, few companies know their uptime — or have the urgency to improve it.

Understanding Uptime

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Two weeks passed quickly and The Professor returned to ACME. Patty met him at the door.

“Professor, it’s great to see you,” Patty said with enthusiasm. “We collected the uptime data in real time on a laptop; no one has seen that results yet. We wanted it to be a surprise,” said Patty.

The Professor suggested that he go out on the shop floor to observe the manufacturing activities until shortly after lunch. He commented that his observations may help to understand the uptime results.

The morning seemed to drag for Patty, as she was anxious to see the resets of the uptime data. She bet Pete that the uptime would not be more than 50%. If she wins, Pete and his wife will treat her and her boyfriend Jason to dinner.

Around 1:30 pm The Professor suggested that he was ready for the meeting. Patty had written a simple Excel macro to perform the calculations for the uptime. She only had to push a button and he whole room would see the result in a moment, as Patty had connected her laptop to a projector. There was tension in the air, friendly wagers had been made, but the entire process team realized that their reputation was on the line.

When the number emerged on the screen, John, the manager’s face became ashen. Pete’s visage was redder than two weeks ago. John thought, “I should be fired. How could I manage this team for 5 years and not know that our uptime was only 9.7%.” Patty was thinking about her choice of restaurants.

John asked The Professor, “How can we be so bad?”

The Professor responded, “The good news is that there are tremendous opportunities for improvement. After observing the operations out on the floor this morning, I think we can get the uptime to greater than 40%.”

Pete shot back, “You’re kidding, only 40%?”

“I’ve only seen two facilities that have greater than 45% uptime, and I’ve been to over 150 facilities worldwide,” answered The Professor.

“Where do we start?” asked John.

“How about lunch?” beamed The Professor.

“We just had lunch!” Pete groaned.

“No, no Pete,” The Professor chuckled, “I mean how lunch is handled out on the line. Lunch costs the company more than 1.5 hours of production in an eight-hour shift. That’s nearly 20% of the entire shift.”

Now John was a little agitated. “Professor, lunch is only 30 minutes. We purposely have a short lunch period to avoid the line being down for a long time,” John said with a note of annoyance.

“John, this is true, but I watched what the operators did. Lunch is supposed to start at 12 noon, but the operators turn the line off at 11:40 am. They don’t get back to the line until 12: 40 and it takes them more than 30 minutes to get the line running again. Today the line was not running until 1:15 pm. It was down for 1 hour and 35 minutes,” stated The Professor.

John thought again, “Yes, I should really be fired.”

Will John keep his job? What restaurant will Patty choose for dinner? What should be done about lunch? Where are all of the other hours lost? Stay tuned for the answers to these and other questions.