By Fernando Curello
The need for better and more consistent productivity, quality and overall business results have been the motivation for the automotive manufacturing industry for more than 100 years. There is no doubt that the improved production systems and their associated quality procedures yield greater results of better-quality components, accuracy in parts manufacturing, and longer product life in the field, but also in improving productivity (making more with less time involved), reducing scrap, rework, warranty/field failures and generating better product image, and ultimately business economical results.
Our engine rebuilding world saw that need also, and followed the same path in many cases of medium to high volumes rebuilding companies, (known as Production Engine Rebuilders) but it was, and still is in fact, very difficult to apply the same or similar systems in low production shops or the “three or less” person shops that we encounter in the whole world and mainly in the North and South American countries that represent the core of the AERA ‘s Active Members community.
Read this article with all images in the digital issue of Engine Professional magazine https://engineprofessional.com/2023EPQ1/#p=56
Today, more than ever, we see the need of improved efficiency in our shops. We need to reduce the time per job, avoid internal rework, reduce warranty rework, along with others. It is desirable to “deconstruct” all these difficult “world of words” that many of us have heard or read for many years (mainly the past thirty), like “Continuous Improvement”, JIT (Just-In-Time), TQS (Total Quality System), Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, TPS (Toyota Production System), Never Ending Improvement, etc., to a set of recommendations and suggestions that can help every rebuilding shop to improve its operation in ways that perhaps cannot be imagined without a simple but constant analysis of “what can be done in a better way, every day”, in small steps and applicable at our level and our people at the shop.
Many times we think ( and sometimes say) “I don’t need more customers”, “can’t keep up with the jobs”, “can’t hire more people “, but perhaps the main reason is that we can’t see or simply don’t have the time to think and visualize what can be done to be more productive, or have more efficiency in everything we do every day at the shop. Getting small improvements that can help us stay on task and included in “usual procedures” that can be incorporated into our minds and most importantly, in the minds and passion of our team inside the shop. If we succeed in incorporating these small steps in new regular procedures, after a short or medium time we’ll see ourselves doing more things with the same time and people.
I would like to repeat something here that I always say in presentations or meetings with small/medium companies in regard to these concepts, (a phrase that I heard years ago from an O.E. Quality Manager friend and witnessed all my working life in Engineering and Production areas). He would state “there is a hidden factory” existing in every manufacturing/machining environment that owners or Manufacturing Managers many times don’t see; lurking like a “subterranean world” where mistakes are hidden, unknown failed parts are thrown, bad procedures are developed but not mentioned, and reasons are “distorted and twisted” to explain the inexplicable mistakes, engine failures or excess job times with the great theory of “the evil of inanimate things” (LOL)!
How can we discover this “hidden factory” inside our own shop and adopt the correct remedies, or “corrective actions” to install consistent procedures along time that will not be forgiven and “thrown into the trash” as soon as we look in other directions or “release the pressure about getting results”?
We may think that there is no way to find this answer and apply procedures of cleanliness, order, organization that can endure over time, to improve consistently and gradually, because our shop is too small, too disorganized, too crowded. Therefore, please let me show you one amazing example of a family-owned business that we described in Engine Professional magazine (January-March 2021) in an article written by our Director of Technical Services Chuck Lynch. He visited an AERA member, Spring Garden Repair, in Lancaster County, PA, of Isaac Stoltzfus and his sons. They specialize in Engine Machine Shop work and applying some of the techniques we’re going to explain now. Their success is driven by a great dose of common sense and hard work which has gradually elevated their shop as an example of organization, cleanliness, order, and great customer service!
Chuck wrote, “They have a Newen Contour EPOC Seat & Guide, a Rottler H85 CNC hone, NC boring mill, CNC lathes and other usual equipment to perform the job, but more impressive than that, the workstations are well laid out and quite specific to complement the processes performed at a given workstation. From solar tubes to well-kept white walls, much effort is put into keeping a bright working environment.”
Please see the pictures on the left (courtesy Spring Garden Repair) and think if you’d like to begin a process that could lead your shop to similar results…
Talking with John at Spring Garden Repair a month ago, he said that they’re all very proud and happy with the results they’ve got adapting the 5S techniques to their shop. He said, “Definitely we’re not going back to where we were years ago, trying to locate parts, tools, job orders, etc. under the dirt or in unknown places for each thing. Of course, it took time and hard work, but believe me, nowadays taking time every day to have things in order and cleaning is not a waste of time, in fact, it is a time saver for the following working day.”
I sincerely thank John for such a nice and open chat. I felt that we had been working on the same project for years, even though it was the first time we talked!
What is the “Japanese approach” to work improvements and productivity?
The path to find the answer to that question, and begin changing attitudes and bad habits, was seriously investigated in the early fifties by the Japanese industry in order to fight the waste, disorder and dirt at the working locations, and secondly to improve the hygiene and discipline, as they wanted to be competitive with many of the best American and European companies that were working and obtaining better results after many years of “mass production” and systematization of the production means.
Over the years, many procedures were evaluated and implemented but they discovered that usually after some initial good and encouraging results, weeks or months later everything would tend to revert to the initial disorder, waste, dirt, failures, and low production rates. The reasons for this backsliding were many, but the most important cause was, and still is applicable today, that nothing can be taught, and targets achieved consistently if the ownership/top-level management, intermediate supervision, and production workers do not embrace, adopt and employ the new techniques as a “cultural change” that helps their own working conditions first, and secondly leads to a better production efficiency. In the small shop business, the key is the owner’s decision, convincement and personal involvement in the objectives, procedures and expected results, set up and written down to be followed.
One of the basic techniques slowly developed and adopted was in fact a “life philosophy” that in Japanese words is summarized as “Kaizen”, (from Kai = change, and Zen = better) meaning that we must believe that something better (even minimum) can be done every day, which will improve the working conditions, working environment and production efficiency.
The Kaizen methodology teaches us not to underestimate the impact of simple things in any production or machining operation, like hygiene, cleanliness, order, safe procedures, repetitive actions incorporated in our minds and behaviors, that lead to consistent good results without having to be “forced to adopt them”, because we all see the better working environment we have reached and want to keep them. The sum of many small actions leads to noticeable and many times great improvements.
This is in line with the “Never Ending Improvement” way of thinking and “Lean Culture” (meaning using less to get the same results). But it is important to understand that this is not something that begins and finishes in one day, it must be understood as a continuous cultural transformation centered in the people, and the added value obtained as a result.
This article is not intended to be a Kaizen course as that would take too much of your time, (if you’re further interested, you can investigate on your own to be trained or get your people trained on it), let me only list and describe the basics of the philosophy to be able to enter later on a part of those techniques, known as the “5S System” that we are sure can be adopted in an easier way in the small or medium shops, because it is centered in cleanliness, order and organization of the workplace.
Even though the huge push and widespread application of these principles came from the Japanese automotive industry in the seventies, and became the standard of working for many companies around the world, two things must be said here:
First, that this impressive rebirth of the Japanese industry (begun as we said before in the early fifties) wouldn’t have been possible without the collaboration and ideas of an American Professor of Statistics called William Edwards “Phil” Deming, author of several books since 1939 on Statistics and Quality, and Statistical Process Controls. During his work in Japan after WWII as a consultant for the US government. He was quickly recognized by the Japanese industry as an innovator in modern management theories and expert in quality-control techniques. His systems to conduct and control utilizing Statistics to manage complex mass production processes eared him recognition for controlling quality by process. He worked several years as consultant in Japan, and later in the USA for American companies also. The Deming theories revolutionized the world mass production processes and management for the biggest corporations around the world, and they continue to spill over to much smaller companies today, and that’s our idea, to adapt some of these techniques to our smaller shops and limited possibilities for implementation.
The following comment is something that surprised me many years ago when studying and getting training courses about the so-called Toyota Production System. The TPS “inventor” Mr. Taiichi Ohno, a Mechanical Engineer, a shop floor Supervisor in the engine manufacturing plant, and ultimately a Toyota executive leader, also authored books that explained the philosophy of those processes and established the principles to follow.
In his first and famous book “Toyota Production System, Beyond Large-Scale Production” (1988), Mr. Ohno wrote: “A Pioneer in Continuous Flow Manufacturing, Mr. Henry Ford, might rightly be called the father of Just in Time” …
I am sure that many are not aware of the admiration Mr. Ohno had of Henry Ford’s innovative ideas for Continuous Manufacturing went back to Ford’s book “Today and Tomorrow” (written in 1926!), and the CANDO system Mr. Ford implemented at his plants, (meaning Cleaning up, Arranging, Neatness, Discipline and Ongoing Development).
It is written that Mr. Ohno told some American Engineers that were asking him in the late ’80s, “What inspired your thinking?” Only after several repetitions of this same question, laughing Mr. Ohno said, “I learned it all from that Henry Ford book written in 1926!”
While reading the following pages, you’ll see that the above-mentioned Ford’s simple principles were not at all far from the more modern and elaborated Japanese systems, but frankly speaking, the American Automotive Industry did not adopt these manufacturing and management ideas until the late ’80s and only after the huge success of Phil Deming’s and Taiichi Ohno’s systems had revolutionized the Japanese Production Systems.
What is Kaizen?
The Kaizen methodology consists of several sections that must be followed step by step, and they basically consist of five actions, or said in a better way, three initial actions that when achieved, two more must follow to maintain the improvements.
There are two different “Kaizen approaches,” the first and simplest is the everyday improvement in one, some, or all of the areas of our company or shop, that we can call it “the daily Kaizen.”
And the others are what can be called the “Kaizen Projects”, that set bigger objectives to improve the processes efficiency, and might involve the installation of new equipment and/or machining sectors, moving the whole shop to a new building, or the addition of new activities or market segments that we don’t currently cover, which require future planning and capital investments.
Before beginning any process, we should watch our business as a whole, and there are seven key steps that we must take to follow a systematic analysis and will make it easier for us to identify the best path to follow:
- Always carefully watch the environment, the product, and the physical reality.
- Do not dream in getting a 100 % result from scratch, a 50% could be enough if it can be achieved faster. Talking in race car words… “next laps will offer the possibility of reducing the lap time against the objective,” be patient but determined.
- Need to correct immediately whatever is identified as errors, mistakes, or bad procedures.
- Don’t need to spend much money in Kaizen, 5S or similar systems.
- Always ask yourself five times “why?” to discover the root cause of problems. (Your four-year-old child or grandchild has a master’s degree in that… watch him more closely and more often).
- Eliminate the preconcepts or fixed ideas about how to do anything. There could always be a way to learn something or to improve something.
- Think, and more importantly, “teach to think” to your people, and how to do it; not why you cannot do it.
What is 5S?
It is one of the Kaizen tools, consisting of five steps called “The Five S” that it is considered the basis of all known systems of Total Quality we mentioned before, like Lean Manufacturing, TPS, JIT, Six Sigma, along with others.
5S is a powerful technique designed to improve and keep the organization, order, and cleanliness of the working areas of any kind of association, company, shop, factory, office, or any structured environment.
What does 5S mean?
5S is the abbreviation of five Japanese words beginning with S, which have an English meaning associated. We can describe them as the pillars of a sustainable effort to get permanent productivity improvement and a better organizational quality, through teamwork and cooperation, performing five simple activities in our machining shop, office, warehouse, factory, etc.
The First S: Sort
Let’s begin with the first action, “SORT,” understood as “SELECTION,” or to separate the necessary from the unnecessary.
This first step focuses on eliminating all unnecessary items from the workplace, categorizing equipment, tools, fixtures, furniture, or any physical resource in your working environment and eliminating those that are not essential to perform the job or task under analysis in this place.
To carry-on this action properly, we need to ask ourselves three questions: Is THIS element really needed? Does it have to be in THIS place? Do we need them in THIS quantity?
- The objectives of this implementation are to:
- Free-up space occupied by unnecessary items, using what is strictly required to perform the job.
- Generate the habit of not keeping or storing things in inappropriate sites.
- Make it easy to visualize tools, materials, documents, calipers, and other working elements.
- Reduce the time used to search for production elements, documents, tools, job orders, etc.
- Prevent accidents and human mistakes due to the presence of unnecessary objects in the workplace.
After withdrawing all unnecessary items, then we can follow to sort what was left and designate a fixed place for everything that is required and eliminate what is not needed.
The Second S: SET
Meaning set in order what was left, with the saying, “a place for everything, and everything in its place.”
It is required to establish a functional order for the elements selected as necessary in the first “S.” This is the essence of standardization; a safe working site must be in order before applying any kind of standardization.
To execute this activity, we must consider three premises:
1) The container adapts to the content.
2) Consider the frequency of use for each item.
3) The order must be functional.
- The objectives of this implementation are to:
- Locate the working elements according to the frequency of use.
- Improve objects and areas identified through visual controls, colors, clear signs, etc.
- Facilitate the finding of documents, tools, materials, fixtures, etc.
- Perform movements with less effort and greater safety.
- Optimize space usage.
- Prevent the loss of materials and raw materials due to deterioration.
- Facilitate communications so everybody will know the location of everything in the area.
- Improve job times thanks to the organization of the different work sectors.
The Third S: Shine
Meaning to implement a systematic cleaning throughout the sector and each element. Incorporating the cleaning process in everybody’s day life at the shop, or perhaps even their lives.
The idea is to generate the habit of working in conditions of absolute cleanliness and valuing the easy and clear view of the tools and fixtures we’ll need to use in this machine or operation, and avoid wasting time in looking for the tool, bit, wrench, etc. needed to perform the complete task job in this location.
I know that many times we’ve heard that “more important than cleaning is not dirtying”! But in a machine shop we have chips, oil, grease, grinding dust all over and being generated every minute, so this step requires to eliminate the dirt from all working elements, worksites, and company installations, emphasizing on the analysis and searching for the elimination of the sources that generate dirt and attacking the problems from their root cause.
To execute this activity, we must consider three premises:
1) To eliminate dirt sources and dirt “pockets”
2) To identify maintenance needs, like oil leakages, broken containers, etc.
3) To keep comfortable working conditions.
- The objectives of this implementation are to:
- Fight and eliminate dirt sources.
- Enable a better control of equipment status and the need for adequate maintenance.
- Increase the shelf life of the equipment, machines, tools, and furniture.
- Generate awareness of good use of equipment and machines.
- Reduce the accidents potential risks.
- Create nicer and cleaner environments.
- Generate a feeling of well-being and satisfaction in workers, creating ownership and pride in them.
Then, to maintain these improvements over time, it is essential that the following two steps are established…
The Fourth S: Standardize
Meaning to create procedures that can standardize and visualize the daily operations, cleaning, and maintenance procedures.
To standardize (with simple and short written Standards) means that we must write down what we all learned in the first three Stages, becoming a habit or custom, and KEEP ON IMPROVING THEM. “A good method becomes a good habit.”
The standardization is useful for an easy implementation of S1 to S3 activities, and everyone’s participation.
- The objectives are:
- Standardize and visualize the operational processes and daily maintenance.
- Quickly identify the process deviations by means of visualization of the work standards.
- Enable process improvements by checking results against the set Standards.
- Define the working methodology to be applied in a systematic way.
- Train staff to assume greater responsibilities at their workplaces.
- Getting started with the implementation of autonomous maintenance.
And now we can begin with the last step, or last “S”…
The Fifth S: Sustain
The idea is to generate and establish a high respect for all Standards within the company, meaning that nobody, (even the owner), is allowed to break the Standards in any way or with any excuse. The owners or Supervisors must consider that “we all do what we see, not what we’re told” … There’s no better teaching than the practical example, so the owners or supervisors should be the first to follow the written rules and Standards, creating an absolute respect for what we have all agreed to do.
Basically, this stage means the generation of the self-discipline. Unlike the previous stages, self-discipline is not visible and cannot be measured. However, it is essential for any continuous improvement process, it implies turning the established methods for maintaining order and cleanliness into habit.
What to do?
- Share the mission and values of our organization.
- Set simple rules and procedures and stick to them.
- Develop creativity with the workgroup
- Define short meeting procedures to discuss improvement actions.
- Generate an improvement panel with indicators and information, and keep it updated.
- Establish a schedule for the program, training, and internal audits to assess progress.
As you have seen, even though we’ve been talking of simple habits of order, cleanliness, self-discipline, and so forth, nothing is so easy or even achievable without a planned program and realistic targets to hit in also realistic times.
So, we recommend to those that have an interest in the concept and the techniques discussed in this article, to search for proper specialists, courses, or training for the implementation of a serious approach to the 5S or other Kaizen tools. As I always like to say, the best is yet to come anytime we attack problems with passion and sincere interest in changing work styles, or even bolder, lifestyles!
Read this article with all images in the digital issue of Engine Professional magazine https://engineprofessional.com/2023EPQ1/#p=56