Regardless of what industry you do business, in today’s manufacturing environment the goal is to produce more product at the lowest possible cost while being flexible to the customer’s needs at the highest possible level of quality. Over the last 30 years there been a multitude of philosophies, methodologies, and programs all targeting some form of improvement to manufacturing. A short list of some of the most widely known terms with regards to these improvement methodologies are Project Management, Lean manufacturing/Toyota Production System, Six Sigma, and Physical Asset Management (Reliability Centered Maintenance/RCM, Total Productive Maintenance(TPM), Etc.) just to name a few. Then, there is the drive toward adding automation (complexity) to every aspect of business. Many organizations find themselves attempting to implement many of these at the same time, with the intent of saving the company money and improving the organizations performance.
I have always believed in a holistic approach that encompasses all these initiatives was needed.
To describe challenges organizations face when implementing these initiatives can usually be distilled down to Dr. Kerzner’s project management theory with regards to the triple constraints. (Need work cited here). These three constraints are defined as time, cost, and scope. These constraints act much like a three legged self-leveling stool. If one changes the other two will have to adjust for the difference. For instance, if I change the scope of a project it will take more time and quite possibly a greater cost.
Organizations are presented with opportunities to improve multiple times a day every day, most of them provided significant ROI and a promise of expeditious return on investment. This drives senior leaders to quantify and prioritize these opportunities for operational improvement. Implementing Lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, Physical Asset Management (RCM, TPM, PdM, and PM), Increased Automation and Project Management are fundamentals every organization needs to grow, and on the surface seem to be able to be implemented concurrently. However, these particular initiatives require the same resources at the same level of commitment to making implementation successful. In addition, they each have their own sequence of events for implementation, this is where the crux of the matter lies. Should the organization attempt to implement more than one or all of these at the same time without detailed examination of each initiative and its order of operation, inevitable conflict will occur then the question becomes which initiative comes first?. This is the challenge facing many organizations pressured to improve throughput, quality, and decrease cost.

I prefer to start with the analysis of an organizations Project Management capabilities. Is there a centralized organization that has oversight of a common project management process? This is key particularly when most project are typically cross functional. If there is not a standard process to follow, team members will have trouble understanding what their role in a project is and how they are to perform the tasks needed. Inevitably this will impact the schedule and then cost. A metaphor I use when speaking about evaluating an organization is that “it’s kind of like putting a puzzle together, start with the border and work your way from there”.
Once there has been a common approach to a project established, it’s time to discuss what initiatives should we work on first? In a manufacturing environment, I prefer to use a simplistic approach using overall equipment effectiveness or OEE to determine how to proceed. First, let’s break down OEE into its components. The calculation is OEE = Availability X Throughput X Quality. Next, let’s define on a very high level the basic goals of the three improvement philosophies. Physical Asset Management, the goal is to make all machines more Available for use (at the lowest possible cost). Six Sigma, the primary goal is to reduce variability in a process that impedes rated Throughput capabilities (reduce variation and shift the mean), Lean Manufacturing, this philosophy can be viewed as all-encompassing, however, the short answer is to reduce/eliminate waste.
Now let’s describe how they impact one another. Using root cause mindset and working backwards to an initial starting point, I’m going to look at waste first. If the task is to eliminate waste from a process that means it must be Available AND running without high levels of variation at rated Throughput. Why? That is the only way to see where the true source of waste is and then how to reduce / eliminate it. Following this line of thinking, for a Six Sigma practitioner to get statistically significant data on variation of a process it must be Available to be analyzed (its rather difficult to an accurate rate of variation if a machine is not running). If machines are not available they aren’t producing at rated Throughput and they are NOT producing Quality product.
Finally, let’s discuss placement of Automation in the overall initiative. I refer to Lean Manufacturing/Toyota Production System (TPS) reference to Autonomation, here is the quick wiki definition “Autonomation describes a feature of machine design to effect the principle of jidoka used in the Toyota Production System (TPS) and Lean manufacturing. It may be described as “intelligent automation” or “automation with a human touch.” Once again, in the name of waste elimination, but as stated earlier, if you cannot identify the true source of the waste that automation is to eliminate, then what role is automation playing?
It is my opinion that successful implementation of these initiatives should start at the lowest possible level. In other words, if your machines are only available for use 40% of the time, an organization won’t glean much value from reducing the operating variation of that process, and identifying the source of waste, or poor quality will be more luck than skill. Conversely if your machine availability is in the high 90% range and the control limits on process variability have been improved, quality improvement and waste identification / elimination will be very successful. As will the addition of Automation in the appropriate places, yield a quick and substantial payback.
In summary, I am an absolute believer, evangelist, and practitioner of all these philosophies and technologies. I do believe that they can be successfully integrated if the proper time and effort is given to identifying where to start. Implementing them correctly with an eye on collaboration and cooperation can transform an organization to a world class level quickly, however, using a shotgun approach usually ends with blown budgets, low morale, and minimal (if any)sustainable improvements to processes.
The collaboration of departments, project managers, and external resources such as consultants, shorten implementation times and paybacks on these initiatives are typically greater than expected. As a result, there are future plans to intertwine multiple initiatives deliberately but thoughtfully.