At a Glance
- Productivity on the shop floor is measured by the ratio of good units produced to standard time over total available time. This is tracked at various levels, such as machines, lines or teams.
- We use tried-and-tested methods to improve manufacturing performance, including optimising the layout of the shop floor for minimal movement, setting up continuous flow lines, allocating the right number of staff, enforcing housekeeping practices such as 5S, and much more besides.
The shop floor is where actual value is created within a company’s processes. It ensures the availability of employees, machinery and materials, and manages production processes. Therefore, the performance of the manufacturing business depends on the behaviour of those on the front line.
The Focus of the Shop Floor: Productivity
The biggest focus for the shop floor is productivity. It is measured by:
(Good Units Produced x Standard Time)/Total Available Time = Productivity.
This measurement is usually given in hours, with productivity equalling the number of earned or available hours. Earned hours are the units produced multiplied by the standard time. This productivity measure applies to any stage, whether that be a machine, a production line, a team or an individual.
Each manufacturing stage at which a product moves to a different stage is called a work centre. Each work centre is measured individually in terms of earned hours relative to available hours, and these figures are aggregated to provide an overall factory productivity measurement. This enables productivity losses to be identified at an individual work centre level for root cause analysis and improvement actions.
Measuring Productivity Losses
How can companies measure and analyse productivity losses to develop effective solutions for specific weaknesses? Typically, companies use Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) to categorise productivity losses into three major areas:
- Availability losses. This is sometimes referred to as utilisation. Examples include breaks, unavailable materials, line changeovers and planned and unplanned downtime.
- Performance losses. This is known as efficiency. It is caused by operator fatigue or inefficiency, machine slowdown and setup adjustments.
- Quality losses. This loss requires the product to be scrapped or reworked.
Renoir’s Approach to Improving Performance
For over 30 years, Renoir has been driving improvements across various manufacturing areas, enhancing overall performance. With a presence in more than 50 countries and over 200 manufacturing projects completed, here are some of our proven approaches to boosting performance:
1. Shop floor layout. When there are extensive movements around the shop floor, we usually investigate the layout of the facilities. Gains in productivity are often possible by placing concurrent stages next to each other.
2. Continuous flow. One way to maximise the productivity of the shop floor is to set up manufacturing lines with a conveyor system to move parts through various stages. If there are high-volume products with manufacturing stages in different locations around the factory, it may be beneficial to rearrange the equipment into a continuous flow line.
3. Reducing excess labour. One of the key drivers of productivity, given the right standards and measurement systems, is optimising workforce allocation by ensuring each work centre is staffed appropriately. This does not necessarily mean reducing headcount, but rather ensuring teams are right-sized for the workload. A common productivity loss occurs when absenteeism causes a line to halt, prompting supervisors to redeploy remaining staff to another fully staffed line. A more effective solution is to assign those available workers to other tasks, such as necessary indirect activities, or to deploy them as part of a daily worker float to support other units.
4. Housekeeping. A messy, cluttered space can lead to mistakes, slowdowns in production, and even accidents, all of which interrupt operations and negatively impact productivity. Renoir widely practices the Japanese 5S Housekeeping approach.
5. Kaizen. This is a Japanese term meaning “small change”. The philosophy defines that many small improvements can create significant overall change, and the frontline workers possess the critical knowledge to identify these incremental opportunities. In projects, after addressing the “low-hanging fruit” such as line balancing, machine speed, and Standardised Work-in-Process (SIC), productivity often levels off. The challenge lies in identifying all these opportunities, which is where the Kaizen concept becomes essential. By training shop floor workers and supervisors in Kaizen principles, companies unlock a continuous stream of improvement ideas.
There are many other approaches to improving overall performance, including indirect labour control, variable labour control, constraint management, the Toyota Production System (TPS) and receptacles.
However, each approach must be tailored to the manufacturer’s current situation, requiring close collaboration and buy-in from not only senior management, but also frontline workers. Our goal is to ensure the full adoption of all customised solutions, achieved through early cross-functional buy-in using our behavioural and cultural change methodologies. This approach guarantees that, once the project is delivered, we will have left the organisation and your people with the ability to continue creating value.
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