Trimming the Fat of Labor Management

A few months ago, we took a break from talking about MRP ERP system applications to provide a plain English guide to modern manufacturing methods. Some of our readers suggested that we left out a key concept: lean labor management. Even a perfectly engineered production process, built on the concepts of just-in-time and Six Sigma, will fail if workers are not trained and encouraged to reduce waste themselves.

The goal of lean is to produce just enough to meet demand, bringing in new supplies only when they are needed. This ideology seems to translate easily to labor management: there should always be just enough workers to handle the day’s workload. However, this point-of-view reduces employees to pieces of equipment that can be shifted around or turned on and off, and labor management is much more than that. It’s about motivating employees and providing incentives to work at maximum effort.

The real question, then, is how people fit into a lean environment. In particular, there are three key ways in which lean principles have a significant effect on labor management:

• The metrics of effort and success will differ from a non-lean environment, since the goals for productivity have changed.
• Employees will be expected to work with greater flexibility and adapt to the unique problems that arise each day.
• Relationships between co-workers, superiors and subordinates, will be reshaped to emphasize managed cooperation over individualized labor.

A New Way of Looking at Productivity
For decades, the assembly line mentality encouraged manufacturers to judge productivity by total output. How can we position our workers and equipment in a way that produces the most output in the shortest time? Overstocked inventory would be stored for weeks or even months in the hopes that the assembly line would improve and more supplies would begin moving through the factory each day.

In new lean environments, however, overstocked inventory is seen as a short-term waste. Organizations try to receive supplies and deliver products at the precise moment they are needed. Those who once took pride in churning out products with great speed are now being measured by an entirely different set of standards, which are much more complex than before. This presents an obvious difficulty for managers when trying to motivate workers. Previously, the metrics for a worker’s success were simple: work faster, earn the company more money, and you yourself will deserve rewards. Now that the company’s own financial metrics have become more complex, managers may have a hard time communicating to workers what they must do to be successful.

Perhaps the best way to overcome this obstacle is to teach workers how to measure themselves not only by their total output but also by the effort required to achieve that output, which inspires creative thinking in each worker. The worker should now consider the amount of effort that goes into their work process and whether or not the outcome merits the effort. If not, the worker should devise ways to achieve greater output with lesser effort. This can be as simple as keeping a clean and organized workstation or as complex as speaking with managers about flaws in the design of the production flow.

Let’s say workers at an automotive manufacturing facility normally make 50 cars a day. Under lean management, it’s not so important that they find a way to make 52 cars a day. Instead, their goal should be to find cheaper and more efficient ways to continue making 50 cars a day. This kind of proactive decision-making is the new metric for judging productivity, a metric that affects the worker’s experience in more ways than one.

Lean Workers Are Flexible Workers
This emphasis on a new way of thinking has proven to be a problem for many manufacturers. We often hear of experienced workers who cannot, or refuse to, modify their work habits to match a new lean environment and often choose to leave the company instead. Many longtime employees have settled into the rhythms of earlier traditions. The beauty of the assembly line was that workers didn’t need many skills. In fact, they only needed to do one thing really well before passing the product along and performing their skill again for the next product. But lean principles have changed the requirements. Workers who once stood in place and operated presses or drills must now be willing to move around and provide assistance wherever it is needed.

Consider the automotive facility again. In earlier days, workers generally remained at their stations. If one station suddenly stalled, the entire assembly line would come to a crashing halt. All stations would sit and wait for production to begin flowing again. However, a halt in production is the enemy of lean manufacturing and must be avoided at all costs. An assembler would now be expected to help other assemblers or fabricators or die sanders if that’s what it takes to get production back on track.

Clearly, these process changes require workers to be more flexible and skilled than before. In addition to becoming familiar with aspects of production not directly related to their skill set, workers must now plan on stepping out of their comfort zone to lend a hand when necessary.

However, many workers are unwilling to take on these new responsibilities, which takes us back to our initial problem of motivation. If managers in a lean workplace are going to convince workers to handle more complex tasks, then they must devise ways to reward flexibility.

An Assembly Line of Ideas
Most importantly, managers will need to establish their authority while simultaneously building an ever-present, supportive relationship with each worker. An important aspect in any lean system is the delegation of duties from one position of authority to the next. Rather than some executive manager barking orders from afar, lean management encourages the structured flow of ideas through a chain of command. An executive might give a factory manager some productivity goals for a given quarter. The manager would then assess his or her factory and determine the best way to achieve those goals, passing these ideas along to the floor managers. Those floor managers would then be directly responsible for the productivity of workers in their area.

With this system in place, workers don’t feel like they are reporting to three or four different bosses. The top-level management is removed from the picture, leaving workers to deal with only one boss: their immediate superior. This eliminates the confusion that workers sometime encounter when several different bosses unknowingly assign them contradictory tasks, and it allows managers to keep a sharpened eye on the select few who are their direct subordinates. A simple line of authority like this makes even the largest projects seem manageable for workers and their managers.

In conclusion, these three concepts of motivation, flexibility, and direct management must all be present if a lean environment is going to be sucessful. When workers are assuming more responsibilities than ever before, management must start taking a more personable and inspirational approach to labor management. If workers are asked to stop functioning like machines and start thinking critically, they must be treated differently as well.

This article was originally written as a special assignment for Material Handling & Logistics.

The thumbnail for the article was produced by Ralph Bijkers.