Roto Inside 25 (EN)

| 5 Knowing your objective helps you achieve it: every Roto production team can look at the daily and weekly production figures to check whether they have achieved the targets they have set themselves, and where there are any significant departures from the plan. “The phi- losophy behind lean production is that employees learn on the basis of transparency and self-monitoring, within a climate of shared valves, so that they take personal responsibility for continually improving the processes they are involved in,” explained Ernő Kocsis. Assembly line maintenance and repairs: tool repair and maintenance times for the pressing plant in Lövő have been greatly reduced by reorganising tool manufacturing according to lean production principles. Because the op- erational steps required in a typical maintenance process have been decoupled, a tool now moves across the work benches of five tool manufacturers, one after anoth- er. “At first glance this might appear to be somewhat cumbersome – but decoupling has actually led to major optimisation in terms of staff utilisation,” explained Ernő Kocsis. “Each operational step requires employees with different strengths and varying levels of experience. Now, the fully-experienced tool manufacturers can be deployed where they can best use their finely-honed knowledge to ensure that the department is producing outstanding tools. Making efficient use of skills – that’s what lean production is all about.” Hitoshi Takeda talks to Roto Inside Production flow and waste reduction ■■ Research For many years now, Hitoshi Takeda from Japan has been helping Roto optimise their award-winning, Bad Mergent heim-based roof window production facility. An acknowledged specialist for lean pro- duction processes and systems, companies the world over have been turning to him for advice for several decades. Sixty-five-year- old Takeda spoke to Roto Inside about what it takes to make a company lean, and to transform it into the best possible partner for customers. Roto Inside: Mr Takeda, many years ago engineers advising Roto hardware technol- ogy customers formed the Roto Lean Team. They chose this name because they felt the term “lean” best describes their aims when advising window and door manufacturers. What do you personally understand by the term “lean”? Takeda: The term lean or lean management primarily refers to a way of thinking and an attitude adopted by all the people in a company. Of course, there are now many well-estab- lished production control methods relating to the term lean, and these are easy enough to explain: they are methods which reduce waste throughout the company and improve through- put times and quality. However, I believe that it is most important to emphasise over and over again that “lean management” is all about peo- ple and their attitude. Only the people working at a company can ensure that it is capable of efficiently developing those service features which customers consider useful and which are the key factors behind a purchase. Roto Inside: In your opinion, what gives a company the best chance of implementing lean management successfully? Takeda: Well, if the management is not convinced and willing to implement it, it simply won’t work. You can only implement lean man- agement if the head of a company is directly involved and fully behind the philosophy. Lean is not a project that you simply want to get over and done with. Lean is a way of thinking that has to remain in place in the company on an ongoing basis, and which everyone has to be trained in. Each individual in the company possesses detailed knowledge of the various options for making improvements and it’s that knowledge which is needed. Roto Inside: What kind of influence do employees have on whether a company will implement it successfully? Takeda: A decisive influence: Toyota has been a pioneer in the world of lean production. Rather than just making cars, they focus on developing employees who want to build the best cars possible. Many companies try to improve their results and ensure success by boosting the productivity of their machines or just buying new ones. However, if you want to reduce unit costs, it is at least as important to promote the idea that employees need to be thinking along the same lines and taking personal responsibili- ty. There’s not much point just having individual machines operating faster. Productivity is only markedly boosted when the entire production is flowing and time is not wasted anywhere. It’s the employees who know best where time is being unnecessarily lost. Most employees want to work productively and successfully and as management all you need to do is create the right conditions for that. That’s essentially the most important piece of knowledge I’ve gained from the many lean projects I’ve been involved in. Hitoshi Takeda was born in the Japanese prefecture Akita. After completing his mechanical engineering studies at the Meiji Universi- ty in Tokyo, he joined a major auto supplier. There, Takeda was involved for many years in the Kaizen process (Japanese for “change for the best”) in production con- trol, production engineering, supplier handling and in the Promotion Office, before becoming a self-employed consultant. Hitoshi Takeda has worked with leading companies from various industries in Japan, Korea and Europe, particularly in Germany. Hitoshi Takeda has com- municated the methods of synchronous production systems with a new clarity, and researched their overall impact on companies. His book “The Synchronised Production System” has been published in Germany by the mi-Wirtschaftsbuch publishing house. Greater efficiency for better customer service Lean production projects at Roto Lövő plant ■■ Research In all Roto plants across the globe, management have implemented a culture of continuous improvement as part of a lean pro- duction philosophy. To present some successful improvements achieved through lean production principles, Ernő Kocsis General Manager of Roto El- zett Certa Kft., invited Roto Inside to visit the Lövő plant in Hungary. “If we can succeed in freeing-up employees from work which they are over-qualified for, we can give them the opportunity to fulfil customers’ wishes better and much faster,” explained Ernő Kocsis on the tour. “If we can also make savings while doing so, such as when buying items used every day, we can reduce unit costs – something which has a knock-on effect on the prices paid by our customers. Each small step helps to free up resources to invest in things the customer will experience as the mark of supplier quality.” Roto Inside: Lean production is based on production flow. What do you mean by that? Takeda: Production flow means that all parts and products are conveyed in a single stream without any interruption to the next manufac- turing stage: in other words there is no interme- diate storage. This removes the need to store and move parts, and avoids time being wasted on search and transport within the compa- ny. There will be points along the production system where standardised material buffers are required, but basically these should be avoided where possible. You can see how this works practice at the Roto roof window factory in Bad Mergentheim. From what I hear, more and more Roto customers are taking on board the recommendations made by engineers from the Roto Lean Team. This means that knowledge is being shared and I think it’s fantastic! Roto Inside: In your experience, what would you say were the reasons why a production flow is not achieved? Takeda: Quite often, there are too many breaks in the production sequence because some- where along the line, material is produced more quickly in one stage of production than it can be handled in the next. Frequently, there is no clear separation between production and logistics activities. In other words, employees have to interrupt what they are doing in the production process to collect material and move it to the next stage. A major challenge, particularly in a very varied production system is organising and managing work content, so that continuous production flow can be made possible in the first place. Roto Inside: The implementation of a production flow and additional lean pro- duction principles brings a great number of advantages with it. Why doesn’t every company do it? Takeda: There are already lots of companies which have implemented lean principles and are highly profitable. However, there are still many in all kinds of industries worldwide which haven’t. There are several reasons for this. Perhaps, the principles have been understood, but ultimately implementation in the companies fails because the will to see it through simply isn’t there – particularly amongst the manage- ment. They have to adopt new management behaviour. They have to learn new roles as supporters and motivators for their workforces, not to see themselves as lone warriors in the battle against wasted time and material. Also, employees are frequently given too little time to develop and implement improvements in the production. The reason for this is a somewhat short-sighted outlook on the part of manage- ment and the lack of any vision with regard to just how great the potential savings and options for boosting productivity are in almost every company. Roto Inside: Would you like to see a change of approach? Takeda: In some companies, yes, without doubt. Because in some instances, it would be more worthwhile to appoint a competent employee and to assign them to work with the Roto Lean Manager to search for wastage and potential process improvements, than simply to go ahead and buy a new machine. But what I would really welcome is for the management to take a new look at the overall production process in their company, with a focus on customer benefit; and they need to do this over and over again – it virtually needs to be a kind of ritual. And the focus should not be on daily business, on purchasing and sales, rather, managers are there to establish a culture of permanent improvement processes. Don’t get me wrong! It goes without saying that the points I’ve covered need to be part of success- ful company management, but as a general rule, profit can be increased and quality improved by paying attention to minute detail, coupled with a commit- ment to becoming better and more efficient on a daily basis.

Roto Inside 25 (EN)

Übersicht