Beacon Quality Blog

In manufacturing, leaders innovate and grow while followers fall prey to inefficiency and waste. A recent report from the Aberdeen Group, Lean Manufacturing: Success Starts with Visibility and Alignment, describes how manufacturing leaders consistently benefit from having tools in place to track continuous improvement activities. In addition, 61% of these high performers provide management with a comprehensive, easy-to-understand view into operations. These results reinforce the truth that lean principles are only as good as the actionable data available, and it follows that organizational integration of manufacturing software solutions is key to process improvement.

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When implemented correctly, layered process audits (LPAs) go beyond satisfying customer requirements by transforming an organization’s culture into one that embraces continuous improvement. This powerful audit approach pays dividends by improving safety and quality, and delivers cost savings by greatly enhancing traditional assurance systems and making continuous improvement nearly routine.

The additional layers in LPAs ensure additional eyes are looking for issues, and the rotation of participants involved provides a powerful deterrent against those eyes “looking the other way” if even marginal concerns are identified. LPAs should include a wide spectrum of employees—from shop-floor operators to executives—conducting audits in order to verify that standardized procedures are followed consistently in the continuous pursuit of quality.

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Historically, business executives have viewed manufacturing plants as cost centers because they are units that do not produce profit directly, but instead add to the operational costs of the organization. Increasingly, however, more business leaders are daring to challenge that paradigm by stating a case to recognize manufacturing units as profit centers. This, of course, has raised eyebrows.

The shift from the narrower perspective of the manufacturing plant as a cost center into a profit driver is supported in part by concepts from the balanced scorecard approach developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton nearly 25 years ago. More than a measurement tool, the balanced scorecard is a management system. By bringing together measures that are focused on internal processes and external outcomes, the balanced scorecard promotes continuous improvement through strategic performance and results.

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“Try not to make 5S a goal in itself. … Focus instead on the leadership part, building the right discipline and culture in your organization towards the objective of 5S: Create, maintain, and improve an efficient workplace organization with high levels of visual control.” Torbjørn Netland, Associate Professor, Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Those are words of wisdom from an in-depth article on 5S entitled “5S – We Are Doing It Wrong” by an associate professor at Norway’s NTNU Department of Industrial Economics and Technology. Although the benefits of implementing 5S audits in a plant are many, realizing them requires a plant-wide focus on cultural change. As Netland notes in the article, the objective of 5S audits goes beyond the practice into developing “high levels of visual control.”

What follows are two broad areas of ROI and safety that reveal five business and bottom line changing benefits of conducting 5S audits in the plant.

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World-class organizations live and breathe a culture of continuous improvement. When an error occurs, management systems kick in to investigate and prevent the cause. Even when problems do not occur, employees look for ways to reduce waste and improve performance. But how exactly does one create a culture of continuous improvement? A key catalyst is often a management tool called Layered Process Audits (LPAs).

When used properly, layered process audits can foster a culture of quality throughout an organization, thus leading to reduced scrap and rework, fewer customer complaints, and greater productivity. A Harvard Business Review article on sustainable performance makes a clear case for the benefits of total workforce involvement. This creates a culture of shared performance feedback and provides a greater sense of control in how things get done.

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Just hearing the word “audit” can send some people into a frenzy. Whether it is a financial audit, an environmental audit, or even a basic process audit on the shop floor of a manufacturing plant, the person facing an auditor’s questions is likely to feel uncomfortable, if not downright defensive. But what if you could reverse the negative connotations associated with audits and show that the audit process can indeed yield positive consequences such as improved communication among your employees? If your organization is conducting layered process audits (LPAs), then you already have a mechanism in place to enhance consistent, two-way communication in the workforce.

Some of your shop floor employees may rely on their memories when completing important process steps, rather than referring to written procedures—this, of course, can result in deviations to written standards and potential nonconformances. A shop floor operator may feel uncomfortable admitting to a mistake or placing blame on a process that is simply not working. When a process change is implemented, employees must change habits that may be quite ingrained over time. As a result, some employees might slip back into old habits and processes. LPAs help ensure that this doesn’t happen and that work is being performed as intended.

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Quality guru Shigeo Shingo once said, “Improvement usually means doing something that we have never done before.” For many in the aerospace industry, the exploration of lean manufacturing principles would qualify not only as something new, but also as something that merits consideration.

Lean manufacturing is a methodology for improving processes with continuous improvement (kaizen) and eliminating waste in the workplace. Many think of lean manufacturing as North America’s answer to the Toyota Production System (TPS), which enabled Toyota to deliver a wider variety of products more efficiently than the traditional mass production techniques of the era.

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To achieve continuous process improvement, your organization needs a proven method for uncovering the root cause of nonconformances. A root cause analysis (RCA) can incorporate a wide range of quality methods that ultimately help identify what, how, and why an event occurred so that you can take the necessary steps to ensure that it does not repeat. The RCA process includes four basic steps:

• Collecting relevant information about the nonconformance
• Charting the causal factors
• Pinpointing root causes
• Developing and recommending solutions or corrective actions to address the root cause

If your organization has embraced lean manufacturing principles, then you are likely ahead of the curve in producing what is needed, when it is needed. You have learned that lean techniques, when successfully implemented, can help your organization reduce waste and improve process efficiency.

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It all boils down to ensuring quality. Conducting audits helps do this.  

Popular and effective approaches to achieving quality are: conducting process audits and conducting layered process audits (LPAs). We will examine both, pointing out the differences between these two methods and revealing why layered process audits can be more effective and thorough.

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