The Visual Factory

Whenever I visit a factory I always without exception take away one or two golden nuggets. By golden nuggets I mean fantastic ideas that I can use myself and this is the beauty and simplicity of benchmarking.

A couple of weeks ago I visited a medium sized (200 employees) packaging manufacturer. The thing that struck me was the fantastic organisation along with the visual information that was provided to shop floor workers.

The factory was organised into a series of autonomous cells and they utilised things like shadow boards, heck even the bins were numbered to ensure they stayed within their respective zone which was marked out with bright yellow floor tape.

Each cell had their own information stand which contained, forms, documents, labels, operating procedures, graphical instructions, as well as performance charts (including targets) which the operators were responsible for updating themselves (by hand). All good stuff but it's nothing new and we've seen it all before.

By far the best bit was the large LED displays which were placed at strategic locations within the factory and which were used to provide quick feedback to operators on a wide-range of things such as:

- Company performance
- Health & Safety statistics
- Planned customer factory visits (and results)
- Planned 3rd party audits (and results)
- Positive and negative feedback from customers
- Personnel announcements (birthdays, marriages and milestones e.g. 20 years service)

Obviously the LED displays need to be updated regularly to be effective but they had it planned very well with fresh, pertinent information provided daily. One operator said that they only used to get to hear bad news, for example when a customer made a complaint. But now as well as complaint information they also find out when a customer thought they had done a fantastic job in turning their order round - which actually happens quite often. This information probably used to stop with the sales office.

If you can manage them, I believe LED displays are a great communication tool with only your imagination limiting their value.

Anybody use them?
What do you think?

Regards,
Simon

Simon,

Big Screen LED Notice Board........what a fantastic way to motivate people, gauge performances and a reminder to Management that human resource is the most viable and productive asset (almost always!)


Charles Chew

Simon,

We don’t use the LED boards but we do have a dedicated communication screen system - Screens are located around the factory to give same information as you have mentioned.

This is a PowerPoint presentation that is updated daily.

Have found it to be very good for keeping people informed - Big warning point is that you must maintain the discipline of keeping the info fresh!

We add some interest items like fact of the day, famous birthdays, on this day in history, quiz question of the day etc - this way people know that all the other 'boring' info on the system is fresh aswell..

Sounds like a cost-effective alternative to LED Displays Richard. I believe the effective distribution of pertinent information throughout the organisation is an art, and is an important factor in helping to maintain a positive culture. People are nosey buggers and like to know what's going on - work is a big part of our lives after all. That said doing communication well is blooming difficult so anything that helps I like.

When you have an audit e.g. ISO 9001, BRC/IOP or Customer what is the process for communicating nonconformities and corrective actions.

Regards,
Simon

We do use the communication screen for summary information, however if there is something with an amount of detail we will often refer to other documents and / or people to talk to.

I have displayed Gantt Charts etc but this is more to demonstrate that there is further background info - the detail tends to get lost on a rolling screen..

Has anyone purchased an LED Display?
Anybody know a good supplier in the UK?

Regards,
Simon