Alexander Proudfoot Techniques
The following is a detailed example of my personal experience
using Alexander Proudfoot techniques. This is an example is of a company
wide downsizing operation made by Alexander Proudfoot. The client
company was Clark Equipment at the Battle Creek, Michigan plant. Clark
Equipment is a well-known forklift manufacturer. The company was under
heavy competition from Japanese competitors using TQM and had to resort
to extreme measures to survive. My assignment was in the Production
Control Department and was to analyze the function, “servicing the
manufacturing assembly line”. Several forklift drivers were involved in
the transporting of parts on a timely basis to the manufacturing areas
either to and from individual milling machines or directly to the
assembly line of a particular forklift product.
My approach was
to time study all the activities necessary to the servicing of the
forklift production line. I followed and timed each forklift driver into
the storage yards and counted the number of parts loaded on each pallet
for each trip making sure that I had missed nothing. The number of
parts to be loaded on the pallets was specified by the Production
Control Planning System. My job was to be sure that the pallets were
fully loaded or contained all of the parts required. At the assembly
line the pallets of parts were placed near the assembly line so that
they could be easily moved to the assembly line worker as needed. The
study of the manufacturing areas took me about two weeks.
Now
let’s do the data analysis. I needed to determine what “elemental
product” was being produced by the Function. This appears to be
difficult but what you must do is to break down all of the processes
observed and find the smallest element. In other words this element or a
multiple of it can be found in all of the processes being performed in
doing this function. Since all processes involved using a forklift I
found that the shortest process was when a forklift moved a pallet from
its dropped location near the assembly line to the assembly line. I
called this process a “forklift move” and the name of the element became
“Move”, which I determined to be one minute long. This was very
convenient because the entire analysis was done in minutes. If the
Product “Move” had been five minutes long you would simply divide the
total time for each process by five to get the number of move elements.
Since each pallet moved had parts on it for more than one forklift and
since I had counted and recorded the number of parts on all of the
pallets we can analyze each pallet to determine if more than one part is
required for each forklift. Adding the total time for the forklift
driver to go to the storage area count the number of parts needed put
them on a particular pallet and bring the pallet to the assembly area
gives us the time to the drop-off place near the assembly line. To that
we add the one minute required for a second forklift driver to bring the
pallet from the staging area to the assembly line worker. We divide
this total time by the number of parts moved (adjusted for the number of
parts required per forklift). This process is repeated for all the
pallets. When added together we know the total time spent in servicing
this particular forklift product’s production line.
We cannot
assume that all work will be performed at the standard 100% rate so we
assume the actual rate is closer to 75% for staffing which adds 25% more
time to the total. Multiplying this total adjusted time to service one
forklift product by the current production rate (forklifts per month)
gives us the adjusted time spent by all the forklift drivers for the
month. When we convert the time in minutes to hours and divide this by
the standard hours worked per month by a forklift driver we arrive at
the total number of forklift drivers required at this particular
production rate.
Given the total adjusted time to service one
forklift product we can calculate Staffing levels for any manufacturing
rate. It was also determined that since all the forklift products
contained nearly the same number of parts the analysis could be used for
all of the companies forklift products made on this particular
production line.
Now let’s review the actual results of this
analysis. During the study I stayed focused on the processes being
performed and the time actually being spent. But since the analysis was
being done in the cold of winter I noticed that every time I stopped by
one of the four or five warming huts five or six people would get up and
leave. Since I had no idea what these people were supposed to be doing I
paid little attention to them. The results were shocking to the Clark
Company senior management when they discovered that the actual number of
employees required could be reduced by sixty a more than 50% reduction.
The annual savings adjusted for today’s dollars amounted to more than
one million dollars. If I had not conducted the study myself I probably
would not have believed the results. After the removal of the redundant
employees the Short interval Scheduling reporting was implemented.
Comments by the Author
What’s
wrong with this method of downsizing? Nothing if the plant is in danger
of shutting its doors and quick solution must be had. But the method
destroys employee morale by such severe measures and may create a
permanent problem with unions resulting in ill will lasting for years.
The Short Interval Scheduling reporting system forcibly maintains
employee productivity. The costs are high in that there is little or no
employee innovation for continuous improvement to the work methods. Note
that this approach is used by Alexander Proudfoot through out the plant
and in the office areas. It’s a real killer for morale and employee
innovation. This is a very expensive operation because Management
Consultants receive a substantial fee for their efforts.
The Enterprise Lean with Work Measurement Method (author’s recommended method)
The
objective of the amateur method was simply to reduce personnel mostly
likely to meet a short fall in the budget. The objective of the
Management Consulting secret method is simply to downsize to known level
determined by Work Measurement and to maintain production and service
levels using the Short Interval Scheduling reporting system.
The
objective of the Enterprise Lean with Work Measurement method is to
first fix the systems then find the correct Right-Size staffing and then
determine precisely what the costs are for each Function allowing us to
make a bottoms-up budget. This is followed by the replacement the 19th
century bureaucratic structure found in industry and government with a
21st century Team Managed organization with fewer levels of management
that encourages innovation by empowering both management and
employees.
Bureaucratic Organizations have a reputation for
resisting change but it is difficult for them to reject a method that
brings increased productivity and innovation to the organization.
What’s different? The once multilevel career path is now one or two
steps from the Functional Team Management to the Steering Management
Team. Gone are the hundreds of hours of endless manipulation of employee
evaluations. Gone also is the endless bickering and negotiation over
the organization’s budget.
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