Blog Posts

The subject of today’s post is the Morning Meeting every industrial plant, or at least everyone I’ve ever worked with has. Though this post is directed at the M M, the same discussion also applies to all other meetings to a lesser or greater degree, depending on how productive yours may currently be.

There is just no substitute for talking out issues face to face, looking each other in the eye, and coming to an agreement about what, who, and when something is to be done.

Morning Meeting content varies widely across the board but if you make widgets, the events of the off going shift must be passed on to the oncoming shift and ensure that we are agreed on the “Plan Of The Day”. Yes, we have loads of paperwork and computer screens, but they soon turn to information overload. I’ve seen organizations try to use email for this purpose, but too much is lost trying to type (and then be read) all info that should be passed on. For example, we take shortcuts thinking we don’t need to go into detail on X, but then we don’t make ourselves clear. Most organizations find value in having those involved talk about it. This post stems from a plant that loved to talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it.

This isn’t to say this plant didn’t know what they were doing. The group was very knowledgeable; they could really make widgets and even had some MBAs in the room. But, yet they found themselves with this bit of chaos each morning.

Meetings should be considered just another a system, and so a tweak here and there is needed to tune the system. Established routine meetings if not kept on track will evolve, and they don’t evolve towards being more organized or efficient. For those that may doubt this, physics even has laws about this. The 2^nd law of Thermodynamics applies and very loosely states, as systems evolve, entropy increases, so over time, they will become more disordered. (Maybe a little smile).

Fundamental to conducting any type of meeting is a well thought out and posted agenda. Next would be the right attendees and they be able to express events, needs, ideas, agreements, directions, and understandings clearly in the setting. There is just no substitute for talking out issues face to face, looking each other in the eye, and coming to an agreement about what, who, and when something is to be done. It’s also essential that the meeting facilitator not allow the group to only talk about issues. Often the facilitator must press the discussion and ask David Allen’s question,”What’s the next action?” This is from his 2001 book “Getting Things Done”, it’s a great read, well worth your time.

The message would be, if you aren’t happy with meetings in your organization, understand it isn’t going to evolve to something better on its own. Someone must go out of their way and fix it. Make it you.

This post deals with a Rotary Screw Air Compressor coupling failure and the Field Service Report documenting this event. Normally a grid type coupling is considered pretty much bulletproof with the exception of grid wear due to misalignment or lubrication issues, so this failure was a surprise; the coupling halves were totally destroyed.

Great latitude is given to individuals in modern industry to act independently and handle issues as they arise and without direction. This is good, as we always need people that can identify a problem before it’s a disaster and act to correct or just handle it to completion.

The plants narrative went that at some point in the past, workers had made a mistake and then taken it upon themselves to cover up their error by modifying the equipment as discussed in the report. Unfortunately, the changes were not well thought out and the result of those modifications was this failure. Even if we could be assured that sound judgment would be applied, this action would still be a half measure as we’re dealing with people and unfortunately, even the best-intentioned people screw-up. 

The plant had no Change Management Process while also attempting to push decisions to the lowest level. With a CMP all equipment changes (with the exception of incidental changes) are to be submitted for approval to a competent individual, preferably with an engineering background. These modifications would never have been considered incidental, they would never have been approved. It’s imperative that the CMP not be viewed as a roadblock or delaying tactic by the workers on the floor. If an issue is raised and an approval is needed in the middle of the night, the duty approver is expected to get up and go see what the issue is.

In fairness to the workers, the plant was understaffed and had very little engineering support for anything other than major projects. I also can’t believe a couple of guys on a second shift were changing the motor and got into this mess on their own. Falk couplings were hard to come by as stores stocked a minimum of parts so it was probably a special order item for that job. Looking at the total of the work done, it would most likely have run the job beyond a couple of shifts. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if some management wasn’t involved in some way, at some point. Yes, even supervisors and managers need to have all but incidental changes to the equipment approved within a Change Management Process.

I think it’s important to note; as a consultant, my job was not to fix blame but to help the plant understand what had happened and why, what should have happened, and how do we stay out of this kind of mess in the future. You can read the full report with the link below.

Many of us in Industry love the glitter and glitz of Hi-Tech, myself included. To that point, many fall victim to the, “it’s the answer to all our problems” syndrome. Largely due to industry hype, we believe it can fix everything. Many times a customer has wanted me to come out and “just take some readings” on X machine that’s in its death rattle, while I can hear it over his phone and know it’s done, it just hasn’t stopped turning yet. It never works.  If it did, then all we would have to do is buy another meter, camera, or box. Maybe we can install some permanent sensors; yes, more data will do the trick.

But, before these tools can be used to really good advantage, a plant needs to have good work practices and the discipline and systems in place to make sure they are followed. The plant in this Field Service Report/Case Study was a good running plant that used vibration, infrared, ultrasound, and oil analysis, as well as a knowledgeable and aggressive supervisory and management group. But yet, they had an ongoing problem in the basement that routinely affected one of their critical process of the plant. There were finer mesh strainers and filter bags available but the plant had been seriously promoting employee involvement.

We all know of the need to push decisions to the lowest level. Since they were told it was their decision, the operators chose to use the baskets shown because they almost never plugged up, so they almost never had to clean them. The pit just filled with fines and the sprays continued to plug. This also is a good example of why the old saw “we’ll just all work together on that” doesn’t work. If you want something to work, you have to make someone responsible for it.

You may be asking yourself how this could happen, but a better question would be, Do you know what’s going on in your basement? Read the complete report with the following link.