• Sit down with your IT team. Decide how the information will be captured and where it will be stored so that employees have access to it. What software tools need to be used to capture the information? How does it need to be organized? Create a repeatable process to make this easy for your staff.
   
• Interview the person. Have them talk you through his/her job. What are the things they do every day? What are their biggest challenges? How do they overcome them? 
   
• Have someone shadow the person for a week. Watch what they do and how they do it. Ask questions. Who does he/she interact with in their department? Outside of their department? Why?
   
• Find out what tools he/she uses to perform their job? Are there spreadsheets?  Reports within your ERP / outside of your ERP? Separate stand-alone databases? Drawings? Websites? Why does he/she use them?
   
• Video record how the person does their job. Is their technique critical to “doing it right” the first time and not ending up with a bunch of scrap that you can’t reuse?
   
• Figure out if the person does anything special on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis that might not come up during the observation period or interview. 
   
• Map how he/she uses your business system and how that impacts the rest of the company. Understand both the “what” and the “why”. Without this, new employees may end up figuring out what they need to do, but never understand why they need to do it.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

• Sit down with your IT team. Decide how the information will be captured and where it will be stored so that employees have access to it. What software tools need to be used to capture the information? How does it need to be organized? Create a repeatable process to make this easy for your staff.
   
• Interview the person. Have them talk you through his/her job. What are the things they do every day? What are their biggest challenges? How do they overcome them? 
   
• Have someone shadow the person for a week. Watch what they do and how they do it. Ask questions. Who does he/she interact with in their department? Outside of their department? Why?
   
• Find out what tools he/she uses to perform their job? Are there spreadsheets?  Reports within your ERP / outside of your ERP? Separate stand-alone databases? Drawings? Websites? Why does he/she use them?
   
• Video record how the person does their job. Is their technique critical to “doing it right” the first time and not ending up with a bunch of scrap that you can’t reuse?
   
• Figure out if the person does anything special on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis that might not come up during the observation period or interview. 
   
• Map how he/she uses your business system and how that impacts the rest of the company. Understand both the “what” and the “why”. Without this, new employees may end up figuring out what they need to do, but never understand why they need to do it.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!

• Are you tracking downtime? Is it done manually, or with some type of automation or application that gathers information in real-time, or is it based upon history?
• If you are measuring team effectiveness by shift, you know there are significant differences between them. Have you figured out why?

One of our automotive customers was experiencing significant inefficiencies and difficulties with their receiving operations. After analyzing their operation, we discovered a disconnect between how they were tracking their incoming goods and what their ERP system thought was on hand.

This disconnect created time-consuming steps to process incoming material and determine where the material was needed. The manual process slowed production, caused additional staffing needs and hindered their ability to effectively get needed material to the assembly line. They chose to implement our data collection solution to automate the process.

Since implementing the solution, receiving and moving material was quicker, more accurate and efficient. This enabled the addition of another assembly line, increasing production volume – without adding staff.

Optimize Your Manufacturing Today!