Airhorn by Dave Harris
Entry Date: 060908
In my last six months employed in the automotive industry I was lucky to meet a guy called L. L was my boss and joined the company as a bit of a high flyer who came highly recommended. This guy regenerated my enthusiasm at a time when I was so disillusioned by the industry.
We have heard all about the good old Kami Shabia (presentation is available in the presentation section) auditing techniques, and it was L who trained me in that process. The other process he introduced me to, I am going to call the “air horn”.
We put a portable air horn on the shop floor, and when anybody found a reject or a discrepancy in procedure that person would sound it off. It could be heard in the 4 corners of the factory/office. The senior managers would then stop what they were doing and along with the production supervisors go to the air horn, (by the way all the shop floor also stopped and went there too) and see what it was all about.
We discussed the issue and cured the issue within hours. Please bear in mind these were little issues, like a machine not being set correctly, possibly because the setter did not do what he should have done or something had changed. However, two air horns for the same person and they were spoken to behind closed doors, in an effort to help and develop them.
In the first two weeks we went through a lot of air horns, but we sorted out the issues and we reduced the necessity for it going off as frequent as it did.
Sounds like a bad idea?
1. The shop floor could see active senior management who were prepared to come out their offices and assist them and to actually listen to them.
2. The senior managers started to understand the little issues that made our assets, (operators) lives a difficult one.
3. It proved that the both the management and shop floor were working together to improve processes.
About the author:
This article is submitted by Dave Harris, European Business Improvements founder Contributor and Moderator of the Business Improvement forum. You can reach Dave by clicking the link below:
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