SHORT INTERVAL CONTROL - MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU

“Short Interval control that’s what all those disused wipe off boards you see around manufacturing plants are – right?” came the question.

My answer was “Well it can be. It depends how you set about it.”

Short Interval Control (SIC for short) is a way to enable front line teams to own and drive hour to hour performance; a very simple and powerful means. Sometimes though it doesn't seem to "stick." One key to making SIC effective is to recognise that SIC is a means to an end and not an end in itself. A second is to recognise that for it to be sustainable it must be embraced by the front line teams who will use it.

Here are the stories of three SIC rollouts that I’ve been a part of. I’ve titled them Good, Bad and Ugly…. There were learnings from each. I start with Ugly and move through Bad to Good. I hope that after reading on you can start off at Good….

UGLY

I was a Shift Supervisor running two lines. Our new Factory Manager had just been appointed. Whiteboards were being put up alongside the lines.

“What are they for?” asked my Team Leaders “They’re blocking the gangways. We can’t get the rework trolleys through any more.”

“I’m not sure what they’re for – I’ll ask the Production Manager at the shift meeting. Are you sure that we can’t get the trolleys through?” I replied

I asked about the boards at the shift meeting but my manager didn’t know either. He came and had a look with me at the problem with getting the trolleys through. He agreed that we’d have to get the boards taken back down. Later in the shifts the boards were stacked against the wall.

At the end of the week the boards went back up in new positions and the Production Managers were briefed on the data capture requirements. The briefing was cascaded to we Supervisors and on to our Team Leaders.

Completion was patchy. We’d got off on the wrong foot with the boards. To be honest we couldn’t see the point of them. We understood what had to be done. We understood the potential consequences of non-compliance. The main blocker for us was that we didn’t understand how the boards could help us to do our jobs or believe that they could.

BAD

Now it was my turn to be rolling out SIC boards. I’d visited plants where SIC was working and talked to front line employees aglow with pride and enthusiasm in their line’s performance. I’d taken the learnings out of my “Ugly” experience too. We’d make sure that we explained the purpose of the boards and how they would help the line teams achieve their objectives.

We ran workshops that showed how the measures on the boards linked to site objectives. We showed team members how to complete the boards. We took feedback about where to position the boards. We provided ready reckoners in response to concerns about some of the calculations. We provided mentor support at each line review to deal with any roll out bugs.

The fill out rate was patchy and fell off rapidly.

Why? My learning was that we were still treating the completion of the boards as an end. Not a means to an end. That end being to provide the line teams with a tool with which to drive line performance. We’d given the teams an understanding of the purpose of the boards. We were one step on from having people trained purely to complete the boards. The teams still did not have belief in, or ownership of, the SIC process though. The line teams did not see the boards as their own.

GOOD

The boards were not being willingly used. So I took them down.

I ran a Team Day (see Employee Engagement – A Success Story post). The front line teams identified their Objectives for the coming year. They were asked how they would measure success and how they would track progress. The Teams were committed to achieving their Safety, Quality, Service and Cost Objectives. After all they’d come up with them themselves. They were committed to tracking their progress as well.

The three production Zones each constructed SIC boards. The boards were the solution that the teams came up with to tracking progress. The boards captured similar information in each Zone because each Zone needed to track similar measures. The boards were each different though. They were owned and built by the teams and reflected the teams’ needs, space constraints and creativity. The most important factor was that these boards had been invented by the front line teams to help them to do their day job.

The boards are still in use four years on. We’d asked the teams a different question this time: “What are your goals and how will you track them.” Instead of: “Please will you fill out these white boards? – they’re really important.”

So…..back to the original question: “Short Interval Control that’s what all those disused wipe off boards you see around manufacturing plants are – right?”

My answer should have been: “It depends which question you ask your team. If you ask the team to fill out whiteboards SIC is likely to fall into disuse. If you ask the team to set their own goals and track them you will get a very different outcome; you will have sustainable SIC in place”