Dave Johnson 10-10-17
This is a common saying among tradesmen, engineers, and some in manufacturing positions. Most believe they are trying to say something positive, assuming that if a job is running, it is making money and the people working on that job are happily employed, all is well. All good ideas, but what does the statement really mean? Given the following scenario, would this statement apply?
A machine is running at the designed rate of parts per minute, pounding out products for the customer at the quoted profit margin. If it isn’t broke don’t fix it, right?
Before we answer that one, we may want to know a little more about the process? For example, how soon will it break down? Some may ask, how would we know that? Assuming we have a robust PM program, based on predictive data, we would be able to say with reasonable confidence that the machine or tooling would not go down during the run. We would know this, since all the equipment failure modes had been evaluated over time, and predictive maintenance was put in place to ensure no failures would occur during the run, unless other external factors were involved. Components of the machine and tooling would have been serviced or replaced at regular established intervals during preventive maintenance work.
How about total productive maintenance? Does the operator or set up person do periodic maintenance to ensure wear surfaces are lubricated, pumps get filled, scrap is removed, etc.? Without well defined maintenance intervals, operators may run the job until it fails.
Does the set-up person or operator know what settings or adjustments to make if abnormalities occur? What if material conditions change? Are there well-defined processes and procedures that are followed? Are there accurate operator instructions that operators have been well trained on? Without this, mistakes can be made by operators that could cause severe damage to equipment.
Does the equipment or tooling have sufficient protection or poka yokes (failsafe devices) to protect tooling in case of abnormalities? If not, serious damage could occur to the equipment if there is a miss-feed, scrap buildup, or any one of several abnormalities.
As we can see, there are several questions to be asked to determine if a process like this is truly not “broken”. If any one of the weak links noted above fails, the process will be broken, so if there are not adequate measures being taken, the process is as good as already broken. It is just a matter of time.
Taking this one step further and ask ourselves some additional questions. Could this equipment run faster, even if we had to make minor modifications? Some would say, “Yea, but it isn’t broken”. In the true definition of “broken” this may be true, although from a lean perspective, any process that uses more resources that necessary to provide the customer the value-added content they pay for leaves something to be desired. How much is the time worth on a machine that may have cost hundreds of thousands when purchased? What business could be added to this equipment if it ran faster, or did not break down, resulting in more capacity? What opportunities are we missing?
Another question we could ask is, how long does it take to change over this equipment from one part to another? This may be longer than necessary. From a lean perspective, all set up time is waste. Therefore, if we have excessive set up time to get this process running in the first place, it has added cost to the entire production run. Again, we could ask, “Is it broken”? In the true definition of “broken” we may respond no, but is it right? How can we say a process is not broken that takes much longer to set up? The customer does not want to pay for any of that.
How is material moved in and out of the process? Does it require the operator to stop the process to replenish material? If so, does that mean it is “broken”? We know that all material movement is waste the customer does not want to pay for that either.
What if, in the set up of this operation, the operator must run several parts, while adjusting get it running, resulting in a number of parts being non-conforming and scrapped? Would that be in the definition of broken, if once the process was running it ran fine? What if, with minor changes, the number of set up parts could be dramatically reduced or eliminated? Is this process “broken”?
Maybe we need to re-define the meaning of “broken” or maybe we are just making an incorrect statement or asking the wrong questions entirely to determine if a process is broken. What if we ask questions that are the opposite of broken, for example, is it well defined? Standardized? Put together properly? Secured? Stable? etc.? What if we took it a bit further and asked, “Is it perfect”?
In a competitive environment that requires continuous improvement, it is no longer enough to ask, “Is it broken?” We need to ask, “Is it the best it can be?” If not, we will want to look for a way to fix it, to make sure it is the best it can be. Can we ever be satisfied? Potentially, if we were able to create a perfect process. Good luck with that.
The next time find ourselves asking if a process needs our attention, we should ask; “Is it perfect?” not “Is it broken”.
Christian Life Coach 