Reliability is the foundation for building productivity, sustainability, and long-term profitability. Maintaining quality production and operational excellence that meets customer expectations can only be achieved by consistently reliable manufacturing processes.
However, in this country and many others, too much emphasis has been placed on outcomes and tweaking the final 10% of the end product rather than ensuring the consistent manufacturing reliability that turned ‘American Made’ into an instantly recognizable mark of quality. Significant gaps have appeared between the expectations of what this quality should be and the processes in place to achieve it.
One of the most critical chasms is the real shortage of skilled and engaged workers in our manufacturing industries. Whether through social indifference or readdressing of wealth to other industries, the manufacturing workforce has been left behind, which has huge knock-on effects for the whole country. Who will make the parts, pieces and materials necessary for high-quality production? Who will maintain the machinery and equipment assets that companies invest heavily in? Who will operate those machines to ensure they are delivering to the capacity they’re capable of? Can the US continue to hold onto its current manufacturing strength without further erosion while positioning itself to grow its economic, industrial, and manufacturing strength?
How Reliable Manufacturing is Built
The workforce must be central to the success of any manufacturing process. This means putting considerable focus and resources into the people behind the machines and on the assembly lines; those setting up the runs and those fixing the equipment. The expertise, adaptability, and commitment of these people are the greatest contributors to long-lasting, reliable manufacturing processes, as without them, nothing moves from the delivery room to the shipping yard.
In industrial America, we began to automate our processes, yet at the same time, we decided not to spend time and money training machine operators. In maintenance, we bought laser alignment systems and stopped teaching alignment principles. In operations, we got a computer and stopped training on “Audible, Visual and Tactile” methods of machinery inspections. A quarter of a century later, industrial America has woken up to a world where the next generation is not interested in a career in manufacturing, especially when they’re going to be low-skilled, undervalued jobs where management makes them feel replaceable.
But without those people, building a reliable, high-quality and profitable manufacturing industry is impossible. Reliable Manufacturing will only come through understanding, acceptance, and support with the entire organization or from the “top to the shop.”
Why the Manufacturing Workforce Matters
There are several reasons why a human workforce can never truly be replaced by machines, including:
- Using Judgement: Repetitive tasks, even relatively complicated ones, can be programmed, but human expertise is irreplaceable when it comes to divergence from the programmed path. Determining what to do when something goes wrong, and spotting opportunities for innovation are human traits that machines will unlikely replicate any time soon.
- Adaptability: A single human can retrain or refocus themselves to do thousands of different things, which also means they hold the capacity for a wide array of competencies at any one time. While powerful and untiring, machines can only do what they were built for.
- Consistency: While machines account for much of the planning and measuring of the installation and design of processes, human oversight is still needed to implement them. A highly expensive machine will not deliver on its potential if someone who’s never been trained or invested in it oversees it.
Investing in the workforce is not just about hiring the right people but also about nurturing their development and ensuring they are equipped to meet the challenges of modern manufacturing. Research has found that 84%- 94% of industrial accidents are due to human error, which leads many to believe that only machines can improve reliability. However, as humans are still irreplaceable, reliability can only be improved by reducing the ‘weakest’ link, that is, by improving the skillset of humans involved.
Assessing the Status of a Workforce
The first challenge for our manufacturing leaders is to explore and discover the current state of affairs so that they can better understand where they need to be in the future. Next, the operators’ and maintenance technicians’ skills and competencies must be assessed to identify the extant gaps in their training so that they can begin to plan the path forward.
As an example, ask:
- Technicians to describe their current method of ensuring that the correct key lengths are installed in couplings, to help maintain the balance of rotating assemblies.
- Operators to describe the difference between cavitation and recirculation within a pump and what causes each.
Another challenge is to recognize the gaps in the effectiveness and efficiency of your current work systems and processes for planning, scheduling, work execution, and tracking of your precision maintenance efforts. Your current work systems and processes must be assessed in this manner so that necessary adjustments can be made and measured for sustainability.
Professional Training: Building a Strong Foundation
Professional training is the bedrock of a reliable manufacturing workforce. It equips employees with the necessary skills, knowledge, and competencies to perform their roles effectively and adapt to new technologies and methodologies. Companies can build their own training processes or work with partners to ensure that all employees are trained and have their skills nurtured to become essential members of the organization.
A good training program should include:
- Comprehensive Onboarding: New employees should undergo rigorous training to understand the company’s processes, standards, and expectations. This foundation means they will start with the right attitude and approach.
- Continuous Learning: Manufacturing technologies and methodologies are constantly evolving. Continuous learning programs help employees stay updated with the latest advancements, ensuring they can implement best practices and adapt to changes as they occur.
- Specialized Training: As manufacturing processes become more complex, specialized training becomes crucial. This includes training in advanced manufacturing techniques, quality control, measurement/alignment, safety protocols, and sophisticated machinery.
- Soft Skills Development: Effective communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills are all essential for a reliable workforce. Training programs should also focus on developing these soft skills, which help build cohesive teams that can rely on each other without duplicating each other’s work.
Conclusion
Reliable manufacturing is the cornerstone of a successful, high-value economy, especially for a country the size of the USA. However, over recent decades, there has been a turn towards over-reliance or over-speculation that only high-quality machines are needed for reliable manufacturing. This isn’t the case, as these machines will never reach their potential capacity unless the workforce overseeing them is also highly skilled.
Several practices can be implemented to assess the current state of your workforce’s expertise and start improving it. Your training partner needs to be able to assist you with this process and define the work’s purpose with specific and terminal objectives that match what is being taught. This is necessary to ensure that real deliverables can be applied in the field. Your training partner must be able to educate and bring leadership on board with what will happen within specific training events and how they must “sponsor” this work. Together, you must be able to track the correct measures and metrics that reveal progress so that profitable results are recognized from these efforts.
At Reliability Solutions we strongly believe in the workforces of manufacturing America and have dedicated our careers to nurturing those talents to build teams that consistently deliver the reliability and commitment that successful companies dream of. To find out more about how our training programs can improve your manufacturing reliability, contact us here.
