Work Center & Daily Huddle
Maintenance Team
Situation: A national supplier of maintenance services was incurring work order schedule delays, less than optimal communications with the client and lacked organizational expertise in problem solving reasons for workflow interruptions.
Task: The task was to organize the company’s approach to daily scheduling and execution of work orders and the reduction of workflow interruptions. This included partnering with the services facility director to improve the communication effectiveness and reducing the backlog of work requests.
Execution:
- I introduced an effective daily huddle and agenda
- Performance metrics were introduced and tracked through a SQDIP (Safety, Quality, Delivery, Inventory, Productivity) board which was reviewed in the daily huddle and rotated among staff to discuss. A short interval countermeasure or control board was started.
- Every work flow interruption in the last 24 hours was documented daily with an assigned leader, next step to address the problem and a date to return with a status. The lesson learned here was to review on a daily basis, not monthly. Next month is too late to impact this month’s results.
Problem solving techniques and 7 wastes training were given. Several larger improvement efforts were planned using A3 analysis.
Results: The coaching and training led to the elimination of over 200 work flow interrupters on the countermeasure board in 6 months and reduced the work order backlog by 50%. The client acknowledged the improved communications and performance metrics.