Behaviour

Behaviour is reaction. We react to visual, auditory, emotional and financial stimuli. Our reactions to negative stimuli are faster than to positive stimuli. A quick reaction to negative stimuli is more likely to react to effect rather than cause, which makes a difference.

Sanitation

Sanitation is more than an end-of-shift task. How clean a facility, a workstation or a piece of equipment is can affect productivity and safety. To think of sanitation exclusively in terms of food safety and hygiene misses the operational efficiency associated with:

  • higher productivity
  • earlier equipment failure diagnosis
  • reduced cases of worker injury

Benefits of sanitation can include:

  • Ergonomics: In a clean environment workers have fewer distractions and move more efficiently
  • Unplanned downtime: equipment operators spot leaks sooner on clean equipment
  • Repair: maintenance can diagnose equipment failures in less time on clean equipment
  • Workstations: production workstations are safer when they are free from hazards that cause slips and falls

Instilling the corporate culture of a clean workplace can take up to five years to accomplish. This may also mean re-thinking who is responsible for safe workstations during operations.

End-of-pipe/process wastes

Some processors generate a lot of organic waste. A company decides to invest in a bio-digester. That digester is scaled for the existing waste volume. Digesters are capital intensive. Once built, the cost-effectiveness of the technology is achieved with a minimum input requirement. Where avoidable waste is reduced and byproduct recovery follows an investment in a digester, the digester will fail to achieve an economic payback because the digester needs a set volume of waste inputs to recover capital costs.

Process efficiency and by-product recovery produce less waste (the effect) and will reduce the size (capital requirement) of a digester where that is being considered.

Equipment upgrades

Companies are sometimes concerned about the cost of the compressor load required to operate their freezer units. One solution is to install de-humidification systems in the freezers. This is a solution that addresses an effect, but not the causes of the freezer load which involve roof color affecting:

  • convective heat loads
  • insufficient or damaged insulation
  • facility air balance
  • humidity leakage into the freezers

These causes reduce compressor capacity requirements. Eliminating causes eliminates effects.

There may eventually be a need to install humidity controls in the freezer but at a lower capital cost and operating cost than larger compressors. It is more cost effective to add a humidity module as a facility expands, than to idle an over-sized compressor unit.

In a business, effect-based reactions tend to focus on negative outcomes (noise) at the end of the input-process-output sequence and lock in the preceding noise. Cause-based reactions focus on root problems to eliminate the source of noise and improve performance.

Communication

In a manufacturing facility there can be four modes of communication, including:

  • person-to-person (manual): people communicating with each other using speech and gestures
  • person-to-machine (mechanical): people communicating with machines using on/off switches, dials, control settings and programmed instructions
  • machine-to-person (automated): machines communicating with people via mechanical gauges or digital meters and visually with monitors (A gauge requires the operator to stay at the machine)
  • machine-to-machine (digital): computerized and digitized machinery communicating through data

Each communication mode requires new skill sets and tools to ensure effective communication. Understanding how machines talk to us and each other is a skill.

Mechanical and automated processes require the ability to:

  • operate a machine
  • diagnose machine problems
  • repair a machine

Digital processes require the ability to:

  • read the data
  • understand when that data points to a variance
  • identify and isolate a variance
  • correct a variance

In a digital process there are three layers of communication and management, including:

  • data collection and analysis of metered information and maintenance planning
  • data visualization at the point of use (for example, screens linked to individual processing lines)
  • development of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and business planning

Skills

Communication and skill sets

Effective communication and behaviour include skill sets that must be learned and practiced, to achieve cost-related benefits. The skill sets required in mechanical and automated manufacturing do not disappear in a digitized environment. They continue to be needed and developed. As skills are practiced, behaviour emerges.

For example, an Energy Management Information System (EMIS) tracks the performance of equipment. Individual submeters that feed your EMIS system can alert staff to do proactive maintenance and avoid unplanned downtime.) Proactive behaviour replaces post-crisis equipment repairs. The key is to operationalize the “plays” with a game plan using skilled staff. Some behaviour-related outcomes to using skills and tools are:

  • mastering productive efficiency
  • adopting technology, tools and skills
  • making sense of data management and effective KPIs
  • achieving a profitable net zero market opportunity
  • avoiding regulatory penalties
  • attracting and retaining a motivated team

Communicating between teams

How and what is communicated during a technology adoption process requires teams. These are people from different parts of the organization with experience and a vested interest in making things work. The challenge is to support teamwork that meets the needs for the people who will operate a new technology, whose work may be affected by a new technology and how that technology contributes to the overall needs of the business.

This discussion can begin by looking at a model for how equipment and technology gets selected. Technology adoption is not a single-step process. Technology adoption requires teamwork. Team members contribute specialized skills, experience and decision authority to measure, assess, analyze, decide, install and operate. Today’s equipment, fitted with computerized circuitry (semiconductors), also requires an understanding of the foundational technology required to be in place for that equipment to operate effectively.

Specialized teams guide your adoption cycle

Needs assessment

  • Measurements, understanding of the process and gaps
  • Personnel:
    • Leadership team (CEO, COO, human resources, operations, sales and marketing)
    • Data management
    • Engineering
    • Maintenance
    • Production supervisor
    • Product management
    • Quality assurance

Technology assessment

  • Determine available options (training, process, technology and readiness)
  • Personnel:
    • Data management
    • Engineering
    • Maintenance
    • Operations
    • Production supervisor

Cost/benefit analysis

  • Analyze options for cost and benefit compared to organizational needs
  • Personnel:
    • Data management
    • Engineering
    • Finance
    • Human resources
    • Operations
    • Quality assurance

Buy-in and confidence

  • Leadership understands and supports the decision
  • Personnel:
    • Leadership team (CEO, COO, human resources, operations, sales and marketing)
    • Engineering
    • Finance
    • Operations
    • Quality assurance

Technology selection and adoption

  • Planning, skills, training, vendors, installation and commission
  • Personnel:
    • Engineering
    • Finance
    • Human resources
    • Maintenance
    • Operations

Operation and optimization

  • Use technology to its potential, implementing continuous improvement
  • Personnel:
    • Data management
    • Engineering
    • Maintenance
    • Operations
    • Production supervisor
    • Product management
    • Quality assurance

A smaller business generally lacks the organizational complexity of larger business. The intention of this guide is to describe the special teams, with people who need specific skills and roles for especially for needs assessment, technology assessment and cost/benefit analysis teams to address the variables that can be identified. Begin this adoption process with foundational (input) technologies, as the data management and variable control skills you will use for effective process and output technology adoption depend upon the core competencies gained with the use of foundation technologies.