By doing three things, we’ve seen our customers achieve amazing success with Mingo. In this blog, we’re reviewing the three “must-do’s” to get the most value from your Mingo manufacturing analytics.
1. Place Scoreboards Strategically on the Plant Floor and in Employee Common Areas
Some of the most profound effects we’ve seen customers enjoy with their Mingo are the effects that plant-wide visibility has on production.
One customer saw availability go up and throughput increase a week after putting up a scoreboard in their break room. Each department saw its numbers on the scoreboard tracking when they were up and when they were down.
We asked if this was creating a big brother effect on the floor; that is, was the tracking creating pressure on operators or in general affecting morale.
Their response, “On the contrary, we’re a competitive bunch. The scoreboard brings out the best in our guys.”
Well-played management. Well-played.
2. Use the Dashboard Subscriptions to Communicate Daily or Weekly Production Numbers
One thing that our customers do that fundamentally is easy to do is to use our Dashboard Subscription service. This will send role-based reports to the relevant managers and staff. End-of-Shift, Daily Production or Weekly Production reports keep everyone on the same page.
One of our customers can start a thread that includes the operators. One recent message: “Great job guys! 3rd day in a row we hit our numbers.”
With atta-boys like this, it’s pretty obvious to see that morale and production will increase.
On a different note, one particularly hard-pressed shift started the thread with
What happened guys? Let’s discuss tomorrow morning.”
3. Review the Numbers as a Team in Daily or Weekly Production Meetings
It’s important to have real-time visibility and notifications go out to the relevant people, but we’ve seen many great ideas for improvement come from the collaboration of managers and departments.
By reviewing the numbers as a team in your production meetings, you’ll be much more likely to encourage creative and timely approaches to eliminating bottlenecks, reducing unplanned downtime, increasing capacity or reducing scrap.
Getting us back on to a 5-day production schedule made it easier and better for everybody.
A smart rollout of any tweaks to the line or process, with a clear time day and shift marker, so there’s a control for before and after, and these ideas can now be validated as successful or not.
One of our favorite anecdotes came from a dental supply manufacturer. Using Mingo they were able to identify a critical role in the line that was missing. By filling this role during the week, they completely eliminated weekend overtime. Overall, they saw both savings and an increase in employee satisfaction.
“Getting us back on to a 5-day production schedule made it easier and better for everybody.”
