José Ignacio Mora

You offer an extra reward to the one who comes in. It need not be monetary but let them choose. The reward has to be more valuable to them than the vacation day. That’s the way it works. How about 2 for 1? The one who gives up that day gets two vacation days in the future. It’s your problem, not theirs. What are YOU willing to give up? TANSTAAFL Otherwise it’s coercion.

Find the bottleneck. If you perceive that you have more than one then you haven’t found it yet. Your system is chasing its own tail and your perceived bottlenecks are really temporary traffic snags jumping around. You need to immediately halve your work order batch/lot size and also your purchase order batch/lot size. Yes even if cost accounting tells you it’s more expensive. Cost accounting will tell you to do precisely the wrong thing at precisely the worst possible time. Once you have the smallest lots/batches possible then your true bottleneck will appear. If you don’t think it’s possible then YOU are the bottleneck! Or more precisely your mindset. Once you find your bottleneck then institute a drum-buffer-rope pull system

Your batch and lot sizes, your change control habits and policies and your own knee-jerk reactions are the likely cause of the problems in the first place. Start there.

You need to identify and exploit your constraint. You can’t see it if your production floor is full of inventory. To do that, IMMEDIATELY cut the lot and batch sizes in half for production work orders and supplier purchase orders. Once the inventory goes down, you will see the bottleneck. Implement a drum-buffer-rope pull system.

Look at lot and batch size in purchase orders and work orders. Halve them. Then halve them again. Keep doing this until a physical or policy constraint (outside your control) prevents further reduction. Once inventory levels begin to go down, identify the bottleneck in your process. Notice I said one. If you perceive more than one then you haven’t yet found your bottleneck. Once you’re sure you’ve found it, then implement drum-buffer-rope signaling. Eliminate multitasking and any busy work that isn’t in response to a pull signal.

Immediately cut work order and purchase order quantities in half. Then do it again. Keep doing so until a policy or physical constraint (that you can’t control) prevents you from going further. Once inventory levels go down, then identify the bottleneck. Build a buffer feeding the bottleneck and prioritize everything around it. Institute a drum-buffer-rope signal system.