Jiang Hui turned back and looked outside the door. At this time, except for the two of them, there was no one in the office. She stretched her head forward and whispered to Niu Xiaobai: "Manager Niu, you don't know yet.
Right? Lu Hao has been in love with Zhang Rulan, the receptionist of the Human Resources Department, for a long time. This is already an open secret in Fuma Company, but the layer of window paper has not been pierced yet. Lu Hao told me privately,
This new performance bonus system can widen the performance gap between colleagues and is good evidence to prove his personal work ability and performance. He wants to use real performance data to prove to Zhang Rulan that he is the leader in the entire machine shop
The best staff.”
Hearing this, Niu Xiaobai held his head high and smiled happily: "Haha! I didn't expect that the performance bonus system I designed could actually have this effect! It can provide a basis for assessment for male and female candidates..."
…
When Niu Xiaobai and Jiang Hui arrived at the sawing station, Niu Xiaobai's good mood was gone forever. They saw that the sawing station and the surrounding area were filled with rows of large and small pushers.
each cart was filled with freshly sawed round bars. Although these carts were arranged neatly and orderly, the entire sawing station seemed very crowded. No wonder Lu Hao had to look everywhere for it.
The cart was used. It turned out that all the carts in the machine shop were occupied by the workpieces he produced!
Seeing these carts filled with round bars, Niu Xiaobai vaguely felt that something was wrong. He quickly asked the planner Jiang Hui standing next to him: "Xiaohui, what is going on? Why are there so many piles here?"
So much work-in-progress inventory?”
"Manager Niu, didn't I tell you just now? Since you announced the latest performance appraisal system, Lu Hao's sawing station has been operating over production every day. But because the next process has no time to digest the workpieces he produced,
, so there is a lot of accumulation here. I was just going to tell you that now our machine shop is facing three problems that need to be solved urgently."
"Oh? What three questions? Tell me."
"The first problem is that there are not enough carts for turning around semi-finished workpieces. Look, Manager Niu, because Lu Hao takes up a lot of carts here, there are no carts available at other work stations; the second problem
, due to the increasing number of products in process, the space of our machine shop becomes smaller and smaller. If this continues, your rule of "the aisles must not be blocked" may not be abided by; and
The third question is also the most fatal question..." At this point, Jiang Hui did not dare to continue.
Seeing Jiang Hui's hesitant look, Niu Xiaobai quickly said: "Xiaohui, please stop being so secretive and tell me if you have any questions!"
"It's...it's a matter of raw materials. In order to control the inventory quantity of raw materials, the company has set an inventory upper limit for each raw material. The purchasing department strictly enforces this inventory upper limit and will not buy more. During this period, according to our
The strategy discussed last time, in order to allow each work station in the machine shop to have room for overproduction and encourage operators to produce more, I scheduled the planned volume every day to be about 30% higher than the standard production. As a result, the sawing workers
Lu Hao at the station actually exceeded production by 30% every day, so... As a result, the raw materials of certain specifications were all used up at once."
"Well, this is a problem. What impact will it bring to us?" Niu Xiaobai continued to ask, holding his chin with his right hand.
"The impact of this problem is that when some customers request to expedite a certain product, if there are raw materials in the warehouse, we can easily meet the customer's request; but now, because some raw materials have been
After running out, we can’t produce urgent products at all! You can put it this way, in this sawing station, there are no workpieces I want, but a lot of workpieces I don’t want have been made! In this way
Come on, it has seriously affected my flexibility in making production plans." After saying this, Jiang Hui lowered her face, showing a painful expression.
Niu Xiaobai went to other work stations to check. Except for the faster work stations, the conditions of most work stations were similar to those of the sawing stations.
Looking at the large and small carts filled with various products in progress in front of him, Niu Xiaobai fell into deep thought: "Is it wrong for me to encourage employees to produce more and improve work efficiency?
Isn't the higher the output of employees, the better? Is my 'over-production reward' system used wrongly? Lu Hao obviously works so hard and cooperates with the performance bonus system I implemented, why does the work station where he works instead of
Caused a big problem?..."
…
When he heard the series of questions raised by Niu Xiaobai, Leng Shi on the video call did not rush to answer, but asked: "Haha! Young man, before you answer these questions, you have to figure it out first."
The concept of 'bottleneck process'. Xiaobai, please answer me: What is a 'bottleneck'?"
Niu Xiaobai thought for a while and then replied: "Usually, we call the link with the slowest production rhythm in a process the 'bottleneck'. More broadly speaking, the so-called 'bottleneck' refers to the factors that restrict output in the entire process.
Various factors. For example, in some cases, the available manpower is insufficient, raw materials cannot be arrived in time, equipment fails in a certain link, information flow is blocked, etc., which may become bottlenecks."
"Well, congratulations, you answered correctly! As the literal meaning of 'bottleneck' indicates, the size of the mouth of a bottle determines the speed of liquid flowing out of it; the bottleneck station in the production process restricts the output of the entire process.
Speed, in other words, the output of the bottleneck station is the effective output of the entire production process."
In order for Niu Xiaobai to better understand what he said, Leng Shi said: "Now let me take the human body as a more intuitive example. If your stomach is the bottleneck of the entire digestive system, then digestion
How much food the system can digest in a day depends on the digestive capacity of the stomach. It can be imagined that in order to balance the load of various parts, you should eat according to the digestive capacity of the stomach."
Leng Shi paused and then said: "The sawing station you just described is just like the mouth of the digestive system. Since it is not a bottleneck process, its production capacity will definitely be greater than that of the bottleneck process. If you
If you do not limit the output of non-bottleneck processes based on the capacity of the bottleneck process, it will be like your mouth constantly eating; everything has been eaten into the body, but your stomach cannot digest it, and digestive problems are inevitable.
"
"But... should I just leave the operators in the non-bottleneck process idle like this? Isn't this a waste of production capacity?" Niu Xiaobai hadn't turned around yet.
"Haha! The question you asked is like asking me: Should you just let your teeth and mouth idle? In order to keep them idle, should you
Have you been eating?" Leng Shi asked.
"Oh! I understand." Niu Xiaobai suddenly realized that this is indeed the case! Lu Hao's work attitude has been very positive during this period, so the production capacity of the sawing station has been greatly improved. However, later
The process did not digest what he made in time. The products Lu Haoduo made were converted into work-in-progress inventory. These work-in-progress inventories occupied raw materials, carts, and storage space...
...causing great trouble to everyone.
"So, how should the production plan for non-bottleneck processes be arranged?" Niu Xiaobai asked again.
"Because only the output of the bottleneck process is the effective output of the entire process, the output of the non-bottleneck process is not bigger, the better, they only need to meet the needs of the bottleneck process. If the production speed of the non-bottleneck process is arranged
If the process is too fast, the semi-finished products produced will be blocked in front of the bottleneck process. This will not only fail to increase the effective output of the entire process, but will also cause the company's work-in-progress inventory to increase; you also know that the increase in inventory will cause many negative consequences.
, such as occupying funds, increasing storage fees, increasing scrapped products, etc.”
Niu Xiaobai was sorting out his thoughts and said: "Therefore, the production schedule of the non-bottleneck process must appropriately match the production speed of the bottleneck process, thereby reducing unnecessary work-in-process inventory. Well... In this case, even if the non-bottleneck process is
The current utilization rate is not high, and we cannot increase its utilization efficiency in order to reduce shared costs, because doing so will not increase the effective output of the entire process, but will only increase useless work-in-progress inventory!"
Seeing that Niu Xiaobai finally understood, Leng Shi said cheerfully: "Haha! Young man, have you turned a corner now?"
"It seems that my performance bonus system's provision on 'over-production rewards' needs to be modified... However, employees' enthusiasm for work is rarely aroused. If I modify this provision immediately, will it be a waste of time?
Their cold water? Senior Brother Leng, what should I do?" Niu Xiaobai asked thoughtfully.
"I think the performance bonus incentive system of 'the more capable, the more hard work, the more hard work, the more rewards'" is actually very effective. You can make some changes and continue to use it to motivate your employees. Let me give you a suggestion:
Regarding output, we should assess the effective output of the entire production system, rather than the output of a certain process or a certain person, and clearly explain to everyone the constraint effect of the bottleneck process. Only in this way will everyone focus on how to
Improve the utilization of bottleneck processes; employees in non-bottleneck processes will not mess around for their own personal bonuses, regardless of the overall constraint effect... What you have to do now is to first find out the bottleneck processes in your machine shop."
How should we find the bottleneck process? Generally speaking, bottleneck processes have the following characteristics: employees in this process often work overtime and are always working at full capacity; the requirements for operating technology are high, and workers are required to be skilled in operating technology, and they cannot freely increase the number in the short term
Workers; may use special equipment, and the equipment is relatively expensive; it is subject to various conditions, and cannot increase load and output casually in the short term...
Niu Xiaobai asked to himself: "The processing procedures for common shaft parts in machine shops are generally: end facing, rough turning, quenching and tempering, semi-finishing turning, fine turning, end facing, keyway milling, quenching, grinding
Outer circle, fine grinding, inspection. So, among these processes, which is the bottleneck process?"