The Control Room Process or War Room

1. The Control Room Process(or War Room)

2. THE CONTROL ROOM CONCEPT!

3. WHAT IS A CONTROL ROOM? A control (or war room) is exactly what the name suggests, a room dedicated to the control of your business, or if you would like, where you review the execution of your business strategy on a Daily basis. It is a place that is KEY to the effective running of operations and as such could be considered the ‘brain’ or ‘nerve centre’ of your organisation. The control room is not only vital in monitoring and driving improvement in your Key Performance Indicators, but it is also plays an integral part in effectively communicating what is happening in your business to all the workforce.

4. WHAT IS A CONTROL ROOM?

5. WHAT IS A CONTROL ROOM? Meeting’s are conducted standing up It’s a paperless environment, where possible Results/issues/actions are recorded on boards Each meeting lasts about 20 - 30 mins With approximately 2-5 mins / function The reporting follows a structured sequence Reports should be short and sharp

6. WHERE SHOULD A CONTROL ROOM BE LOCATED? As the control room is the ‘brain’ or ‘never centre’ of the business it should be located wherever possible in a central location upon the shop floor. This helps reassert in peoples minds its importance as being central to the way the business runs.

7. Objective of a Control Room

8. KPI MEASUREMENT We measure and report on anything that is fundamental to the effective and smooth running of the business, remember what we measure we can improve!!! Typical measures within a control room include: Customer On Time Delivery Build Plan adherence Material supply Inventory Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) Quality and Rework Maintenance schedules H&S - Accidents WCP/Lean activities As can be seen, just about anything can be measured and reported on. Only By doing this can we keep the correct focus on key areas of the business and enable us to drive improvements in ALL areas.

9. Control Room Tools – Problem solving techniques

10. An example of a pareto diagram A Pareto Diagram is a simple way of arranging data in a graphical form, so that it is easy to identify the area/areas to focus improvement effort on first, second root cause etc. A Pareto diagram should be used in order to organise data and therefore set the priority of action when solving issues like the causes of machine or operator down time, the different types of customer complaints, reason for stock outs, aged stock etc. For anyone unfamiliar with the term Pareto, the principle is named after the Italian mathematician / economist Vilfredo Pareto that invented it. Also known as the 80/20 rule, it’s a method to ensure you focus on the major issues. Fundamentally it’s a way of identifying the big chunk of a complex problem scenario. You may have heard people say 80% of our problems come from 20% of the activity, (80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes) e.g. stock out’s, peak and trough scheduling, poor supplier relationships, late deliveries, writing off stock, stock adjustments, late deliveries to customers, etc. etc. (80% of the problem) might all be linked to poor BOM structures (20% of the activity to set the product up on an MRP system). The chart featured on the slide would be at a different level of operation, but would be a real time indicator of the root cause – i.e. 80% of the problem (down-time) is due to stock outs – where this is indicated across functions, the reasons for Stock outs will be addressed. Where root cause analysis tools are not utilised, companies can focus on the wrong issues for years based on assumptions from an isolated perspective.A Pareto Diagram is a simple way of arranging data in a graphical form, so that it is easy to identify the area/areas to focus improvement effort on first, second root cause etc. A Pareto diagram should be used in order to organise data and therefore set the priority of action when solving issues like the causes of machine or operator down time, the different types of customer complaints, reason for stock outs, aged stock etc. For anyone unfamiliar with the term Pareto, the principle is named after the Italian mathematician / economist Vilfredo Pareto that invented it. Also known as the 80/20 rule, it’s a method to ensure you focus on the major issues. Fundamentally it’s a way of identifying the big chunk of a complex problem scenario. You may have heard people say 80% of our problems come from 20% of the activity, (80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes) e.g. stock out’s, peak and trough scheduling, poor supplier relationships, late deliveries, writing off stock, stock adjustments, late deliveries to customers, etc. etc. (80% of the problem) might all be linked to poor BOM structures (20% of the activity to set the product up on an MRP system). The chart featured on the slide would be at a different level of operation, but would be a real time indicator of the root cause – i.e. 80% of the problem (down-time) is due to stock outs – where this is indicated across functions, the reasons for Stock outs will be addressed. Where root cause analysis tools are not utilised, companies can focus on the wrong issues for years based on assumptions from an isolated perspective.

11. Plan, Do, Check, Act. PDCA - To make problem solving and therefore improvement a continuous activity, it is recommended you follow Demmings PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) cycle in its never ending rotation as in picture. This is the bit where everyone fails. How many meetings / discussions have you been part of where the issues and actions required were identified, someone put together minutes with names and dates but nothing (or very little ever happened)? Probably most of them! No matter how difficult or simple a problem is, it still needs to be addressed – physical action has to happen. Everyone has the ability to get things done, but how do they get the time? How do they remain focused on an issue that was important enough to have a meeting about it in the first place? This is the purpose of the control room!! Peer/Group/team pressure provides the leverage required to get things done as nobody likes turning up to the daily meeting saying, “I didn’t get to that yet, I’m too busy, I will do it tomorrow”. A few days of this and the team wont take long to say, “hey, you said that yesterday!” or “look, we all agreed this was a priority and you said you would do this part of the action”. The Operations leader or Value Stream Leader (person chairing the meeting) has to supervise and encourage this type of discussion all the while keeping it constructive and knowing when to jump in if someone is genuinely too busy to do something and give the action to someone else, or make sure all the actions are getting spread fairly among the team. We all know the person who wants to fix everything but jumps around from one subject to the other without ever fixing anything fully. (Busy Fools – Jack of all trades (master of none), they have many historical names). It used to be called being ‘a busy fool’ – none of us want to put effort into something that doesn’t provide us with positive results and feelings. Recognition, satisfaction, a smile from a colleague, it doesn’t have to be much to make us feel good about ourselves. When we start to achieve, we generate positive feelings in ourselves and our colleagues. Then, we are really starting to affect the culture of the company, and that is the key to sustainable improvement.PDCA - To make problem solving and therefore improvement a continuous activity, it is recommended you follow Demmings PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) cycle in its never ending rotation as in picture. This is the bit where everyone fails. How many meetings / discussions have you been part of where the issues and actions required were identified, someone put together minutes with names and dates but nothing (or very little ever happened)? Probably most of them! No matter how difficult or simple a problem is, it still needs to be addressed – physical action has to happen. Everyone has the ability to get things done, but how do they get the time? How do they remain focused on an issue that was important enough to have a meeting about it in the first place? This is the purpose of the control room!! Peer/Group/team pressure provides the leverage required to get things done as nobody likes turning up to the daily meeting saying, “I didn’t get to that yet, I’m too busy, I will do it tomorrow”. A few days of this and the team wont take long to say, “hey, you said that yesterday!” or “look, we all agreed this was a priority and you said you would do this part of the action”. The Operations leader or Value Stream Leader (person chairing the meeting) has to supervise and encourage this type of discussion all the while keeping it constructive and knowing when to jump in if someone is genuinely too busy to do something and give the action to someone else, or make sure all the actions are getting spread fairly among the team. We all know the person who wants to fix everything but jumps around from one subject to the other without ever fixing anything fully. (Busy Fools – Jack of all trades (master of none), they have many historical names). It used to be called being ‘a busy fool’ – none of us want to put effort into something that doesn’t provide us with positive results and feelings. Recognition, satisfaction, a smile from a colleague, it doesn’t have to be much to make us feel good about ourselves. When we start to achieve, we generate positive feelings in ourselves and our colleagues. Then, we are really starting to affect the culture of the company, and that is the key to sustainable improvement.

12. WHO NEEDS TO ATTEND? As we have seen previously we measure a diverse range of KPI’s within the Control room, therefore to ensure that the meeting is effective and successful, ALL key functions MUST be represented at EVERY meeting :- Production Supervision Planning Quality Engineering Purchasing Customer Services Stores/Logistics

13. HOW LONG SHOULD A MEETING LAST? Ideally the Control room meeting should be no shorter than 20 minutes and no longer than 30 minutes. If issues arise and people become bogged down in debate it is best to ‘park’ the issue, select individuals to continue the discussion outside of the control room meeting and have them report back on the outcomes the following day. Equally there is a danger that the meeting can become too short. Remember the control room is about monitoring and communicating the performance of the business so it is important to strike the right balance between being too brief and skipping over the issues and being too weighty and bogging people down with unnecessary data.

14. WHAT CULTURE ARE WE TRYING TO CREATE WITHIN A CONTROL ROOM? We are aiming to create an open & honest culture Ensure ownership and accountability It should be a no blame, no excuse environment People should speak with data, not with opinion Measurement and Route Cause Analysis to drive improvement When problems are identified we need to be very action orientated – PDCA discipline This daily discipline allows you to continually check if the actions you are taking are having the desired impact…in Real Time. And finally we need to foster and build team spirit

15. COLOUR CODING OF CONTROL ROOM BOARDS RED - Failed to hit target GREEN - Succeeded to hit target BLUE - WIP BLACK - Actual Target / Label

16. SOME BASIC RULES TO FOLLOW FOR SUCCESSFUL CONTROL ROOM MEETINGS ATTEND ON TIME DO NOT LEAVE BEFORE THE END MAKE SURE ALL INFORMATION IS UPDATED BEFORE THE MEETING STARTS LISTEN TO EACH AND EVERY SPEAKER CELL PHONES TO BE TURNED OFF OR SILENCED ONE SPEAKER AT A TIME…. NO WHISPERING OR CHIT CHAT DO NOT TAKE OVER FROM THE FACILITATOR DO NOT ARGUE PARK MAJOR ISSUES AND RESUME DISCUSSION OUTSIDE OF THE ROOM, AND THEN REPORT BACK THE FOLLOWING DAY ACTIONS BASED ON DATA

17. Summary The Control or War Room is a visual, action orientated tool with one objective in mind To drive sustainable improvement in all key areas of our business VA Business Solutions have developed an expertise on the implementation and use of this tool as a means of delivering rapid productivity and cost reduction projects across a variety of industries, geographies and cultures Over 100 successful and sustainable implementations to date

18. APPENDIXEXAMPLES OF CONTROL ROOM BOARDS

19. EXAMPLES OF CONTROL ROOM BOARDS

20. EXAMPLES OF CONTROL ROOM BOARDS