Overruling
Parkinson's Law
Parkinson’s Law is one of my favorites - work expands to
fill the time available. If
you tell someone to complete a task within 2 hours, they will take
two hours to complete it. If
you allow 3 hours for the task, it will generally take 3 hours to
complete.
A more efficient person can finish the task in less time, but
for most, Parkinson’s Law rules.
Instead of asking people to gauge their own work level, we try
to measure work efficiency. Ergonomics
is the study of people’s work efficiency.
In machining it is easy to measure the efficiency of the
machine tool. At RTSI we
work with swiss CNC machines where you can read the cycle time right
on the control. If a
part takes 90 seconds to machine, we can quickly do the math and
calculate the number of parts we can make per hour.
There are 3600 seconds per hour, so divide 3600 by 90 and the
result is 40 parts per hour.
This result does not take into account the level of
efficiency. The machine
could make 40 parts per hour in a perfect world but in the real
world there are factors that lower efficiencies.
Changing tools and inserts, loading stock, measuring parts
all interrupt the machining process and lower efficiency rates.
What about other aspects of our industry?
How long should a set-up take?
What about writing a program?
As we know, accountants rule our world.
They look at the bottom line, so the money factor is always
involved in production. In
the good old days manufacturing operated under a “piece work“
system. This system
measured productivity by the number of parts machined at each
machine. The more parts
machined, the better. This
system was good for productivity but bad for quality.
People focused on quantities produced, whether parts were
good or bad.
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Now most companies use a self-study system of measuring
productivity. This system relies of the company culture to set an
environment of productivity.
Many companies are employing the 5S program and Lean
machining. These
programs are designed to improve the hidden efficiency of
non-machining time.
The ultimate rule is survival of the fittest as the costs of
the inefficient plant result in reduced orders and eventual demise.
The trend in smaller companies is back to good, solid engineers that
understand production at the shop floor level, leading the drive for
greater efficiency.
Parkinson’s Law cannot rule.
Company culture can’t allow an individual to set his/her
own work performance. The organization must set a level of
expectation to the employees that make the system work more
efficiently. The old saying of “I am doing the best I can” may
not be realistic as it means “I am taking as long as I want” to
achieve a task.
We all need to evaluate our own efforts to be efficient. If we
are to reap the rewards of higher efficiency we need to work both
harder and smarter.
To achieve the required results the efficiency of each
discipline must be measured and improved.
Study each step of the process from receiving the contract,
placing the order for the material, scheduling the job, setting up
the machine, running the part, inspection and final shipping.
Currently, of all these steps, we measure only cycle time and maybe
set up time. It’s
in the other steps that inefficiency can kill us on cost.
All aspects of manufacturing need to be measured from an
efficiency point of view. The
business and personal rewards will follow, the company overcomes
increased competition and we can earn a good living
in manufacturing. Sounds
good to me.
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