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Newton's projects vary significantly depending on the client and the individual challenges they face. Below is one week in the life of a consultant who is in their second year at Newton.
Monday Morning
Left home at 6:00 this morning to be on site at one of the UK's best known Snack Manufacturing Companies. I arrive half an hour before the morning meeting and use the time to update the efficiency graphs with last week's figures, a record week on the site's main line and the Shift Production Manager is positively bouncing off the walls! The morning meeting starts with a flavour panel - I always think the prawn cocktail flavour is too potent first thing on a Monday morning. The Line Managers take turns to present their previous day's performance and top issues. Whilst listening, I slowly finish my packet of snacks, making sure that the right actions are brought out and that someone is assigned to do each of them. We then review last week's actions - the team have managed to complete two thirds of them.
Monday Afternoon
I meet up with John the technician. He has been assigned to the improvement team which I am running and for the last couple days has been repositioning sensors along the conveyor belt to reduce box jams, the second biggest problem on that line. We go through the detail of how the problem was solved to ensure that the sensors are now in the right place.
Monday Night
Check into the hotel by 6:45. My colleague is unbeaten at squash within Newton. After 45 minutes of punishment that is still the case, so naturally I book another slot. A quick shower and then down to the hotel bar for a great dinner and a final check through all my materials for the Problem Solving workshop tomorrow. Lastly, I give some thought to the problems I want the Workshops members to tackle the day after the workshop.
Tuesday Morning
The breakfast lady is all smiles this morning and has my fry-up waiting, as usual my colleague's muesli looks less than appealing. We discuss the plan for the workshop today. After we get on site I prepare my flip-chart slides and order tea and coffee for the 9 o'clock start. We have 8 operators coming along, some arrive early and we talk about last night's result for the local football side until the others arrive. There are always a couple of 'characters' at the workshops and it helps to add to the enthusiasm and energy of the group. I teach some of the principles of problem solving for about an hour, the group are getting really involved. We then attempt a problem solving case-study, which the team manages to solve before working through some examples on site where a rigorous problem solving approach has been used to fix difficult problems in the last two months. At the end of the session we split into four teams of two, each to look at a problem tomorrow. Over lunch my colleague and I discuss how the workshop went and he gives me some useful feedback ahead of the next one.
Tuesday Afternoon
Debbie, an operator, and I are doing speed trials on the automated packing facilities. Starting at 105 per minute we get up to 115 per minute before the machine starts to hit a problem. Once we have solved that we get the machines up to 120 per minute - am looking forward to the figures at the end of the shift!
Tuesday Night
Back in the hotel by 6:00 tonight. I write up the results of the speed trial to show in the morning meeting and then call home to make plans for the weekend. We have invited the workshop team out to a Chinese tonight and the roast duck was always going to be a winner.
Wednesday Morning
It is tomato ketchup on the flavour panel today, definitely my favourite. The morning meeting runs on and on, so after it has finished I discuss it with the Production Manager and we come up with an action to make it quicker and more effective. Am out on the line shortly afterwards to teach Chris, another operator assigned to our team, how to do a Line Study on the flow-wrappers which have bottlenecked the line for the past two weeks.
The workshop team arrives at 10:30 and after a quick debrief each team spends the first hour simply observing the problem. One of the teams is doing a speed trial on the process bottleneck, the cooker, and by lunch time they have increased the output by 8%. The team meets up for lunch in the canteen we all talk about England's chances of winning the next world cup.
Wednesday Afternoon
Back out on the line with the problem solving teams. By four o'clock they are putting their results together as I call the Shift Production Manager to come and listen to what they have achieved. The team presents their own results, the most impressive being the team who have reduced waste on two of the packing machines by 75%.
Wednesday Evening
Stay on site till 7:15 to finish off my presentation for the Factory Manager, as well as the Newton update presentation for Friday. I then call the Lead Consultant for the project to discuss the plan for ensuring improvement is sustainable once we have left site.
Thursday Morning
After a much improved morning meeting I touch up the presentation for the Factory Manager and at 10:00 sit down with him for an hour. It is important we agree a plan for the way forward for the next 8 weeks and also agree on the actions being taken to tackle the most significant problems on each of the main lines.
Thursday Afternoon
It is time for the weekly meeting with the Engineering Manager to review progress on our biggest issues. We propose to free up more of John's time, to get most tasks done on shift. I catch up with Debbie to monitor how the speed trial is going and what we need to do to maintain the speeds at 120 per minute.
Thursday evening
Off site at 5:00 to be down in Cheltenham by 7:00. It is the Newton review day tomorrow and everyone is looking forward to hearing how each other's projects are going. Superb to see everyone and although I'm feeling tired the energy of the group soon picks me up again.
Friday Morning
Our review day starts at 8:30. I am first up to present on how the project is going. I include a summary of the results and what challenges we are facing as well as some examples of the problems the team have solved. After listening to updates from some of the other projects, we break into project groups where everyone involved with that project discusses what needs to happen in the coming weeks. Following lunch we reconvene for two hours under the guidance of a communication instructor - some well humoured exercises that I can see are going to be useful on site next week! The day is finished by mid afternoon and I am back at home by 5:30, just in time for a few drinks with some old friends. |
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