Recognizing Trends: Giving your Team the Keys to Operational Excellence

In manufacturing and operations, the ability to recognize and adapt to trends is crucial for operational excellence. As leaders in these industries, you are tasked with not only meeting current demands but also anticipating future challenges and opportunities. Recognizing trends can enhance your operational strategies and drive sustained success.

But First ...

Who's job is it to understand current performance and recognize when we need to take action.

The person closest to the work.

Often that is your front-line value creators: fabricators, assemblers, material handlers, service technicians, customer service, etc. And this is not reckless delegation. Developing the capabilities, ensuring access to the data or information, and providing time and space to monitor and respond to trends is the responsibility of leadership. The closer we can get identification and countermeasure to where the work is happening, the faster we can correct trends.

Why Spotting Trends Matters

Spotting trends is more than just watching for 'green' or 'red'; it’s being proactive and understanding how your business 'normally' performs, then responding when you get results you did not expect. Here are some important reasons why recognizing trends is crucial:

• Understanding: Mith more eyes on the business, understanding what should be happening you have broader capability for process control.

• Adaptability: Being able to quickly adjust and tweak your processes, products, and services leads to less down time and lower costs.

• Escalation: Knowing what to expect and how you can affect it also clarifies when issues should be escalated so more resources can be mobilized to these challenges.

How to Effectively Spot Trends

To effectively spot trends, you need a solid approach. Here are some pre-requisites to trend-spotting:

• Process Understanding: We should start with understanding the process that gives those results. Connect the output back to the process that generates it.

• Accessible Data: I know we are in a digital/AI world. But that doesn't help the front line that is not looking at reports on the floor. Make the data visual and accessible. I always start with markers and flip chart/whiteboard.

• Establish a Baseline: What we expect and what is normal might not be the same thing. Understanding the results your process can deliver today is a starting point to seeing a shift.

• Talk About It: Reviewing as a team builds shared ownership and understanding. It brings in unique perspectives for insight and countermeasures.

Improving Performance

Once a trend is recognized, implementing continuous improvement can results in better performance. Here’s how these practices can help:

• Respond, Don't React: When trend or outlier is identified, decide on how to move forward. Was there an assignable cause that is already addressed? Is there a countermeasure already in progress?

• Experiment with Change: Identify what you want to try, what change in result you expect to get and align it with the team.

• Close the Loop: With the change in place, did you get the result you expected. What did we learn? What should we try next?

Conclusion

Recognizing trends is not just a reactive measure; it is a proactive strategy that can significantly enhance operational excellence in manufacturing.

By developing people, leveraging data, and implementing continuous improvement practices, you can position your organization to thrive in a changing landscape.

Promote data review and trend recognition - take the first step toward a more resilient and successful future.

When people across the org have their eyes on processes, you (individually) can #improveLESS ... and get better results.