Continuous improvement often gets lip service from senior management or quality departments, but how often does it really flow down to the working level? At Calumet Electronics, we strive to embrace continuous improvement as a culture.
As we recently discussed, we were introduced to “2-Second Lean” from our friends at Tentcraft. The fundamental message is to make it better. Entire departments at Calumet are reading this book and reinforcing the attitude of continuous improvement and finding ways to reduce waste in our jobs, make the things we produce better, and drive simplicity in solutions.
This attitude has been exemplary in CAM Engineering here at Calumet Electronics. One example of this has been the efforts in identifying causes for throughput issues and tracking them. A team member volunteered to be the data collector and categorize the results. Each day, the team tracks the assignable causes for job holdups – everything from server downtime, new technology processes, short staffing, or customer questions. The team looks for immediate solutions “on the spot” and also reviews monthly trends to see if there are commonalities across the entire department or with specific customers. The CAM department, as a whole, reviews the issues daily while a small team reviews monthly trends, and any actions and results are recorded and tracked in our Confluence page.
Continuous improvement really isn’t continuous if it’s not built into the culture. Our culture at Calumet Electronics demands that we Make it Better. Thanks again to Matt Bulloch at Tentcraft for showing us the book!
