One of my roles as sensei is to observe and critique. On Thursday I made close observation of a manufacturing cell layout workshop. The project leader had two teams of workers and support personnel set up with paper cutouts of the equipment, furniture, benches, racks and asked them to “rearrange the deck chairs”. The teams had previously developed a list of guidelines – clear line of sight, material flow, rooms and big equipment on the outside of the area, etc. Then the two layouts were critiqued by the “expert”, pro/cons listed, and a ‘consensus layout’ created. My problems with this approach are: a) Who says either of the two proposals or the consensus layouts are lean?! They certainly aren’t optimized, although the future cell residents did have design input into their new home; and hopefully have achieved some level of buy-in. b) The process the team used makes no attempt at flow affinity (frequency of neighbor interaction – the Muther Simplified Systematic Layout Planning method, or any other layout optimization tool). So we see amateurs deciding to put the break room and lockers closer to the cell exit and in between incoming inspection and CMM. The residence leave or enter the cell a few times a day, while parts move between inspection and CMM many many times a day. Go figure …
