The line leaders need a tool to communicate with the Management

Years ago, when I was still doing the part time teaching, I advocated to the participants that the empowerment of the line leaders would significantly improve the operation efficiency and effectiveness of a factory.  Line leaders are assuming the front-line leadership roles

• They control and know what and how many materials is used after all to complete the assembly of the finished goods
• They are the one directly mobilizing the operators to work and in turn impacting the productivity of the production lines
• They are the one who reflect the issue of the production lines, materials issue(scrap), correctness of the BOM, operators competence, equipment situation, work station appropriateness and etc

It is understood that if the line leaders are willing and able to tell you all of the above, I am sure the management could kaizen the productivity all the time.  This is not a complicated lean concept but the question is how to effect it.  Above the line leaders, there are still some hierarchies – supervisors and manager.  How to make sure there would not be loss of voice? Line leaders need the support of ME, PE, Quality, Warehouse, Supply Chain, HR and almost every department within a factory.  However, whenever there is 1 functional department delays its response to line leaders, they will get frustrated.  With passage of time, what will you expect the morale of the shop floor?  Do not be naïve that a promotion of valuate the line leaders in a high position could help.  I have ever learned that for companies, which said this kind of words, are usually the one which under-value the working level of employees.  Unless resources is allocated to help, it is wasting of time.

In a labor intensive factory, is it possible to introduce tablet PC (or iPad) to every line leaders?  Or can a cell phone help?  I will prefer a low cost tablet PC, not cell phone because of small screen and data insecurity, not iPad because of cost concern; particularly for those product margin is thin.

Win 10 tablet PC with touch screen is available with some China manufacturer at a relatively low cost.  However, there are still a lot of hardware and software to overcome.  Anyway, I would like to highlight 2 superb advantages:

1. Imagine each line leaders can report the hourly input while an auto-email report, being released on hourly basis, can tell the management which production lines lag behind the hourly production target and the data is presented in descending order of failure %. Therefore, we could focus our attention to those lower achievement production lines and we would be dedicated to fix it.  Wherever there is problem revealed, there is solution.
2. Again, wherever there is problem revealed, there is solution. However, if the problem is not revealed, the impact will accelerate itself.  The Andon is to trigger an annoying sound to draw to attention of people there exist an intolerable issue.  However, if the issue is with the tools/equipment or a security exposure, we cannot press the Andon.  Line leaders will usually report to the supervisors and press the responsible department to fix it.  Well, we know that delay may result due to many reasons.  In addition, the form of reporting issues in a paper form will not be effective enough.  Imagine the line leaders can take the picture through the tablet PC and lodge a tag in the system; there will be a formal record that the responsible needs to close it.  It is easy to sort out any delay and escalate to senior management.  Then we can further strengthen the sense of urgency.

I do think that the above 2 advantages are sufficient to justify the investment of the tools.  The other barrier will be the capability of the line leaders.  Easy.  We need to provide the incentive to the line leaders.  Well, it is not an easy project.  It may take more than a year to get it smooth and done.  But I am still optimistic.