Process Improvement

Process Improvement and Automation

One of the recent trends in productivity improvement is towards automation. The government is encouraging companies to use automation to reduce the reliance on our limited human resource and improve labour productivity.  Grants are disbursed generously to companies who come up with automation to achieve productivity improvements. Progress reports on the benefits and improvements of companies seem to be very promising.

Benefits of Automation

We are not anti-automation.  Automation can be beneficial if deployed correctly.

1. It helps us to produce a product / process or service faster and hence less cost per unit
2. It eliminates human errors and hence leads to more consistent, predictable and reliable quality
3. It eliminates fatique, hence more suitable for large volume or long hour tasks when there is limitation on the human body

So what is wrong?  Based on our training & consulting experience of several thousand companies,  automating without first streamlining often results in automating wasteful process without knowing it.

Danger Of Automating Without Streamlining

Automation without streamlining current processes (or value streams) runs the risk of increasing the output of both the wanted process (value add) and the unwanted process (non-value add, waste)

The worrying trend of mindless automation makes every technology system provider a productivity guru. Whenever there any any process bottlenecks, high defect rates, long lead time, low productivity, the solution is simple – just automate that particular process that is presumably the culprit.

This is a very dangerous approach.  Why?

1. Automation without looking into the entire end-to-end process but only a sub-process may not solve the real root cause of the problem. What manifests is the outcome of the problem and not the root cause.
2. Automation without removing waste from the process only produces even more waste, at a higher speed.

Improve Processes Before Automation

Our recommendation, using Lean /  Lean Six Sigma methodology, is as follows:

1. Study the entire end-to-end process; {tools: process mapping, value stream mapping}
2. Conduct root cause analysis of the bottlenecks, errors, long lead time, delays, defects; related tools: root cause analysis. Always be mindful that all the sub-processes are components of the end-to-end process and they are inter-connected. The problem discovered by a downstream process may be due to an error in an upstream process. (Tools: root cause analysis. 8 waste identification & elimination, fishbone diagram, 5 whys)
3. Develop a future stage value stream map; related tools: value stream mapping
4. Implement the improvement. Validate the new process, solve the problem of the old process; (tool: Kaizen Event)
5. Automate the improved process, since we have removed the waste automating the process at this stage will genuinely optimize the process, producing more good products / services, without producing the waste. (Tools: automation, technology)

In summary, automate your process only after you have streamlined your process and removed the waste.  Remember – garbage in garbage out, don’t automate broken processes.

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