You can see a lot of articles about Digitalisation and how important it is. Then you see a lot of articles how the world is changing/has changed/should be changed because of COVID, lack of resources etc. And articles about no muda production system.
Let’s take just a small part of it: How the manufacturing should be changed? How it should be changed in relation to the organisation of manufacturing and one of its cores: getting rid of muda.
“If it doesn’t add value, it’s waste.”
Henry Ford
In digital era, which is mainly about information and the speed of sharing relevant information we have to admit one objective fact: paper or excel is not fast enough for sharing informations (relevant information to relevant people).
It is the same like today sharing your messages by Post Office is not fast enough comparing Facebook messenger. It is an objective fact.
And the costs of sharing information comparing Post Office (1 EUR Stamp + time walking to the Post Office) is incomparably higher than 1 digital message (0,00001 EUR + no time for walking/delivery).
Let’s call it the Muda of sharing information. I guess that for every reader of this article it is first choice for sharing information grab a phone, click and it’s done. No walking to the Post Office.
However how it is possible that if we want to share information in manufacturing plant I have to:
Isn’t it muda of Digital age? Isn’t it waste?
If I spent only 10 minutes (let’s be very very very optimistic) by the above mentioned 5 muda points and I have typically 150 office colleagues in manufacturing plant => I have 1 500 minutes = 25 hours / daily of muda.
In other words you employ 3 people (25h divided by 8 hours shift) just for the costs of Sharing information. Simple maths.
And now add also the costs of sharing information for the Operators in the gemba. It is approximately 3 times more.
Then we are speaking about 100 hours a day of muda sharing information (which are not necessary). It is equivalent of 12,5 employees in terms of wasted time. We guess everybody wants to avoid that muda production part.
We cannot change the manufacturing by one-click, however we did our homework and created a model factory where the muda (costs) of sharing information is approaching the Zero.
We took the whole Door 2 Door manufacturing flow, process by process and designed it for the ideal case (no muda of sharing information).
Actually we have been working on that last 6 years.
Now the version 1.0 of Industry Lab 4.0 is done.
And we go further for the version 2.0 to be able to help manufacturers get rid of what is waste. And waste for us is the time you spend with struggling to share the relevant information instantly within your factory.
Sharing information between managers in the offices, workers at the gemba and the robots / cobots there as well.
Sharing information in digital manufacturing (with no muda o sharing)
Provide your business information and a few company details to begin.