This year saw the Maintenance team at Asahi Goodna undertake a significant upgrade of their workshop with a renewed focus on productivity through a 5S focus.
Shane Cameron (Maintenance Planner), was the project manager for this upgrade, “There was some resistance at the start, but once the team saw the benefits of the change they soon came on board”. Whilst it wasn’t all plain sailing for the team, Shane said clear expectations and support from Leadership was crucial to the success of this project. “This project was backed from the top down and was closely aligned with the company’s continuous improvement program.
The maintenance team needed to meet the 5S and GMP auditing standards, just like the rest of the site”. Shane said that it was important for the team to have as much input as possible into the design and layout of the workshop. “To get them on board, it was important for them to understand that it was their workshop and their plan. I needed to give some clear direction as to what was to be achieved but left it up to them to find the ‘how’”.
Whilst there has been some improvement in tool time due to less motion waste, Shane said the real impact has been in the overall quality focus of the team, “now that the workshop looks like it does, the team is more focused on the standard of maintenance quality.
We are setting a new benchmark in maintenance excellence on site, right from work execution to data collection and analysis”. As the team refines its approach to the workshop layout, they are now looking further afield “The team is now starting to put together product-specific tooling. We want to reduce the amount of motion waste even further by having repair and changeover tooling at the source”. It’s still early days yet, but after 2 months the workshop is in great shape and the team and are looking forward to their next improvement project.
If your team is interested in learning how to implement 5S in the workplace, feel free to contact Tom Spiranac.