Shopfloor Saturday

I just ran across this story originally posted here:
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=88844

Imagine if every plant had this policy! 

It is written by SUNJAY J KAPUR. The author is CEO, Sona Somic Lemforder Components Ltd.

“A unique lesson from our Japanese collaborators that we have had in our company has been in the area of “Saturday Machine Maintenance”. This essentially involves senior managers participating in the machine cleaning activity on the shop floor.

We were introduced to this system at Sona Koyo Steering System Ltd by a Japanese consultant who had been working with us in 1998. Every Saturday at 4:30 in the afternoon (shift change time), all the senior managers were asked to come down to the shop floor and clean a specific machine. Each senior manager is assigned a particular machine for a period of four months. They are then educated on how the machine works and how it is to be cleaned. They then are responsible for cleaning the machine every Saturday along with others. This encourages the management to get more involved on the shop floor and interact with the workers, creating an environment and feeling of togetherness and a greater cohesiveness within the organisation.

This programme has been running successfully at Sona Koyo Steering Systems Ltd for the last seven years. It shows a great deal of dedication and commitment from the management to the workers and vice versa, and gives all of us a chance to get to know each other and stay in touch on a weekly basis. In 2000 we rolled this out in our other group companies and again this has been a great success. “

Wow - I will bet US maintenance would change drastically if we asked managers to spend some time on the plant floor.

Terry O