Maximizing the benefits of plant tours

I take every opportunity to see a plant. Even though I have seen many facilities I do not get tired of seeing more. Revisiting a plant a few years later shows me the progress they have made. Plant tours outside our industry are also interesting and valuable. Organizations like WMCO, the CKCA and many others provide them on a regular basis.
Such tours are an important learning and training tool. The tours are basic benchmarking as you can see how the host plant compares to your own plant. The tours can strengthen your confidence when you see that your own plant is ahead of the host plant. It can also challenge you when you recognize your need to do some catch up and wows you when you see how far ahead the host plant is.
Reading a plant is a skill you can develop. Plant tours are not a silver bullet to provide you with all the answers or give proof of ideas, however, it is a valuable and significant contributor to the running of your business.

Why should you take plant tours?

Learning and improvement
In our industry most of us struggle with the same issues. So, seeing another plant is a mini version of doing a best practice project. Every plant tour should give you at least a few pointers on how to improve your own operations. This can be simple devices like a home-built tilting device for tall cabinets on an assembly line, or a wide belt sandpaper rack lifted above the sander with a garage door opener mechanism. All these, often small improvements, can feed right into your own continuous improvement initiative.

Competitor benchmarking
As you are from the same industry facing similar challenges, a factory tour will allow you to see your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses. This will not only be on what they display and talk about, but also on what is missing and what they omit.
In our industry we use the same machines, materials, often the same software and the same processes. There are only a few exceptions. So, what is interesting is how we integrate and optimize all the similar elements.
This basic benchmarking is practically the only benchmarking tool we have in our industry. That is until the industry gets together and formalizes a professional benchmarking system.

Supplier initiated plant tours  
Visiting the manufacturing plant of your suppliers and assessing and evaluating them is important for multiple reasons.
• Does your supplier have the technical and organizational competence to be a suitable supplier.
• Only when visiting each others’ plants and talking on an operational level, can challenges be identified and solutions be found.
• Sharing best practices can be useful. Improving the operations of both supplier and your own plant is always mutually beneficial.

Purchasing capital investments, is also an opportunity for plant tours.
• Seeing the proposed machine in operation will be an opportunity to verify the machine suppliers’ statement of performance.
• You might gain valuable insights from the host operator/management on important upgrades they wish they had purchased (and others they do not actually need).
• You might get insight into their experience and their decision criteria to select the specific supplier.
 
Can you prepare for a plant tour?

Prepare a tour team
It is often not the same group of people who visits plants and those who implement the ideas. So, some communication between the tour group and the production/operations team will direct the visitors to pay attention to certain details.
There are plant tours, for example, during the due diligence process required for a takeover or sale of a company. As this is an open process, you can bring a number of professionals for a specific time period and investigate the company. Here it is important that the team is clearly prepared to focus on what and how to evaluate. This is a plant tour on steroids.

The plant tour: Practical tips
Respect the house rules
• Safety: stay within the given boundaries, wear the PPE, do not touch equipment, do not disrupt working operators
• No camera means no photos and no video
• If cameras are allowed – many employees do not want to be photographed

Observational focus:
Focus on specific categories, like workflow, safety, equipment and team dynamics. Minimize notetaking but pick up on visuals.

If allowed, engage with employees:
If it is not disruptive and safe, speak with employees to understand their roles, processes, and challenges. Asking specific questions, such as, “Where does this product go next?”, “How do you know what to do next?”, or “What are the challenges?”

Post-tour debrief:
It is also important, that when more than one person from a company is touring together, they should talk about what they have seen and what would be applicable for the home plant. Debriefing with the tour team captures insights and impressions while they’re fresh. And most important: bring it to the home-team to inspire them and consider implementing them.

What do you see and what 
could it mean?
Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is not as easy to see as a machine or a layout, however, do you sense that the employees have customer focus? Do they understand the requirements of their final customer, but also understand the workstation that receives their work is their customer?

Safety, environment, 
and cleanliness
Is the plant clean, not just cleaned up for the tour. This means no old dirt in the corners and obsolete material is minimal or cleared. There are no obvious safety violations like blocked exit doors. Workers are wearing the required personal protection equipment and forklift drivers are wearing their seat belt.
This indicates that the company has advanced in Lean manufacturing (5S) and has general buy-in of the employees.

Visual management
Observe signage, work instructions, and organization tools that guide workflow. Are the signs meaningful to guide and help the shop floor or are they lofty slogans which make the management feel good? If the signage is ripped, faded and outdated, it could mean that the organization has lost its grip on managing the floor, or the signage was not of great value to start with.
What type of KPI’s are posted in the factory. Are on-time performance, production volume, quality measures, and productivity measures posted on the shopfloor? Are they meaningful to the employees, and do they understand them?  

Flow and efficiency
Try to understand the product flow. Where does the WIP come from, where does it go next, do they batch or have one-piece flow.
If at the assembly line they must take down too many incomplete cabinets, there are definitely issues with fit & complete at the kitting stage before assembly. This can have many root causes, ranging from problems in product engineering, manufacturing tolerances/quality or lack of trained, competent resources.
If operators are struggling with finding the required carts, pallets or conveyor space, this might be a symptom of too large batch sizes, a down stream bottleneck or overproduction.
Does the company recognize their bottleneck and actively counter it with corrective actions? Does the entire production floor work as a team and shift resources around?
Observe the speed and effectiveness of the people. Are they engaged in actual value-added tasks or are they busy with non-value-added work, like reading work instructions, setting up machines, transporting material, or idle time.
All these factors create a picture of the management strength, and the efficiency of the organizational tools applied.

Inventory: Raw material and 
work-in-progress
Truly Lean factories look empty, and some people think they do not have enough work. The smaller the batch size and the smaller the buffers, the faster the material flows through the factory. Also look to see if they created problems by not having sufficient WIP in some places. So, looking at inventory levels, all raw material, WIP and finished goods will add to the overall picture.

Teamwork and motivation
Observe employee engagement and interaction. Does the team seem to collaborate well and actively contribute to operational goals.

Challenges and limitations 
of plant tours
Time and resource constraints
Most of the time plant tours are a quick walk through, often the tour guide cannot be heard due to shopfloor noise levels. With this quick snapshot, you might not get a full picture of the operation.
Reciprocity and competitive risks
It is quite an effort for the host company to organize, especially big group tours. It takes time and brings interruption to the daily operation. An unwritten rule and common understanding are the reciprocity of visits. So, you should not tour a factory if you would never let the host tour your factory.

Conclusion
Plant tours are and will remain an important learning tool. We should take any opportunity to see other factories within and outside of our industry. I understand there are some hesitations to provide plant tours for understandable reasons, however, the benefits for guests and hosts are, in my opinion, greater than the risks.
Our thanks to all companies who open their factory for a tour!