Sceptic to believer

On day one if you’d asked me, “Do you want to quit this and go back to what you were doing before?” I would probably have gone, “Yeah.”

Even after training, I was negative at times. I’d be thinking, ‘I’ve seen this before… I’ve done this already… this is never gonna work.’ But then there’d be a twist that makes the MPS approach slightly different—and suddenly it does work! By the end of day four I was buying into it.

MPS proved me wrong on several occasions

If someone had said to me two years ago, “From half past seven to half past nine you’re not going to do any production work, you’re just going to attend Daily Layered Accountability (DLA) meetings”, I’d have said, “Two hours out of my day! We’re not going to achieve anything!” But it has worked.

I couldn’t see how the daily performance DLA board could be maintained. I thought it was going to take too long each day. But it doesn’t. It just fits in as part of the day.

On numerous occasions I heard that we were going to turn the pyramid upside down. That management, team leaders, production supervisors, all of us, would be working for the guys who actually make things and get them out the door. I thought, ‘Yes—this is great. Fantastic words. But it’s never going to happen.’ Actually it has. I think, as a manager, I’m more surprised by that than most other people.

Now my job is making sure the shopfloor can do its job

When I was told that a lot of the things I thought were key to my job were no longer necessary, I thought, ‘We’re going to fall on our faces here.’ We haven’t. I thought I was already supporting the shopfloor. But I was probably too busy doing other things, some of it duplications, things already being done by other people. Lots of meetings I used to attend don’t happen anymore but the DLA process fills the gaps. Now I’m more focused on driving improvements for the shopfloor and MPS allows me more time to do that.

People aren’t second-guessing what I think any more

In the first few days of MPS I was observing a level one DLA meeting, just standing at the back. A guy asked about upgraded computers and it all went quiet. Someone said, “We’re not allowed to have them.” That seemed odd to me so I asked why. “Because you won’t approve them,” he said. It was the first I knew of it. They had the computers in a couple of weeks.

DLA gives everyone a chance to speak up, ask questions and explain themselves. Now there’s no second-guessing what I might think and no misunderstandings about what’s really possible.

Everyone learns about a problem at the same time

DLA means certain people and departments have to attend certain meetings. So we get all the right people together pretty much straight away. And if they’re not the right people, we’ve got the people there who know who the right people are. So, instead of someone spending weeks trying to find the right person to tell about their problem, everyone hears about it at the same time.

It’s not easy being coached

I’m still learning how to be coached. Initially it felt like criticism. I think we all felt like that at the very beginning. ‘Someone is telling me how to do my job! The job I’ve been doing for years! How dare they criticise me?’ But actually they weren’t criticising me. It wasn’t personal. It was just guidance to help me see how some things might be done better.

Nothing is hidden in the ‘visual factory’

When I walk around the factory I can look at any DLA board and see immediately if there’s something I can resolve quickly for them. Before DLA I might never have known about most of those things. Or else people would have thought I knew when I didn’t.

MPS is contagious

It surprised me when departments not involved in MPS at the start quickly began pushing for it. I thought they’d be reluctant. But they were soon saying “We want this too!” They’d already heard it was something good.

Now we have a vision

MPS gives you a vision of how much more you really can achieve. Getting up to 98% on-time delivery (OTD), for example, is fantastic. But we all now believe we can do better—that perfection is achievable. We know it’s going to be a long journey, but now we actually believe we can do it. ■