There are two types of people in every organization, at every level :
1. The transparency lover: Self-motivated people who know they are doing their best, are confident of their ability, and welcome transparency as an opportunity to improve things further. Maybe there’s someone low down in the hierarchy who is feeling frustrated because he knows the solutions to a couple of big problems, but his boss doesn’t want to take any action. He cannot bypass his boss and talk to someone higher up either.
2. The transparency hater: People with sub-par ability and motivation whose survival in the organization depends on feeding false productivity numbers up the hierarchy, because if they feed the reality they will also have to fix the problems, and they do not have the ability to do this.
By being involved in implementing Industry 4.0 and thereafter monitoring it closely, you as the CEO are empowering the transparency lover and making life difficult for the transparency hater, forcing the latter to improve his motivation and skills. So by being involved hands-on in Industry 4.0 implementation and running, you are improving the efficiency of your operations AND improving your team.
You need to be closely involved initially, and then gradually reduce your involvement. You need to look at efficiency numbers, ask people to take action, and monitor the progress of the actions. Efficiency numbers can be whatever you choose to focus on, based on your focus area – OEE, spindle utilization, rejections, downtime, etc.
Here’s an action plan for the role of a CEO in implementing Industry 4.0:
Month 1-2: Every morning, look at previous day’s efficiency numbers. Half hour per day.
Month 3-forever: Every Monday morning, look at past week’s efficiency numbers. 1 hour per week.
Month 3-forever: 1st of every month, look at long term trends of efficiency numbers. 2 hours per month.
In my own experience, I’ve seen that successful installations of LEANworx have see one or more of these benefits: No new machine purchases for 1 year or more even though sales have increased; doubling of OEE, big reduction in consumables cost (energy, combustion gases), switch to working 2 shifts instead of 3 (16 hours instead of 24), reduction in manpower costs. All of these of course directly translate to profits.
Industry 4.0 is a great friend of the CEO, and the role of a CEO in implementing it is critical to its successful implementation.