Manufacturers are in a fascinating, frightening era. It is also an era with excellent opportunities for growth. There are problems galore. Critical cleaning processes are changing, sometimes in unexpected, uncontrolled ways. Reliable, effective cleaning agents that have been used successfully are being restricted or eliminated. Replacement cleaning agents typically require new, costly cleaning machines. Demands on products increase, sometimes exponentially. Products are expected to perform reliably, with fewer failures, and at lower cost. Complex, global supply chains are readily disrupted, not just in product availability. There can be unexpected decreases in product cleanliness.
The secret to surviving and thriving is to populate your company with brilliant people. The knowledge and lore of experienced workers too often is not recorded. New workers may have had some sort of “training” (or not); then, they are anointed the king (or queen) of the critical cleaning process. What do they do? Training workers to follow instructions for the cleaning process is not enough. Employees from technicians to supervisors to middle and upper management must be educated about critical cleaning; and, in general, critical cleaning is not taught in college. Here are some tips to be sure your company is chock full of brilliant people.
Even if they have the benefits of interacting with experienced workers, people new on the job may be misled by comments like “this never works,” or “always do it this way.” This is because technology has changed. Requirements for surface cleanliness surface quality, and contamination levels are evolving and materials of construction have changed. Cleaning technology itself has changed. There are new chemicals, new mixtures, new safety and environmental restrictions.
Educated employees, not trained sea lions
Training alone won’t get the job done. Over the past few years, we’ve noticed an upswing in outside advisers, government-sponsored agencies, and even institutions of higher learning, all promising to “train” your employees to meet your specifications. When we’ve asked representatives of colleges and universities if they are providing training or education, the answer is, after some hesitancy, something along the lines of “gee, I guess it’s more along the lines of training.” The goal of a well-trained employee is a fantasy, not dissimilar to Barbara’s fantasy of a husband who cleans the garage. If we’re not going to automate, we need educated people, not trained people. Furthermore, even with automated systems, we need educated people, not trained people because manufacturing protocols and cleaning processes are complex.
Training is useful – up to a point
Suppose the boss asks you to set up a training program. If training means providing directions and making sure your people follow those directions, there is a case to be made for training. People have to understand the correct way of running the cleaning process at YOUR manufacturing facility. They have to be able read, understand, and follow procedures and protocols; and after doing so, the process has to run the way you want it to. That’s the tough part!
Here are a few ideas for more effective training.
• Write clear, complete instructions.
This is difficult. Too often, language is ambiguous. It’s also easy to be incomplete. If you want to even think about automating the process some day, you’d better have complete instructions.
• Make sure the instructions are realistic.
That means, if your engineers write process instructions, require some process engineers to actually perform the cleaning process by following those instructions to the letter.
• Make sure your employees understand those instructions.
This means more than parroting answers back on a multiple-choice test to “certify” that they have been trained. It means testing those instructions on pilot runs to see if the process has a snowball’s chance in purgatory of running per the engineering instructions.
• Monitor or audit to make sure the training was successful.
If there are problems, do review training and/or make the instructions clearer.
• Retrain periodically.
Training is not a one-time event. Set up regular review sessions. The frequency depends on the processes and on the mix of employees. Certainly, retraining should occur more than once a decade. If the cleaning process evolves, retraining to clarify the changes may be needed.
• Provide a mechanism for reporting and correcting problems and for making suggestions.
Education and encouragement
Let’s repeat this last point: Provide a mechanism for reporting and correcting problems and for making suggestions. This is where we need education. Employees can be the first line of defense to spot deviations from expected performance. For instance, they might notice that a cleaning agent looks different than what they are used to; incoming inspection that depends on written certification might miss this. The discoloration could indicate an aging or contamination problem. Make sure that employees are encouraged and rewarded for spotting problems and raising the awareness to managers. They should be discouraged from doing “whatever it takes to get the product out the door.” Sometimes, employees have good ideas. If they suggest a process that deviates from written procedures, follow-up with testing, then change the written procedure to include it if works. Even if it doesn’t work, thank the employee. Thank the employee like you mean it!
Brilliance
Training and education are not activities restricted to technicians and assemblers. Understanding the need for and methods used to achieve critical cleaning must involve everyone involved with the flow of the product. Education should include upper management and support personnel like purchasing people. It should also involve the supply chain. Some of our more successful clients make education of their job shops, both captive and independent, part of the company culture. Does your company manufacture at multiple sites? Setting up company-wide training programs and attempting to coordinate cleaning activities can be illuminating – albeit temporarily frustrating – for everyone.
Handing employees a book of requirements will not get the job done. Educating them about what is needed is far more effective. Suppliers should understand how the quality of the components they ship to you affects the value of the final product. They need to really understand your requirement. Very frequently, improved cleaning by a supplier can reduce or even eliminate the need for a much more costly cleaning procedure during or after assembly.
Note: This article is updated from “The Value of Educated Employees,” Clean Source, Vol 12, January 2015. We are passionate about the importance of education to advance manufacturing, so look for more ideas about education and training very soon.
Back To Newsletter Archive