[PCB Information Network] The X circuit board factory has been operating at a loss for three consecutive months. Seeing the unfavorable trend, the owner decisively replaced the production director.A PCB industry leader once said, “We must seek efficiency through management!”
They hired a management expert, hoping he could turn the situation around.
The new production director was recommended by a friend in the industry, who spoke highly of him, raising the owner’s expectations. The owner was eager for this expert to bring about significant changes, swiftly and decisively, transforming the factory’s atmosphere and bringing in profits.
However, this production director clearly disappointed him. He acted like an ordinary production line leader, inspecting the production line day after day, making only minor adjustments to some details. Although the results were slightly better than before, to the owner, it felt like scratching an itch through the boot, far from the dramatic turnaround he had imagined.
One day, the owner could no longer contain his frustration and asked the production director if he had any bold strategies to effectively reduce production costs and improve efficiency. The director replied nonchalantly, “I still need to observe more.” The owner was furious, nearly spitting blood.
As nearly a month passed, the owner was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan, while the production director remained calm. Despite his urgency, the owner held back his anger for the sake of his friend, thinking that if the director did not produce tangible results by the end of the three-month probation period, he would have to let him go.
Fortunately, this situation did not occur.
After a month and a half on the job, the production director finally knocked on the factory manager’s door with a densely packed notebook. The owner saw that the notebook meticulously recorded nearly a hundred types of waste behaviors on the production floor, such as:
Frequent equipment idling, equipment running without load, unplanned downtime;
Work that should not require overtime ended up needing it to be completed;
Tolerating employees developing bad habits of chatting, leaving their posts, and wasting time;
Not immediately investigating the causes when equipment needs repairs;
Employees not valuing the use of materials, leading to waste…
It was shocking to see so many waste behaviors in the factory. The owner broke out in a cold sweat, realizing that the recent decline in orders was due to these issues. At this rate of waste, even a family with a mine would eventually run out.
In addition, the production director’s notes included data on personnel working hours, equipment usage, downtime, material change times, quality anomalies, and more for each process segment and piece of equipment. The notes were filled with many annotations.
It turned out that his daily inspections in the production workshop were for this purpose.
Based on this data, the production director calculated the equipment utilization rates and the working conditions of the production line personnel, compiling a list of waste and formulating improvement strategies. The owner listened to his report, maintaining a calm exterior but feeling secretly pleased, thinking, “This is exactly what I wanted.”
The owner also noticed that the notebook listed various equipment suppliers and ink suppliers, some marked with asterisks and others checked. Curious, he asked the production director what these symbols meant.
The production director explained that many details of cost control during production are closely related to suppliers. He pointed to the checked Yanmo Technology and said:“For example, this solder mask ink supplier not only has high-quality products and clear cost advantages, but they also fully support us in optimizing the entire solder mask process. Recently, the company purchased a new type of anti-solder plug ink from them, which helped us correct some unreasonable and poorly managed phenomena in this process, greatly aiding in improving our product yield and reducing production costs.”
He continued, pointing to the checked Baofengtang, Xiechen, Dongguan Baode, and other equipment suppliers, saying:“The importance of equipment to our factory goes without saying. I have carefully compared these suppliers’ products, and their performance is excellent, with clear advantages in efficiency and very attentive and quick after-sales service and technical support, which is very helpful for us to implement lean production.”
The owner suddenly understood and said, “So the suppliers marked with asterisks indicate that their products and services are somewhat lacking, right?”
The production director nodded, indicating that adjustments to suppliers could be made based on the factory’s actual situation in the future.
He then took out several standard operating documents and explained to the owner that many waste behaviors in the factory were caused by employees lacking unified standards to constrain them. Documenting the operating standards and continuously training based on these documents, with follow-up on measuring results, should effectively improve these waste phenomena…
After this meeting, the owner finally witnessed the “bold, decisive, and efficient” management he had been longing for.The production director, like a martial arts master, wielded effective management as a tool, leading the employees to carve out a bright path through the thorny road.
The owner watched as the factory transformed from chaos to order; from previously operating at a loss to increasingly more surplus in the accounts, he couldn’t help but smile, secretly marveling: The PCB leader’s saying, “We must seek efficiency through management,” truly did not deceive me!
Written by/PCB Information Network
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