A Top Tip for Supervisor Effectiveness: Scheduled Shop Walks
I think manufacturing supervision is one of the most demanding jobs out there. Supervisors wrestle with the relentless demands of continuous production in addition to the endless requirements to manage employee staffing and development along with a long list of administrative requirements. Manufacturing leaders need to manage a lot more than just their time, they need to manage their effectiveness. Time management is important too, but when we only focus on time management, we are only focusing on the quantity of work we can accomplish within a given amount of time. But when we focus on effective management, we focus of the effectiveness of our actions within that given amount of time. Or in other words, how we can multiply the effects of our efforts.
When you practice good time management you are going to save time. Time management is like saving money in your savings account. An hour saved is an hour earned. But when you manage your effectiveness it’s like investing money. How do you use your time to maximize your effectiveness? Or how do you apply your time to achieve a good return on investment? Additionally, when we focus on time management, we ask only one question; “How and when do I do this task?” but when we focus on effective management, we ask ourselves many questions; “Do I need to do this task at all? If so, do I need to do it now? And what is the impact of completing this task? And what is the most efficient way to do it? And lastly, is there a way to eliminate or streamline this task in the future?
Time management is one aspect of effective management. Time is a precious commodity, and you want to use it wisely. As a manufacturing supervisor, I know that much of your time needs to be used in response to shop floor issues, but you want to minimize reactionary time and carve out more focused time.
T4T TOP TIP
Office/Shop Time: As a supervisor you want to spend about 50% of your time on the shopfloor and 50% in the office working on projects and other administrative tasks. One of the best ways to strike this ideal balance is to schedule your shopfloor walks. When you schedule your production walks, then you can address many issues in a more concentrated effort. As you walk the floor, you can address the shopfloor issues along the way. Then when you sit down at your desk to do some project work, you will have less distractions and more focused time.
Schedule your shop walks for three times a shift, an early walk, a mid-shift walk and a late shift walk. Plan on spending about an hour for each of these three shopfloor walks. When you learn to do this well, you find your time to be effectively leveraged and hence you will be more productive overall.
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