Creating Reliable Performance

High maintenance costs and less than optimum equipment and process reliability are major concerns in today’s industrial facilities.

Implementation of programs to improve reliability is often short-lived and expensive. Employees don’t understand the programs, don’t see how they fit together, and don’t see how they relate to their work. The result is partially implemented programs that improve equipment reliability only at much higher maintenance costs.

With The Manufacturing Game®, we have proven that higher reliability can be attained while lowering both maintenance costs and operational losses by addressing the need for organizational change. Making a significant change in reliability and cost requires engaging everyone in the organization to work differently.

What is The Manufacturing Game

Our high-touch,” “high-tech” learning laboratory is actually a 4′ x 6′ board game with 3 roles to play: Operations, Maintenance, and Business Services.

Object: Satisfy customer demand by producing and shipping the finished product without hurting people or the environment, returning a profit to the company.

Roles:

Maintenance

• Maintains the plant by keeping the equipment running
• Decides on Contractor usage
• Allocates resources between breakdown jobs, planned work and improvement projects

Operations

• Produces the product
• Decides on finished product inventory levels
• Allocates resources between production, rounds, preparing for maintenance and improvement projects

Business Services

• Sells the product and buys parts for the repair of equipment. manages spare parts 
• Decides on spare parts inventory levels
• Allocates resources between storeroom management, purchase order processing and improvement projects

Participants gain new perspectives by assuming a different role from the one they perform daily. Maintenance people become operations personnel, business services staff become mechanics, and operators become business services staff. Participants see how their decisions and actions impact each other and the plant's overall performance.

In two days, players experience what would take over a year of actual plant operations in simulated form.

Switching roles and compressing time brings the big picture clearly into focus. Participants identify the benefits of moving from a reactive to a proactive approach, not just for maintenance but for their organization’s operation as a whole. They recognize their role in the change and the need for cross-organizational cooperation to achieve it.

Day 2: Taking Action

On the second day of the workshop, apply the Game's lessons to the “real world.” Small, cross-functional teams (what we call Action Teams) are formed to give participants a way to apply the newly gained knowledge enthusiastically.

Each Action Team brainstorms potential defect elimination projects in their area of the site, selecting one that they will complete over the following 90 days. They develop a specific set of action items for accomplishing this and leave the workshop with a plan and the enthusiasm to get it done.

This real-world activity immediately puts the knowledge gained from the simulation experience into practice, kicking off the defect elimination habit essential to transforming the organization. Successful Action Teams also provide the quick payback many companies require to move to world-class operations.

Proven Results

The workshops have been used as a catalyst to launch successful improvement campaigns in a variety of industries. The Manufacturing Game® Workshops launch the action necessary to help make the strategies learned a reality, providing significant operating improvements within 90 days and substantial financial impact within a year. While the hard dollar savings of improvement activities are tremendously helpful in accelerating change, the effect of The Manufacturing Game® on the organization's culture is also essential. The Manufacturing Game® will help build a shared vision and shared language for improvement efforts. The Manufacturing Game® workshops help to develop the culture required for significant and lasting change.

Course Details
Continuing Education Credits Included
Format: Public Course
Language: English

Class times are Central Standard Time (CST)

Member Rate:$1,100
Non-Member Rate: $1,200

Click Here for more information on the R&M Engineering Implementation Certificate Program.