Optimizing Operations Manager Performance: A Data-Driven Approach at a Post-Production Facility

During a 2023 company-wide webcast, a comment regarding operations first line leaders (FLLs) suggested that they needed help. This led site leadership to request an unbiased observation of operations FLLs by the site's industrial engineering department. The target population for the observation was operations FLLs. The operations FLL observation ended up being a work sampling effort conducted over 3 days. It started one week prior to the United States Memorial Day holiday after a brief training was provided to the site's industrial engineers (those assigned to observe FLL). Three main categories of activities were captured: Start, Stop, and Continue. Start (only able to be implemented after the study concluded): institute Standard Work across all programs, based on Program F, and redistribution of necessary non-value-added tasks to other functions. Stop: any activity that takes FLLs out of the gemba away from engagement with their employees. Continue: value-added or necessary non-value-added activities that occur in the gemba or any interactions between a FLL and one or more of their employees. The findings provided valuable insights, highlighted opportunities for continuous process improvement efforts, and led to better resource allocation. While the study focused on operations FLL, it may be able to serve as a foundation for future initiatives aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of all FLL within the company and in industry.