Rapid Plant Assessment

Table 1--Rating Sheet

Rated by:_______________
Tour Date:______________
Ratings
No
1
2
3

Measure Score
Customer Satisfaction
Safety, environment,
cleanliness, & order
Visual Management
Deployment

Scheduling system

Product flow, space use &

material movement means

Inventory & WIP Levels

7
8
9

People teamwork, skill

level, & motivation
Equipment & tooling state
& maintenance
Ability to Manage
Complexity & Variability

10

Supply Chain Integration

11

Quality System
Deployment
Totals

Apr-02
Plant:________________

Poor

Below
Average

Average

Above
Average

Excellent

Best in
Class

11

Scores

Apr-02
No
1

Measure
Customer
Satisfaction

Safety, environment,
cleanliness, & order

Visual Management
Deployment

Scheduling system

Product & material

flows; space use

Inventory & WIP

Levels

People teamwork,
skill level, &
motivation

Equipment & tooling

state & maintenance

Ability to Manage
Complexity &
Variability

10

Supply Chain
Integration

11

Quality System
Deployment

Rapid Plant Assessment Rating--Table 1 Rating Considerations

Chart 1

Factors
Customer ratings, quality certifications & ratings, warranty & product liability costs, employee knowledge of external and internal customer
requirements, visitor materials & welcome, market share, rate of new product introduction & acceptance
Safety & environment record, place for everything & everything in its place, cleanliness of operations--exterior & interior, floors, equipment, spills,
leaks, noise, lighting, paint, dust, air quality, employee dress, restroom conditions, desks & workbench order & cleanliness, degree of "spiffing" for
visitors (negative), inventory order, material flow order & cleanliness, color & other coding for safety & order
Operations mission & performance objectives visible; visibility of labeling & coding of product lines, inventory, equipment, & tooling; color coding &
differentiation ; visibility of customer identification & ratings; visibility of charts tracking operation's & teams' safety, quality, & productivity, control room
showing status of total operation, customer order & order fulfillment visibility, Kanban deployment, inventory count can be made visually, machines &
tool labeling--costs, preventive maintenance visibility, product displays, audit results visible
Degree of scheduling to customer order, order process efficiency, product line scheduling at single point, scheduling buckets (each order, hourly, daily,
weekly, or monthly), supplier scheduling & delivery, replenishment versus order fulfillment, computer scheduling versus kanban, pull versus push
systems, flow time efficiencies, backroom costs of scheduling, MRP costs, data entry costs
Product line versus shop layout, rolling carts pulled by tractors or by hand or conveyers versus forklifts, travel distances between processes, material
movement responsibility--process owned or separate material staff, container size (forklift requirement?), containers designed for parts families, single
versus multiple docks to minimize material travel, space utilization, goals for space use reduction
WIP levels at each process, WIP in transit in plant, separate stores versus line side storage, number of inventory storage areas, finished product
levels, total inventory to sales ratio, process cycle time to flow time ratios, countability of inventory, WIP movemend triggered by computer, material
department or next process, theoretical versus actual flow times
Team problem solving capability & history, employee willingness to talk about customers, products, & company; uniformity of dress; communications &
recognition environment; sales per employee; team meeting areas & performance charts; training investments, educational support, benefit package &
costs, unionization activity, workforce-management relationship, community support, company-supported activities (picnics, open houses, sports
teams, local involvement, employee knowledge of & support of customers & business, work instructions standards
Preventive maintenance system, setup change times, integrated go-no go quality checks, machine performance data availability, knowledge &
utilization of bottleneck processes, process control capability, total asset utilization, operator routine maintenance, maintenance staff & teams, MRO
replenishment efficiency, tool & fixture orderliness, cleanliness, & storage location, equipment improvement policy, equipment technology strategy
Use of common parts, processes, & procedures prototype process, paper transactions required on floor, keyboard entries versus bar coding,
backroom paperwork & computer transactions costs, matching of data collected with data needed, simplicity & clarity of operations layout, indirect to
direct labor ratio, support staff to total workforce ratio, overhead cost ratios, commonality of tooling & fixturing, commonality of equipment & tools,
commonality of support software & applications programs across the operation & among sister plants, equipment efficiencies, ability to handle variable
demand, ability to eliminate controllable variations, ability to smooth demand, ability to handle supply chain, number of suppliers
Number of suppliers, supplier release system--from inventory levels or customer order, supplier certification, sourcing policies--short-term or long-term,
supplier quality ratings, delivery, & productivity objectives & history, new product development responsibility, responsibility for kitting parts, C-stock
replenishment efficiency, supplier material scrap & rework, supplier cost-saving ideas implemented, supplier knowledge of lean
Quality certification, quality process & measurement at each process & for each product, scrap & rework, problem solving process, product & customer
quality data, quality ratings, new product startup process, continuous improvement environment, degree of focus on customer satisfaction ,
implementation of best practices, degree operational strategies are linked to corporate strategy, total quality system well-developed & deployed

Plant
No

Rapid Plant Assessment

Date

Table 2--Assessment Questionnaire

Are visitors welcomed and given information about plant layout, workforce, customers, and products?

Are ratings for customer satisfaction and product quality displayed?

Is the facility safe, clean, orderly, and well lit? Is the air quality good and noise levels low?

Does a visual labeling system identify and locate inventory, tools, processes, and flow?

Does everything have its own place, and is everything stored in its place?

Are up-to-date operational goals and performance measures for those goals prominently posted?

Are production materials brought to and stored at line side rather than in separate inventory storage areas?

Are work instructions and product quality specifications visible at all work areas?

Are updated charts on productivity, quality, safety, and problem solving visible for all teams?

10

Can the current state of the operation be viewed from a central control room, on a status board, or on a CRT?

11

Are production lines scheduled off a single pacing process with appropriate inventory levels at each stage?

12

Is material moved only once as short a distance as possible and in appropriate containers?

13

Is the plant laid out in continuous product flow lines rather than in "shops"?

14

Are work teams trained, empowered, and involved in problem solving and ongoing improvements?

15

Do employees appear committed to continuous improvement?

16

Is a timetable posted for equipment preventive maintenance and continuous improvement of tools and processes?

17

Is there an effective project management process, with cost and timing goals, for new product start-ups?

18

Is a supplier certification process--with measures for quality, delivery, and cost performance--displayed?

19

Have key product characteristics been identified and fail-safe methods used to forestall propagation of defects?

20

Would you buy the products this operation produces?

Total number of Yeses

Apr-02
Yes/No

Rated by:______________
Rapid Plant Assessment
Plant:__________________
Table 3--Tour Data
Measure
Metric
Yearly customer sales dollars
Sales Volume
Number of yearly production units
Unit Production
Number of hourly employees
Production Employees
$ per hour
Average Wage Rate
% of wage rate
Fringe Benefits
Number of employees
Salaried Employees
Yearly base pay plus fringes
Average Salary
Total production & salary people
Total Employees
% employees that leave each year
Employee Turnover
Ratio of DL to Indirect Labor
Direct/Indirect Ratio
Direct Labor Rate Multiplier
Overhead Rate
Number outstanding for union workforce
Workforce Grievances
% overtime by employees over year
Average Overtime
Actual $ or COS%
Direct Material Cost
Inventory + Acc Rec - Acc Payable
Average Working Capital
% of orders delivered on time
Order Fulfillment
$ Book value of property, plant & equipment
PP&E
Old technology or up-to-date
Equipment State
Preventive maintenance effectiveness
Equipment Condition
Square Footage
Plant Size
Number of different product families
Product Complexity
Number of different process types
Process Complexity
Job shop, line flow, batch, assembly
Operations Type
What mix of operations types?
Operations Mix
Short Term Variability--peak to average
Daily Demand Variability
Seasonal Variability--peak to average
Yearly Demand Variability
Average Equipment utilization
Equipment Utilization
$ or units of finished goods
Finished Goods Inventory
Raw material & WIP Inventory Levels
WIP Inventory
What is the operations bottleneck?
Bottleneck process?
Theoretical time to produce products
Theoretical Flow Time
Actual time to produce products
Actual Flow Time
Noise, Air, Effluents, etc.
Environmental Issues
Incidents per employee per year
Safety Record

Tour Date:______
Apr-02
Data

NO

Chart 2 Typical Operations Measures

Variable

1
Yearly sales per employee--manufacturing
2
Yearly sales per employee--Assembly
3
Production hourly wage rate--manufacturing
4
Production hourly wage rate--Assembly
5
Hourly wage rate--Retail
6
Production hours per year (less vacation & holidays; see Note 2)
7 Fringe--FICA & Medicare Taxes (employee portion only--1/2 of total)
8
Fringe--Medical for family per year
9
Fringe--Workmen's Comp per year--production employee
10
Fringe--Insurance, AD&D, other per year % of hourly wage rate
11 Fringe--Vacation, holiday, sick leave/production employee--days/year
12
Fringe--for hourly employees--% of yearly base pay
13
Annual average salary for plant employees
14
Fringe--for salaried employees--% of yearly base pay
15
Plant fixed costs per sq ft per year
16
Plant variable costs per sq ft per year
17
Yearly equipment fixed costs--% of COS--heavy manufacturing
18
Yearly equipment fixed costs--% of COS--assembly
19
Yearly equipment variable costs--% of COS
20
Sales per sq ft per year--manufacturing
21
Sales per sq ft per year--assembly
22
Gross Margin--manufacturing
23
Gross Margin--Assembly
24
Material % of COS--Manufacturing
25
Material % of COS--Assembly
26
Manufacturing overhead rates--% of Direct Labor hourly cost
27
Salaried overhead rates--% of direct yearly salary
28
Corporate allocations--percent of sales
29
"Other" plant costs % of COS--manufacturing (See Note 3)
30
"Other" plant costs % of COS--assembly
31
Working capital to sales
32
Inventory to sales
33
Accounts Receivable--days outstanding
34
Account Payable--days outstanding
35
Inventory Turns per year--assembly
36
Inventory Turns per year--heavy manufacturing
37
Hours to assembly an automobile
38
Hours to assembly a typical seat set for an automobile
39
Hours to assembly a PC
40
Hours to manufacture a heavy-duty truck
41
Typical Manufacturing Overhead Variances
42
Property, plant, & equipment investment to yearly sales
43
Equipment depreciation--years
44
Indirect to direct labor ratio
45
Salary to production worker ratio

Low side

Apr-02
High Side

$ 100,000
$ 250,000
$
9
$
9
$
6
1,732

$
500,000
$ 1,500,000
$
24
$
22
$
15
1,920

$
$

$
$

3,500
250
5.0%
15
25%
$ 35,000
20%
2
3
4%
2%
1%
$
100
$
200
10%
7%
25%
60%
200%
30%
1%
5%
6%
-5%
5%
15
20
10
3
20
0.5
0.1
50
3%
15%
3
10%
10%

7,500
800
12.0%
30
95%
$
80,000
40%
7
6
10%
6%
7%
$
500
$
1,000
55%
30%
60%
80%
500%
100%
5%
20%
15%
35%
30%
120
90
125
20
80
2.5
0.5
100
20%
100%
15
150%
50%

Notes: 1. Data from instructor's experience, 2. 2080 hrs/yr., 3. "other" costs refer to RPA cut

Nominal
$ 300,000
$ 500,000
$
16
$
12
$
9
1,850
9.4%
$
4,400
$
350
7.5%
22
40%
$ 45,000
25%
5
5
6%
4%
4%
$
200
$
500
30%
15%
45%
70%
275%
60%
3%
12%
8%
18%
15%
45
45
20
10
35
1.0
0.3
60
7%
25%
7
33%
18%

Rated by:______________

Rapid Plant Assessment

Plant:_________________________

Table 4--Holistic Cost of Sales (RPA Cut)

Measure--Annual $'s

Measure % of
Sales

Sales
Cost of Sales (COS)
Direct Material Cost
Total People Cost
Property, Plant, & Equipment Cost
"Other" Costs
Gross Margin
PP&E Investment

Average yearly $'s

Facility yearly cost

Average yearly $'s

Working Capital Investment

Average yearly $'s

Net Assets Employed

Average yearly $'s

Shop Rate

$/hour

Measure--% of COS

Tour Date:____________
Apr-02
Data