Marty Cole visits Precision Electro-Tech's factory in Dongguan, China and witnesses a supervisor scolding a worker, Jieliang, for not following the strict step-by-step work instructions (TQC). Cole discovers that Jieliang's alternative method of completing the task actually improved efficiency but she was still reprimanded for not adhering exactly to the prescribed process. This incident prompts Cole to reconsider how rigidly the factory enforces work procedures and whether employees' ideas could help optimize operations further.

1. Jieliang phone home
BY
HARI HARA SUDHAN R

2.  Marty Cole is a head of Manufacturing
processes and Technology at the mobile
handset unit of Precision Electro- Tech’s
Dongguan, China Production Facility.
 His Factory Visits were extremely valuable for
identifying ideas and opportunities.
 One morning, as he arrives he finds himself
standing behind a Yellow hat supervisor who
was scolding a line worker named Jeiliang for
not following the “TQC”.

3.  “TQC “ is a step by step instruction sheet
posted at each work station, indicating how
and in what order the process engineers and
management team wanted the particular
production step completed.
 On enquiring, Cole finds out that Jieliang got
scolded because she had scanned a whole
bunch of bar code labels and then applied them
on the shields, instead of applying them on the
shields first and then scanning them in.
 He wonders if TQCs were made easy to follow
and if she had come up with a better way of
doing things, why didn’t she tell anyone?

4.  Precision is a Contract Manufacturer (hereafter
referred to as C/M) which means it is a firm
that produces products for another firm, often
referred to as Original Equipment
Manufacturer (hereafter referred to as OEM)
 OEMs use C/Ms to provide flexible
manufacturing capacity and as an alternative to
owning the factories themselves.
 C/Ms are dependent on the ability of the hiring
customer to completely specify the work to be
done.

5.  Cole had an experience of 20 years of
manufacturing experience in roles ranging from
shop floor to multiple management positions
and so was extremely well versed in the theory
and practice of lean manufacturing.
 Principles of Lean Manufacturing
• Waste Elimination
• Zero Defects
• Just in Time (JIT)
• Pull instead of push
• Continuous Improvement

6.  The term Visual Factory is used to describe
how data and information are conveyed and
utilized in a lean manufacturing environment.
 The objective is not to introduce a system of
visual communication, but to create a visual
mode of Organization.
 Equipment and work are arranged to promote
easy communication.
 Automated production tools having red-yellow-
green lights on posts

7.  Taped lines on the floor indicating proper
position of movable carts.
 Highly Visual Work instructions in production
areas with photographs / drawings.
 Visual Factory is particularly important for
problem solving, as it made all the information,
tools and resources necessary for identifying
and solving problem easily identified.

8.  Dongguan was Precision’s largest facility.
 Cole’s visit schedule to Dongguan typically
consisted of meeting with the factory
management team, walking the floor and
speaking with the key customer representatives
who had arranged to visit the factory the same
day.
 TQC Charts were clearly written in English and
Chinese and hung from a bar in clear plastic
sleeve in front of each station.

9.  Shapes were used to depict the 3 stages of
process
(1) Red Circle – Check the work of the worker
before
(2) Yellow Triangle – You conduct your work
(3) Blue Triangle – Check your own work
before passing off the component
 PCB lines occupied little less of the space of the
central floor and the other half was dedicated
to assembly and packaging cells.
 To minimize waste and increase efficiency at
the stations, the factory used a “Kamban
System”

10.  At the front of each line there were number of
signs and charts displaying line status and
hourly output rate.
 A suggestion box for the workers was also
available.
 The indirect labour and engineers had an office
area where rows of desks and computers
enabled them to call up data and communicate
with other engineers as needed.
 All IDLs had cubicles on the factory floor, with
a computer in each.

11.  Cole and his global product teams were under
constant, unrelenting cost pressure and they
put a strong emphasis on quality and
productivity, but challenges were mounting.
 Mobile phones being a fast moving commodity
with very short product lifetimes, they
frequently had to ramp up a new production
introduction very quickly.
 Managing the complex inbound supply chain
for hundreds & thousands of phones per day
made precise materials management and waste
minimization a must

12.  marty wondered if Jieliang's decision was not
followed the TQC was somehow related to
why it was so difficult to implement process
improvements once a line was up and running.
 He also thought about Jieliang's reordering of
steps.
 The reason the workers were supposed to
apply the barcode label first and then scan the
phone body was because each phone would
ultimately have a unique electronic ID burned
into the circuitry.

13.  Common sense engineering would dictate
applying the label first so that the sequence
would not get confused. But would Jieliang
necessarily know that?
 Discussing with an engineer, it was concluded
that the sequence did not matter at this point in
the assembly process, and Jieliang’s method in
fact resulted in a big speed-up.

14.  TQC should be frame properly
 Production method can be flexible