Tag: visualmanagementprojects

Categories
Visual Management

Visual Management Project for a Manufacturing Plant

Challenges to manufacturing sector:

Manufacturing sector across the globe has impacted to a great extent during Covid 19 situation. At present, many manufacturing companies are struggling for re-instating the situation to ensure survival and sustainability. In such critical situation, there many other additional factors such as globalization, changes in local government policies are also affecting the business performance. Survival has become the main challenge for almost all manufacturing companies.

The survival of the manufacturing companies depends upon many factors. The main factors are Quality, Productivity and Safety are contributing to the overall growth of the manufacturing unit. The performance with regards to these parameters can be enhanced through development of the good culture at the organization at all levels.

Visual Management is a simple though effective solution:

Visual management is known to be the most effective technique towards creating awareness on Quality, Productivity and Safety among all team members. Effective displays at the manufacturing facility always support communication related to safety practices, productivity monitoring and quality consciousness. Also only displays may not offer the results if those displays are not appropriate and not at the right location. Hence visual management is recognized as a scientific method of communication towards inspiring work culture.

Visual management at the manufacturing plant covers: 1] Organization policies, vision, mission, core values etc. 2] Identification boards for areas and materials 3] Posters & slogans on Health, Safety & Environment 4] Safety signs 5] Standard operating procedures (SOPs) & Work instructions. 6] Posters and slogans on Quality & Productivity 7] Performance monitoring boards 8] Knowledge hub / Quality Bay or Product Gallery

Critical aspects of effective visual management & services by Visualmitra LLP:

Identification of appropriate displays at the facility needs a scientific approach. The type of display, the colour scheme, size and location of display for legibility matters a lot. Many companies are considering this as an opportunity to create and develop the brand value which in turn supports the retention and loyalty of the team members working with the company.

Visualmitra LLP has introduced a unique type of project “Facility Visual Management (FVM) ”. We have developed a methodology which supports the effectiveness of the visual management at the facilities. Our team offers end to end solutions to manufacturing units right from identification of displays, design & development of visuals followed by installation at site. This service is becoming popular day by day as many manufacturing companies including MNCs, Large scale companies and MSME as well have experienced good results after implementation of visual management at the manufacturing facility.

Categories
Benefits Fascility Visual Management Uncategorized Visual Management

5 Key Benefits of Effective Visual Management

Visual management is trending in manufacturing and logistics business units. But what is the reason behind this trend? Well, it is certainly due to the benefits that effective visual management provides. Here are 5 of them.

1. Provides Transparency

Management often complain that there is a lack of transparency in their teams. Due to readily available information today, transparency is now just a basic expectation of employees. By displaying work visually, it makes it easily accessible, but more importantly it sends a powerful message of openness and trust.

2. Fosters Psychological safety

When work is shared so openly, teams feel safer to be vulnerable with one another. As per Google’s 2015 research it is referred to as psychological safety and drives high performance amongst teams. It certainly helps team members to share their difficulties when they see that problems are not something to be ashamed of but something to be openly discussed and solved.

3. It Increases Accountability

An obvious outcome of transparency is an increased level of accountability. Of course, if you want collaborative accountability then team goals are the best way to go. For an example, a visual management board for sales department can act as a motivational force for all team members to act and own the outcome as they get to see their team target for the week and the shortfall.

4. Reduces Risk

Another least known or observed benefit of effective visual management is its ability to help with risk management. When all the work is visible and accessible easily, teams and leaders can try resolving issues early and there is reduced possibility of overlooking those errors or issues.

A work flow board is a most common method to understand the status or progress within teams and processes. With effective implementation of visual management projects, it is clear when tasks don’t move as expected, which may have implications to the fate of a project-a success or a failure.

5. Greater Team Alignment

In any organizations teams are bombarded with many complex priorities. With the help of visual management tool, it can get one or many teams on the same page in lesser time. Depending on the department and tasks, this could reflect as basic ‘Focus of the day’ or your major objectives for a given quarter. When this occurs, teams make decisions that contribute to accomplishing the same outcomes.

Management gurus strongly believe that effective visual management can provide key benefits for their teams. One must keep in mind that every team will have different needs, goals and contexts and therefore requires the right implementation.

Categories
Benefits Fascility Visual Management Visual Management

The Magic of Visual Management At Workplace

Visual Management is one of the essential tools that we make use of at our work and home lives that you may not have even noticed. But once you understand what visual management exactly is all about, you’ll be seeing it everywhere!

Visual management is a tool that is used for lean management for making the work culture of that place better. A visual management technique makes use of effective visual displays to convey a certain message in an efficient and effective manner with minimum efforts. These visual displays can be are as follows:-

1] Data Displays like informative boards, performance white boards, safety calendars, MIS reports etc.
2] Guiding tools like floor marking tapes, stickers and area identification boards, signboards etc.
3] Shape cutouts for easy identification of the designated place of a tool,instrument or an equipment.
4] Flowcharts and layouts like work flow instructions, standard operating procedure (SOP), First In First Out (FIFO) layout etc.
Awareness posters like safety posters, Motivational posters, Posters for International quality management techniques, Business excellence posters etc.

Effects of Visual management at a workplace

Visual management exhibits crystal clear transparency and eliminates the distance between the higher management and production floor level of workers. Information is not hidden at any given point, and the whole organization is united on the same success goals. This forms unity and team spirit among all the the employees.

Many lean management techniques and principles rely on visual management that includes floor marking tapes to the large visual display boards and performance boards, sign boards etc. Visual management acts as the key sustaining force for many well-known lean techniques like 5S, standard work, total productive maintenance (TPM), Gemba walk and Kanban. It involves many visual indications that help to create a better work environment.

It suggests the use of different colors and labels to mark each item in the workplace differently. Labeling and marking gauges, oil levels and lube levels are all examples of visual controls that help the employees to easily detect abnormalities at a glance thereby promoting preventive maintenance and reducing the production down time.

Visual management is not just making data and metrics visible on a wall, it is a real-time visual display of the data that allows the team to take immediate actions to solve issues or support the production process. It thus promotes constant monitoring of the data and taking immediate actions accordingly.

The safety visuals help to make people aware of the possible hazards and situations within the work environment. It is very necessary to define the location of hazards as well as location of safe aids like first aid station, and location for personal protection equipment, Safety shower, eye wash station etc. Safety signs and safety instructions also plays an important role in accident prevention.

Benefits of visual management at a workplace

• Sharing all the Information with others to avoid any miscommunication
• Communicating the standards to attain uniformity throughout the processes.
• Implementing the standards to maintain smooth running of the processes.
• Bringing attention to irregularities in the processes for further action to be taken.
• Taking immediate actions against the irregularities when they happen to avoid such instances in future.
• Preventing such Irregularities from taking place for nonstop high quality output.

Fun facts about visual learners.

• 80% of people remember what they see or do rather than what the read or hear
• 65% of the world’s population are visual learners.
• 40% of human nerve fibers are linked to the retina.
• Humans are capable of getting the approximate understanding of a visual scene in less than 1/10th of a second.
• An average human eye can register up to 36,000 visual messages every hour.
• All the emotions and the visual information are processed in the same part of the human brain.
• Human brain processes visual information 60,000 times quicker than audio and written information.

Categories
Factory Visual Management Fascility Visual Management Visual Management

Why Visual Management is recognized as an Effective Tool for Performance Improvement?

Technological Revamp in past 10 years
We all know that there is great revolution in technology in past 10 years and it will continue for next 10-15 years. Many of us have experienced a mode of communication by sending letters through post office in 1985-1990. Later on, the speed of communication was expedited by e-mails and now whatsapp.

Today it is a matter of 3 to 5 seconds to send the messages, images and documents to any part of the world. Now a days everyone is engrossed in looking at mobile screen and gathering the information which is available in abundance.
Impact of Technological Revamp on Human mind
We are now dependent on electronic media which offers information visually. We get all the information on our individual mobile phone or laptop. As a part of this impact, even human mind has started believing the data which he/she can see. We have started believing the information which we can see rather than what we here from others. It is stated that “Human brain processes Visual Memory 60,000 times faster than auditory memory”. We can review following examples to understand the impact of changing technology on our mind.

1] We like to see the cricket match score on mobile rather than hearing it on transistor which we used to do it in year 1990.

2] We like to learn through webinars rather than attending a training programme in an auditorium

3] We like to see images and graphs as a part of result analysis

4] We like to see the flight schedule indicator rather than hearing the announcement at the airport.

5] We prefer to send good images and text as a greeting to wish birthdays/anniversaries rather than calling a person and wishing him/her on occasion.

I don’t think anyone will disagree with me on above mentioned examples. All such real life examples prompt us that our brain is very much inclined towards understanding the information through visuals rather than any other mode of communication. Visual management is considered as silent yet very effective media of communication.

The impact of the changing technology on human mind is mainly because of shortage of time and cut throat competition in every field across the globe. We strive to learn things as fast as possible to win the race or survive in this world.
Impact of Technological Revamp on Industries & Businesses??
Similar to humans, even every business house / industry is facing a tremendous level of competition as a result of globalization happened through these technological changes. In order to be leading in a race or just to survive, every company has to perform better in every department of the business.

This calls for awareness at each level of operations. i.e the “Change in Mindset” is needed right from Security Guard to the CEO of the company. Companywide implementation of Visual Management supports to develop a good culture to enhance performance as a team.

Guidelines for Effective Visual Management

There are few guidelines to be followed while implementation of Visual Management at the Facility
1] Selection of appropriate visual displays. Should communicate the correct messages in shortest possible time.

2] Displays should be placed at correct location and should be legible

3] The language and size of the display should be appropriate for better effectiveness

The displays at the facility can include but not limited to Safety posters, Quality & Productivity posters, Safety signs, Work Instructions, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Informative boards, Material Identification Boards, Performance White Boards, Compliance Boards etc.

Effective displays act as a “Trainer at the place” which is available for all 24 hours and this trainer will not miss anything while communicating to the target audience.

Globalization has also helped companies/businesses from individual countries to adopt International Techniques to match to International standard performance. Many techniques such as 5S, Lean management, Kaizen, Pokayoke, Kanban, 6 Sigma, TQM, TPM, Gemba etc. are complemented by an effective visual management.

The benefits of Visual management have been availed by many companies and facilities so far and the journey will continue for next few decades. Many companies have experienced extra ordinary results through this implementation.

Visualmitra is executing Visual Management Projects at many places including industries and also the commercial establishments. Visualmitra has completed 200+ projects and the feedback from the clients is very inspiring. The main motto of this project to create an inspiring work culture which supports the overall business performance and sustainability of the company.