INDUSTRIAL SUPERSTITIONS — PART 1
Minish Umrani (Industrial Consultant)
Mobile: 9822390363 | minish@leansigmasolutions.in
[THE IDLE WORKER]
An idle worker means production has stopped. And stopped production means loss. This belief has been seen in factories for generations.
Whenever an owner visits a plant, the Plant Head often becomes extremely anxious that the owner should not see a worker sitting idle. The assumption is that an idle worker is lazy and is probably doing personal things during working hours—talking on the phone, checking WhatsApp, watching reels, and so on.
But there is a fundamental difference between a worker being idle when work is available and a worker being idle because there is no work.
An “idle worker” is actually a signal from your production process and your management system.
When we have a headache, we take a tablet to stop the pain. But the headache is actually a signal from the body. We should understand what is causing the stress and address that cause. Instead, we often take a tablet and suppress the symptom temporarily.
The same thing happens with an idle worker. Instead of asking what the idle time is signalling, we give the worker some random task and tell him, “Look busy.”
If a worker has work but still remains idle or wastes time, it can indicate that the production process is not properly controlled. Work may not be measured correctly, or employee performance may not be measured.
At a spice manufacturing factory, a supervisor once told me that the women workers talked too much while working, and therefore daily production was not reaching the required level. Putting up a board saying “Maintain Silence” would have been like taking a tablet for a headache.
We checked the actual packing cycle time of each product and calculated the packing rate per hour. When we multiplied that rate by the available shift hours, the theoretical output was much higher than their normal daily packing.
The problem had never been noticed because nobody had measured it properly.
We then displayed the expected packing rate per hour at each packing station, packet by packet, and explained it to the workers. They too understood the gap. Daily packing increased by roughly five to ten percent, while unnecessary talking gradually reduced.
If a worker does not have enough work for the day, that is a very straightforward signal that you do not have enough orders. In such a situation, there is little point complaining that workers work slowly, arrive late or extend lunch breaks.
A sufficient and continuously growing order book naturally creates positive pressure on the production system and on workforce utilization. The possibility of workers appearing idle then reduces at its root.
When this signal is ignored, people start saying, “We have an HR issue.” But if workers are idle because there is not enough work, the first thing created in their minds is insecurity. The so-called HR issues then follow.
A machine-tool manufacturer once told us about a similar HR problem. We first compared his monthly sales with his manufacturing capacity. He did not even have orders equal to half of his calculated manufacturing capacity. Under such circumstances, naturally, work will move slowly.
I have also seen the opposite situation, where we deliberately used workers being idle as a signal.
At a factory assembling glass-fibre products, incomplete Bills of Material were increasing manufacturing lead time and WIP. We introduced one rule: if 100% of the BOM was not available, the assembly line would remain stopped and the workers would remain idle.
When incomplete BOMs were issued, workers stayed busy doing partial work. Therefore, there was no pressure on the Purchase Department to bring all materials on time. That pressure was created when the workers were deliberately kept idle. Soon, the assembly line began receiving 100% BOMs.
So the point is simple: if a worker avoids work, arrives late or appears idle during working hours, we should find the root cause.
Treating the visible idle worker as an HR problem is the superstition!
.... PART 1 ENDS
Minish Umrani (Industrial Consultant)
Mobile: 9822390363 | minish@leansigmasolutions.in
[THE IDLE WORKER]
An idle worker means production has stopped. And stopped production means loss. This belief has been seen in factories for generations.
Whenever an owner visits a plant, the Plant Head often becomes extremely anxious that the owner should not see a worker sitting idle. The assumption is that an idle worker is lazy and is probably doing personal things during working hours—talking on the phone, checking WhatsApp, watching reels, and so on.
But there is a fundamental difference between a worker being idle when work is available and a worker being idle because there is no work.
An “idle worker” is actually a signal from your production process and your management system.
When we have a headache, we take a tablet to stop the pain. But the headache is actually a signal from the body. We should understand what is causing the stress and address that cause. Instead, we often take a tablet and suppress the symptom temporarily.
The same thing happens with an idle worker. Instead of asking what the idle time is signalling, we give the worker some random task and tell him, “Look busy.”
If a worker has work but still remains idle or wastes time, it can indicate that the production process is not properly controlled. Work may not be measured correctly, or employee performance may not be measured.
At a spice manufacturing factory, a supervisor once told me that the women workers talked too much while working, and therefore daily production was not reaching the required level. Putting up a board saying “Maintain Silence” would have been like taking a tablet for a headache.
We checked the actual packing cycle time of each product and calculated the packing rate per hour. When we multiplied that rate by the available shift hours, the theoretical output was much higher than their normal daily packing.
The problem had never been noticed because nobody had measured it properly.
We then displayed the expected packing rate per hour at each packing station, packet by packet, and explained it to the workers. They too understood the gap. Daily packing increased by roughly five to ten percent, while unnecessary talking gradually reduced.
If a worker does not have enough work for the day, that is a very straightforward signal that you do not have enough orders. In such a situation, there is little point complaining that workers work slowly, arrive late or extend lunch breaks.
A sufficient and continuously growing order book naturally creates positive pressure on the production system and on workforce utilization. The possibility of workers appearing idle then reduces at its root.
When this signal is ignored, people start saying, “We have an HR issue.” But if workers are idle because there is not enough work, the first thing created in their minds is insecurity. The so-called HR issues then follow.
A machine-tool manufacturer once told us about a similar HR problem. We first compared his monthly sales with his manufacturing capacity. He did not even have orders equal to half of his calculated manufacturing capacity. Under such circumstances, naturally, work will move slowly.
I have also seen the opposite situation, where we deliberately used workers being idle as a signal.
At a factory assembling glass-fibre products, incomplete Bills of Material were increasing manufacturing lead time and WIP. We introduced one rule: if 100% of the BOM was not available, the assembly line would remain stopped and the workers would remain idle.
When incomplete BOMs were issued, workers stayed busy doing partial work. Therefore, there was no pressure on the Purchase Department to bring all materials on time. That pressure was created when the workers were deliberately kept idle. Soon, the assembly line began receiving 100% BOMs.
So the point is simple: if a worker avoids work, arrives late or appears idle during working hours, we should find the root cause.
Treating the visible idle worker as an HR problem is the superstition!
.... PART 1 ENDS
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