Hello Peacewong
I think there is a wealt of literature on the subiect, what are the soft and technical skills requirement.
I will look up for some referencies.
Till then, I will copy her a recent post made by a molding consultant on the immnet.com, an injection molding forum, in a topic about good books on production management. take a look.
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"bill4012 (4. "RE: Book (Production Manager)"
LAST EDITED ON 10-12-07 AT 03:26 AM (GMT)
The books recommended are all good. Besides the “One Minute Manager” I’d also read “The 30 second employee”, and Professor Huff’s wonderful book “How to lie with statistics”.
The ’30 second . . . ’ is a rather glib comeback to the fact that you need to devote the proper amount of time to everyone. Think about devoting One Minute to your wife every day. Then think about how much time you devote to your second wife.
“How to lie . . . .” is a primer college courses still used in statistics classes. (about $4.00)It’s important to read because of the Cp/Cpk, zero defect, SPC, Black Belt Geeks. While statistics are certainly good tools to use in this business many people (intentionally or not) either misrepresent or misinterpret them.
I’ve had several clients where the projects I worked on had horrible CpK’s were statistically Out Of Control and everything else the Quality Circle folks could curse us with BUT the product always worked – and we were shipping millions of them. If somebody’s inflicted PPAP on you, in many cases it is side-splittingly funny. You at least need to give some intelligent arguments on why you will never comply with those requirements.
Being a better Plant Manager depends on your style. The basics I used were as follows that come from many books:
1. Hold people accountable for what they do.
2. Only reward good behavior. Not everyone will like you. Live with it.
3. When you hold meetings tell the truth – show exactly if you made or lost money, if a RIF is coming etc. etc. Try not to hold too many meetings, that are too long, or you have to say “Amen” when the meeting is over.
4. Know everyone who works for you by their first name. It’s also good to know their significant other’s name, a few birthdays, when somebody will graduate etc. If you care, and do something even as simple as a kind word, or a card it is a gesture of humanity most people think upper management is incapable of.
5. Have fun – nothing wrong with putting grills out in the parking lot and having Brats and Potato salad for lunch once a month.
6. Be fair, firm and consistent. You make enemies fast by playing favorites, not keeping your promises, or constantly changing you mind.
7. The folks on the production floor probably know more about improving productivity than anybody else. Your job is to facilitate improvements. Let someone who knows recommend them. If you have doubts, try it, and if it doesn’t work undo it. Doing something to correct a problem (even if it doesn’t work) is always more productive than doing nothing.
8. There's no such thing as too much training or preventative maintenance.
9. The customer (regardless of what he says) is perfectly happy with ‘sufficient’. They have no desire to pay for ‘perfect’ or ‘free of defects’. If the customer changes what he agreed to pay you for, the price should be changed appropriately. Never give away money nor leave it on the table.
Make sure EVERYBODY involved with production knows what an acceptable part is. There shouldn't be any mystery in it.
10. You’ll get more business by delivering consistently on time than you will by lowering the price.
11. Raises – this sometimes is tricky with the owners –
a. Cut everybody’s pay to the legal minimum for that job classification. – Yours, the front office, the sales force and the maintenance folks. EVERYBODY. This isn't kindergarten where you always get paid for showing up, and you get raises for having not been fired.
b. Hand out ‘profit sharing’ twice a month with every paycheck. This directly links everyone’s paycheck to the company’s profitability. As a computer problem this is easier than you think. Companies that do this usually have 30% of their pay tied to this system.
i. If the plant is chugging along normally everybody gets what they expected.
ii. If productivity improvements make the plant extra profit, give at least half of it to the work force.
iii. If you take a loss, everyone also takes the hit.
12. Salary structure – It’s perfectly OK to see your production folks bringing home $25-30/hour. Using the system above, if you have less people generating more profit, why shouldn’t they get some of the reward for their effort? You’ll find a nice benefit of this system is that you retain good people. It selects out slackers because the contributors don’t want a slacker taking away their bonus, and the employees will only recommend you hire somebody new (making their piece of the pie smaller) when they truly can’t keep up with the work load nor automate it. Most importantly, those folks on this program REALLY want the company to be profitable because they get a sense that they are working for a payroll and not a paycheck.
Or you can use the Attila the Hun school of management and simply continue the back stabbing and assignations until morale improves or everyone is sucking up to you.
Your choice."
End of quote, and thank to Bill for this post.
BR
György
