How it goes
Walk the floor first. Then the rest.
Five steps. Not a framework with a name on it; the order a plant person would work in anyway, written down so you know what the first month looks like.
- 1
Walk the floor first
Before any meeting. Your operation says more in two days than your reports say in two months.
Two days on the floor before any meeting. Where the work actually queues, which machine everybody quietly plans around, and which number on the board nobody believes.
- 2
Find what is actually holding it back
Usually one or two things. Most of the rest quiets down once those move.
There is almost always one constraint doing most of the damage, and a crowd of symptoms around it. Fix the constraint and the crowd thins out on its own.
- 3
Fix the planning underneath
Scheduling, inventory control, and the system that drives both. That is where on-time delivery lives.
Most late orders are a planning problem wearing a scheduling costume. That means the inventory position, the demand signal, and whatever system is supposed to reconcile the two.
- 4
Build the structure that holds it
A clear line from your executive team down, so decisions get made where the work is.
A fix nobody owns comes back. Clear reporting lines from the executive team down, so the person nearest the problem is allowed to solve it and knows they are allowed.
- 5
Hand it back
The assignment ends when your own people have the knowledge and the tools to run it.
The handover is the deliverable. Your own people keep the knowledge and the tools; nothing depends on a telephone number they have to keep calling.
What turns up
Somebody in the seat, not a deck. The person who walks your floor is the person who runs the fix, and the assignment ends when your own people can run it without help.