Continuing the series on what makes a GOOD manufacturing organisation we come to:
Manufacturing Effectiveness 11 – Perception FROM Production
During the discussion concerning the fundamentals of analysis one of the fundamentals quoted was that the production shop-floor is the screen on which the operational performance of an organisation is projected. Experience tells us that it is rare – but not unknown – for individuals to be ‘bloody minded‘ for the sake of it. Bloody mindedness and cynicism are normally the result of past experience; however, it is also true that if an organisation is functioning badly then production staff will have been more thoroughly demoralised than most. Therefore, their degree of cynicism exceeds that of most of the rest of the organisation. Couple that fact with the fact that poor industrial relations are more common amongst direct labour staff than amongst any other of an organisation’s staff – for reasons so obvious that the author will not insult the intelligence and knowledge of readers by explaining it – and one has to take perceptions about the rest of the organisation from personnel within the production function with a ‘pinch of salt‘. However, ‘amidst the dross can lie some gold‘ and if perceptions are sought from Production Supervision rather than production operators – supervisors being part of the management team and therefore not bearing as much antipathy as would be the case otherwise – then the perception of how much support they receive from the rest of the organisation can be revealing.