The importance and necessity of a board meeting in a QRM implementation
By Maarten Kemmeren – Censor QRM Specialist
What is a board meeting? … It’s a method for communicating and sharing information from a central point in the department. It’s important that it’s a matter of ‘sending and receiving’ for every participant. The person who leads the board meeting must ensure that it runs smoothly and that everyone has the opportunity to speak.
What’s the benefit?
There is clarity and transparency about operational and tactical issues that play a role in the department, but even across departments. When there are no more departments, but people work in QRM cells or teams, you do this at your own cell or team. Moreover, it can also contribute to a good team consultation / start-up.
How do you approach the board meeting?
Running a board meeting smoothly is not easy. It is already an art to get everyone on the board simultaneously. You often do it at the start of the service. It can be compared to a team discussion before a sports competition. What is your plan today? What can we learn from yesterday? What are the goals for this week? Are there any specifics? Have we made progress in the changes / improvements and / or where are we lagging behind?
By sharing these types of topics on a daily basis, a culture of improvement is created in which everyone is involved and things do not remain unnoticed.
Board meetings take place daily and last a maximum of 10 minutes. Good collaboration to keep it short is therefore necessary.
How to organize a board correctly?
All involved can contribute to ideas. The following question is crucial in this regard: What information do you need to make your work clear and be able to perform it well? For example:
- Review disturbances
- Planning and rushed orders (the real rushed orders from the sales department)
- View orders of the parts
- Discuss in-company training courses
- Keep track of cross-training and express to others the importance of following it on time
- Indicate external maintenance
- Shortening of the lead time through the MCT display and discuss this topic
- QRM number (depending on the MCT)
What do you achieve with the board meeting?
Due to a structured board consultation there are fewer ad hoc conversations and many other consultations are no longer necessary, as they were discussed beforehand. This creates overview and peace in the organization. You do not measure this, but you do really feel it.
A combination with 5S (optimizing workplaces) and board consultation is possible over time and can also be recommended. This creates a lot of mutual understanding on the status and why things are the way they are.
What for an impact does it have on the organizational culture?
Creativity increases in a team that works intensively together and discusses matters on a daily basis. As a result, problems are solved earlier, which in turn leads to better cooperation. Managers are also relieved of all kinds of day-to-day ad-hoc issues, so that they can concentrate on the longer-term vision. The hidden capacity also becomes visible and can be used differently.
Don’t forget to celebrate success!
One point is often (also by us) forgotten. Celebrate successes! This is often perceived as “normal”. Celebrating successes involves the people more and leads to enthusiasm. Which in turn leads to better cooperation and that leads to the flow of orders. Ultimately we want to reduce the lead time with QRM. 10 minutes of scheduled consultations per day can then lead to a reduction in the lead time. That’s what we wanted, right?