Operational excellence in every plant, not just on paper
Your operational excellence program describes one way of working. On the shop floor, every plant does it a little differently. With the EZ-GO platform, the standard is the instruction operators use at the line, in every plant and in their own language.
Where operational excellence programs get stuck
In multi-site manufacturing, the program often lives in a presentation and a shared folder. Each plant turns the standard into its own instructions, in its own format and its own language. One line changes over in twenty minutes, another in thirty, and nobody can say why, because every plant measures in a different way.
When one plant finds a better way of working, it usually stays there. There is no simple way to bring it to the next plant, and by the time the next audit comes, every site has drifted a little further from the standard.
How the EZ-GO platform supports each step of the SDCA cycle
Improving a process follows Plan, Do, Check, Act. You can read how the EZ-GO platform supports that on the Kaizen and gemba page. Keeping a standard in place across plants follows a different cycle: Standardize, Do, Check, Act.
Standardize: write the standard once
The EZ-GO platform works as standard work software for the shop floor. You write the standard as work instructions, checklists, and audits. That is where standardized work becomes concrete: not a document about how the work should be done, but the steps an operator follows at the line. Read more about the difference between a work process and a work instruction. In a company with several plants, standard templates can be managed centrally and shared with each plant, and plants can also share templates. The local key user decides whether to adopt a template as it is or adapt it, for example for a different machine.
Do: every operator works with the same instruction, in his own language
The EZ-GO app is available in 20 languages. Depending on your settings, you use one language, several, or all of them. With automatic translations, AI translates the text of an instruction into the language of the user. A plant in Germany and a plant in the Netherlands can work with the same instruction, and a team with different native languages can too.
Check: compare plants on the same score
When every plant runs the same audit, the scores become comparable. With the EZ-GO reporting pack and Power BI, you build one dashboard with all your plants, so you see where the standard holds and where it does not. For example: how many planned tasks were completed, which deviations are reported most often in checklists, whether audit scores go up and which points still need work, and whether actions are picked up and closed on time. Read how scores and weighting in audits work on the Audits and compliance page.
Daily results per line and the shift meeting at the line board are covered on the Daily management page.
Act: bring what works to the next plant
When one plant finds a better way of working, through an operator's idea or a kaizen event, you update the standard and share it with the other plants. They receive it in their inbox in the EZ-GO platform and adopt it as it is or with local changes. The improvement does not stay in the plant where it started. More about how ideas from the line become the standard on the Continuous improvement page.
Start with one plant, connect the next when you are ready
If you are responsible for several plants, you do not need a long IT program to begin. You start the EZ-GO platform in one plant, prove the value there, and connect the next plants one by one. Many companies combine a quick start at a pilot site with a faster rollout to the other plants. Read more about a phased or company-wide rollout. Because the EZ-GO platform runs in the cloud, every plant works with the same version and gets updates at the same time. The EZ-GO platform connects with tools such as SAP PM, Ultimo, and Power BI.
Customers using the EZ-GO platform have seen 25% less unplanned downtime, 20% less waste, and a payback period of 6 months.
Read what changes for operations directors, or for the plant manager of each site.