A factory floor can have a new emergency every day. If it’s a machine breakdown on one day, it could be an inventory problem on the next. As a result, managers often find themselves running to put out one fire after another. But this doesn’t have to be the norm.
Whether you’re running a small manufacturing set-up or a multinational corporation, anticipating rather than reacting to problems can make day-to-day operations much easier to manage. This is what proactive management is all about. Let’s find out more.
What is Proactive Management?
Proactive management is a leadership style that focuses on anticipating opportunities and challenges in the future. This may be related to productivity, work floor safety, product quality, and all other business decisions that impact overall efficiency.
Proactive managers value planning and taking initiative. For example, they may use machine performance data to anticipate the wearing out of different components and order replacements before the machine breaks down. Similarly, they may have relationships with alternative vendors to prevent supply chain disruptions. This helps nip potential issues in the bud and keeps them from affecting your production workflow.
Proactive Management Key Principles
The principles of proactive management are guidelines to help you develop and implement a sustainable proactive management strategy.
Early Identification
Proactive management emphasizes anticipating problems before they arise. To achieve this, managers must run internal and external risk assessment scans. This forward-thinking approach helps identify potential risks early as well as spot trends and patterns in production and the market. In turn, it allows them to implement preventive measures and develop contingency plans to ensure their operations continue flowing smoothly.
For example, a vendor may have met your last delivery schedule but other clients are facing quality and timeline issues. A proactive manager may see this as a reason to start looking for alternative vendors as a backup.
Or, a noteworthy competitor may be facing regulatory audits. This may be an opportunity to ramp up production and expand your market.
Strategic Planning
Proactive planning looks at the bigger picture rather than short-term goals. Managers identify long-term goals and work on developing flexible strategies to meet these goals. The strategies are designed to be agile in the face of changing circumstances. You might need to work on multiple contingency plans for different situations.
Continuous Monitoring and Risk Assessment
Continuous monitoring is critical to proactive risk and opportunity identification. There are many different monitoring mechanisms available. For example, you can use IoT devices to collect real-time information on oil levels, and take proactive action to ensure your machine operations are not halted. Similarly, Kanban boards may be used for inventory management. This gives you a clear view of available raw materials at any time, helping to prevent bottlenecks.
Regular Reporting
Along with monitoring machine operations and shop floor activity, proactive management also requires documenting and communicating this information with stakeholders. This builds awareness of the need for proactive management, keeps stakeholders informed of potential risks, and facilitates data-driven decision-making.
Continuous Improvement
Proactive management fosters an environment of continuous improvement. Here, the focus isn’t on perfection but on small changes that bring about improvement. It encourages experimentation and innovation. Changes could be as small as reorganizing a workstation. If these changes are found to have a positive impact on productivity, they can be standardized across the organization.
Employee Empowerment
Proactive managers do not do everything themselves. Instead, they delegate authority to employees and empower them to propose and implement change. For example, team managers who are responsible for their team’s productivity may study risk patterns to identify and deal with potential problems. By ensuring that each team meets its goals, the factory also ensures that it meets the overall goals.
Benefits of Proactive Management in Manufacturing
Taking a proactive approach to managing the factory floor can have many benefits. This includes:
Increased Organizational Agility
Anticipating risks and being prepared for various situations lets you respond quickly to internal and external changes.
Fewer Emergencies
Having anticipated potential risks, there is a lower risk of issues arising at emergent levels. In turn, this reduces the time and effort required for crisis management and allows management to focus instead on innovation and growth.
Increased Productivity
Identifying potential bottlenecks and productivity issues in advance allows you to implement measures that keep these issues from arising and thus keep operations flowing smoothly.
Fewer Safety Risks
Regular audits and risk assessment measures help proactive managers identify and address potential safety hazards. In addition, this approach trains and empowers employees to follow safety procedures and create a safe working environment.
Satisfied Customers
By anticipating customer preferences and risks that may potentially hamper production, organizations can focus on meeting expectations and timelines to keep their customers happy.
Competitive Advantage
A proactive management approach lets you capitalize on emerging opportunities and makes it easier to navigate challenges without letting them affect your overall productivity. This can lead to a significant competitive advantage.
Best Practices for Proactive Management in Manufacturing
Implementing proactive management techniques requires a structured approach. Here are some of the best practices:
Invest in Employee Empowerment
Develop training programs that empower your employees to assess risks and understand the long-term implications of their working style. In addition, standardize processes and make these SOPs easily accessible to all relevant teams. Communicating this through visual management boards like Fabriq makes it easier for teams to maintain protocols and track their productivity.
Lean on Real-Time Data
Proactive management relies on having access to current information. You can use visual management boards to collate information from various sources, track KPIs, spot potential issues, and adjust workflows accordingly. This helps forecast demand, reduces unplanned downtime, and improves overall efficiency.
Define Strategic Checkpoints
Define points at which each process is to be assessed and assign monitoring responsibilities for each checkpoint. This could also include identifying and monitoring potential risks through performance audits, market research, and so on.
Create Contingencies
Use the data collected from audits to imagine different scenarios that may arise and develop strategies to address each situation. This keeps the company agile and makes it easier to react to changing situations.
Enable 2-Way Communication
Communication is essential for effective proactive management. When workers encounter a minor issue, they should be able to quickly submit a ticket with the necessary visual support. This information must then be easily shareable between all management tiers. And, when a decision is taken, the information must flow downward so action can be taken accordingly.
Conduct Regular Strategy Reviews
To keep your contingency plans up to date, review and adjust them periodically. These reviews should include stakeholders from the management team as well as the factory floor workforce.
Integrating Proactive Management in Your Organization
Proactive management and access to the right tools are key to running smooth manufacturing operations. When you can anticipate your needs, there are fewer setbacks and it’s easier to align your production rates with market requirements.
Visual management software like Fabriq plays an essential role in facilitating proactive management. It enables you to manage information flow, track and assess data from various sources, and streamline communication so everyone stays on the same page.
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