HR Questions

Priority 6
Greatest Challenges

• SIP
• One of the biggest challenges was identifying that one of the biggest root causes that was hampering the OEE was the under performance of the machine.
The machine was operated at 50% speed due to the spoilage of a unit called the through coolant. When I observed that a particular part, which was being processed
in the machine that I was working on, being processed in another machine after a few days at 1.33x the speed, I immediately started reading about the machine, its
production capacity and operating speed. I approached the operators asking them why it was being operated at such a low speed and then with their help it was
found out that they through coolant was spoilt and hence the program auto set it to 50% of the usual running speed. This issue was later taken to the management
and convinced them that replacing this unit would benefit in the long run.
• Setting right the OEE parameters: OEE has 3 main parameters and all time losses fall into 1 of 3 categories. Breakdowns, setups and other unplanned sops
comes under availability loss, minor stops and reduced speeds come under performance loss. But in Pradeep Metals all delays were considered as Availability loss
and Operator efficiency was considered as performance which led to a big mismatch and ultimately wrong diagnosis of problems. I had to explain to the supervisor,
the difference in these parameters which they were not ready to accept and change as it was simpler for the operators to record all time losses under 1 category and
it needed training the operators to adapt to a new system. I had to show them that the way I recorded the losses was easier to identify root problems and to address
them and redesigned their OEE recording tool by restructuring the parameters which helped in better and accurate visualization of time losses.
• Another challenge was to get the machine operators on board in the project during my SIP. While performing time study they were always sceptic that I was
tracking them. It was a monumental task to convince them that the system was to understand the productivity of the machine and I was not there to improve man
power. So, I had to explain what my project was, what OEE is and how it has parameters which affect only the performance of the machine.

• WORK EX

• COLLEGE
• Switching the project from pesticide spraying drone to a land robot that could sense soil moisture content and watering them accordingly. The design of the
robot had to be done in such a manner that the already bought material could be used in order to stay within budget.
Greatest triumph/achievements

• Identifying external variables affecting the demand of Products: In my 2nd project, I was given the task of forecasting the
RM for flanges. For this I had to study the past 3 years sales trends of Flanges. For types of flanges that had uncertain demand,
finding the factors affecting them was a paramount task as the company followed a batch production flow and make to order
which made it difficult to get consistent data. Even speaking with few of the company’s customers and suppliers bore no fruit. I
had to research what kind of industry the company was serving, what sector they belong to and what affects their sales. This is
when I realised that our customers being in automotive, petrochemical sector rode the inflation and GDP wave. Hence, I used
GDP and inflation as my variables to forecast demand which came out to be successful in reducing MAPE to < 20%.
• Increasing OEE of VMC machine by 19%: Generally, a 4-6% increase in OEE is expected during a 2 month tenure. I
achieved this increase after reducing the changeover times by designing an SOP using ECRS and SMED. But even after
identifying the performance issue which was at 0.75x due to the obsolescence of the through coolant unit, it was a difficult task
to convince the maintenance dept to replace it. I had to make a CBA and present it to them, showing them how much time and
cost they would be saving by replacing it and how much potential orders could be brought in. It was mainly after the
rectification of this issue that the OEE had such a huge improvement of 19%.
Could Do something differently

• SIP:
• During my SIP I had to do time study for all 3 shifts for obtaining unbiased data and to derive the root causes leading the reduced OEE. But due to Covid
restrictions I was allowed to take only 2 night shift readings whereas I had 7 readings for the other 2 shifts. Due to this limitation I had to rely on company data for
night shifts which was not as detailed as my time study data. If I could’ve done something differently then this would be it as it would have given me more insights
and might have given me some other root causes to solve issues and could’ve increased the OEE by another 2-3%.

• COLLEGE:
• When I was captaining the basketball team in UG, we were not able to gel well together as we all belonged to different branches and committees and hardly had any
time to get to know each other apart from on the court. This reflected while playing games as we couldn’t understand each other to the fullest and were not able to
compliment each others’ skills to the fullest. As a captain, I should have promoted and encouraged more team building activities and team lunch, outings like trek,
etc to build more chemistry within the team.
Did something different

• SIP
• Identified bottlenecks using 2 different parameters- machine availability and machine capacity utilisation (explanation given in
SIP CV defense)
• Combined ECRS with SMED to prepare SOPs for changeover times which resulted in eliminating 80% of NVA non essential
activities and helped reduce changeover times by 21 and 16% in the 2 machines respectively.

• COLLEGE
• Compared to the previous basketball captains who concentrated on conventional stamina building, I modified the way we used
to train for stamina by dividing each lap into 8 parts and running them at different speeds, sideways and backwards as well, as
in basketball we tend to keep changing directions a lot while running and there is a lot of backward running. This showed
positively on the court as all the players were showed improved stamina and reduced levels of fatigue towards the end of
games.
Appreciated by your manager

• SIP
• For diagnosing the root cause for the reduced performance speed and rectifying it by convincing the maintenance dept (story available in previous slides).
• For being able to identify the 2 key variables which were responsible in forecasting the demand for flanges with uncertain demand through which RM could be
estimated.

• WORK-EX
• For being able to utilise inventory efficiently: Before placing orders for in house production or purchasing a product, I always checked the plant and Organization
level stock level to check if it is available already. If yes, I would immediately call the relevant project stakeholders and ask about the status of the products, like if
they are leftovers after their project or if they do not need it. If these are the cases I would negotiate with them to transfer them to my project and so that we can also
get to our work faster with immediate availability of the parts and I would order the same level off parts for their project. This process is tedious, especially the
negotiating part and the order follow up to check if it has reached their project or not and hence is avoided by many employees. But I always had did this before
placing orders and it helped in efficient utilisation of inventory and completion of project for which I was appreciated by my manager.

• COLLEGE
• Appreciated by my faculty for being able to use the RM and other parts that were bought for the 1 st project (final year- agricultural drone used to spray pesticides)
and were being used for the 2nd project (agicultural robot used to detect soil moisture content and water them accordingly) after the 1 st project seemed infeasible.
Given constructive criticism

• SIP
• I wanted to identify bottlenecks and work on 4 machines thinking that I have enough time to increase OEE for all of them, and
because of this I was not able to dive deep into the issues pertaining to the reasons behind the reduction in OEE. During my
initial review with my guide he has med to me to take up 2 machines in order to identify root causes and solve them. In the end
I was took my guide’s advice and ended up increasing OEE by 19 and 5 % respectively in 2 machines.

• COLLEGE
• Basketball: When I started playing basketball, I had very high vertical and hence, wanted to play forward position which
demands a player who can jump high. So I started training towards it by building my body to suit a forward position, but my
coach suggested otherwise and asked me to be a guard, a shooter in particular. At the point I took his suggestion and because of
this I was called up for multiple team selections during college teams selections as shooters were a shortage.