Problem solving is available at Fabriq !

Problem solving, a key feature in your performance management

A problem is a deviation between a standard and a given situation. These deviations can be found on different occasions:

• through process or resultindicators, they reflect the performance of a team or a production site
• during team reviews, performance meetings allow for a review of expected and achieved results
• what I see for myself, the gemba walks, audits or field trips will make it possible to determine the gaps on a regular basis by going out into the field
  

All problems should be addressed by an action plan in the first instance, but some will need to be dealt with in more depth, so problem-solving tools are needed.

QRQC, one of the benchmark problem-solving methods, has enabled Faurecia to halve the number of non-quality parts in one year. In just a few years, some Faurecia sites have even reached 0 ppm, while Safran has seen a 10% improvement in the quality of its products and a 15% improvement in its OTD (On Time Delivery).

What are the benefits of digitising problem solving?

Fabriq is the lean and operational excellence tool used by operators and managers on a daily basis, and as such is the ideal tool for problem solving. We have recently developed this new functionality, and from the initial customer feedback we have, three major benefits have emerged. 

Empower your teams by digitising your problem solving

Digitalising your problem-solving methodologies allows you to have all the tools for operational excellence on a single platform. Fabriq is the tool with which you identify discrepancies, through indicators, field visits and also during meetings. These deviations always lead to a ticket with an initial action plan. If the discrepancy found justifies it by its seriousness (for example, a high cost or a customer complaint), applying a problem-solving methodology may prove necessary. In this case, it is a matter of activating it on the initial ticket of the deviation, as a continuation of the initial action plan. 

Having an all-in-one tool allows your teams to avoid wasting non-value-added time copying information on several media and to create links between the different elements (indicators, routines, tickets). Curative and definitive actions will be stored in the application so that they can be reviewed either during your performance meetings or during specific meetings.

The processes are fully customisable, so you can adapt the methodologies to your own, your customers' or your industry's standards.

In addition, you can initially create simpler processes, so that your field teams become more autonomous and can carry out an initial search for the cause and take corrective action. If this initial analysis is not sufficient, you can then move on to a more advanced process.

Digitise your old paper methods to solve them faster

As the processes are attached to the generated tickets, they will have all the advantages of the latter: sharing, exchanges on the chat... This allows you to bring up information from the field more quickly. You will also be able to share this problem resolution with different teams who will be able to follow its resolution and if necessary intervene.

Finally, you will be able to work more easily in asynchronous mode on the process. Of course, solving a problem requires that the people responsible for solving it are physically present at the place where the problem occurred. But the actions can be carried out asynchronously, and everyone can follow the progress of the actions in real time.

Capitalise on available data and reduce recurrence

You will find all open processes in one place, which will allow you to have a global vision of the progress of each problem resolution in real time. You will see which steps have been completed, which are overdue and which are being processed.

One of the notable advantages of digitisation is that you can track the processing times of your problem solving in an accurate and reliable way. You can also track the time you take between each of the steps, which is an essential point in improving performance.

It is often complicated to capitalise on data when processes are carried out in Excel or on paper. In most cases, once the process is closed, it is either thrown away, or stored in a file which itself is in a cupboard, or in the best case it is stored in an Excel file which is not (or only very little) usable.

By digitising this process on an adapted platform you will be able to capitalise on this data simply, to search for similar problems to help you in its resolution and if a problem is recurrent you will then be able to improve the actions you take to make its treatment definitive.

Problem solving in Fabriq, how does it work?

Creation process

The problem solving methodology is created from a ticket. This allows it to keep all the features of the ticket such as sharing with other teams, comments and links to other elements such as routines or indicators in Fabriq.

You can create different problem-solving methods

As mentioned before, you can use several methods and customise them to your standards. Among these methods you can for example decide to have a lean process for your operators, a more advanced process for your supervisors and other processes that follow the standards requested by your customers. The classic methodologies are PDCA, DMAIC or 8D for example, but you can create others.

You can use all the tools in the methods

In each of these methods you will be able to customise the questions and elements that interest you. In this way you can choose the tools you want to use in each step of the process. 

The Ishikawa, 5M or fishbone diagram

These tools include the classic Ishikawa diagram, also known as the 5M/6M or "fishbone" diagram.

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The 5-Why Method

You can also make 5-Why's in a simple and visual way. The causes of the 5 Whys can, if you wish, be derived directly from the causes for which you have found it useful to analyse further in the Ishikawa diagram.

Following the 5 Whys you can then validate the causes that you consider to be the root causes and you can create actions that will be linked to these causes.

Finally, you will find classic elements such as multiple choices, the addition of attachments, free fields and the creation of actions.

Would you like to see this feature live? Our teams are available to show you the problem solving in detail, contact us!