Lutando com a colaboração entre as equipes de engenharia e produção na fabricação automotiva?

Collaboration needs to be deliberate. Understanding the perspective of others is key. Production knows the difficulties and often has great ideas, or the start of an idea, to solve the issue. Find opportunities to get facilitators, critical thinkers, the outside the box individual, and those that live with the problem daily in the same room.

Really simple perspective here.I know everybody talks about channels of communication,but let's get back to basics and where ever possible put engineers and designers in the same room or floor where they can "talk" to each other. Old fashioned maybe!

Clearly Engineering and Manufacturing play distinctively different roles in creating the product that goes to the customer but from the customer’s perspective the product comes from the brand / company they choose to give their business to. Embodying this thought at the core of every action across the enterprise is the key. This goes beyond Engineering and Manufacturing alone. Speaking of the two functions, an overlap team of manufacturing engineering, that has members from both teams and goals that speak effectively to Design for Manufacturing and Value Engineering, May be very helpful. Warranty as a shared responsibility between the two teams may also add a dimension of joint ownership.

One thing I’ve found helpful is to ask engineers to walk in the shoes of operations. Having engineers collaborate directly with ops and build relationships has been invaluable. Encouraging these interactions helps engineers develop a well rounded view of the people they support. As an engineer myself I find some of the best ideas come from these interactions. Being sympathetic to a customers needs is a very valuable skill when designing any end solution. Keep things simple and as intuitive as possible. This limits the need for complex training and support and lets ops take partial ownership in the project fostering mutual success.

The most effective communication channel is visiting operators directly. Observe their duties and how they interact with the process. Introduce yourself to them and show up regularly to ask questions. Have the operators describe the process in their words and capture it on a process flow diagram, then have them confirm it's correct. If it's allowed on the shop floor, small food items (e.g.: biscuits or donuts) facilitate conversation. A small gift builds rapport and shows you care. If a problem comes up, go to the line. Find what caused the problem and how they resolved it or if they need any more help. Don't just wait to be assigned. Above all, solve the problem. A track record is the best motivation for people to collaborate with you.

One of the best things we did was to have lunch and learns for both manufacturing engineering and interested production operators. Everyone brown bagged and we provided cookies or popcorn. Different topics were chosen each month, depending on current problems and projects. Input from production, engineering and the materials lab lead to much communication. Eventually, even the design engineers started showing up.

Adapting from the "4 Disciplines of Execution", there are five major components for setting clear, effective objectives. 1) Understand your team's organizational structure and members. 2) Have a "Wildly Important Goal" or WIG. This should be worded "from X to Y by when", have a lag measure to show progress, and week-by-week targets for performance. 3) Lead measure and a daily or weekly performance standard. Each team member is responsible for logging their progress on the lead measures. 4) Team commitments from the prior week and status on follow-through, as well as commitments for the coming week. 5) At-a-glance summary tracking of WIGs, lead measures, WIG sessions and commitments. These should be publicly visible for the whole team.

While I agree with the use of modern communication tools don’t underestimate the power of a face to face conversation. If possible set aside time and have lunch with your counterparts. The breaking of bread and sharing the air has many benefits not conveyed by digital means.

Feedback loops are key. In my experience design via iteration pays off more than boiling the ocean on a moonshot design developed in a silo.

Some great tools and process here. With people at the root of all this and in the spirit of simplicity, 2x words in this space: 1. Empathy 2. Congruence