Struggling to bridge the gap between engineering and production teams in automotive manufacturing?

Engineering and manufacturing teams often use separate tools and processes, which can lead to inconsistencies and errors when translating designs into production plans. Many companies are turning to digital platforms that integrate both engineering and manufacturing data. This integration allows for real-time collaboration and updates, ensuring that both teams are working from the same set of information. Moreover, fostering a culture of open communication and feedback is essential. Ensuring that production teams can easily report issues and suggest improvements back to the engineering teams can help in continuously refining both the design and manufacturing processes.

Implement Autonomous maintenance program wherein Engineering and Production specifically the production operators work hand in hand for the smooth machine operations. With this concept, you will "change culture" from reactive to preventive.

Shadowing each other can play a critical role in building connection and empathy between the two roles. Rotating Production team members into engineering to understand the processes and value add helps to build champions for the cause. Including requiring Engineering to spend time in production roles, seeing first hand what they have delivered to be produced.

First and foremost we must realize we have 7 basic milestones to produce product. 1. Conceptual Engineering, is the basic concept feasible to produce at a profit 2. Design Engineering, take concept and theory into possibility 3. Testing Phase, testing of prototypes to validate performance requirements 4. Manufacturing Engineering, how realistic is the design to produce with efficiency and profit 5. Product Realization, the launch of the first pilot runs into the manufacturing process 6. Sustaining Product Engineering, this is where the rubber meets the road 7. Sustaining Manufacturing Engineering, strong feed back to Sustaining Engineering regarding some slight design changes that could improve throughput and profitability

As someone who was once the Liaison between multiple functional groups, including the production/engineering group dynamic, it's important to understand the needs of your customer. Internal customer in this scenario obviously. Listening to each group, finding and presenting unique and innovative ideas and solutions was the only way I had success in bringing harmony. Sometimes the harmony came after a lot of friction, but it was achieved nonetheless.

We like to think that recognize the importance of communication, but the reality is each milestone phase of a project/program have internal goals that are usually not aligned with overall product launch timing. Teams are under the gun, which is normal in our fast past economic world to bring product to market ahead of the competitors curve.

There is a difference between value-add communication and opinions of the masses. Who are the decision makers that are accountable for the projects success? Decision by committee is never effective.

Benefits: Efficiency: Integrated processes reduce manual work and enhance productivity. Consistency: Uniform access to quality data across all sources. Cost Savings: Effective integration minimizes costs and resource wait

Important to remember open dialogue includes listening. We need to have open and honest conversations about project status. Know how to ask for help and be willing to say when we are not meeting targets. Rally the troops to help each other when needed. This is especially true in small to medium size businesses.

When engineering and production have great lines of communication then both sides can try to solve the problems that the project will bring. In the end both engineering and production are looking to manufacture a product with quality and in numbers that make a profit for the company. When both sides align it will a great for the operation.

Smart sheets can be a useful tool you share information. Never forget “shop floor focus”. Get out of the office and talk to the people doing the work. Electronic communication can be a useful tool but more often than not a lot is lost in translation, especially from engineering to the hourly production team members.

To ensure the smoothest and most guaranteed implementation possible, a robust Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) process is crucial. S&OP bridges the gap by fostering communication and collaboration across all departments involved.

At my daily work we are using a PLM system were all task are strategic planned and can be changed as necessary with an automatic email notification system, revision and change control

A Real time tracking system is an excellent tool to monitor existing and real time production status, Real time systems provide OEE, scheduling and maintenance functions, and tools to track KPI's between Production, Maintenance, Engineering, and Quality Departments. The Real Time System online and through monitoring tools is currently updating production status on equipment, providing production yield, machine status, quality control parameter monitoring to show when the parts produced are out of specification.

With current software and hardware technology, integrating data of various types has never been easier. The integration platform depends on many variables and it can be globally complex or locally simple; the goal is always to keep it scalable, error free, and efficient. Integration must be monitored through cadence meetings to ensure it brings in ROI (adds value) to the business, otherwise the IT & operations cost can get out of control.

In my opinion, Manufacturing Engineering should have a presence with the Design Engineering team during and throughout the meetings that preceded any testing of the prototype type products . This is where the foundation is laid between Concept Engineering, Design Engineering, and Manufacturing Engineering. Way too often Manufacturing Engineering is brought in after the design is almost locked down and Manufacturing Engineering is then asked to produce this product under these criteria. My point is establish Manufacturing Engineering into the process early into and before the testing phases begin for a new product. This is where you get all the communication links established and the Program Manager or Management

Having engineers spend time in the field is essential. I work in oil and gas and find my time spent in the field invaluable as I work with the field personnel. When everyone has the same frame of reference, communicating is much easier.

Regularly workshop or daily 10 min. Kaizenn with all departments like: Engineering, Manufacturing, Logistic, Supervisor from the production helps to get everyone quickly up to date and informed

Within a TPS or TPS-like system, I have noticed that the Feedback Loop is successful because management itself is accountable for ensuring effective policies, responsibilities, and resources for each phase gate of product lifecycle. This motivates clear goals to ensure that Engineering acts to support transition into Production and onward under the Continuous Improvement umbrella. Some companies even allow Production to charge back labor hours to engineering for DFA/M root causes and this can be a "tough love" motivator.

Lessons learned in each Gate from the Project Management Tools are important. Therefore you can integrate the good but more important the bad things in your though process for further projects or project phases.

I have seen production department giving very useful feedbacks.During pilot batch manufacturing and process proving out many design errors are identified and corrected through feedbacks. There should be a proper feedback mechanism in place to solve technical queries.Also it is very important to align and improve production process as per design requirements.

yes, this is the holy grail to performance improvement. shared goals that keep everyone rowing in the same direction. goals that are measured are clearly the most effective. goals that are subjective open the door for favoritism and that will destroy morale very fast and super difficult to reverse the effects.

Cross functional teams are the way to bring all parties together, whether it’s to launch a new product or improve an existing one. Teams should have members from Production (shop floor), Design Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Quality, Purchasing, Finance, and relevant supplier(s). Six sigma DMAIC approach is a great way to accomplish this. For those that don’t know what this acronym means: D-Define the process or problem to be improved. M-Measure or establish the metrics needed A-Analyze the situation and recommend improvement I-Implement the improvements C-Control. Measure and track the results and adjust if needed. The entire team must participate and share the success.

Es una combinación de varios puntos. Cada área debe conocer bien sus objetivos y funciones. Realizar reuniones de afinación de temas vísperas entres las áreas. Realizar tareas en conjunto, para generan vínculo y reforzar las relaciones entre las áreas. Tener vínculos con todos los niveles, gerencias, jefatura, superficie y especialistas. No debe dejar fisuras en ningún nivel. Si las hay hay que trabajarlas. No es fácil este tema y depe de de la alta gerencia ver estos puntos.

Traducir texto con la cámara All of the above in fact, gaps are natural between the teams and departments of an organization. They can even be healthy in fact, they create the perfect ecosystem for problem solving from an objective, technical and logical perspective, at the moment when a proposal is accepted by both teams, we could say that it is the most precise solution for the problem in question, the latter is the job of leadership.