The medium term vision of VWSA revolves around the development of a high performance team culture by 2010. For this, a number of broad initiatives have been put in place by all Divisions, such as the introduction of a new Volkswagen Production System in the mould of lean manufacturing. More specialized initiatives were also put into place by individual Divisions.
Mission Directed Work Teams (MDW) is one of these specialized initiatives. It was selected for implementation at initially only the New Paint Shop (it has since also been rolled out to the Old Paint Shop, but this article deals with only the New Paint Shop).
The New Paint Shop in Uitenhage South Africa is a new start-up, state of the art facility. The main aim of MDW in the New Paint Shop is to generate frontline involvement; the secondary aim - to serve as a vehicle for coaching efficient high performance teams to complement the drive for excellence in quality, speed, cost, safety and people.
MDW in the New Paint Shop commenced in November 2007 with the implementation of Module 1. Notable progress has been made so far in terms of the quality, speed, cost and other indicators that are measured by the frontline teams.
In terms of quality, for example, the Prime Preparation Area (C Shift) showed a 59% improvement in the total number of measured defects in the period February 08 – April 08, while the Sealer Line (B Shift) improved by 48% over the same period, and the Underbody Sealer Area (A Shift) 73%.Fine Sealer (C Shift) and Spray Booth (B Shift) improved 89% and 31% respectively.
It can be seen that improvements are representative, as they are spread over several areas, and across shifts. The same is true for other measurements. The total cost saving (all 21 teams) for the same period, for instance, showed a 25% benefit.
Several good innovations were put forward. Some examples are given in Figures 1-3 below:
Figure 1: Before, vacuum machines were located inside booths. This meant that trapped dust was kept inside booths, which could still threaten good dirt in paint counts. The situation was made safer by stationing the vacuum machines outside booths. This also increased work space inside booths.
Figure 2: Broad tape was used on flanges. The team proposed narrower (less expensive, but equally effective) tape, with a collective annual cost saving of R60 000 for three shifts.
Figure 3: Boots got clogged up by hardening fluids, and became very slippery. A cheap solution involving a second hand solvent tray, a rag, and some solvent at the booth entrance resulted in clean boots that were not slippery at all.
As always, challenges remain. These falls into two categories: attendance related, and follow up related.
Attendance related challenges revolve mostly around representation at the coaching reviews –something that is problematic in view of the fact that the New Paint Shop has a 24-hour, 3-shift cycle. Consequently, coaching reviews can not be scheduled during production time, and employees have to change their transport arrangements in order to attend. This is problematic because many travel between Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage with lift clubs.
A partial solution has been reached in that overtime is paid for coaching review attendance (and also for team leader when preparing their multilevel meeting presentations).
Follow-up related challenges pertain mostly to the implementation of the multitude of innovation ideas that are put forward by the frontline teams. The problem here was securing the authorization and funding required for speedy implementation so that momentum is not lost.
This question has been resolved through Nico Serfontein (Division Head responsible for paint shop operations) personally accepting the task of giving feedback on innovation suggestions within two working days.
MDT3 level meeting area attended by the coaches right on the shopfloor.
Example of a MDT1 area. All the teams areas are maximum of 30 m away from their area
