Digital Factory Visualization System from Panasonic: Mixed FeelingsBy Jon Miller | Post Date: January 20, 2009 11:16 PM | Comments: 12 Panasonic has introduced an award-winning digital factory visualization system. This system allows you to set up a camera in a factory and monitor the performance and movements of the 4M (manpower, material, machinery, method) with the purpose of improving safety, quality, cost and on-time delivery. Managers and engineers can now perform process analysis of the factory from the comfort of their offices, instantly being alerted to andon lamps, excessive motion, unsafe activities, with even a 30X zoom to look at the motion of the workers' very fingertips. I have mixed feelings about this...
These sample videos are really fun if you enjoy factories. Follow the link to the Panasonic website (but do come back!) and click on any of the links within the red square area and watch videos of people at work within a Panasonic factory. As an engineer I could see getting really hooked on this system and dreaming up all sorts of new permutations of lean manufacturing. I wonder if they mics on the engineers desks have loud speakers in the factory, of if the workers are given walkie talkies so that the engineers can talk to them from afar.
Even as a non-degreed industrial engineer who feels comfortable with stop watch in hand staring at people for hours, this motion analysis system gives me the willies. As with any tool, it's how one uses it I suppose. There are clear benefits to this system, explained below, regardless of how one may feel about remote monitoring and video taping of workers in a factory for the purpose of productivity improvement. Quality improves as the root causes of errors can be found by repeated observation of the points of cause captured in the video. Equipment failures and risks are reduced. Less domestic travel is needed to your manufacturing centers.
But perhaps the killer app is the ability for this system to work over the internet so you can watch what they are doing in your low cost country factories without actually having to travel there, reducing travel cost, lost time, jet lag and misadventures with black cabs. And of course nothing says "I care" like an e-mail from an engineer at a mother factory 8 time zones away instructing you to move your workstation 2 meters to the left in order shorten your cycle by 3 seconds.
It's in Japanese but here is a link to a PDF brochure of the digital factory visualization system outlining the specifications and such. If you want to contact Panasonic to learn more about this product, I recommend you call them up at their numbers in red (toll free in Japan) and speak English to them until they hang up or find an English speaker willing to deal with you. They have not made it easy to simply send them an e-mail. The e-mail contact button is broken in the Firefox browser. With Internet Explorer it goes to a page full of terms of use to which you have to agree before they will let you send them an e-mail... Fail.
Panasonic gets kudos for being a fairly lean manufacturer, based on evidence in the videos they show on this website. They have also built a software product that "kaizens the kaizen" if you will, finding a better tool for improvement. But this digital factory visualization system threatens to take the human contact out of the process of studying the work that is done with the goal of finding ways to improve it. At the same time it's a fantastic technical solution and time saver in many ways, allowing you to better improve safety, quality, delivery and cost. What do you think? Is this a move in the right direction, the wrong direction or neither? Interesting tool, but it gives me the willies too. I think personal interaction allows improvement to happen in a humanistic manner, and as a partnership between engineer and person at work. However, big upside to remote monitoring of human safety. A good contract mfg site could offer a company the ability to check and measure their work safety remotely at any time (not that it would eliminate the responsibility to check firsthand). Poster: will | Post Date: January 21, 2009 6:39 AM Hmmm. I like it and hate it at the same time. Is that possible? I like it since, as you say, it could be very useful at reducing travel costs and things like that. Also, if used in the right spirit, it could be used to really kaizen the daylights out of an organization. However. I would be very concerned with the anxiety and stress this would place on workers. I mean talk about 'big brother' watching you! Also, I worry that managers would actually forget what the shop floor smells like and feels like since they'd never leave their desks. So, I don't know. It could work but would require a TREMENDOUS amount of upfront change management and explanation that we are focused on making job easier, safer, and more fun. Could be a tough sell, I'm afraid. Poster: Ron Pereira | Post Date: January 21, 2009 8:20 AM The question to ask is- Does this system support the "Respect for People" Principle? Were the people on the floor asked their permission before they were videotaped? Are the same cameras being used to monitor the engineers, accountants, management, and CEO's of Panasonic? If you're going to video one part of your organization, you might as well video everyone, that is only fair. If this is used as a way to control certain people in your organization, and restrict their ability to be free and creative you are not Lean, you are merely efficient. And, if efficiency is the only goal, well, let's throw out the people and bring in the robots. But, hey, on the other hand, it is a darn good way to track your people and processes, and something that has crossed my mind before as a way to analyze motion and eliminate waste. Maybe the correct question is- Is Big Brother benevolent? Poster: Isaac D. Curtis | Post Date: January 21, 2009 9:16 AM While I'm impressed with the technical abilities of the software, as well as the work that must have gone into such an undertaking, I'm more concerned than excited. The reason is two fold: First, it goes against one of the most fundamental, and powerful, Toyota principles: go see for yourself. While there are many peripheral arguments, both in favor and against, that could be made here, my own personal experience is that Masaaki Imai was right on when he said, "Kaizen cannot be practiced from the manager's desk. You cannot know anything unless you get involved in the work at the lowest level." I believe these to be very wise words. Second and perhaps of greater concern, my sensei always cautioned me against using this type technology because far too often it is used to replace thinking instead of improving thinking. Not everyone always understood his opposition to solutions that people often saw as a "no brainer". In hindsight he was always right. In fact the solutions were indeed "no brainers" in the sense that they took people's brains out of gear which is precisely why he opposed them. Poster: Erik Stordahl | Post Date: January 21, 2009 10:27 AM This system is a poor substitute for true learning and kaizen because it completely leaves the shop floor employee out of the loop. What happened to involving and empowering those who do the work to improve the work? How are you going to do that if they are only observed and instructed from "above?" This system would be good for remote monitoring of automated manufacturing systems, but not for anything involving people. I wonder if Panasonic used this to justify closing their big plant outside of Atlanta? Poster: jike | Post Date: January 21, 2009 12:38 PM If I hadn't seen the pictures I would have assumed this is a lazy American system to keep from having to get sullied by going to the floor. Poster: Lester | Post Date: January 21, 2009 1:22 PM Thank you Jon. I read this entry first in Hungarian (leandesign)and the translation was false so it has a totally different meaning in English. I am surprised because all of your Hungarian entries have different matter.Why? Poster: Justine Fekete | Post Date: January 22, 2009 5:16 AM Dear John Poster: Chris Nicholls | Post Date: January 22, 2009 9:05 AM It is possible, that i do not understand this post well, but it seems to me, that by Panasonic thinking is a job only for engineers. If i work by the line and know somebody is watching and thinking about how i should do my job, i can have the good idea not to think anymore... and if i make a mistake i can blame an engineer in the mother factory far far away. Poster: Robert | Post Date: January 22, 2009 9:16 AM Hi Justine A comment from is Robert Kesztler of LeanDesign blog: It is not an exact or full translation. The main content, the message, the idea is the same as in the original articles. To prevent this misunderstanding, from today he will add the next text to each article: * Forrás: Jon Miller / Gemba Panta Rei . A fordítás csak a fő gondolatokat tartalmazza. Fordította: Kesztler Róbert Thanks for reading. Poster: Jon Miller | Post Date: January 22, 2009 1:39 PM Dear Justine, You are right, we have started to translate Jon's blog articles, invited him into the LeanBlog.hu team. Welcome in the team Jon! :-) http://www.leanblog.hu These articles have a "value-added" contents for the Hungarian Lean Community. We can learn a lot, get great ideas, known new tools, technical solutins (as this article above). Because sometimes these articles are very long (what is not bad! :-) we are translating only the main message, idea, new tool and sometimes we are adding personal experience from us (Hungarian team) to give more value to the reader, Lean thinker. Please contact with me, if you have a different meaning. Poster: user | Post Date: January 23, 2009 6:34 AM |
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Wow .. is that something. Thank you Jon!
Is this the "Digital Genchi Genbutsu"? :-) It is a good tool, but the best is if we go there.