Desk Chair V's Shop Floor

Questionnaires, complaints, regulatory affairs, procedures, charts, audits. Sound familiar? Administration and paperwork happen when you maintain a management system and unless you have dozens of skivvies at your beck and call, you must sit at your desk and do it yourself - you don't want any of those nasty nonconformities do you?

However, getting out and about and improving the business is also very important and doing some of this may earn you brownie points with the big boss.

It's a dilemma. So I wondered with the limited time available:

How much do you allocate to sitting on your Desk Chair and how much do you devote to walking the Shop Floor?

Comments appreciated.

Regards,
Simon

Simon,

Getting away from your desk can really keep you fit.

Yesterday I walked 6.7 miles in my day to day work on the factory floor(it is a big factory) and still managed to spend 50% of my time at the desk.

Yesterday I walked 6.7 miles in my day to day work on the factory floor (it is a big factory) and still managed to spend 50% of my time at the desk.

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6.7! In a day? You'd need a sit down after that. Looking at the poll so far it's interesting (but probably expected) that the answers are skewed towards more paperwork than wandering. I suppose in the food and related industries where there is a lot of regulation and requirements for record keeping then this will be the norm.

Regards,
Simon

I suppose in the food and related industries where there is a lot of regulation and requirements for record keeping then this will be the norm.

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Hi Saferpakers, I'll tell you a secret

I stand up and take a company tour primarily because I want to see what's going on with my direct eye

If I had enough reliable data on my desktop I would move lesser and maybe put on some more weight

I have to confess i'm getting a little tired of people making little comments about the amount oftime I spend at my desk, updating procedures etc. Its difficult as i'm the only person on site (other than the big boss) who has to really get involved with this sort of thing.

I guess people don't realise just how much goes it to maintaining these systems!!

Ah well, just had to get that off my chest!!!!

I guess people don't realise just how much goes it to maintaining these systems!!

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Hi John,

In some organisations the Quality Manager has to plough a lone furrow, whilst in others there are more ranks in the Quality Department than in the entire Military. The number of Quality Staff required in any organisation is determined by many factors including size, product, regulatory requirements, available resources, certificates, general quality maturity and especially the extent to which the ‘process approach' has been adopted.

Most of the factors above are pretty much fixed except quality maturity (slow incremental changes to the management system) and the adoption of the process approach.

Spending big bucks on new technology may reduce your workload; however in reality this is often not possible. So if you want to bring about a step-reduction in your workload (without large capital expenditure) why not consider farming out some centralised quality tasks to the process level. For starters how about process owners or departments managing their own procedures, process maps, process measures, quality reports and document control?

I know it's a scary thought but think about the benefits.

Regards,
Simon

I replied as a 70-30 although it is lower than that right now. I may even go higher than 70-30 in the next year and will have to think about delegating sections to different departments. Over the next 12-15 months my audits per year will go from 9-17 if future growth goes as expected.

I replied as a 70-30 although it is lower than that right now. I may even go higher than 70-30 in the next year and will have to think about delegating sections to different departments. Over the next 12-15 months my audits per year will go from 9-17 if future growth goes as expected.

Hi Mauri, Looks like you'll have to delegate or you’ll be swamped.

The maturity of the quality/food safety management system also has an impact on the workload. When the management system is fully embedded it is often more streamlined and more distributed. I think that should be the goal anyhow.

Imagine having the luxury of walking around the factory shop floor without any particular purpose, talking to operators, spotting opportunities for improvement...

Thanks for your input.

Simon

In my experience, senior management aims to reduce paperwork normally involve farming it out (sorry but I've been a production person, they really have even less time than we do) or employing an inexperienced person. In my experience the inexperienced person ends up writing reports and complaint responses and nothing else (ie managing to do about a morning's work in a week). What's needed in most factories are decently qualified and experienced technical systems specialists but that's a bit pricey...

i want with 70/30 but truth 35 of my 70 is most probably meetings of some sort.

Today about 95% desk bound reading version 6 of the BRC standard...

Spending time on the floor and with the team is important to me. I use the floor time to observe and audit the process, but most importantly it helps me to remain involved with the team. Honestly, I would rather be on the floor more than at my desk but as we all know, especially with SQF and audits approaching, it just isn't possible on some days. Thanks for asking, keeps a good perpective on it.

I also went for 70/30. It's so difficult to keep on top of the paperwork side, if you spend a significant time on the shop floor. My role also covers Quality Manager and if I don't do it, the intray starts to look a bit unsteady.

However, non-paperwork time is really when you find out what is happening... I need some paperwork slaves!

Somebody bumped this topic by voting and it has prompted me to think again of the importance of being in the Gemba. 3rd party auditors are now required to spend more time on the shop floor rather than checking theoretical procedures. It does make perfect sense.

I went with 60-40.

I get the pleasure of producing product on a seasonal basis. During the Winter and Springs months im basically glued to the desk chair updating policies / procedures and the thousands of other things that are needed to stay in complaince with the GFSI and FSMA standards "Saying what we do". During the Summer and Falls months im out on the floor during production every few hours checking things out, making sure "we do what we say".