You're struggling to boost innovation in plant operations. How can creativity help drive the change?

Creativity is key to boosting innovation in plant operations because it encourages thinking beyond traditional methods to find more efficient, cost-effective solutions. By fostering a culture that values experimentation and open-minded problem-solving, teams can discover novel ways to optimize processes, reduce waste, and enhance productivity. This fresh approach often leads to breakthrough ideas that drive long-term operational improvements.

Ao incentivar uma mentalidade aberta e criativa, os funcionários se sentem capacitados para propor solu??es inovadoras, transformando desafios em oportunidades de crescimento e otimiza??o operacional.

Estoy de acuerdo y me ha resultado muy útil al iniciar a trabajar con un nuevo equipo de liderazgo el entender los procesos existentesy la historia detrás de la tecnología para poder cuestionar si ésta sigue siendo vigente o hay avances que no se han considerado e implementado. Para innovar hay que conocer las necesidades del cambio y las soluciones existentes. A partir de allí se puede construir la idea de innovación que se alinee para ir más allá de las expectativas de los clientes y que por supuesto estén dispuestos a pagar por el valor agregado que éstas significan. Enfoque 80/20 para el uso eficiente de los recursos disponibles. Cambios con sentido traen más beneficios que grandes inversiones sin enfoque claro.

The best way to make this possible is to adopt the "best practices" from corresponding competitors or sister companies in the same industry and then implementing techniques like Lean or Six sigma to eliminate wastes and optimize processes through quick wins which usually turn out to be sustainable innovations.

To keep creativity alive on an ongoing basis, companies need to invest in a culture of innovation. The two suggestions below can help set in that culture - 1) There should be diversity in the team not only from a regional or gender point of view but also from an industry/sector point of view. People with similar functional expertise, but having worked in other sectors act as catalysts and force everyone around them to innovate. 2) Supervisors should also ensure that all the employees are given some innovation-related project, which should have some % weightage in the KRA/KPI. Teams should be given autonomy to select/come up with a problem statement and then identify solutions for the same.

Capacitar a equipe com novas abordagens e técnicas amplia sua habilidade de resolver problemas de maneira inovadora, aumentando a eficiência e gerando solu??es mais dinamicas para desafios complexos. Conhecimento é poder!

Usar a tecnologia existente de maneiras inovadoras, como aplicar análise de dados para manuten??o preditiva, pode reduzir custos e aumentar a eficiência. Ao incentivar essa mentalidade, a equipe vê a tecnologia como uma aliada na inova??o contínua.

We recently implemented an incentive program for everyone within Operations offering ~1% of the savings as a bonus. Operators are willing to participate in improving what they do each day but it is even more effective if they can benefit financially. They spend 40+ hours per week building product so they know what works well and what doesn't work well. In our program, we rewarded Operators, trainers, or engineers depending on their contribution. Sometimes it was an operator sharing a quality check they were performing to prevent downstream failures that we could quickly implement across all operators. Other times, it was designing a fixture or jig to eliminate unwanted variances.

This is part of Continuous Improvement mindset an Operations Leader should have and focused on value added activities increase versus Non-value added.