Many people will ask “how long does it take before I can collect meaningful data from my shopfloor”? My answer is typically a question back: “what exactly are you trying to measure or manage?” Most are confused by that question – they think that by simply measuring things it will automatically get better. As we so often hear, “If you can measure it, you can manage it”. Actually, what Peter Drucker (the consultant that remark is usually attributed to) said was “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. I think that’s a bit closer to the mark – measuring in and of itself doesn’t mean managing.

Quite a number of people that we talk to in manufacturing are more concerned about ‘what’ they measure as opposed to ‘why’. I’m saying that the ‘why’ is much more important. I once heard someone say that “if you measure something and you don’t change your behavior with that information, why are you measuring it at all?” That’s a very good question, and one that people don’t think about much. I think that you need to be more concerned about what you are trying to accomplish, and gather data that will support making good decisions in attaining that goal.

Getting back to the original question: how long? Well, it depends on what you’re trying to measure and control. If you’re simply looking to get OEE or some similar metric, then the answer is quite quickly (within days). If you’re looking at something like schedule attainment, it can take a bit longer, maybe several weeks before you’ve gotten significant trend data.

In the end, figure out the KPI’s you want to measure (what) and the reason driving those (why). That will end up getting you much better results than asking “how long?”

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