Think differently about what happens during a shift, and you may get more production and results from each shift.  Ted owns a $6.5M company that produces both long run commodity type products and short run custom orders.

To optimize production on each of his shifts, Ted considers his 2nd shift to be his primary production shift, and his 1st shift to be the one where new people are brought on, training occurs, and all other issues and distractions are handled.

On the 1st shift there always seems to be interruptions.  These interruptions are often necessary, but they distract production and reduce output.  On the 2nd shift production is much more stable.  There are simply fewer outside distractions.

In terms of personnel, Ted looks to the first shift for training and new hires.  It makes more sense because of the time of day, availability of outside resources, and the availability of senior management to participate and mentor.

In the same discussion, Rick and Craig talked about preventive maintenance and the need to focus on it in order to avoid capital investments in replacement equipment.  Building on Ted’s perspective on shifts, both Rick and Craig will now allocate preventive maintenance to a 3rd shift area of focus.

The advantage for Rick and Craig is simple – they can implement scheduled preventive maintenance, as opposed to doing the preventive maintenance when the schedule allows.