Rodov’s continuous production planning system is the Soviet 1961 Lean-ERP. Takeoff, sunset and new birth

Peterkin S.V., sergey.piterkin@rightstep.ru

Introduction

The task of planning and managing production is one of the most “burning” and “mysterious” problems for domestic enterprises at present. The only successful examples of IT applications in the form of ERP systems, with outdated traditional MRP-II or perfect, but “nervous” APS algorithms, speak more “against” than “for” them; “Lean manufacturing” - implemented by us on a wide front, and mainly at the level of 5C, visualization, kaizen, etc., also does not give enterprises any real tool for planning and managing production.



Below is a description of the production planning and management system, the most popular in Soviet times - the Rodov System, and its revival, in order to solve the production problems of the present.



The Novocherkassk System of Continuous Production Planning, also known as the Rodov System, was created in the 60s of the last century. And, after a short time, it was voluntarily accepted by the overwhelming majority of the most demanding and conservative managerial public - directors and production managers, planners, dispatchers, shop managers (for comparison, take the ubiquitous "acceptance" of ERP systems at the moment ...).



This happened because of its extreme simplicity and effectiveness in solving the main production problems: production "just in time", "exactly in quantity"; rhythmically; with minimal overhead; ensuring maximum transparency of what is happening. The popularity and prevalence of the system was so great that even now the “fragments” of the system, for lack of better alternatives, are still used to manage the production of many plants. But, I note, not the best "fragments" and, without much effect.



Nevertheless, the Rodov System, at least its basic elements, can and should be used in modern conditions. How - is considered further. With a description directly of the Rodov System, its components, advantages and limitations, and its revival using IT and modern management technologies, including Lean, TOC.

Rodov system

1. The composition of the product . A composition of a “generalized” or conditional product was created , which is a combination of all products manufactured by the plant. In the example of the Novocherkassk plant where the system was created, an electric locomotive was taken for the “generalized” product, everything possible was added to the product’s composition, its modification horizon was added, spare parts, assemblies and products for cooperation according to plans for other plants were added, and Consumer goods. For more complex cases, conditional products were taken for a day-sets.

Comment A conditional product is nothing more than a planned item or future item of modern ERP systems.



2. The release plan of the conditional product - production schedule . It was fixed for a sufficiently long period (at the time of the creation of the system - for a year, but with the possibility of quarterly changes), and was published in the form of conditional machines, with their serial numbers from the beginning of the year or from the beginning of production, and dates associated with each product - see fig. below.







3. Planning . The cycle schedule of the conditional product was normalized at the start of assembly:



a. The rationing coefficient for each workshop was different (depending on the lead time) and was a “ reserve ” in detail.



b. Subtracting the backlog from the whole wage for the plant, the workshop received, for each part, the conditional product number, closed (complete).



c. The purpose of the workshop is to work with a given rhythm, i.e. release of a part for a conditional product with the number collected today.



Thus, assuming a uniform and constant year of production of certain conditional products, each workshop received, as a production plan, a finished product output plan expressed in conditional products. In factories that are still trying to practice the Rodov System, it was called, and it is called differently: "serial account", "series", "car kits", etc.



A comment



On the “backlog” we dwell a little more, because there is probably no more inadequately perceived concept in Russian production theory and practice - the flip side of the popularity of the Rodov system. “Touched,” in Rodov’s idea, is the level of work in progress, or, more precisely, expressed in quantitative terms, the lead time with which each workshop must launch parts for timely assembly assembly. But this "sacred" meaning is now lost. “Touch” for manufacturers is some kind, most often taken from the ceiling, or, worse, calculated according to Rodov’s method under the assumption of a continuous and stable production plan, the level of inventories in consumer shops that the latter need for continuous operation. Yes, exactly, for continuous and rhythmic production ! Failure to fulfill the plan / order / orders on time, namely, so that the consumer shop has something to do, i.e. do not stand idle. "Push" at its worst! But "hurt", as he meant Rodov there is nothing like the number of kanban cards in circulation ie stretching! More details - below.



4. Launch . For each of the workshops (and hereinafter referred to as sections) for its nomenclature of parts, a “ Proportionality file cabinet ” was built.







“Proportionality file cabinet” was a cabinet consisting of three shelves (each shelf is a month) with cells, according to the numbers of days in a month. Above each “month” are the calendar days of the month with the plan attached to them in the conditional products. In each cell there are parts cards issued by the workshop. Each part card is placed in a cell corresponding to the maximum machine number equipped with this part. When producing a new batch of parts, a mark is made in the card and it is shifted to the right, in the cell, with the number of the machine for which a new batch of this part provides a complete set.



“Proportionality file cabinet” in Rodov’s system is the main, extremely simple and clear object of inter-workshop synchronization, workshop control and visualization. Ideologically corresponding to the kanban control board (note that the Toyota system was just born then):



- daily marker "today" is shifted to the right;



- a card (kanban) close to “today” - it’s time to launch it (kanban is transferred to production), the card to the left of “today” - launching is stitched.



Comment The ideology of the proportional file cabinet is similar to the ideology of the kanban visual control boards:



1) part card - there is a kanban in circulation, with the difference that they were not transferred to production, only information was transmitted about what needs to be started;



2) the number of kanban in circulation - there is a "backlog" in the Rodov system. Or - the level of wage (not normative and not standardized!) But depending only on external demand (at that time the demand was equal to the annual plan) and on the lead time of production of a specific part.



5. Organization of production . Information about cards (details) close to "today" was transmitted to the masters of the respective sections. The launch of parts directly on the sites, the distribution of tasks among workers, was carried out similarly to the previous paragraph.



a. For each site lockers were installed, each for ten workplaces (10 performers). Each workplace (each worker) in the cabinet had a shelf with the number of cells equal to the number of working days in a month. Above each cell, a production plan was attached, expressed in conditional products and tied to dates (to cells). In each cell, cards of the detail-operations attached to a specific workplace were placed. The principle of moving cards of part-operations is similar to the principle of placing cards of parts in a proportional file of a workshop.



b. Each worker every evening came to his shelf, (independently!) Composed a task for himself the next day from cards close to "today" and handed it over to the master. The master’s task was to equip the workplace with everything necessary for the production of the task: materials, tools, equipment, drawings.



A comment



1. All the same visual kanban board at the site level, plus “pulling” directly by workers.



2. It is necessary to pay attention that such a scheme is possible to use after balancing capacities and rigidly securing details of operations (routes) to workplaces. Another parallel with TPS ...



6. Accounting . The accounting system consisted of collecting information about the completion of the part-operations, the movement of parts from the workshop to the workshop and the input, naturally, of this information into the accounting cards of the part-operations and parts. At the same time, the basic information that was kept in the cards was not information on stocks, but information on the serial number of the next closed conditional product. In general, accounting procedures were “ordinary” from the point of view of implementation in modern accounting IT systems. But these "usual" procedures were developed in 1961!



7. General monitoring of the work of the workshops of the main production was carried out using one simple and logical visual form, the " proportionality Graph ". Its main goal is to show how synchronously I work in the workshops of the main production and the "auxiliary" units in relation to the rhythm of assembly shops. Each workshop should strive for the production of "Just-In-Time", i.e. the gray strip of each workshop, or the conditional products closed by it, should abut “today”. At the same time, an extremely unclosed product is a product that is not equipped with a workshop for at least one part. The lag of each unit from “today” is estimated in the daily-lag position - Fig. below.







Adapted from Plan-Flow-Rhythm, A. Rodov, D. Krutyanskiy. Rostov Book Publishing House, 1964.

Similar schedules were built for each site.



8. The last important element of the System is the change in labor remuneration and motivation for production synchronous with the assembly schedule. The changes are simple, but fundamental: the overall payroll rate of the workshop decreases in proportion to the days behind the schedule. For example: 1 day lag - 1% reduction. Further, the PHOT of the sites behind the schedule is reduced, and then the PHOT of a specific contractor. The huge advantage of this change was its simplicity and visualization - both engineers and engineers of the workshop on any day could see how much they could lose in wages.

Rodov System Sunset

The Rodov system, or the Novocherkassk Continuous Operational Planning System, quickly became widespread throughout the Soviet Union - according to some sources, at least 1,500 enterprises used it (for comparison, take our plants, which are now used to plan and manage the production of MRP-II or TPS principles production management! ) And this is not surprising, because Rodov’s system was made taking into account the specifics of the management of our plants and the characteristics of external demand. At the same time, at a time when TPS was just beginning to develop, but it was difficult to imagine about ERP systems, Rodov independently reached the best Lean planning principles and built (without a computer!) The “correct” ideology of accounting for modern ERPs. Yes, I didn’t carry out a purposeful fight against useless Labor, but where else are there such "deposits" of useless, as in irregular periodical planning and production? “Deposits” ¸ have not lost their relevance now.



But, the Rodov system, as a holistic and used for production management, has not survived to this day. The system was “sharpened” and worked extremely efficiently in those conditions: for established industries, with well-established and not very fast processes for developing and launching new products on the market; with external, very stable and definite demand. In the post-perestroika crisis of industry and the loss of the brains of managers and engineers, the Rodov system began to work in the exact opposite direction: against production. And, although a lot of reserves were laid in the system, the “new Rodov” was not found at that time to adapt the system to new conditions. But the conditions really changed fundamentally.

1. Market demand appeared, with it the impossibility of forecasting a fixed and somehow stable output plan.
2. The Customer appeared, with his specific requirements, and with him - the growth of the range of finished products and their modifications, the need for leaving for small series or piece production and the production of modified basic products on order.
3. There were competitors, including western and eastern, with them - the need for a quick change of product generations, the rapid development and launch of new products on the market.
4. As a result of these uncertainties, the “shaft” of modifications and design changes
5. As a result, the impossibility of determining a fixed conditional product on the required planning horizon, of forming and linking to a specific date of the plan of production of a conditional product.

Under the changed conditions, work on the Rodov system led to 90% of the purchased / produced stock being deposited in MTS warehouses / workshops, making a contribution, for many - a fatal contribution to the articles of the “assets” of the balance sheets, with a simultaneous disruption of the lead time .



Comment The “backlogs” of the Rodovskaya System are so deeply ingrained in the minds of our manufacturers that even now many plants are trying to standardize, create, track “backlogs” in production, work “backlog”, “close the series”, stamp depersonalized car kits in the PDO / PROSKA assembly warehouse workshop. And the domestic "science" of production management still continues to stamp textbooks (and, apparently, knowledge) with the collective name "Management of (modern) production", where the backlog and methods of calculating them play a huge role.



Once again: the “backlogs” of the Rodov System are not a backlog, there is no standard of wages, a minimum balance. This is the quantified lead time of a particular part, calculated for the lead ahead of it in order to deliver “just in time” to the assembly!

It was at this time, having lost what they had and not having created anything new, Production Planning Systems died and still have not appeared at the vast majority of our plants, especially traditional, post-Soviet ones. Instead: someone is trying to squeeze himself into the Procrustean bed of MRP-II using ERP systems, someone is looking enviously at the kanban and the just-in-time control method, realizing that this cannot be pulled, someone is not always unsuccessfully, trying to manage using their own systems, someone - the majority so far, has given all control to the sales department and workers - for the latter - through piece-rate wages.

Rodov system. Second birth.

But the situation, incl. market, changing. Now successful enterprises, incl. state-owned enterprises have a stable demand for their products and can live not only tomorrow. The dissemination of Lean ideas and the struggle for efficiency lead to the fact that enterprises begin to focus on the release of only those products in the production of which they are most competent. And although the number of modifications is not getting smaller, this is at least not “irons and helicopters”.



And if the Rodov System is so ingenious, and I dare to say that it is precisely so, why not update it and use it to manage certain types of industries? Moreover, Rodov laid in it a lot of development reserves, including the ability to use and in a state of great instability of the internal and external production environment.

The development of the Rodov system, with the expansion of its capabilities with IT technologies and Lean / TOS tools, is below.



1. Conditional product . From the conventional product, in the traditional sense, have to be. Instead of it - a product under the order (order), with its specific custom structure. Either, or at the same time (it depends on the configuration of demand and manufactured products of the enterprise), you can define and use as a conditional product a day-kit (daily output) or a tact-kit . Those. product (group of products) produced daily or at a tact set for a given enterprise.



2. The schedule of shipment of orders will be the production schedule - the order (product under the order) plus the date of availability. Or a day (tact) kit, tied to the date of readiness.



3. The next improvement is “ backlog ”. We abandon the groundwork, as well as the normalization of the release schedule to the start date of the assembly. We replace them with dynamic (i.e., constant) planning , the main task of which is to calculate the dynamic lead time (when planning taking into account the restrictions), the release schedule, and the launch. There was practically no planning in the Rodov System, as external and internal conditions changed slowly. Therefore, setting the flow, the main task was to support and monitor it. The present situation is different. The situation, both internal and external, is changing, and very quickly. And (re) planning needs to be done every day. What software and hardware do very well.



The concept of planning depends on the business needs of each enterprise, but its general elements are approximately as follows.



a. Each element of the production schedule - the order (the product under the order) is planned separately, from the finished product, “down” and “left”, according to the specification and assembly cycle schedule. With the preservation of the bundle of each part, assembly or workpiece, with the head order (see. Fig. Below). In this case, each workshop will be able to see the order under which they must produce parts, and, conversely, each order “sees” how specific details are produced for it. This is a “directive” (for customer orders) production plan.







Comment on capacity accounting. Depending on the characteristics of the enterprise, capacity during planning may not be taken into account (in this case, the cycle time is calculated by product group and capacity balancing per cycle, including Lean tools), or planning is performed taking into account available resources, using, including optimization algorithms.



b. In the case of the production of the same type of product and a quasi-stable production schedule, it is also possible to manage the “backlogs” with the organization of the pull-out launch scheme using electronic kanban. This is the implementation of the “pull-push” planning scheme, improved by the “drum-buffer-rope” and color TOS algorithms. See fig. below.







4. File cabinet of proportionality . After automatic planning (or after the automatic formation of a “kanban” for launch to replenish the intermediate warehouse), each workshop / section / workplace receives both a production plan and a launch plan, of specific details for specific orders - an “proportionality file” in electronic form ( Launch - see below). To limit the launch of a quantity larger than necessary (especially relevant in the case of piece-rate wages), the launch plan is “open” for viewing by each workshop / section only for a fixed period - the “launch window” defined for each workshop / section. With the automatic generation of pulling signals - the launch plan is limited only to kanban, formed to replenish the intermediate warehouse. In this “electronic file cabinet”, the role of the “product card” is played by the electronic kanban card, which is printed (with a bar code) and is a signal for launching and an accompanying document and an analogue (or full compliance) of the route card.







5. Organization of production. In the best case, it can be implemented similarly to the Rodov System: for each workplace / milking of each worker, a launch plan is generated and published in electronic form. The start-up plan is similar to the one presented above, but with the detail of operations (or site visits, i.e. groups of operations), with a color signal of production readiness (availability of the technical process / CNC program, tools, equipment, materials / workpieces or semi-finished products with previous section). Further, either the master of the site or the contractor directly prints the kanban (or, the Soviet analogue of the kanban - route map) from the start-up and security window available on the window, and begins production. In this option, “Launch by jobs” is published on the flat monitor of the workshop / site, or, using touch-screens,by analogy with payment terminals of mobile and utilities in supermarkets. In the latter case, the worker gets access to his data by his magnetic pass.



6. Accountingstart-up, accounting of operations (if absolutely necessary), further movement of parts in sections / workshops is performed using bar coding, scanning kanban or route maps passing through the section. Or / and - through the input of information by the BTK master / contractor / controller through "payment terminals". This significantly reduces labor costs for accounting and ensures high efficiency and reliability of information on the implementation of the production plan as a whole - at the time of entering the information, the “coverage” of orders / tact-sets is automatically calculated with visualization of the information at “Launch” (see above) and “Synchronicity” " (see below). Also, in this case, any contractor immediately sees the change made, and therefore the money earned per day (in the case of a made or time-bonus system of remuneration).



7. Monitoring .



a.Every day, on the basis of the fact of fulfilling production tasks, a “calculated” version of the production plan is formed, according to the principle: fact + remaining volume (time) of work.



b. The “proportionality graph”, it is “Synchronicity,” which is the main tool for controlling the workshop work cycle, is constructed by comparing the “directive” and “calculated” plan of the “proportionality graph” (below).







c. And, as a more subtle tool for the general analysis of supplies, incl. and to each other, domestic suppliers of the production supply chain - “Supplier Status”.

Conclusion

The specified system, called the Planning and Monitoring System, was created by our team for several years and acquired a completed form and methodology by 2009. The following year, in a continuous search for the best solutions to production planning problems, we again discovered the Rodov System. Then they expanded the concept with the principles of launch and monitoring: “Launch” (“Card of proportionality”), shop and district, “Synchronism” (“Graph of proportionality”). During this time, the described concept was successfully implemented both at the former serial plants, and at the new ones: NAZ them. V.P. Chkalov and KnAAZ named after Yu.A. Gagarin (“Sukhoi”), KVZ (“Russian Helicopters”), “GSS” (in terms of planning and monitoring the supply and multi-level supply chain), and some others. The first of which actively used the Rodov System.



Practice has shown that the above concept of planning and monitoring, with elements of the Rodov System re-realized and put on the basis of new management methods, can be quickly implemented and successfully used for the most complex industries. For simpler ones, the solution will be simpler, faster, and ideally “right out of the box” (we are now moving towards this goal). And moreover, it can very well be realized by the forces of the enterprises themselves - like the original Rodov system. But the brake here, traditionally, is the presence of the Customer at the enterprise, which has power and understanding, the presence of brains and good ambitions at the average managerial level, and, most recently, the general level of production culture. The first two conditions are necessary and sufficient for success, the last is the determining time for the transition to a new system.



Unfortunately, the level of the first, second and third at the present time is much lower than the 1961 level described by Rodov and Krutyanskiy (between the lines). Of course, many have new equipment, but there are absolutely not enough brains and competent managers. As well as lacking a trivial industrial culture, from maintaining product mixes and basic accounting in warehouses / in production to workshop and general production management methods. Let us hope and work in this direction that this situation will nevertheless change for the better. Including, with the revival of the methods described above.