S2 Ep9: STEP 7 – PATROLLING

Step 7:  Develop a Patrol Pattern and Inspection Sequence.  Success depends on correct performance in many locations in the new job and at many process points.
Once you know the 20% of tasks that must be performed 80% of the time and also know the 20% of the faults that occur 80% of the time, you soon realize that you can prevent serious problems by patrolling your job territories.  It makes sense that you should raise your head on a regular basis and move around the different people and points of processing in your job to check that things are running, as they should.  While doing this patrol, you should look for symptoms of developing faults.  When you find a fault developing, address it appropriately to restore things to controlled conditions.  The difference between a successful operator or manager and an average performer is the ‘Patrol Pattern and Inspection Sequence’.  Top performers stay on top of things by using this technique, as you’ll see in the later chapter on this topic.