Expecting people to excel without giving them a way to measure their performance will frustrate them and negatively affect morale.
Unfortunately manufactures commonly measure performance against lagging measures. Examples of lagging measures are: Part Counts, Shipments Completed, Revenue, Labor Hours, etc. They are called lags because by the time you see them, the performance that drive them is already passed. It's too late, you can't do anything to fix them.
A leading measure tracks an activity that influences, or "lead" a lag measure. Examples of leading measures are: Parts/Hour, Machine Utilization, Uptime Targets, Current Capacity Trend. These are all measures that can be acted upon in real-time that will predict success of lag measures.
Providing your operators with real-time leading measures gives them the opportunity to excel and see how their performance directly impacts the goals of the business.
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