Why the daily production meeting isn't enough

The daily meeting identifies the recent problems. The production meeting should identify what happened yesterday, what is planned for today and tomorrow, and what problems need attention.

The production meeting doesn't solve problems. It's used for communication, to keep everyone up to date with the latest progress.

The production meeting reviews Safety, Quality, Delivery (On-Time or Not), People.

Note: If your factory is safe, producing quality products on-time then the costs should be ok, if not you've got a different problem. Plus your factory teams probably have little chance of improving most of your cost base.

Identifying the problems in the daily meeting is not the same as managing them.

Production Manager Golden Hour for daily factory management

What is the Golden Hour?

The Golden Hour is a protected hour immediately after the daily production meeting.

It's an hour protected every day with no meetings planned in it, no visitors, no audits.

It isn't an hour for emails, spreadsheets or going through admin at a desk.

It's time when the Production Manager deliberately manages the factory.

It has no planned work in it. It is based on what you see and hear in the production meeting and what you've seen and heard in previous ones.

The Golden Hour gives the Production Manager time to go and look, observe, ask questions, speak to people, follow up actions and understand what is actually happening before the rest of the day takes over.

Some days it will be spent dealing with something that genuinely needs attention now.

Other days it should be used to follow up something from yesterday, understand a recurring problem or look ahead at what could affect production tomorrow or next week.

The important point is that the hour is deliberate, protected, for the factory.

Without it, the Production Manager's day can very quickly become whatever problem shouts loudest next.

What should a Production Manager do during the Golden Hour?

There isn't a fixed checklist that has to be completed every morning.

The point isn't to create another administration task.

The Production Manager should use the Golden Hour to go where their attention will make the biggest difference.

That might mean going directly to investigate a problem raised in the production meeting.

Don't just ask somebody else what happened.

Go and look.

Watch the process. Watch the teams solving the problem. Watch and listen to their problem solving process.

Speak to the people doing the work.

Ask what happened, when it happened and what was different.

Sometimes a great use of the hour is following up something that happened yesterday or last week.

Did the change actually work?
Has the problem come back?
Was somebody supposed to do something?
Did you go back to the person who raised the issue and tell them what happened?

That last point matters.

People stop raising problems and improvement ideas if nothing ever seems to happen afterwards.

The Golden Hour is also time to spend with people.

Check in with someone who needed help yesterday.
Speak to somebody who has returned after being away.
Give somebody, a team some positive feedback when they have done something particularly well.
Ask a team how things are going rather than waiting until there is a problem.

And sometimes there isn't an urgent problem.

That's useful too.

Go and watch a process you don't completely understand.
Look at something that doesn't quite make sense.
Spend time with a team you haven't seen for a few days.

Stand and observe.

What did you expect to happen?
What actually happened?
Where did people wait?
What interrupted the work?
What had to be fetched, checked or corrected?
What do the people doing the job know that the production plan doesn't show?

That apparently spare time is often where a Production Manager starts to understand the factory they are actually running.

The Golden Hour can also be used to look forward.

What is coming through production tomorrow?
What is due next week?
Are the materials available?
Are the kits complete?
Is the right skill available?
Is there a difficult changeover coming?
Is testing likely to become overloaded?
Is one job going to compete with another for the same limited resource?

A good Production Manager shouldn't only know what is happening now.

They should have some idea of what is likely to happen next.

The Golden Hour Isn't Another Hour of Firefighting

There is one obvious danger with the Golden Hour.

It can easily become another hour of firefighting.

Something went wrong in yesterday's production, it's raised a the daily meeting, so the Production Manager spends the next hour fixing it.

Then another problem appears.

Then another.

Before long, the Golden Hour has simply become the first hour of reacting to today's production problems.

Sometimes that is unavoidable.

If something genuinely needs immediate attention, the manager needs to deal with it.

But the Golden Hour should operate across three different time horizons.

Today — manage

Some of the hour will be about today's production.

What is stopping work now?
What needs a decision?
What needs escalating?
What problem raised in the meeting needs somebody to go and see it rather than discuss it from an office?

The Production Manager still has to ensure the production today but are others better placed to do this?

Yesterday — learn

Some of the Golden Hour should look backwards.

What happened to yesterday's problem?
How did the team solve it?
Did the solution work? or has it happened again?
Was the real cause understood or did we simply get production moving?
Did somebody raise an idea or concern that still needs an answer?

This is how we stop problems becoming recurring problems.

If every day starts with a new crisis and yesterday's problems are simply forgotten then once production restarts, the factory never really learns. The team never learns and the chaos will return.

Tomorrow — prevent

Some of the hour should be spent looking ahead.

What's coming through the schedule?
What happened with this product, order last time?
What could stop it?
What will need materials, people, skills, tooling, space, information, inspection or testing?
Where are two orders going to compete for the same resource?
What needs to happen today so that tomorrow runs properly?

And eventually:

What needs to happen this week so that next week runs properly?

That is the part of factory management that disappears first when a Production Manager spends the entire day reacting.

The irony is that the busier the factory becomes, the more important this forward-looking time becomes.

Otherwise the Production Manager spends today recovering from problems that could often have been seen yesterday.

The Golden Hour therefore isn't about avoiding today's problems.

It is about gradually changing the balance of the Production Manager's time.

From reacting to today's problems.

To learning from yesterday's.

And increasingly to preventing tomorrow's.

Because if you're spending today chasing today's production, who's managing tomorrow's?

Why Production Managers get trapped managing today

It's so easy to fall into the trap of being the person giving all the answers, trying to control every aspect of the factory, trying to be on top of everything. Over 30 years and many years as a manufacturing consultant I've observed it's because;

They've been promoted because they're good technically, knowledgeable about the machines, the process or the products.
They believe being responsive = being a good manager.
Everyone brings problems to them.
They're rewarded for rescuing production. For firefighting, getting that order out late on Friday night with extra transport costs.
Their diary fills with meetings.
Email/ERP/admin feels measurable.

They focus and get trapped on todays' problems due to the fact that nobody has taught them a different management routine. They and the business has yet to recognise that the manager has to wear the 7 Manufacturing Leadership Hats everyday.

if the Golden Hour repeatedly exposes the same problems, the business may need to understand the underlying system rather than keep treating symptoms. They may need to learn How To Diagnose Manufacturing Problems.

The maths behind the Daily Meeting and Golden Hour: it's only 6¼ hours per week

5 days × (15-minute meeting + 60-minute Golden Hour) = 6¼ hours per week.

Which leaves 33¾ hours of a 40-hour week, to do all the other admin, meetings, reviews etc.

Put another way 10.5% of the working week is in the Daily Production Meeting and Golden Hour, 89.5% doing the other "stuff".

If a Production Manager can't spend just over six hours a week deliberately managing production because they're too busy dealing with production, that itself tells you something about how the factory is being managed.

What should the manager look for when there isn't a crisis?

Don't be tempted to cancel the Golden Hour, use it, there will be days when there is no crisis. The more Golden Hours you do the fewer crisis there should be.

When there isn't a crisis

Go and watch the process you don't understand, one you'd like to change, one that you're concerned about.

And ask yourself

What did I expect to see?
What did I actually see?
What isn't happening that should be?
What is happening that shouldn't be?

Observe, then ask questions. Even come back another day and make sure your observations are real.

Ask questions, ask about frustrations the team have.

What should an MD expect to see?

How do I know whether my Production Manager is actually managing ahead?

They can give you observable evidence, you want a manager :

Who can explain tomorrow's risks.
Demonstrate actions from meetings getting closed.
Fewer fires, recurring problems reducing.
Regular shop-floor presence.
Teams getting feedback.
Fewer customer surprises.
A schedule that genuinely controls priorities.
Less dependence on their own ability and presence.

When the Golden Hour doesn't work

It fails when:

it becomes another meeting;
it becomes email time;
it becomes a daily fire-fighting round;
the manager solves everything personally;
nobody protects the hour;

the manager never progresses from today → tomorrow.

No-one takes responsibility for "Who's managing tomorrow?"

Remember

If you, your managers, are spending today chasing today's production, who's managing tomorrow's?

Your Production Manager Needs a Golden Hour