Glossary A–ZLetter S
Shop floor management
Shop floor management is a leadership method in production and logistics in which managers and teams meet regularly where value is created, discuss key figures and tackle problems immediately.
The term comes from lean management.
At its core are short, fixed meetings, often at the start of a shift, at a board on the shop floor. It shows targets and actual values for safety, quality, quantity and delivery, along with open actions and the people responsible. What used to be written by hand on whiteboards is now often shown on screens that take their values directly from machine and production data. This avoids copying figures, and the numbers are current for the meeting.
Operators should make the screen serve the method, not the other way round: the board must match the questions of the meeting and be readable from a standing distance. Handwritten elements such as action lists often remain useful because the team maintains them itself. If the values show the performance of individual employees or allow conclusions about it, the works council has to be involved.