What is DWM?

Daily Work Management is the management of routine processes by discovering abnormalities taking counter measures and preventing their recurrence. Daily work management is the management of those activities carried out in each department as routine daily tasks that are repeated regularly based on Standard. DWM is a method of taking corrective action on a timely basis so that the corrective action is not delayed.

It is the way of managing the business on a day-to-day basis to ensure the planned results are achieved and effective countermeasures are taken regularly to resolve problems while ensuring that problems do not reoccur. It is the way that the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle of the management is operationalized for all managers. It educates management on building and improving processes/systems that encompass planning, effective execution, checking and monitoring, verifying results, proving upon encountering gaps and finally standardizing the processes.

In order to achieve this level, role of every employee must be defined for certain set of objectives that contribute to QCDSM (Quality, Cost, Delivery, Safety, Moral, RRA exercise was based on this requirement). Each manager needs to be accountable for performance on all these parameters in one or more activities, functions or areas of business depending upon the level.

Daily work management is carried out by setting control items, control characteristics and control limits based on Quality Control Process Charts, but the most important thing is to minimize abnormalities and make the work reliable. The main activities that ought to be performed as part of daily work management are as follows:

1. Daily Planning to achieve targets (Q & D) based on the KPI
2. Startup checklist for various work activities
3. Sun-rise (Start of work) meeting – (Section/Dept wise)
4. Gap Analysis / review of Plan vs Actual (D & Q)
5. Daily PDCA cycles for countermeasures and prevention

In order to implement DWM we need to do the followings:

1. Clarifying Roles, Responsibilities and Accountabilities (RRA) for all.
2. Setting standards- SOPS for all work.
3. Training people in the standards.
4. Taking action against abnormalities.
5. Improving the above to reduce the gaps.

In driving DWM, standards play a very important role. When abnormality occurs in the current process, ask the following question

1. Do we have a Standard?
2. Is the standard Adequate?
3. Is the standard Followed?

Any change in the process and the standard should be changed and people should be educated and trained.

Why DWM is important for us?

Any process has to be made to run under the specified conditions or under the standard norms to give us consistent results. Any change in the process parameters will change the output. A strong daily work management gives us opportunity to fix up the abnormalities which might disturb the process and which in turn will disturb the output. DWM gives us an opportunity to correct the gap between the targets and actual by taking appropriate actions within a minimum time of the occurrence so that Quality and Delivery of the final output is not disturbed.

It helps us to make all the process in the organization under control and gives us a strong foundation for improvement. Because, we know that no process can be improved unless it is stable, DWM will make the process stable.

Daily management comprises of all routine activities that must be carried out efficiently.
The management of routine processes by discovering abnormalities taking countermeasures and preventing their recurrence

It is an approach for defect prevention by reducing the variation, wastage and non value adding items. It is about doing things daily and taking actions on the gaps between target and actual on a daily basis. By doing so, we rotate the PDCA and SDCA cycle on a daily basis.

So if we miss one target, we will have 299 days more in a year to improve it. The word daily should be taken as daily work only. Any routine activities that have gotten some fixed frequency are also daily management. For example, making of balance sheet, making of monthly MIS, making of monthly inventory consolidation is all part of DWM. SDCA (Standardize- Do – Check – Act) cycle is used to maintain a process for getting sustained and planned outcomes. This cycle normally succeeds or proceeds a PDCA cycle of improvement.

Why we need?

Daily work management is about working on the regular goal. It is about arriving at the routine goal which is known as KPI in RV and we set targets every year on this KPI.
Secondly, we need standards of doing anything. We need to have a clear standard of doing anything in the organization.

For example, making a bill should have standard steps and methods along with all documents that are required.

All basic standard would be in documents so that people can refer it. All process and people handling that process should have control points or KPI. You need to find the gap between the KPI target and actual and take corrective and preventive action on daily or regular basis. Some KPI will have to be monitored on a daily basis and the same may be weekly and monthly.

But the actions for achieving the KPI, has to be monitored regularly and all the counter measures derived from the analysis has to appear here.

Sample of My DM chart