A defense contractor was experiencing significant difficulty manufacturing an extremely complex component of a missile system. The organization was working over 8 hours per day 7 days a week shipping on average 2 units per week. Customer requirement were being missed. Rework costs were running $2,400 per unit and in the last batch of 15 sent to final test, all 15 failed. The supervisor decided to try using Job Instruction to at retrain the assembler on the job.

Making a Job Instruction Breakdown was his first step. While making the breakdown, he noticed that the tools were worn, some of the fixtures needed repair, and the workstations didn’t have standard setups for standard work. After correcting these issues, the supervisor decided to train a brand new operator using the 4-step Job Instruction Method. In what normally took two weeks of training with much rework and line delays, using JI as the means to instruct the new worker, the training was completed in three days with no rework. The line was able to produce between 10 to 12 units during a 40 hour week with no overtime and meet all customer requirements. Rework costs fell to 1/6 their previous levels.

The use of Job Instruction not only reduced the training time and learning curve, it also identified numerous other deficiencies in the process that added cost and time to the process and prevented meeting customer requirements.