KPI effectiveness methods and tools have been developed in support of the elements of the KPI lifecycle. These methods are formal and structured, but accessible. In order to verify the effectiveness of these new methods/tools, live tests in real manufacturing operations have been conducted. This presentation gives results from three testing events at three separate manufacturing plants. A particular KPI effectiveness method, the KPI Assessment Method (KAM), was exercised against three different processes. The output of KAM is prioritized steps toward improved process control. Lessons learned from field tests, include that structured methods are valuable, performance improvement insights abounded in the KAM field tests, defining and minimizing the number of criteria is essential, prioritizing control policies are a key to improvement from the KPI effectiveness methods, and it was deemed important to visit plants/processes with less sophisticated performance metrics.

Author: John Horst, NIST