Level 1: Reactive
A Level 1 plant scores between 0 and 199 on the Factory Excellence Index. Performance is managed from memory and from the last crisis, so most losses stay invisible and fixes rarely last.
A 30-minute floor walk in a Level 1 plant
Arrive at shift change and the pattern shows quickly. The night shift is leaving as the morning shift walks in, and what happened overnight passes by word of mouth, if at all. The incoming team leader learns that the bottleneck was down for part of the night by noticing that the pallet count is short.
The board by the line, if there is one, carries a date from several weeks ago, a maintenance phone number and a safety poster. Nobody writes on it during the shift. Output against plan is not posted anywhere an operator would see it.
The morning meeting, when it happens, takes place in the production manager's office and starts when enough people have turned up. The figures come from a spreadsheet someone updated last week, and the conversation soon turns to whose fault the shortfall is.
Twenty minutes into the walk, a machine on the bottleneck stops. The operator waits, then goes looking for a technician, who restarts it and leaves. Nobody records how long the line was down or why. If it happens again tomorrow, it will be handled by whoever is on shift, in whatever way they know.
None of this means people do not care. What is missing is a system that makes losses visible, so the plant can choose which ones to attack instead of reacting to all of them.
How the six pillars typically look at Level 1
The table follows the first anchored answer on each question of the model. Your own assessment report may show one pillar a step higher than the rest: that is where there is already something to build on.
| Pillar | Typical practice at this level |
|---|---|
| Performance visibility | Only major breakdowns go into a logbook. The line learns it was behind from a weekly or monthly report. Output count is the only measure, figures are disputed in meetings and people keep their own counts. |
| Daily management and shift routines | No regular meeting; problems are handled as they come. Handover is verbal or does not happen. Boards are missing or out of date, escalation depends on who is on shift, and supervisors spend the day firefighting. |
| Loss and downtime problem-solving | The loudest problem or the last breakdown gets the attention. Fixes go in without analysis and nobody checks whether they worked. Maintenance reacts to breakdowns and the two departments blame each other. Changeovers and short stops are not measured. |
| Improvement engine | No programme; improvements happen ad hoc. Agreed actions are not tracked, work methods depend on the person, gains are not measured and results fade quickly. |
| People and frontline ownership | Skills are learned on the job with no record. Operators report problems and nothing more. Team leaders are promoted for technical skill with no leadership training, good work goes unrecognised and the frontline has no channel to be heard. |
| Data and connectivity foundations | No machines are connected and there is no reference data such as ideal cycle times. Production data sits in personal files, isolated from other systems. Shop-floor cybersecurity is not considered. |
Each pillar has its own page with the full set of anchors: visibility, daily management, problem-solving, improvement, people and data.
What keeps plants at Level 1
- Firefighting eats the time needed to stop firefighting. A supervisor who spends the whole shift chasing breakdowns has no half hour for a floor walk or a weekly look at the stops, so the breakdowns continue. The report calls this profile 'Firefighting'.
- Starting too wide. A programme launched on every line at once asks for more attention than a Level 1 plant has spare, and it stalls. One line, normally the bottleneck, is enough to build the first habits.
- Starting with a screen instead of a routine. A display that nobody reviews in a meeting becomes wallpaper. The first data a Level 1 plant needs can be written by hand, as long as someone reads it every morning.
- Routines that depend on one person. If the morning meeting only happens when the plant manager is in, it is not yet a routine. Test it by what happens during holidays.
- Using figures to find a culprit. When a stop an operator logged comes back as a reprimand, people stop logging stops. The data gets thinner and the plant gets blinder.
Five moves that take a plant to Level 2
These come from the first 'next move' on the relevant questions of the model. They cost next to nothing, work on paper and are ordered so that each one creates the time or the information the next one needs.
- Week 1: a daily stand-upHold a 15-minute stand-up at the same time and place every day, with four headings: safety, quality, output, issues. Hold it even on days with little to report; at this stage the habit matters more than the content.
- Weeks 1 to 4: a shift log on the bottleneckPut a one-page log at the bottleneck line: start time, end time and a free-text reason for every stop over five minutes. Review it at the stand-up every morning for four weeks before adding anything else. Next to it, post yesterday's output against plan for each line, on paper if necessary.
- Week 2: one page of escalation rulesFor each line, write down whom to call for a breakdown, a quality problem and a material shortage, on every shift. Add a written handover of three lines per shift: what ran, what stopped and what is still open.
- From week 3: the Monday fiveEvery Monday, list last week's five longest stops on the bottleneck and pick one to work on. For any breakdown over one hour, write down what happened and why before the job is closed. Put each action on a single list with an owner, a date and one extra column: how will we know it worked?
- From week 4: protect the supervisor's walkAsk each supervisor to protect 30 minutes a day for a floor walk on the same route at the same time. At the stand-up, ask the team one question: what slowed you down yesterday? Write the answers on the board.
After 90 days, take the assessment again and compare it answer by answer with the first one. The questions that moved show which habits held; the ones that did not show where the next 90 days should go.
What Level 1 means for recognition
Level 1 plants are not eligible for Factory Excellence Recognition. They receive the same instant report as every other plant: score, level, radar chart, pillar indices, profile pattern and the three biggest gaps, each with a specific 90-day move. For a Level 1 plant, that report is the plan.
Recognition starts at Level 3, after an optional and free verification. Getting there means lifting the weakest pillars first, because of the rule below.
Your overall level cannot be more than one level above your weakest pillar's level. A plant whose Data pillar sits at Level 1 can reach Level 2 overall but not Level 3, however strong its other pillars are. The calculation is set out on the methodology page.
Questions
Is a Level 1 result a bad result?
It is an accurate starting point, which is more useful than a flattering one. The Index measures management practice, not effort or talent, and a Level 1 score says the plant does not yet have the routines that make losses visible. The report's three 90-day moves are written for exactly that situation.
Do we need software to move to Level 2?
No. Every move on this page works on paper or in a spreadsheet: a stop log, an escalation page, a Monday list, a stand-up. The Index is open to plants using any system or none, and taking part requires no purchase. Guidance on monitoring options is covered separately at factorymetrics.org.
Which line should we start on?
The bottleneck: the line or machine that limits what the plant can ship. Time lost there is lost for the whole plant, so a stop log and a Monday review pay back there first.