How to Get Started with Pulse Meetings
Learn how to structure effective pulse and morning meetings using Good Solutions. Discover which production information to review, how often to review it, and how to use Dashboards, Reports, and the Timeline to support daily management and continuous improvement.
Getting Started with Pulse Meetings
Pulse meetings are short, structured meetings where production teams review performance, identify deviations, and agree on actions.
They are an important part of daily management because they help organizations respond to production problems and maintain focus on continuous improvement.
Good Solutions provides production data, Dashboards, Reports, and visualizations that can support these meetings.
However, before deciding which information to display, it is important to answer three questions:
- Who needs the information? Operators, Team Leaders, Production Managers, or management?
- What information is relevant? Production output, OEE, quality, stops, or improvement progress?
- How often should it be reviewed? Daily, weekly, or monthly?
The answers will help you establish a meeting structure that supports the right decisions at each level of your organization.
Step 1: Define Your Meeting Structure
A simple way to get started is to create a matrix showing which roles review production information at different intervals.
For example:
| Role / Meeting | Daily | Weekly | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production Management | — | Overall performance and significant losses | Trends, targets, and strategic improvements |
| Production Managers | Production follow-up and data quality | OEE, losses, and improvement progress | — |
| Improvement Meetings | — | Detailed analysis of selected problems | — |
| Operators | Shift performance and deviations | — | — |
This is an example rather than a fixed structure. Adapt it to your organization, responsibilities, and existing meeting routines.
The general principle is that the longer the reporting interval, the more aggregated the information usually becomes.
Operators need detailed information about current production, while management typically focuses on broader trends and improvement results.
Step 2: Choose the Right Information for Each Meeting
Different meetings require different levels of detail.
Daily – Operators and Team Leaders
Purpose: Understand recent production performance and identify problems requiring immediate attention.
Recommended information:
- Previous shift results compared with production targets.
- OEE and Availability.
- Production output and quality deviations.
- Significant production stops.
- Current Articles and Orders.
- Outstanding issues from previous shifts.
Use Dashboards and the Timeline to visualize production activities and identify deviations.
Daily – Production Managers
Purpose: Ensure production data is reliable and important operational issues are addressed.
Recommended activities:
- Review significant production interruptions.
- Identify uncategorized stops.
- Check whether production Orders and Articles are correctly recorded.
- Investigate unusual production patterns.
- Review production performance across Measure Points.
The Timeline is particularly useful for visually identifying data quality issues and understanding what happened during production.
Weekly – Improvement Meetings
Purpose: Investigate recurring problems and follow up on improvement activities.
Recommended information:
- The largest production losses.
- Recurring stop reasons.
- Performance trends for selected Measure Points.
- Quality losses.
- Results of ongoing improvement activities.
Use Reports to investigate specific problems and measure whether improvement activities are producing results.
Weekly – Production Managers and Management
Purpose: Review performance across production areas and identify improvement priorities.
Recommended information:
- OEE compared with previous weeks.
- Availability, Performance, and Quality trends.
- Significant production losses.
- Comparisons between Measure Points or Sections.
- Progress on improvement initiatives.
Monthly – Production Management
Purpose: Evaluate longer-term performance and improvement progress.
Recommended information:
- OEE and production performance trends.
- Performance compared with targets.
- Recurring losses across production areas.
- Quality and productivity improvements.
- Progress against operational objectives.
At this level, focus on trends and decisions rather than individual production events.
Step 3: Create Dashboards for Your Meetings
Once you have defined your meeting structure, create Good Solutions Dashboards that support each meeting.
For example, a daily production dashboard could include:
- OEE with target.
- Production output.
- Availability and stop time.
- Top stop reasons.
- Scrap and quality results.
- Production performance over time.
A weekly management dashboard might instead focus on performance comparisons, trends, and significant losses.
Tip: Avoid using the same dashboard for every meeting. Each dashboard should contain the information needed by its intended audience.
Dashboards can also be displayed on larger screens in production areas or meeting rooms.
Step 4: Establish a Clear Meeting Agenda
A consistent agenda makes meetings easier to prepare, lead, and follow up.
Here is an example of a daily production meeting agenda.
| Agenda Item | Questions to Discuss |
|---|---|
| 1. Safety | Were there any incidents, risks, or safety deviations? |
| 2. Yesterday's Results | Did we achieve our production, quality, and delivery targets? |
| 3. Production Losses | What were the most significant interruptions or deviations? |
| 4. Previous Actions | Have agreed actions been completed? Did they improve the situation? |
| 5. Today's Plan | What are today's production targets, priorities, and potential challenges? |
| 6. New Actions | What needs to be done, who is responsible, and when? |
Keep daily meetings short and focused. Around 10–15 minutes is often a useful starting point.
Complex problems should normally be assigned for further investigation rather than solved during the meeting.
Step 5: Make Your Meetings Effective
A few simple principles can significantly improve meeting quality.
- Start positively. Recognize achievements and improvements before reviewing problems.
- Follow an agenda. Make sure everyone understands the purpose and structure.
- Assign a meeting leader. Someone should be responsible for keeping the meeting focused and on time.
- Invite the right participants. Include people who can contribute to decisions and actions.
- Focus on facts, not blame. Use production data to understand problems and identify solutions.
- Make responsibilities clear. Every agreed action should have an owner and a deadline.
- Follow up consistently. Review previous actions and their results.
- Improve the meeting itself. Regularly ask whether the information and discussions are creating value.
Tip: A successful pulse meeting should result in a shared understanding of production performance and clear decisions about what happens next.
Step 6: Use Good Solutions to Support Continuous Improvement
Good Solutions provides several tools that work together to support effective pulse meetings.
| Function | How It Supports Meetings |
|---|---|
| Dashboards | Present relevant KPIs, targets, and deviations visually. |
| Timeline | Investigate production activities, stops, and potential data quality issues. |
| Reports | Analyse production losses and performance over longer periods. |
| Scheduled Reports | Automatically distribute production information to relevant stakeholders. |
| Forms | Support standardized checks and collection of operational information. |
For example, a team might identify a significant Availability Loss during a morning meeting.
The Production Manager can use the Timeline to investigate when the interruptions occurred, then use Reports to analyse whether the same problem has occurred repeatedly.
An improvement activity can then be assigned and followed up during subsequent meetings.
This creates a continuous cycle of measuring, identifying, acting, and following up.
Key Takeaways
Getting started with pulse meetings does not require a complicated structure.
Start by identifying who needs which information and how often. Create relevant dashboards, establish a clear agenda, and make sure deviations lead to actions.
As your meeting routines mature, adapt the information and visualizations to support your organization's improvement priorities.
The goal is not simply to review production results. It is to use those results to make better decisions and continuously improve production performance.