|
|
May 7th, 2012
by Andy Carlino
On the surface this really sounds like a dumb thing to say particularly coming from someone who has co-authored a relatively successful lean book. It is also counterintuitive. Shouldn’t you always read books specifically about the subject you are trying to master? What I recently discovered is that I’m learning more about lean by reading seemingly unrelated books. Apparently, based on a book I read, I am somewhat skilled at what’s called “conceptual blending” or the ability to take two or more seemingly disconnected concepts and see a connection. I recently finished a book called IMAGINE-How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. After reading this book I came to realize how much more I have been learning about lean without actually reading lean books. Of course this does assume, however, that you have a working knowledge of the principles and practices of lean. For example, Jonah Lehrer tells the story of the development of the Swiffer Sweeper™. From this story it was easy to see how inspiration can come from a deep understanding of the current state through direct observation. Proctor & Gamble didn’t reinvent the mop; they got rid of the mop. We have always preached that deeply understanding the current state is required to build the future or ideal state. What I didn’t realize is that it’s not just about understanding; it’s also about inspiration–another lean lesson I learned but not from a lean book. Read any non-fiction and look for the lean connections (although I’m sure conceptual blending is a learned trait). I think you will be surprised.
Tags: creativity, culture, current state, direct observation, employee engagement, Experimentation, leadership, lean books, lean journey, learning activities, transformation
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
April 27th, 2012
by Jim Sonderman
Many organizations complain about having difficulty maintaining standards on the shop floor. We often make improvement only to find the process regresses back to its previous state in a short period of time. A closer look at the process will often show the following types of symptoms:
- Standard work is posted, but no one is following it. The sequence, timing, and content of work changes within each operator as well as from one operator to another.
- There are inconsistencies in incoming materials that cause over processing at the workstation and overburden to operators. This may lead to defects and operational delays.
- Poorly designed products and processes that cause unevenness and overburden.
- 5S is not maintained or consistent between one shift and another.
- Uncontrolled tools and materials are squirreled away in cabinets as a result of hoarding for just in case reasons.
- Non-conforming materials are not properly identified which exposes the operation to risk.
These issues may indicate a general lack of management oversight of the process. Management oversight may typically occur in the form of system audits, control point checklists, or other structured reviews of the operation. An audit is essentially a check on the system to see that activities are being performed to a standard or target condition. Just saying the word “Audit” will often strike a nerve in most managers because it seems contradictory to creating value in the organization. Audits do not meet all the requirements to be considered value added. The customer is typically not willing to pay for internal audits except in certain situations. The physical product or service we provide does not change as a result of conducting the audit. In addition, the reason why we are doing the audit in the first place is because we can’t get the activity right the first time. By definition, audits are non-value added. However, they are essential in many organizations to prevent backsliding as well as ensuring the process continues to move forward. Here are some tips that will help you correctly frame and communicate the audit as an important management tool.
Perform audits frequently. Many companies that perform audits on the production system do not conduct them at a frequency great enough to be able to detect variation in the 4Ms. For example, material variation may initially be slight and the operator of a process may deviate from standard work methods to adjust for the variation. Eventually this leads to habit in which standard work is no longer being followed. This creates an even greater potential for error. Frequent observations will shorten the detection time on slight variation. If the process in question is a production line and operator rotation is a standard practice, then audits should target at least every operator on every rotation weekly. In order to sustain this high frequency of auditing, it is important to train and bring other key functional areas into the process.
In many organizations, the line supervisor has the responsibility for auditing to ensure that structures and processes such as standard work, 5S, safety, and quality checks are adhered to. The supervisor is usually the only one who is knowledgeable enough about the process to make these observations. This results in a narrow organizational view of the process. By providing cross functional involvement of the support staff, the collective perspective and experience of the broader organization is integrated into the process directly at the point of value added. For example:
- Human resources should be observing the process to ensure that health & safety as well as processes for training and operator certification are functioning as planned. They should also be observing that the basic team structure is providing the operator with the necessary support needed to provide value through operator engagement and solicitation of ideas.
- Engineering should be observing and auditing to ensure that product and process design is capable of producing high quality products or services with the highest repeatability.
- Quality should be auditing the process with an emphasis on how well the quality system is being adhered to at the operator level. This includes defect tracking, error proofing, adherence to quality key points, etc.
When the functional staff finds a deviation from a standard, this should be considered as an opportunity to do several things. First of all, it provides a method for calibration and coaching. When outside eyes see that a supervisor has only recorded good observations in the past, this becomes a coachable event. Why do they not see the same deviation? Coaching the supervisor on how to observe the process from different perspectives will build capability on the front line. Secondly, it provides the functional staff with a structured process for direct observation. This allows them to see how well the part of the system that they are directly responsible for is designed and functioning. A quality manager during the audit of the process may observe operators fixing defects without properly notifying others or documenting problems. This would indicate that the system is not working to surface problems. In addition, if a product engineer sees that all operators are struggling with a certain assembly task, the product or process can be redesigned as needed. This will reduce overburden on operators and the potential for errors.
Auditing serves the critical function of surfacing and solving systemic problems. To maximize audit effectiveness, conduct audits frequently to detect variation in the 4 M’s prior to the creation of defects. Expand auditing to other functional groups beyond supervision to gain multiple perspectives as to how well the process is designed and being adhered to. A cross functional audit team will provide for integrated solutions that strengthens the total system.
Tags: Audits
Posted in Jim Sonderman | No Comments »
April 9th, 2012
Andy Carlino
I couldn’t possibly count the number of times I heard that “I work in an environment that requires creativity and lean doesn’t apply to my work”. Over and over again I have offered how important lean principles are to creating an environment for creativity. I am convinced more than ever that this is true but I have recently become convinced that lean principles also create a “mindset” for creativity. This most recent revelation, or possibly validation, occurred while reading two very different publications. The first is “IMAGINE-How Creativity Works” by Jonah Lehrer. The second is an article in New Scientist, “Zap your brain into the zone: Fast track to pure focus” by Sally Adee.
Jonah recounts the story of Proctor and Gamble’s struggle to find a new floor care product. All of their chemists and researchers could not come up with the next floor care innovation so they outsourced innovation to a company in California. This company took hundreds of hours of videos of people cleaning floors. What they found through this direct observation is that people spent more time cleaning their mops than they did actually cleaning the floor and the next innovation had to be a complete replacement of the mob and bucket. You have probably already figured out where this story is going. The innovation was Swiffer and, by the end of its first year of introduction, it had generated over $500 million in sales. This simply reinforces how important the lean principle of directly observing work as activities, connections and flows is to creativity.
Sally Adee’s experience was completely different. She subjected herself to tDSC which is essentially hooking the brain up to a 9 volt battery and letting the current flow through the brain. Sally’s experiment was to learn how to shoot a modified M4 close assault rifle in a training simulator. Without tDSC she failed miserably. However with tDSC, she was an excellent shot. The difference was that with tDSC she felt clear-headed, sharper and without doubt. She essentially eliminated the “noise” in her head. The lean equivalent to tDCS is High Agreement or the principle of Standardization. On the surface this may seem like a stretch but think about it for a moment. Standardization both literally and figuratively takes the noise out of our work and frees us to think, be creative and contribute. We can see the problem and we can see the opportunity. It’s pretty simple, creativity is practically impossible in chaos.
You can probably think of other examples of how lean principles contribute to creativity, of course that’s assuming you understand current reality and have a clear head.
Tags: connections and flows, creativity, direct observation, high agreement, lean, standardization
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
April 5th, 2012
by Jamie Flinchbaugh
It’s been said that the worst of all the types of waste is the waste of overproduction, because it generates all sorts of other waste. And in the lean world, it’s also been understood for quite a long time some of the dangers that traditional accounting can cause in creating these wastes.
CFO magazine seemed to have just stumbled upon this reality. In their recent profile of the automotive industry, titled Lots of Trouble, they explore absorption costing encourages overproduction. From CFO:
By coupling excess production with absorption costing, managers at GM, Ford, and Chrysler were able to boost profits and meet short-term incentives, according to professors at Michigan State University and Maastricht University in the Netherlands. (Their study on the topic was recognized in January for its contribution to managmenet accounting by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and other groups.) Ultimately, however, the practice hurt the automakers, in part by diving up advertising and inventory holding costs and possibly causing a decline in brand image, the researchers say.
From 2005 to 2006, long before GM and Chrysler filed for bankruptcy and appealed for federal aid, the automakers had abundant excess capacity. Then as now, they had enormous fixed costs, from factories and machinery to workers whose contracts protected them from layoffs when demand was low, says Karen Sedatole, associate professor of accounting at Michigan State and a co-author of the study.
To “absorb” those massive costs, the automakers churned out more cars while using absorption costing, a widely used system that calculates the cost of making a product by dividing total manufacturing costs, fixed and variable, by the number of products produced. The more vehicles they made, the lower the cost per vehicle, and the higher the profits on the income statement. In effect, the automakers shifted costs from the income statement to the balance sheet, in the form of inventory.
You don’t say? I have a hard time understanding how this is a groundbreaking study when we’ve seen it for decades and known it already to be true. But, it is nice to know that the accounting community is waking up to the affect.
But let me use this opportunity to paint a slightly different picture. Yes, some traditional accounting encourages the wrong behavior. I use the word encourage purposely. But this is fact – it doesn’t CAUSE it. It is still a human decision. The accounting is just an input, a contributor. It may make things harder to make the right decision, but it doesn’t cause the wrong decision.
Managers at all levels of the organization are tasked with making tough decisions with incomplete or even contradictory decisions. That’s just the reality of the role. Once you use accounting as an excuse to make a decision that you know to be wrong, I feel that you have forfeited the right to those decisions. Yes, we should improve our accounting methods to better reflect what we know to be good management decisions. But we also need the courage to make the right decision, regardless of the conflicting inputs.
Don’t let accounting be an excuse for doing the wrong thing.
Tags: accounting, inventory, overproduction, waste
Posted in Jamie Flinchbaugh | No Comments »
March 21st, 2012
by Susan Pleasant
I am surprised by number of times I find lean tools, concepts and principles misunderstood in organizations that are several years into their lean journey. A few weeks ago Jamie reinforced the difference between takt time and cycle time. It is not unusual to hear a lean leader refer to takt time when actually describing the cycle time of the process. Mixing those two up is a little like smiling with lettuce on your teeth after lunch – no one will tell you about it but everyone that notices is just a little embarrassed for you.
I find a similar misunderstanding and misuse of “supermarket.” I go into operations that will show me their “supermarket.” As I inquire a little more what I find is their definition of supermarket is a complete set of parts and materials staged closer to the line than the warehouse. At best, that is actually a FIFO materials storage rack.
A true supermarket is storage characterized by high use materials (A items) that turn faster than the standard material handling cycle located close to the line to facilitate retrieval by an operator or water spider/utility. Supermarket replenishment is triggered by kanban cards, min/max designation, electronic signal, lights, or routine “milk runs” by material handling.
The objective of the supermarket is to reduce material handling time and transportation waste. It should be easy to assess inventory status using visual methods rather than having to count parts. If possible the best case is to keep the operator focused on value added tasks rather than retrieving replenishment parts.
Good luck with your materials flow plans.
Tags: connections and flows, flow, materials, Pleasant, supermarkets
Posted in Susan Pleasant | No Comments »
March 8th, 2012
by Susan Pleasant
At some point on the lean journey you must have looked at your “lean work” as just that, an extra task on the list or another project on your list that earned its place based on the fires you had to fight and immediate pressures. Many times lean begins as work done in 3-5 day events, as the work that is done early in the morning or at the end of the day or by someone else such as a lean co-ordinator– extra work. Sometimes it plateaus at that point for some individuals and organizations. To be clear, in the right situation it is appropriate to have lean events. Those of us who have made it “to the other side” know that there is more to lean thinking than events, special projects, or preparation for an assessment. There is a point in time that you and those you work with truly integrate lean into how you work.
First you have to know what it looks like to integrate lean into your real work. There is not one right answer nor is this a destination. When lean is integrated into how you work, you probably experience an “aha moment” or get “shiny eyes” because you have just understood the benefit you get from lean thinking and approaches. Lean has now become what you choose, not what you must do because someone else says so. Use of lean becomes something you pursue in the routine of work – tracking waiting time, motion or transportation time, making pareto charts of issues, developing spontaneous A3’s, categorizing emails into value add and non-value add, taking time to observe and understand the current situation before jumping to a solution, etc. PDCA structured small rapid improvements begin to surface as well as structured standard work and high agreement approaches such as TPM, 5S, and visual management. You know what your customer wants, how to measure it, the steps to take and what gaps occur.
The challenge for many lean leaders is how to create the experience that will enable the “aha moment” for their team. Many approaches are available. Have them identify opportunities, frustrations, and issues they see and deal with routinely. Coach them on the use of lean approaches to take the waste out or solve the problem. If someone says they don’t have time to “do lean” have them track how they spend time for 2-3 days. Coach the analysis and elimination of root causes for time consuming activities. Have lunch and learn sessions, asking everyone to bring one way they used lean to improve their personal work. Look for lean in action plans to achieve goals – not an action plan to be lean, but to use lean to get the results that are needed. Use after action reviews to give people a chance to reflect on what met expectation in addition to the misses. Stop having separate lean status meetings. Make lean part of your routine daily huddles, progress reviews, and weekly updates. Take people with you to “go see.” “Go see” meetings, HR, finance, a customer returns receiving process – you can choose many areas that do not require a factory floor. Take someone from the area with you. Both of you may have aha moments from this venture.
As you consider some of the approaches that have been mentioned, recognize a few fundamentals as you create a path for yourself and your team to truly integrate lean into the routine way you work:
- People shift what they believe about lean based on new experiences. If their only experience of lean is as a program, a 3-5 day event or something that is done to pass an assessment then it is extra work. Give them new experiences.
- Create different opportunities for them to reflect on the application of lean and learn.
- Participate with them. Be visible. Coach the process. People rarely admit they don’t know how, but respond well to coaching from a trusted mentor.
- Connect the use of lean with something they are interested in and will benefit from.
Do you remember when you “went to the other side”? What was the experience you had that moved you from lean as extra work to lean as how I work?
Tags: integration of lean, leading lean, lean journey, transformation
Posted in Susan Pleasant | No Comments »
February 23rd, 2012
By Andy Carlino
Part the activities during the Lean Experience workshop is a factory simulation—we build aircraft, very complex aircraft. During the 1st round the noise is literally almost deafening. The noise gets louder and louder the longer the simulation goes on and more as the system fails to deliver. During the 2nd round, after redesign, it is remarkable how quiet and almost calm it becomes. During the debrief we discuss how a structured system takes the noise out, both literally in the simulation, but also figuratively in every process in an organization. We further discuss how difficult it was during round one for the participants to see problems and the opportunities to improve, help their fellow team members, or take advantage of their expertise or creativity. During round two the problems and opportunities to improve are obvious, team members work together (even at times when they don’t necessarily like or respect each other), and it’s amazing the creative solutions that surface. It’s not magic. You simply can’t see the problems, effectively contribute or even be creative in chaos—“in all the noise”. We only do two rounds but we are frequently asked if we will do another round to further improve. The excitement for CI is encouraging. In reality you often don’t hear the noise but it’s there and it has the same effects. Another lesson learned is that the potential for noise increases with the complexity of the system.
So what constitutes your everyday noise? It could be quality issues including the quality of the information. Expectations are not defined or are ambiguous. Problems surface but they are worked-around or even ignored. Communication breaks down. There are personality disagreements or conflicts. It could be interruption in product or information flow. Maybe it’s a broken connection or a failed activity. Even geography or layout can be an issue. It’s all noise and there is more. You may not hear it, but it creates the same problems in every part of your organization as it did in the simulation.
How do you eliminate the noise? You can put on earmuffs or take action. The answer is simple but execution can be difficult—STRUCTURE. Structure every activity, every connection, every flow and every output. Activities should have an identified owner, structured work content and sequence, timing and an expected result. Connections should require the structure for what and when to request, what and when to respond, and a standard for how to do both. Flow of information, product and people need to be simple (no waste), specific (only one way) and clearly understood. Finally, outputs must have clearly and well defined expectations.
Tags: activities, connections and flows, Lean Experience, structure
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
January 30th, 2012
by Susan Pleasant
Often people will attend a class about lean, usually a basics class, and on the last day feel a little overwhelmed with what they are going to do when they return to their workplace. There are stories about positive results that have been experienced after training. Here are a few things that increase the probability of have good results using lean after your initial training:
- Get started right away. Choose something you can do within the first 5 days after returning to work. The sooner you put something into practice the more likely you will be to build the learning into skills.
- Keep it simple. We love big wins and “homeruns.” This could be a trap when starting your personal lean journey. Choose something simple to start with such as a waste walk, direct observation of a challenging or frustrating part of your process, do a product process map of one part of your responsibilities, use 5 why’s, conduct an After Action Review.
- Make it worthwhile. Try your new way of thinking or tools to something you need to do anyway. So often people think of lean as extra work in addition to their “real work.” You knew what your goals were and where improvements were needed before you went to your lean class. Apply you new thinking to opportunity areas to avoid wasting time.
- Let people know what you are doing and why. You will want to consider the culture and your team’s exposure to lean to decide how much lingo you will use. In addition, be careful of over promising the benefits at this point. However, having members of your team know what you have been doing, why the training is important, and how they might see the benefit of the use of lean, and what help you will need for them is essential. Ask to see if there are a few people who would be interested in learning more or working with you on a few simple projects.
- Keep notes. Often you will hear or see opportunities to use lean before you are ready to pursue them. Write it down. You will be surprised how helpful the list will be as you develop and expand your skills and those of your team as you start your lean journey.
Posted in Susan Pleasant | No Comments »
January 30th, 2012
by Jim Sonderman
Most lean practitioners understand and would agree that it’s a good practice to try things out prior to making changes permanent. Trying things out through simulations and mockups allows us to test changes against anticipated results so that we can see what works and what does not. The practice of testing ideas against an anticipated result allows us to learn from every change we make. This is the essence of making improvement through the scientific method. In practice, many lean practitioners experiment without first clearly defining what is ideal in terms of the total process.
A common approach to improvement begins with making an intense observation of the current state. After the current state situation is understood, the next step taken by many individuals is to brainstorm on the current state for improvement opportunities. Subsequently, ideas are generated, tested, refined and then implemented. This seems like a fairly sound practice and using this approach will more than likely achieve some positive results for you. However, when I see individuals taking this exact approach and I ask them why they made that particular change or took that particular course of action, the response seems starkly familiar to the response I gave my lean coach from Toyota many years ago. “I made this improvement because it removes waste and it’s certainly an improvement on the current condition.”
Years ago, I was assigned by my company to help a supplier over a 6 month period of time improve the total value stream of the part they were supplying to us. A coach was assigned from Toyota to guide me in my project. I began immediately removing waste wherever it surfaced. I had made significant progress in reducing labor and inventory. My coach returned for a visit and reviewed my progress on the production floor. I was expecting applause but only got a question? What specific problem are you trying to fix? You are jumping all over the place making changes without clear direction. Then he asked another question. “Please define for me what ideal is in terms of this total process”. I answered by providing the following: “one piece flow, no delays, full utilization of manpower and produce only what the customer wants when they want it”. His reply was “Very good!……… Now go do it”. I was expecting a little more direction than this. However, what he did was to help me establish a clear pathway forward to an ideal target condition. Then every experiment we structured was with this end in sight. We never did achieve one piece flow, but we came much closer to achieving it during those 6 months. We freed up so much floor space that we eventually consolidated two facilities. Without a clear vision of the ideal process, we would have never achieved this magnitude of outcome.
Tags: Experimentation
Posted in Jim Sonderman | No Comments »
January 28th, 2012
by Jamie Flinchbaugh
Sustaining 5S is the hardest part. The average life of a 5S program is 1 year, and sustainability is the reason. So what behaviors should you exhibit to make it work?
Finding something out of place in the 5S’d area is not a sign that the system is broken. In fact, it’s a sign that it is working. It worked because you noticed it. You’ll never keep everything in place all the time. Unless it’s a serious violation, my first reaction to something is just to move it back where it belongs. Many people might disagree with that, because it’s an opportunity for coaching. But if you literally grab every opportunity to coach that you find, you’ll never leave the one area. Correcting it is the behavior you’d want from those in the area, so if the system tells you what to do, then just do it. That’s role modeling the behavior you want to see in others. If it is not straightforward, then ask an operator in the area what is the item, or where it belongs, or why it’s not in the right place. They are the ones who will best know. If needed, coaching can be provided. If it becomes a pattern, then it needs to be brought up with the supervisor in the area so that they can coach as well as hold accountable.
If you are on an audit, then the right first response is to the supervisor, because the audit is specifically focused on the process. You are surfacing issues about the system working when on an audit, so that is meant to facilitate the discussion with the supervisor in the area.
Furthermore, if all of these fail, then change the system. This means find a way to make the particular failure easier to do right, easier to spot when wrong, impossible to do, etc. We can’t always go back to coaching and reminders. Find some way to make the repeated failure no longer a problem.
What’s important about these behaviors is that they are widespread and consistent. This isn’t just for the manager immediately of the area in question. Anyone in management should be in the same page. Get other people who might be going through the area engaged, such as engineers and HR.
Tags: 5S, Flinchbaugh, sustainability
Posted in Jamie Flinchbaugh | No Comments »
|
