The Kaizen Wall of Fame

Whenever I have a really good idea, I'm anxious to share it with my friends, my boss, or anyone else who is willing to listen. Part of what makes us feel productive and fulfilled when we come up with a solution is the ability to share it - to gloat a little. Steal This Idea: The Kaizen Wall of Fame suggests a way to celebrate the ideas of a Kaizen event's participants and to give credit for the team's accomplishments. They suggest holding a simple Kaizen event, targeted at seeking simple problems and solutions. Adding a recycling bin by the copy machine to eliminate clutter could be one of the basic improvements implemented. Although this is a rather small improvement, giving credit to the person or persons who identified this need, created a solution to the problem, and implemented the change helps to create a culture that offers intrinsic rewards for participation. When I was involved in the early stages of process improvement, the affirmation I received from the team and the management was the reason I continued to brainstorm and create more cost effective solutions to be more efficient.

Mike Wroblewski suggests a Kaizen Wall of Fame for several reasons:

By posting the idea on the wall, you give instant recognition to your employees for making the improvement. You also encourage the small, frequent kaizen approach. Another benefit is that you create a company-wide communication board to share all these ideas. Finally, it helps motivate everyone to join in the fun of Kaizen.

Photo courtesy of relaibleplant.com

What's the point?

Have you ever noticed how projects tend to deviate in unexpected ways, to end up different from your original vision? Fix Your Bottleneck was conceived for the purpose of exploring Lean applications outside of the factory walls where it was born. Instead, as I've been told and have noticed in reflection, it has almost become more of a journal, explained from my experience in the trenches. I suppose that's because I've always felt pressured to justify the reasons I liked to do Lean work. It's true that someone whose job is identifying cost saving projects and implementing the necessary changes may wind up creating a business so Lean that the next cost saving project is to downsize the Lean Team. Anyone who really gets it knows that this could be the natural evolution of the process. I'm definitely not saying that makes it okay, but when someone is really skilled in seeing simple ways to reduce waste and streamline flow, they should be in high demand for all kinds of jobs.

This week, to celebrate the fact that I refocused and remembered the grounds for this blog, I thought I'd share this fun illustration of a bottleneck, then give you a glimpse of what Lean actually looks like in action.

As much as I enjoy this commercial, it is important to point out that Lean (and Visa) are both customer focused. Implicating a purchaser for an efficiency issue would certainly be a misstep. Take a look at the next clip to see how Lean really is a customer driven initiative.

I hope this is helpful in tying together some of the things I have been discussing in the past few weeks. It wasn't easy for me to understand how making one piece at a time could be better than the assembly line where we had dozens of parts being produced at once, but over time it came into focus.

After standing back and looking at my somewhat disjointed discussions, it was obvious that even my blog could benefit from some continuous improvement! 

Compliance or Commitment?

Try Googling Lean Systems or Continuous Improvement.

A technical theme emerges in the results, which is probably okay IF you are a business professional with refined knowledge of your specialized skills and have been asked to lead a cost saving project in your department. Most of us, however, find the mechanical nature of "Lean speak" to be unbearably dry and very easy to tune out. As an advocate for Lean thinking and a student of communication, I believe the language we use to persuade our team is just as important as the improvements we hope to see. You do yourself a disservice when you intimidate a project crew by speaking a confusing new language derived from Japanese (gemba, kanban, takt time, poka yoke, etc.). They will learn it and might even speak it, so long as it is used in a context that is useful and interesting. Give it time. After all, no one ever thought Google would become a synonym for query, but it is kind of fun to say.

When your business implements a change, do they make an announcement OR do they provide communication? Doesn't an announcement feel a lot like orders, a briefing, a declaration? News that is happening to me, that is not a question or a conversation, invites a defensive reaction. What about communication? If you open an email with the subject: Inter-office Communication, it feels more like something that invites engagement, feedback, or input. These nuances make a world of difference when a business needs a cultural shift in its staff. By inviting suggestions and engagement from the workers, a positive and productive environment will likely be the result.Would you rather have their compliance or their commitment?

I read this interesting bit from Brian Buck's blog, Improve With Me. He explains that there are a variety of reasons an employee might not follow standard work instructions.

A leader must go and see the actual condition that is causing the employee to not follow Standardized Work. Leaders need to ask why SW isn’t followed. Here are some potential reasons: 

They don’t know about the SW: How was the change communicated? At a team-meeting where not everyone was present? Via email buried under other announcements? 

They aren’t trained or capable to do the SW: They may not have the tools or the environment does not allow them to follow it. The training provided might not have been enough for them. 

All situations not considered when creating the SW: In order to respond to customers, the SW may not be capable to meet their needs. Do not jump to the conclusion that there isn’t a good reason why an employee did something different. They are on your team because of their hearts and minds and not just a pair of hands right? 

They already discovered a better way: Help them know how to spread improvements discovered by frontline workers. 

No leadership involvement: If leadership does not show they care whether the process is being followed on a regular basis or helping to solve problems uncovered after implementation, then how can you expect employees to care? 

Outcome not achieved but SW still being required: Standardization is not a Lean goal, but is a tool to help improve outcomes. If your hypothesized outcome didn't come true, why are you still requiring staff to follow the SW? 

You are not improving the SW: Over time, the SW will unconsciously change if continuous improvement is not part of your culture. The SW may have had elements missing or wasn’t fully tested. 

Leadership has placed the wrong person in the role: There are some people who willfully refuse to follow SW. Leadership must take responsibility for this as well, since they either tolerated bad behavior in exchange for productivity, or have been so uninvolved that they didn't realize the worker doesn't fit in their new culture.

If the knee jerk response was to report this guy to HR for performance issues, problems will persist, good ideas may remain buried, and employee morale diminishes. Determining root cause can be everyone's job. An image we used for Lean Projects in my office explains this scenario in a way that is easy to understand. The rocks just beneath the water's surface will continue to damage the vessel unless they are exposed.

Image courtesy of: http://www.handsongroup.com/lean-articles/forcing-continuous-improvement/

Ask Yourself: Value-Added or Waste?

This week, let's talk a little about waste. This word conjures different ideas in different circumstances, but for the purpose of this discussion, waste is defined as anything that doesn't add value to the end product. I'd like to focus on how eliminating waste in business can add up to big savings. MindTools lists 8 kinds of waste found in manufacturing and helps to apply them to other kinds of business.

Business: Potential Waste in the Process? What others can you think of in your work?

1. Overproduction: Are you providing more information or doing more research than is required? Do you spend unnecessary time formatting or running reports? 

2. Waiting: Do you spend too much time waiting for others to complete their work before you can do your part to add to it? 

3. Inventory (Work in Progress): Does your business process encourage "work in progress" to be left for completion at a later date? Do you have inventory with dust on it? 

4. Transportation: Could you combine deliveries or deliver things more quickly? 

5. Over processing: Do you unnecessarily work on things more than once? Are you having too many meetings about the same topic? 

6. Motion: In a team effort, how is the work passed from one member to another? Does everyone understand their role? Do people move between tasks efficiently? 

7. Defects: How often do you make or find mistakes? Do the same mistakes happen regularly? 

8. Workforce: Do YOU use your time wisely? Do you dedicate most of your time to activities that add value and are a high priority within the business?

Once you inventory these functions as they apply in your work, it makes sense to give priority to simple but effective changes. One of my favorite jokes, author unknown, uses this example to prove that it doesn't take a team of scientists or engineers to fix every problem and sometimes the answer is right in front of you, if you pause long enough to see it.

A CEO of a manufacturing facility is faced with a problem. His packaging machines have over a 10% failure rate and as a result his company is shipping empty boxes to their customers at an alarming rate, which is damaging their reputation as a vendor and threatening their relationships. They bring in an engineering company that, at a cost of over 5 million dollars, designs and implements a system that includes a scale in the production line that weighs the cartons as they pass, and if the carton doesn't weigh correctly, completely shuts down the line. A line worker then must then walk over, remove the empty carton, and manually restart the line. The system is implemented and after a few snags, the system is up and running. A couple of months pass and the CEO checks their error rates and sees that the new design system has a 0% failure rate - a statistical impossibility. He consults with department heads to find out the source of the information only to find out that the numbers are in fact correct. So he heads down to the packaging line to investigate further. Upon arrival, he sees someone has placed a fan on top of a chair and pointed it at the line - blowing the empty cartons off the line. He asks who did this, and one of the line workers admitted that he had done it because he got tired of walking over to remove the empty cartons and restarting the line.

Another humorous example, well suited to this discussion, shows how the vantage point of each member of the business team may detract somewhat from the overall purpose. Take special note of the last bullet.

Pessimist – the glass is half empty
Optimist – the glass is half full
Economist – this may be a good economic indicator or bad economic indicator
Accountant – go out and count it each month
Marketing Manager – it should have scotch in it
Sales Manager – this is the best hydrating water available, filtered by nature in an easy pour, see through container and its diet too
Customer Service Rep – we can ship half now and the other half is on back-order
Scheduler using ERP – you have to wait until we run the report to tell you what to do
Production Manager – fill it all the way up and add 10% more and go fill five more glasses while we can
Production Supervisor – can I drink it? It’s hot in here
Water-filler Operator – I’ll fill it to whatever level you want
Purchasing Manager – fill it all the way up with the cheapest water we can find
Inventory Control – when the new water comes in, make sure we maintain First-in, First-out (FIFO) integrity
Logistics Manager – I can’t ship a half full glass of water; that will cost too much. Wait until it is full
Quality Control – it is a clear, odorless liquid that we will run three hours of tests on
Safety Manager – where’s the MSDS?
Consultant – it is a glass that is half-filled with water
Scientist – it is a full glass with half water and half filled with air
Research & Development – we have H2O molecules that have thousands of uses
Lean Champion – the glass is twice as big as it needs to be
http://blog.5ssupply.com/tag/lean-jokes/

LEANing yourself out of a job?

Do all Lean initiatives exist to make life better for the workers? It would be naive to think so. So, before you decide to accept or reject the idea of improving your workplace, consider the culture and decide if you really belong there. There are certainly managers out there who have low regard for their workforce. Some of us landed in places we'd rather not be because of downsizing or outsourcing, but if you honestly believe that your company doesn't care about you, maybe its time to move on anyway. If your job is mutually beneficial, you'll want to give Lean a chance.

A business with a common sense approach knows that their people are their most important resource. As continuous improvement efforts are implemented properly and ethically, the changes should lead to better processes and more growth, leading to more work. More work requires more people, and those already trained in the work will be needed to acquaint new employees (presenting a new opportunity to streamline the training process).

Think of it this way: if you owned your own small store with 12 employees, it's fair to say that you would want them to be working smart and staying busy the entire time you were paying them. If you observed that a staff performs the work you require in 5 1/2 hours while you are paying him for 8, not only would you recognize that you are under-utilizing your resources, but you would certainly want him to cooperate when you asked him to take on additional tasks to fill his shift.

In his blog, Leadership Freak, Jim Parker holds company leaders accountable for the success of the business. Instead of blaming others, leaders are "responsible for creating, enabling, or tolerating bottlenecks." He goes on the list the following ways leaders suffocate their organizations:

1. Talking too much.
2. Acting too little.
3. Hoarding decision making authority.
4. Delegating too slowly.
5. Excusing incompetence.
6. Rejecting dissent.

He explains the last (somewhat surprising) point in this way:

Dissent, disagreement, and contradiction are the tools of innovation. It’s most challenging in top-down organizations where agreement is reward and dissent is punished. In my opinion, many top-down organizations create cultures where people waddle around like ducks getting in a row.

Leaders may tap into the talents of their team by:

1. Calling for decisions more quickly. Complex problems have more than one solution. Pick one and make it work.
2. Leveraging the power of deadlines to create urgency.
3. Authorizing others.
4. Identifying new individuals as first-delegates.
5. Leadership development. Remember, people learn to lead by leading.
6. Exploring dissent. "What if" is better than no way.

Source:  http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/bottlenecks-busters/

Today's Special: LEAN

In today's business climate, if you aren't serious about eliminating waste and finding ways to be more efficient, you probably don't have to worry about your long range plan. Implementing measures that will continuously improve your work is the key to survival. We can no longer do what we've always done.

When I was first introduced to the idea of a Lean workplace, I was at a company staff meeting and the new guy in charge said there were going to be some major changes and a new culture that was here to stay. "This is NOT just the flavor of the month," I remember him telling us "and you're all going to be a part of this." Looking back, I'm not sure this was the best way to get people to buy in, but our two choices were pretty clear: we could accept that work was never going to be the same, or we could see ourselves out.

At first, it all seemed pretty ridiculous. They set up some meetings and lectures with high priced consultants, during which they would do silly activities like assemble, disassemble, and reassemble LEGO style toy sets. Areas were roped off and named Red Tag Area (the place where unwanted/unused items are staged before being discarded) or WIP (Work in Progress - in Lean, this is considered 'batching' and is discouraged in favor of 'one piece flow') or Parking Lot (the place to list ideas that have been tabled at the present time, but will be revisited soon). Production lines were torn apart and fixtures were tossed into the dumpster. Most of us thought the management team had gone mad.

Soon, project teams were assembled and called Kaizen events. Participants from every department of the company were recruited, lured by fantastic catered food and the chance to take a break from their regular routine for a week. These events were meant to be fun, productive, engaging, and more than anything - we were asked to think outside the box. By giving people a venue to complain about what wasn't working well and make constructive suggestions, they took ownership of the improvements made while the company tapped into their most valuable underutilized resource: the workers who were intimately involved with their processes. When we returned to work after the Kaizen event, we would feel compelled to not only defend, but also to promote the changes among our peers.

Lean has a sort of lanugage of its own so, in each post, I'd like to share and explain a few Lean ideas or terms I've learned that tie the concept together:

Cell - grouping of related production functions in a sequence that supports flow

Kaizen - Japanese term that means "change for the better"

Cycle time - with a beginning and end point established, the time it takes to cycle from beginning to end

Value added - something that a customer is willing to pay for

Non-value added - the labor involved that doesn't contribute to the product or the process

Value stream - all of the activities entailed in creation of the end product 

I give credit to my former Lean co-worker, Deb, for explaining Lean in the following simple steps:

1. Determine the value stream. (What is valuable to the customer?)
2. Eliminate value stream waste.
3. Streamline flow.
4. Establish level production and pull inventory.
5. Continuously improve.

cartoon source: www.automation.com July 21,2010

"Why not make the work easier and more interesting so that people do not have to sweat? The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people's creativity."
-Taiichi Ohno, co-creator of the Toyota Production System

5S

5S was one of the first things I learned when I started to get involved with Lean and it's the one that automatically comes to mind when I am looking at a new project. There are slight variations to some lists that represent this acronym, but most generally include: 1) Sort, 2) Straighten, 3) Shine, 4) Standardize, and 5) Sustain. I'll elaborate a little on each one.

Sort: We all have done this at some point...purging the garage of stuff that we don't use, boxing up those clothes that don't fit anymore, culling out the expired food from the kitchen cabinets. We aim to keep only the essential tools and things we use, freeing up work space and storage space. Doesn't it feel great to have this fresh, clean start? I know I'm more productive and willing to take on a project when I have a space that is free of clutter.

Straighten: The next logical step is to neatly arrange the things we still need and are going to keep. Key to the success of this step is to strategically place items right where they will be used, but will not restrict the flow of any other process.

Shine: Simply stated, clean and keep it clean. In the factory, we painted our machines and ventilation hoods white so you could always see the dirt. The idea was that you should never see dirt.

Standardize: Create a procedure and follow it. Make sure everyone involved knows it and understands their role. Promote interchangeability for seamless adaptation to unexpected scenarios.

Sustain: Plan, in advance, for failure. This ensures all bases are covered and success will be the end result. Make every effort to foster an environment where the 5S efforts will be accepted and promoted.

From my experience, a lot of workers thought it was pretty ridiculous to waste time doing these things when we could be running production instead. To help promote the improvements, we asked how many times they had to look for the 5/8" wrench to adjust their machine? Or, if they ever needed a pen to fill out their paperwork and couldn't find one? They all had a story. So, I made many shadow boards like the one pictured below. By creating a place for every tool and utensil that each worker needed, then affixing them to the exact location where the tools would be used, we saved a lot of time that could be better used for production. At the end of every shift, the workers would make sure all their tools were accounted for with a quick glance. A lot of us already do this in our garages....think pegboard or the case for the socket set. If we let this spread to the kitchen, think how many arguments could be avoided if no one ever had to look for the scissors or can opener?

Photo courtesy of: www.5sleanmanufacturing.com