FastCap Lean Innovations

Paul Akers seems like a guy who was born to use and promote Lean. A creative innovator and cabinet maker, Paul has built a successful business that continued to be profitable through the recession, never laying off a single employee or cutting any salaries, and continues to pay the highest entry level wage of any business in the region. FastCap began in Paul's garage and has emerged as a multi-milion dollar product development company in just 13 years, in part because of the Toyota Production System.

When I looked around for some basic videos to give a glimpse of Lean at work, I couldn't help but notice Paul. His videos are concise, energetic, and unmistakably simple. He demonstrates everything I love about Lean practices while leaving the behind-the-scenes value stream mapping and inventory management for a more specialized group.

Take a look at the evolution of Paul's desk as he made progressive strides toward a more Lean office.

What drew me to this is that his commitment to Lean involves everyone, himself included. I can see why employees are more willing to get on board with efficiency and waste management when the boss is also willing to walk the talk. Paul doesn't hide himself in a luxurious office. He raised his desk and ditched his chair to avoid getting too comfortable and sitting too long. But, that still wasn't Lean enough for Paul. He put his stand-up desk on wheels and eliminated his office completely, so he now spends his days on the shop floor with his new "desk," pictured in the background.

I also really enjoy Paul's explanation about how FastCap enlists every employee to help build the Lean culture, starting with the employee bathroom. Not only does FastCap save the cost of a cleaning person, but by constantly maintaining it the bathroom never gets dirty. Staff are happy to take the extra couple of seconds to clean it after each use, leaving it better than they found it.  If everyone does their part, everyone enjoys a nicer work environment.

This is really common sense stuff. So, why don't we see it more often? Are workers afraid of change, or a slippery slope? Creating a Lean culture takes a little time and finesse. Paul's contagious energy is a good fit for the FastCap culture.

Lean for non-profits makes perfect sense

During one of my introductory non-profit management classes, it occurred to me that Lean methods hold amazing potential for organizations that exist for social good above profitability. When these organizations depend on a budget of grants, fundraisers, and donations, it is of the utmost importance that their resources are used efficiently and effectively so the mission is carried out to serve the broadest possible population. The potential for Lean benefit is limitless.

Let's be honest. No one wants their charity donation to be used for anything other than forwarding the cause, right? When we make a $20 donation to the animal shelter, we certainly expect that almost all of that will go directly to helping animals. If we were told that half of that money would go toward overhead (administrative costs and general operating expenses), we would certainly be less likely to donate. Never mind that without these basic needs, the animal shelter could not exist. Somehow, we feel that that money needs to come from somewhere else. What if we knew that another $6 of that $20 would be spent on soliciting more donations? That would leave only $4 to pay for care and supplies for the shelter pets. Wait just a minute! This is unacceptable, right?

But....think about this: do we ever really get upset about, or even think of the overhead and operating expenses of a for-profit business? When we see a full page ad in the Sunday newspaper promoting an upcoming sale at a department store, do we scrutinize that store's ethics for trying to lure us in to buy their products or do we look at all the "good deals" and run right out to buy new things that make the store profitable? Right. So, why the double standard and how can we change this?

I propose that if people knew that their donations were being stretched as far as possible to generate the greatest good, they would certainly be more inclined to donate. Lean offers the tools to do this and if properly implemented and publicized, the act of continuous improvement within the org creates a PR opportunity like no other! Take a look at this video that highlights a food charity that increased their community impact with the help of the Toyota Production System.

Not only does this look like a great cause to donate to, but they also had the ingenuity to create this video and post it online, offering the incentive of a donated meal for each viewing. Creative solutions like this can revive a staff that is suffering from burnout, kick-start a fundraising campaign, and provide a greater sense of efficacy for volunteers. When you are working with a shoestring budget, its so important to make the most of it.

Continuous improvement at home

At one point, my sister and I both held positions that involved Lean methods at our job. We were on the same wavelength because we looked at things in our homes through a Lean lens. We often joked about how we "5S'd" the garage or created FIFO inventory management (first in first out) in the kitchen cupboards. Thinking this way was automatic and effortless for us once we saw the results at work so it only made sense to use what we learned around the house. It sounds rigid and stuffy to live like this, but its really just a more systematic way of proactively managing household tasks.

As a result of her family's scheduling confusion, missed appointments, and late bill payments, my sister posted a customized calendar in her kitchen with a 3x3 square for each day, large enough to accommodate a color coded post it note. This almost completely eliminated their problems. It looked almost like this one by Tim McMahon, blogger of A Lean Journey:

Photo courtesy of: http://www.aleanjourney.com/2011/05/lean-at-home-my-visual-schedule.html

Effective Lean efforts are visual and intuitive. One should be able to understand the visual cues with very little explanation or training, so it makes perfect sense that a family could use some of these tools to teach young kids and keep them involved.

When my repeated searches for other ideas about how to be Lean at home turned up very little, I wondered why. Perhaps its because the ideas are already out there, on HGTV or on Hoarders, and are just not being labeled Lean? Whatever the reason, I was happy to find Crisp's blog post Agile@Home-simplifying life using agile and lean principles. I especially enjoyed this annotated collage:

http://blog.crisp.se/2012/05/02/henrikkniberg/agilehome

The picture of the little girl washing dishes and choosing clothes from the piles are supposed to represent waste: work in progress and overproduction. The trip planning and homework chart are meant to track progress and visually lay out needs and scheduling intentions. The Kitchen Value Stream Map is a nice representation of how a process might be carried out in the kitchen. I'm not suggesting that every aspect of home life needs a set of work instructions but it might be worthwhile to give it a try on a small scale project. We can all think of something that needs improvement at home and as we've discussed before, Lean is all about small changes and continuous improvement.

If you are anything like me, most of the cleaning/rearranging projects that weigh on us are on the back burner until the day when we have more time or extra money to invest in organizational accessories. Most of the time, however, it is better to take that initial first step and do something. More often than not, you'll be motivated to keep going or pick up when you have the next opportunity. That's what I really enjoyed about my work on Lean initiatives in the factory. When you feel like you've accomplished something and can see and enjoy the results of your efforts, it perpetuates brainstorming and helps keep us engaged.

Lean isn't for everyone all the time

In last week's post, I referred to waiting as one of the seven wastes in Lean. This got me thinking about the challenges faced by service industries when they are seeking continuous improvement opportunities. It is true that there are times when the principles laid out by Toyota and the countless other Lean thinkers may just not work so well. That is perfectly okay. A counterproductive effort is the very antithesis of Lean so if the shoe doesn't fit, don't try to wear it.

In the same Special Report that I cited last week, we are told that minimizing process variability reduces errors and improves quality - the key to optimization. But would going Lean be a proper way to run a fire department? It's definitely inefficient to pay a bunch of firefighters 24 hours a day when the majority of their time is spent NOT fighting fires but would we be any better off if they were constantly busy and the fire fighting equipment was functioning at its capacity? The variability in this business involves the incidence of fires and that is simply going to remain uncontrolled, no matter how efficient the response to them might be.

Any time a business involves more service than tangible product, Lean is more challenging to fit. The customer is more integrated with the product and that complicates matters in a way that will be unique to each person. Any kind of personal selling involves a customized approach, whether that means your customer has their mind made up in advance or they want you to walk them through every potential option. If a process of selling is pre-planned, it's going to be difficult to hold to an allocated amount of time to make a sale if the customer wants to discuss some aspect of the product at length.

The following video has been shared on countless Lean forums and blogs. It helps us to remember that if there is no good reason behind the apparent "improvements," you will struggle to gain the support of the staff you are exposing to the so-called enhancement. Mark Graban explains the concept of Lean vs. L.A.M.E. (Lean as Mistakenly Explained or Lean as Misguidedly Executed) and is also the creator of this video, posted at his blog, leanblog.org.

What does Lean have to do with hospital beds?

There is a tendency to automatically associate Lean practices with products and production, posing a challenge in fostering a culture where it can be recognized as a tool for health care. As previously stated, however, Lean is a customer driven initiative. In health care, patients are customers and seeing things from their point of view is where an ethical Lean journey should begin.

The Boston Consulting Group and the University of Pennsylvania Wharton describe an approach to reducing waste and increasing "profit" in a hospital setting in their Special Report, Rethinking Lean: Beyond the Shop Floor. Partner and managing director at BCG Jon Scholl describes how a shorter hospital stay results in a quicker turnover of beds where hospitals can treat more patients without additional capital investment:

...a hospital with 800 beds that cuts average length of stay by just 10% can free up nearly 80 beds per year, enabling the delivery of more than 4,000 additional procedures and boosting operating profit by almost $30 million. 

Cartoon courtesy of: waittimes.blogspot.com

This seems like a pretty cold blooded and bureaucratic approach to caring for sick people. Or does it?

Overwhelmingly, patients surveyed reported more time spent waiting than anything else, beginning from the time they scheduled their appointment. Waiting is one of the 7 wastes in Lean. Booking appointments several weeks in advance leads to no-shows and consequent idle time. Another source of waiting occurs when patients are handed off between different types of medical professionals. A Lean approach to care might assemble a team that focuses on one patient at a time. Chris P. Lee, a professor of operations and information management at Wharton, explains “This reduces hand offs, it reduces medical errors, it reduces length of stay, and it improves patient satisfaction greatly.

Photo courtesy of www.levantar.co.uk

Ultimately, the biggest challenge to implementing improved systems in health care might be the actual time needed to focus on it. If you visit a clinic or hospital, you don't see nurses, doctors, or staff sitting around with nothing to do. They are all educated in their work, ambitious about helping patients, and have an interest in the reduction of pain and suffering. It takes a commitment at the management level to ensure that once the facility initiates their Lean journey, it will be funded, supported, and sustained.

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

Fix what?

In 2008, I was recruited to help with the implementation of Lean practices at the factory where I was a production worker. It was a 6 month project and I took it because I was always looking for a way to change my daily routine. Factory work can be pretty repetitive. What I never expected was that I would really enjoy Lean and see opportunities to apply it everywhere I looked. In that way, it was sort of a transformation. Once you take a step back and break things down in your mind, you look at the process in a completely different way. After I trained myself to see things again for the first time, so to speak, there was no going back.

I'll always remember when the head of our office told us that Toyota, who pioneered much of the Lean thinking and practices in use today, allowed plant tours so others could see how well their initiatives were working. Wouldn't a company so progressive and efficient want to keep their trade secrets private to avoid letting their competition pirate their practices? You would think so. The explanation was that continuous improvement is so entrenched in Toyota culture that by the time someone tried to implement their techniques in a different factory, it would have been revisited and improved by Toyota staff several times over already.

It's been 5 years since I worked at that factory, but I still think about Lean in my day to day life. I'll introduce some basic terms and practical concepts that have helped me see the opportunity for continuous improvement in all kinds of work environments, as well as at home.

Photo courtesy of xda-developers.com