The Power of Leverage

The great Greek mathematician and engineer, Archimedes (c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC) once remarked on his work with levers, provided he had a lever big enough, just “Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the earth”. This boastful claim was based on his experimentation of the power of leverage.

A lever helps us multiply force to gain a mechanical advantage, or more simply, the ability to do more with less. With the length of the lever and a properly placed fulcrum (the support point for the lever to raise or move), we gain an advantage in our effort.

Based on this power, not only can we leverage our effort, we can leverage practically anything like money, knowledge, and contacts. Leverage make things works for us and we get more output with less effort. As simple as this notion sounds, many of us tend to stumble over what this means and how it works. Sometimes we are quick to take effort away and expect more results without changing the method or tool which only results is in us working harder. From a lean application, the power of leverage to do more with less is deeply embedded in our thinking.

What does Toyota use as leverage? At a glance, there are many ways Toyota creates leverage including their quality, reputation, brand name, cash flow, innovation and design. But their greatest asset is their people and Toyota uses this strength as their largest lever of all.

One powerful example of Toyota’s leverage with their people is by teaching, coaching and expecting everyone to be problem solvers. More problems are solved in a shorter period of time. By comparison, many companies fail to match Toyota’s problem solving skill not in intelligent levels but because we making problem solving an exclusive activity of managements and engineers.

People create, innovate and experiment. People learn and think. People create value. Robots and machines do not. Like Toyota, we say that our people are our greatest asset yet we are also quick to cut headcount to make our quarterly or year end numbers. With each headcount reduction and layoff announcement, we proclaim a cost savings. But all we are really doing is shorting our lever.

BONUS:Check out this cool example of the power of leverage by Wally Wallington.

Workplace Mantra: We MUST Stay Busy

During our fantastic kaizen event in sunny Chihuahua, Mexico last week, I was reminded of a common phenomenon still found in the workplace that people do not like to be seen idle so they will do anything to be seen as working. It’s like we follow this workplace mantra, repeating over and over again: we must stay busy…we must stay busy.

It never fails, when anyone is being observed they will do anything to stay or look busy. There seems to be this powerful unseen force in nature that tends to make us feel very uncomfortable to be idle when at work especially if someone is watching. The resulting action is for us to do something (anything) which is better than doing nothing. This pressure to “do” is magnified if the people around us are busy working or the higher up the ladder the person watching us is employed. It is worst if the person doing the observation is from the corporate office.

The problem with this stay busy work ethic is that we tend to fill our time with typically non-valued added tasks. Overproduction is one of the most common results. More importantly, it hides the problems of imbalance and work flow. Remember, motion does not equal value.

For example, we combined some operations to point of use on one of our main assembly lines in our Chihuahua kaizen event. In our old process, we had built up some work in process (WIP) inventory. Through our experimentation, we proved that the WIP inventory was no longer needed so we were trying to consume it.

I was standing next to the associate that worked in this cell and just by me observing him for an extended period of time, he felt compelled to follow the workplace mantra. He began building ahead just to stay busy. It took a surprising amount of effort and coaching to get him to understand and believe that it was ok to be idle. We also explained to him that by working ahead, he was also “working harder” and increasing his cycle time by taking extra steps and double handling. Finally, we were able to eliminate the WIP and get back in flow.

As a helpful hint, we suggested a list of more value added activities to could be done during this idle time rather than overproduction. This list included some equipment PM, workstation 5S or even thinking time to make improvements to their job. Yes, thinking!

So next time you are in gemba, look for signs of the workplace mantra in your operation. Use it as an opportunity to teach a better approach then joining in the crowd chanting…We must stay busy.

Value Stream Maps are Muda

You might be thinking that I have lost my kaizen mind by the title of this post. How can value stream maps be muda (waste)? Simple, if you think the goal of value stream mapping is to create a current state map and a future state map of your process then I will stand by my statement that value stream maps are muda. The purpose of value stream mapping is not to create the maps.

The entire value stream mapping process, regardless of accuracy and number of strategic kaizen bursts identified, will just be a waste of time if you do not include an implementation plan to get to the future state and then actually act on this plan. The goal of the value stream mapping process is to achieve the future state.

Earth Day 2008

Today is Earth Day 2008. Maybe it’s only me but it seems that this year it’s gotten substantially more press coverage than in Earth Days past. I think it is a great notion to put the spotlight on our eco-behaviors (or lack thereof) and make a positive effort to “do” more about improving our mother earth than just debating about what to do. However large or small our green activities, we should all plan to “do” something to improve our environment for our future. As part of the manufacturing community, we should also improve our company eco-behaviors for a cleaner future. It’s simply the right thing to do.

The 5S approach is just one example. Teach the basics of 3S (Sort, Straighten and Shine) and ask them to be repeated daily to achieve 5S. Explain that this is not a Spring Cleaning program to be completed once a year but a daily way of life. Encourage a daily 5 minute routine for everyone although you certainly can do more. And, focus not so much on cleaning but making a workplace organized to immediately see problems at a glance, any abnormality from standard.

Finally, while it’s great to see pictures and hear stories about the great volunteer work to clean up all the trash found in parks, rivers, and lakes, we should also follow the 5S lessons to look for the source of “dirt” and put in countermeasure to prevent it from getting “dirty” in the first place.

Now that we see we can make an effort on at least one day a year, let’s apply the kaizen approach and not wait until Earth Day 2009 to do anything else. Remember, the better approach to sustaining change is through gradual, small frequent improvements everyday.
Earth Day should be everyday, nothing special, no banners, slogans or t-shirts. Our actions to improve the environment should just be part of our daily way of life.

Value Stream Communication

In almost 100% of all business improvement books, the topic of communication is always considered a key factor to success. I am sure that many of us would agree on the importance of communication and may even consider it a universal truth. Most companies spend countless hours and substantial money to make sure communication channels are open and flowing. As a result, we have seen some pretty impressive technology over the years, all at our fingertips like cell phones, PDAs, email, laptops, voicemail, etc.

We focus not only on the quality and quantity of information but the speed of communication from the shop floor to management and back. We look of opportunities to improve communication including making sure we have solid two-way communication to battle the common complaint of only having one-way communication channels.

In our lean world, we understand the importance of information flow and communication. In fact, our value stream maps are constructed to focus on both material and information flow making opportunities visible in both areas.

But if we examine our value stream map process, we may find that is not always true. How many of us focus more on the material flow while constructing our value stream maps and give little attention to the information flow? Why? Is information flow harder to see? Is it that material flow has easy dollar savings tied to improvements in this area over information flow?

One of the most important, yet overlooked, areas of improvement in communication in our value stream is the direction of the flow of information. Just look at your value stream map. Are there more information flow arrows moving up and down (vertical) than information flow across the value stream (horizontal)? It is critical to look at improving communication across the value stream or this horizontal direction. This can reduce errors, remove non-value added gates, and speeds up the flow where it is needed most.

If you take a look at all our technology advances and communication improvements over the past few years, in which direction are we focusing on? Is it more the vertical direction (bottom-top-back down) or is it horizontal (side-to-side)?

This is not to say top-down communication is not important, just that we tend to ignore the very important horizontal communication path. Improving our horizontal communication is probably the most critical missing link we have today on our lean journey.

As an example of the power of horizontal communication, I can recall one event that occurred several years ago at another company. As with most typical manufacturing operations, our process was set up in a traditional manner, assembly followed by 100% inspection. The inspector looked over and tested the products, passed on good products and pulled non-conforming products off the line. The inspector, following procedures, marked the products and recorded that data. This information was passed on to the Quality Manager then on to the Plant Manager. The data was reviewed in the next day’s staff meeting with the supervisors with the action item to deal with it. And certainly, throughout the day, this information could be seen directly only if the Quality Manger, Plant Manager or Supervisor walked over to the inspection station.

What do you think about this information flow? How would you improve it?

Seeing that we lose valuable time between error detection and error countermeasures, we keep the information flow the same except for one major change. We directed the inspector to stop the line and notify the supervisor immediately with each problem. We also added that the inspector could stop the line and walk over to the most probable source of the problem and directly inform the employee of that process about the problem. At first the Plant Manager was not happy about all the line shut downs. But over time, we saw an amazing reduction of errors which ultimately improved productivity. Isn’t that what we are really after?

Take a quick walk to your gemba and look at the communication flow. Look for any ways to improve horizontal flow. How far apart are the associates in the value stream from each other? Can we change the flow to move them closer together? Can all associates see the proper information boards? Ask each associate what information they need and how fast is it getting to them. Ask each associate how we can improve the flow of information to them, get their ideas. With focus and creativity, improvements in the horizontal flow of information will greatly improve your value stream.

Thinking Outside the Wooden Pallet

Go to gemba and look at your dock area material handling process. Follow your material handlers around the plant. Go to your warehouse area and watch. What do you see?

One thing that I see in almost every manufacturing facility is lots of forklifts moving lots of stuff, mainly on wooden pallets. But looking at the material before it is moved by the forklift and right after, what do I see? I see no movement, no flow, just waiting, waiting and more waiting.

If I go back over twenty-five years ago to my first days in a manufacturing plant, I saw the very same process. I still remember our Japanese Sensei going up to the board drawing a crude picture of a forklift inside a circle with a diagonal line thru it, yelling at us in Japanese, “Muda!, Muda!, Muda!” It was pretty easy to figure out that he seriously wanted us to eliminate all forklifts and create flow. Sounds like a simple idea but we did not take him seriously. We did not see forklifts as muda then and we really still do not see them as muda today. It’s just how we do things.

As far as improvements to our material handling process goes, this process has virtually remained unchanged since WWII when the modern day pallet first appeared with the use of forklifts. Sure, there have been a few improvements but nothing that changes the basic forklift-pallet process of moving large quantities of stuff fast with minimal manpower. As far as doing more with less, this process works. While lean thinking supports doing more with less, we want to move smaller quantities of stuff only as needed with minimal manpower. We want velocity, we want flow. Does the process of forklift and wooden pallet really support our lean vision of flow?

One other thing I noticed is a strange phenomenon in the behavior of forklift operators. Once they sit down behind the wheel of their forklift, they stay there. For some reason, forklift operators absolutely hate to get up from their seat. It’s like there is this strong magnetic force preventing them from being able to get back up once they climb into their seat. Maybe their seat is Velcro padded preventing them from getting up? On rare occasion, I have seen forklift operators jump off their vehicles but only after first honking their horn a few times. Once they are forced to get off their forklift, they suddenly become grumpy. As a side note, I recognize this identical attachment behavior in other areas of the business, only it has to do with sitting behind a desk. Strange, huh?

A few things we must consider: How much does it cost to purchase/lease a forklift? How much time, energy and cost does it take to properly maintain a forklift? How much does a wooden pallet cost? What does it cost us in time and energy to deal with wooden pallets? How long do they last? Do we properly repair them? How many broken pallets have caused damage to our products, created a mess or caused injury to our associates? Do our associates have to manually move or lift wooden pallets? How much space does the wooden pallets storage take up? How environmentally responsible is the process of forklifts and wooden pallets?

Maybe we can not 100% eliminate forklifts and wooden pallets, but can we drastically reduce the need for them? Can we confine their use to just at the end of our plant and receiving docks? Can we eliminate them from our interior plant processes? Can we think outside the wooden pallet and come up with a better way?

Lean Manufacturing 2008 Conference

On May 20-22, 2008, Noria and Reliable Plant Magazine will be hosting their Lean Manufacturing 2008 Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. This super event will include several outstanding sessions on lean manufacturing along with plant reliability and lubrication topics all in one place. Don't miss a great chance to continue your lean education. I am honored to be chosen as one of the speakers for this event. I look forward to talking about lean and meeting many fellow lean thinkers. Please join us.

If it Ain't Broke, Improve it Anyway

One of the hardest lessons to learn and follow on the lean journey is where to apply improvement efforts. For many of us, we can easily understand the need for improvement efforts on the problem areas of our operation or bottleneck areas. But what about the parts of our operation that really shine? What about the areas that never give us problems, do we improve these smooth running parts of our value stream?

At one of our Batesville Casket plants, we are currently planning a kaizen event in one of these low problem areas in our operation. It was questioned why should we improve there, it is running fine. It would be easy to make the case that we should not rock the boat. Why push over the apple cart? What if we mess up? What Plant Manager in their right mind would want to mess with an area that does not cause problems?

Why improve a seemingly perfect area? Because we see opportunity there. The reason to spend the time and energy to improve any part of our value stream is the opportunity to simply create something better.

Fear of causing problems in our improvement efforts should never stop us from moving forward. If we do make mistakes, then make the problems visible and fix them.

Kaizen is never ending, everywhere, everyday by everyone. There are no conditions or boundaries to kaizen. In the true spirit of kaizen, even as a product line is phased out, you should make improvements. And you should make improvements, even on the very last day of production. So if it ain’t broke, improve it anyway.

First Day of Trading for Batesville Casket Company on the NYSE

This morning, the CEO’s of Batesville Casket Company and Hill-Rom Company rang the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange to signal the first day of trading as two separate public companies. Previously, both companies were divisions of Hillenbrand Industries which trading on the NYSE under the old NYSE ticker HB.

In today’s separation, the Batesville Casket Company will be traded under Hillenbrand, Inc (NYSE ticker: HI) and Hill-Rom will be traded under Hill-Rom Holding, Inc (NYSE ticker: HRC).
Congratulations to both companies on this historic day and continued great success in building our futures!