Kaizen Wall of Fame

Celebrate your employee’s kaizen improvements by creating your company’s own Kaizen Wall of Fame. While I visited Japan, I noticed several of the companies proudly displayed all the small improvement ideas from their employees. It’s easy to do and can greatly benefit your lean journey.

First, implement a small, simple kaizen. These are the small, common, ordinary improvements that we tend to overlook as insignificant or not important. An example would be where an employee added a recycle bin by the copy machine. Or another employee thought to eliminate a report that is no longer needed. To get a better understanding of the small, simple kaizen approach, I highly recommend that you read “The Idea Generator, Quick and Easy Kaizen” by Bunji Tozawa and Norman Bodek. This book does an excellent job of explaining the quick and easy kaizen approach.

Second, have the employee who created the improvement answer these three simple questions (just a short, single sentence answer per question is needed):
What was the problem?
What is your idea?
What was the result or benefit?

Third, take before and after pictures to better explain the simple kaizen idea along with a picture of the employee. Make it personal.

Finally, hang a laminated, color copy of the idea on the wall in your facility where everybody can see it!

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, you create a company wide communication board to share all these ideas. Finally, it helps motivate everyone to join in the fun of kaizen.

Aside note, one Japanese company (only 200 employees) I toured last fall will try to implement 50,000 of these kaizens this year. Your company may not produce quite that many but I would still plan on using a BIG wall.

Kaizen in the Dark

The windy city, Chicago, turned into a blowing, wet, snowy mess today. It was quite a shock to my body after spending last week working in sunny, warm Mexico. Towards the end of my morning lean training session, the power went out. Luckily, I just finished the PowerPoint part of the session but that left us in the dark to continue our lesson.

As we continued working with just a small amount of light from the hallway windows, all the office employees began to congregate in the hallway. Without power for their computers or light to see in their windowless cubicles, they could not work. The same went for the shop floor employees. It is amazing to see the power of technology abruptly halted by the simple lack of electricity.

But this post is not about the impact electricity has on our productivity. It is about the hidden opportunity this power outage provided us for kaizen. We learned which emergency exit signs failed to light along with a couple of failed emergency flood lights. It was easy to see (or not see) where new emergency lights would be helpful. Several employees suggested having rechargeable flashlights strategically placed in the facility. Another employee questioned our procedure for testing the emergency lights and how we might have prevented the problem. Before we knew it, we were starting a kaizen list with our new point of view! Even in the dark, or in this case because of the dark, we found ideas for improvement and an opportunity to learn.

Visual Management Confusion

While waiting in the drive thru line at my local bank, I looked up and noticed these conflicting signs. One sign clearly stated the roof clearance as 8'10" while the other sign informed me that the same roof clearance is 9'2". Huh?

While my car would have no problem at either height, this visual management conflict may cause a problem for others. I asked the teller about the conflicted message and she was not aware of the problem. To be fair to my bank, there was some obvious renovation work in process that most likely caused the problem and it was corrected a couple of weeks later.

These signs did get me thinking about all the signs we use at work as part of our visual management process. How many signs or other visual labels do we have at work that only adds to our confusion instead of helping us? How many are no longer valid or required? How many are incorrect? What about signs that are so worn that they can't be read? What about the bar coded tags on our stock racks that can't be scanned anymore?

We assume all the signs in our plants were put up for a reason. We also assume that the signs are accurate and needed by someone to perform their value added activities. I started asking the experts on the shop floor and found out that many signs were actually obsolete yet we never removed them. As a result, we started removing all the useless signs and improving the signs that actually were needed. Not only did our plant look better, it reduced the confusion and errors caused by poor visual management.

On your next gemba walk, take notice of all your signs and ask your experts if they help or just add to the confusion? Then work together to improve it.

5S Assignment Chart

One of the best aids in sustaining a daily 5S process is found in the 5S Assignment Chart. This assignment chart lists all the 5S tasks to be completed in a zone (designated area) along with the frequency the task should be done (daily, weekly, monthly), the person’s name responsible for completing the task and listing of the tools needed for each task (broom, towel, etc). All you have to do is post this assignment chart in the zone to help insure the tasks get done. Sounds simple enough, right?

Like most concepts I have learned in lean manufacturing, it goes much deeper that what we originally think. That holds true for even the simple 5S Assignment Chart.

For one, the posting of the 5S assignment chart, or for that matter, any other document, sign, work instruction, standard work sheet or PM task list, itself does not insure that the tasks are completed or followed as described. You learn that rather quickly after the initial excitement of the newly posted item turns towards the mundane. We sometime fall into the trap that anything posted is important therefore everyone will follow it. Not true. Just look at speed limit signs as an example.

So how do you use a 5S Assignment Chart successfully?

Here are just a couple of ways I found that work.

1. In the first column, organize alphabetically by name, the person responsible followed by the task, frequency and tools assigned to them. Typically, we list tasks first which makes it more difficult to see who is responsible and harder for the person responsible to find their assigned task. Make it easy (more visual) for each person to find their own tasks.

2. Cluster all the tasks for each employee together if they have more than one task assigned to them. Again, makes it easier to find all your assignments.

3. Have all the team members divide up tasks and who is responsible. In most cases, a leader normally just assigns who gets what task and some people don’t like the results. A team approach on this point gets better buy-in.

4. Under frequency, be more specific. Don’t just say weekly, specify the actual day of the week, i.e.Tuesday.

5. In addition to assigning specific days, make frequency visual. For example, use a column for each day of the week adding a symbol on the assigned day for each task. If the task is daily, put a symbol in every column of the week for that task and put it in color.

6. Assign a daily task(s) to every person. The 5S process works best if done daily so base your task listing with daily assignments.

7. Keep assignments simple. Assigned tasks should be completed in a daily 5 minute period.

8. Have each employee sign off individually (and daily) after completing their task. This, by itself, is not the complete answer however it is better than having someone else (a zone leader or supervisor) signing off for all tasks.

9. Have the zone leader or supervisor (as part of their standard work) check and review each day that the tasks for that day were successfully completed. Their job is to coach and support employees. If a task was not complete, ask the person responsible “Why not?” and “What can I do to help you get it done?”

10. Use the best management tool, the power of “Leading by Example”. Every leader should have a daily assignment and complete them daily.

11. Rotate the task assignments often. Share the burden and eliminate the boredom.

Management By Standing Still

Early in my management career, the hot management technique was something called Management By Walking Around (MBWA). Basically, a good concept for the times since management rarely, if ever, got out of their comfort zone of the office and connected with what was actually happening at gemba (the actual place), on the shop floor. Some may argue the point that disconnected leadership, never-leaving-the-office types, still exists today and I would agree. However, at least a few company leaders saw some value to venture out to the shop floor and found gemba.

Did this technique work? I think it resulted in only a marginal improvement at best. Management learned how to find the shop floor but ended up not “walking around” but “walking through”. After a brisk walk through and an occasional stop to chat, they quickly got back to work in the office. It turned into an exercise of “being seen” then “to see”. Yes, there are some positive results that can be found in just being seen and showing a genuine interest in activities at gemba. But what you end up with is a mere snap shot of gemba when you could see a movie clip. From my lean prospective, you miss out on a great opportunity to “go to the actual place and see for understanding” (Genchi Genbutsu).

To seek understanding, we need to move away from Management By Walking Around to Management By Standing Still. Of course, this technique can be directly linked to the famous “Ohno Circle”, a circle drawn by Taiichi Ohno on the Toyota shop floor for engineers to stand in for hours on end “to see and understand”.

Yes, it takes a strong commitment to “stand still” at gemba and many may not feel comfortable to just stand and watch at first. This uneasy feeling quickly disappears the longer you stand still. It is amazing what you learn about your processes by seeing for yourself when standing still long enough. Don’t rely on assumptions on what you see, ask many questions. Take a small pocket notebook and pen with you to record your findings, thoughts, questions and ideas. I use this technique quite often with exceptional results. So next time you go to gemba, try thinking movies not snap shots.

Is Upper Management Support Enough?

Ask all the experts what is critical to a successful lean transformation and one item always surfaces to the top of the list, must have Upper Management support. This sounds like a reasonable and logical requirement but is Upper Management support enough?

No, I’m not asking if you need other items like solid training, good communication, competent teachers, value stream maps, a designated Lean Champion, or even a KPO (Kaizen Promotion Office). What I’m asking is aimed at the role of our Upper Management in a lean transformation. Is support all that Upper Management needs to give of themselves in our successful lean transformation recipe?

I guess that depends on our operational definition of “support”. If support means giving a speech/email/voicemail to state that “I support kaizen efforts”, or mentioning in the company’s annual report that we are using lean manufacturing principles to meet our competitive challenges, or just signing off for funds to aid kaizen efforts, then “support” is not enough.

In my experience, we need more that just support from our Upper Management for a successful lean transformation. What we need is active participation; we need our Upper Management to “Lead By Example”.

How can we expect all our employees to embrace lean if our Upper Management does not embrace lean?

Here are just a few examples of the type of “Lead By Example” behaviors that any Company Leader can do, should do, must do:

1. Use your office as a shining example of organization in 5S.
2. Eliminate office waste. For example, personally commit yourself to be on-time for all meetings, 100% of the time. Your employees will follow!
3. As you walk through your office/plant/warehouse, always pick up any trash in your path. Don’t step over it.
4. Add the responsibility of ownership in a 5S zone and regularly completing a cleaning assignment.
5. Exceed any employee individual goals or expectations. For example, if you set the expectation that every employee should provide two simple kaizen ideas per month, then you will provide 3 or more each month, without fail.
6. When reviewing kaizen efforts, don’t single out just the large dollar saving ideas or consistently focus on the dollars saved. Promote the number of ideas generated or the speed at which we implement the improvements.
7. Learn enough on any lean principle or tool to personally teach a class on the topic to your employees. Then teach it!

The Bottom line, Executive Summary and Elevator Speech:
Success in lean transformation is dependant on our Upper Management going beyond just support to actively participating in improvement efforts. Upper Management must Lead By Example.

HOT Lists

With the reality of limited resources of time or process capacity, we need to focus on the “right” jobs first. Choosing the right job, in the best order to satisfy our customers, is no easy task. As our work becomes more complex, we look for help with the power of the computer. With MRP, ERP, CRM, or whatever acronym based tool we choose, we still are not able to react fast enough to our changing demands. As a result, we use a “HOT List” to set priorities.

First thing every morning, we check to see what’s “HOT”. We check to see if something requires our immediate attention over our normal, expected (planned!) work. It could be a job, a component needing expedited, or customer order that is “HOT”. The HOT List is used to prioritize jobs through the process, outside the normal order, to get these jobs complete first and without delay. This tool may work well if the HOT List is only used in case of emergency. However, that is not the case in my experiences. Every single day, we are faced with a HOT List.

After a while, the HOT List grows and grows until it no longer has a clear set of priorities. So what do we do? We create another list called the URGENT List. Now we complete the URGENT items first, followed by the HOT items and then the planned items.

Once again, our URGENT List seems to grow too large as did our HOT List. This leads us to create the CRITICAL List. Now we complete the CRITICAL items first, followed by the URGENT items, the HOT items and then the planned items.

In no time at all, we end up with more levels of HOT lists then the number of hot sauce levels at a Buffalo Wings restaurant. As our “HOT” priority system becomes more complex, we need more human effort to maintain it, track it and follow it.

It would not be uncommon that even the term “HOT” does not stir us to immediate action. I have seen parts clearly marked “HOT” bunched with other parts without any special action to move it ahead of the other parts. When asking about them in particular, the answer I usually get is that if it was really “HOT” someone would be yelling for it. So much for marking parts “HOT”.

How many different HOT Lists are you using? Do we just accept the use of a HOT List as a daily tool to set planned work? Maybe we could skip the planning all together and just use a HOT List approach?

Any process using a HOT List should look to convert it to a “KAIZEN List”. Try tracking each item on your HOT List and determine the root cause for it being on the list. Our focus should be on setting up countermeasures to prevent it from becoming “HOT” so the planned process will flow.

Website for Honda Jobs in Greensburg Indiana

For those interested, Honda recently announced a website to apply for jobs at the new Honda plant currently being built in Greensburg, Indiana. At this time, production associate applications are not open yet. However, some non-production associate positions have been posted. For more information, please visit www.indiana.honda.com.

Best of Luck!

Put Brains into the Method

After finishing Henry Ford’s book, “My Life and Work”, published in 1922, it is easy to see the impact his approach to manufacturing had on Taiichi Ohno and the development of the Toyota Production System. Here is a great lesson from his book:

“It is not good management to take profits out of the workers or the buyers; make management produce the profits. Don’t cheapen the product; don’t cheapen the wage; don’t overcharge the public. Put brains into the method, and more brains, and still more brains-do things better then ever before; and by this means all parties to business are served and benefited”.

The First Lean Hospital

It is extremely encouraging that lean manufacturing principles are beginning to take hold as an improvement approach in our healthcare industry. Our current healthcare system could certainly benefit from the elimination of waste and improvement of services.

I recently read, with great interest, about an experiment to transfer the manufacturing lessons in productivity to a hospital environment (600 beds) with some success. Here are a few excerpts that I found interesting:

“It is not at all certain whether hospitals as they are now managed exist for patients or for doctors.”

“It has been an aim of our hospital to cut away from all of these practices and to put the interest of the patient first. Therefore, it is what is known as a “closed” hospital. All of the physicians and all of the nurses are employed by the year and they can have no practice outside the hospital. They are paid salaries that amount to at least as much as they would ordinarily earn in successful private practice. They have, none of them, any financial interest whatsoever in any patient.”

“In the ordinary hospital the nurses must make useless steps. More of their time is spent in walking than in caring for the patient. This hospital is designed to save steps. Each floor is complete in itself, and just as in the factories we have tried to eliminate the necessity for waste motion, so we have tried to eliminate waste motion in the hospital.”

This account details some additional topics like nurse to patient ratios, hospital design, and admissions. The most interesting part is who led this lean hospital transformation and when this experiment took place. Anyone care to guess?

This account was taken from the book I just finished reading titled “My Life and Work” by Henry Ford in 1922 referencing his experiment at Ford Hospital (previously Detroit General Hospital) in 1919. So I would guess that might establish Ford Hospital as the first attempt at a “Lean” hospital.

Absolute Elimination of Waste

“The basis of the Toyota production system is the absolute elimination of waste.”
Taiichi Ohno, Toyota Production System, 1988

As business leaders and lean practitioners, we can easily grasp the “elimination of waste” concept. It’s really common sense. What we tend to skip over and where we fall short is the “absolute” part. Absolute, meaning without limitation, total, complete, entire, infinite, full, unrestricted, unconditional, unbounded, utter, unmitigated, thorough, and wholehearted.

The absolute elimination of waste approach is one great challenge!

Setting Standard Time

My first professional job after graduating from college was a Junior Industrial Engineer tasked with time study duty and implementing methods improvements. Over the course of several years, I completed thousands of time studies with my trusted stopwatch. Since those days, I have learned several different approaches to setting the standard time like using the average time method, using the lowest repeatable time method and using the shortest observed time method. So which method should you use set a standard time?

My IE training in establishing a valid time standard was drilled into me to capture a repetitive method, rate the work pace, record the proper number of cycles, red circled non-standard times and take the average time as the standard. For example, if 10 cycles were recorded as follows in seconds (50, 53, 49, 47, 49 54, 46, 51, 65, 52) I would have red circled (not counted or excluded) the 65 second time and calculated the standard time for this task as 51 seconds (rounding up to the largest second). Also, I would have added a PF&D allowance (Personal Fatigue and Delay) boosting the time even higher but lets leave it out for this example.

When taught how to do a time observation to set the standard time in a kaizen event, the method was a little different. The observed work was set to a repetitive method and the lowest repeatable time was established as the standard time. Using the same times recorded in the above example, I would establish the standard time as 49 seconds.

Following the teachings of Taiichi Ohno, he believed that the best standard time is the shortest observed time. Again, using the same 10 time observation above, the standard time would be set at 46 seconds. Ohno stated that we should focused on the method used to complete the task in shortest time , trying to repeat it exactly and eliminating the causes in the other observations that prevented the operator from repeating the shortest time.

So which is the standard time in our example, 51 seconds, 49 seconds or 46 seconds?

Let’s look at taking the average observed time method resulting in the 51 second standard time. From the range of timed observations, we see that variation in the process exists. This variation could be from anything from dropping a screw, part mis-alignment, adjustments, location of parts, a miss feed, etc. Regardless of the cause, this variation is non-value added or a waste. So why would we include waste in our standard? What if the range was larger? Would we still accept this method? With our lean approach we should not accept this waste in our standard so it appears that using the average is not the best method.

As for the lowest repeatable time method, is this method of setting the standard time any better? In our example, it removes allowance for some of the waste however elements of waste would still be accepted. In our example, it is slightly better. But what if, based on our observations, the lowest repeatable time was above the average? In this case, it would include more waste in our standard. Again, this may not be the best method.

That leaves us with using the shortest observed time method as the best standard time. Some may argue with Taiichi Ohno saying that this one shortest recorded time is too strict, not repeatable, a fluke occurrence or even a small miracle. But instead of arguing against the merits of using the shortest time, we could put the same efforts into doing exactly what Taiichi Ohno tells us. Determine the reasons why the other times failed to reach the shortest time and eliminate them. Our efforts will be rewarded with the shortest time as the easiest time that can be repeated. Isn’t that core in our lean principles, seeing and eliminating waste?

Excellent Six Sigma Blog

There is a "newer" six sigma blog in the blogging world that is an excellent site for news and information on our improvement journey. Six Sigma blog written by Ma. Merdekah "Meikah" Ybanez-Delid brings a fresh and genuine quality interest for us to learn. Please check out Meikah's blog for a great new voice for six sigma improvement. Thanks Meikah for a creating a wonderful blog site and keep up the good work!

Training Within Industry

The Paradigm Network of Central Indiana had the privilege of hosting a Training Within Industry (TWI) presentation by Jim Huntzinger at our monthly meeting held in Indianapolis yesterday morning. Jim did an excellent job of covering the basics of TWI and its link with standard work. In listening to Jim’s discussion points, if you have experienced problems with backsliding or maintaining kaizen gains, TWI may be worth a closer look.

If you have not heard about TWI yet, I highly recommend you learn a little more about the historic program and how it is making its way back to into our understanding of the Toyota way. I say historic with regard that TWI originated in the United States during WWII to address the need of rapidly training our new manufacturing workforce that replaced the men sent off to war. By all accounts, it was a huge success. After the war, TWI was adopted in Japan during their reconstruction effort. Toyota modified TWI into their approach and considers it the foundation in developing standard operations used today.

Briefly, the TWI program is divided into three areas, Job Relations (JI), Job Instructions (JI), and Job Methods (JM). All three are important to maintaining our gains but the job instruction segment hit closer to home for me. In my experience, we do an extremely poor job of training our people in standard work. How many of you use this approach at work? Once an employee reads the work instructions and signs the training log that he has read it, he is now considered trained. This is the same as telling someone to read a book on swimming and then saying they know how to swim. In both cases, true learning is only achieved by doing. You have to actually get in the water and repetitively practice before you can learn to swim well. The TWI program for Job Instruction emphasizes learning by doing with guidance, exactly how Toyota does it today.

Another great point in Jim’s presentation is that “no matter how much knowledge or skill a person has about the work itself, if they do not have the skill in instructing, it will not be possible to pass that knowledge and skill to others.” Amen. We assume a person is properly trained just because someone with the skill taught him. How many times on the shop floor do we tell a new employee to follow an experienced (skilled) employee around to learn the job? Have we every trained our “skilled employee” on how to instruct? Probably not. We need to insure that anyone designated as a trainer gets proper training on how to train.

For more information on TWI you can check out the newly formed TWI Institute or plan on attended the TWI Summit scheduled for June 5-6, 2007. To hear Jim talk about TWI, please go the Lean Blog and listen to Mark Graban's podcast #15 with Jim Huntzinger.

Measuring Success

I recently attended the project presentations by my latest group of six sigma green belt candidates. Their reports were all well prepared and the improvement results for their company were very good. As their course instructor, I felt proud of their accomplishments as each candidate told their project story.

With a six sigma project, we typically focus our attention on the accomplishments in reductions in variation, reduced PPM rates, elimination of a cause for failure, or customer satisfaction improvements. Similarly, kaizen events focus on accomplishments in reductions in floor space, reductions in inventory, productivity gains, or improved throughput flow. Just read any article on a lean success story or the stories from companies as winners of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, Industry Weeks Top 10 Plants, or the Shingo Prize and all focus primarily on the same metrics of success. All of these accomplishments are great and I could go in great detail on what my students reported but I won’t.

When I say “proud of their accomplishments”, it is not these typical accomplishments that are my primary interest. All these accomplishments are secondary to what should be the primary measure of success. What I am talking about is the personal development of each student. How did each candidate develop and grow? How each student was challenged? In other words, it is the “Respect for People” pillar found in the Toyota Way.

To hear each candidate share how they thought through their approach, why they used certain improvement tools, and figured out how to overcome barriers was exciting. To see each candidate energized by their project, stronger in their self confidence and excited to use their new skills on future opportunities for improvement made me proud.

It is not about the one time results of a six sigma project or kaizen event that should get our attention. It is how people are better skilled and better motivated for the future that should get us excited. It should be all about the quality and development of our people that we measure our success.

Confessions of a Recovering Concrete Head

Hi, my name is Mike and it has been 5,840 days since I was a concrete head.

My initial introduction to kaizen was the 5 day kaizen event. On the surface, the idea of kaizen seemed so simple to me however I was skeptical of all the new manufacturing approaches with the promise of amazing results as it was presented to me. It just sounded too good (and too easy) to be true.

We had a Top Tier Japanese consultant acting as our sensei for the event with a huge scoped project, impossible target goals and a looming Friday deadline. The week was filled with a flurry of activities and constant motivating (yelling) guidance from our never-gives-a-compliment consultant. Getting yelled at in Japanese is a unique cultural experience all to its own plus you get the English version from a translator, only without the emotion. My bet was that the translation was probably kinder in word than the actually Japanese meaning. It was almost funny if it wasn’t for the public pronouncement to my team members that I was a concrete head.

Me? A Concrete Head? I have been called a lot of names before but never a concrete head. For those of you new to lean, a concrete head is someone who is hard headed and not open minded. It is a term given to those of us that questioned these new approaches to manufacturing.

From my viewpoint, I was acting as a critical thinker and as a responsible Industrial Engineer. It was my duty to act and think in the best interests of my companies operation. I did not take this responsibility lightly and held the belief that there was nothing wrong with putting any and all ideas under the microscope. If the idea held water, it was a good one. If the idea was full of holes, then don’t expect it to float.

My Japanese sensei held a different point of view. He was the “wax on, wax off” type of sensei that expected me to “just do and don’t ask”. At first, that was extremely difficult for me. It was not that I didn’t see the merit in his teachings; heck, most of it was basic Industrial Engineering. It’s just that I had unanswered questions how it all fit together. I still was not convinced it would work. Besides, this guy had no experience in my industry, never put my product together, and did not realize just how different we were from his manufacturing experience. We had to deal with unique issues and problems.

Eventually, I was persuaded to just try it. I realized that we were not going to move forward unless I at least tried. So, putting my concerns aside, I followed the direction pointed out by my sensei. As you might have guesses, these wild improvement ideas worked and it actually worked better. This got my attention.

In thinking back, I see that it was pretty easy to come up with all the reasons why something won’t work and it was a greater challenge to think of the ways how to make it work. Stepping up to this challenge with determination and creativity, I found a greater sense of accomplishment by making it work. It opened up a whole new reality of possibilities.

My first lean lesson was beginning to take hold, be humble to gain understanding.

What is Kaizen?

I created a treasure hunt for my daughter's birthday party a few years ago. With a small army of first graders running around our yard for an afternoon, we had planned several games to keep it fun. I divided them up into small teams to follow simple clues to find the next clue hidden somewhere in the yard. This leads to additional clues until it eventually leads them to the location of the hidden treasure. They all had a great time in pursuit of the hidden treasure.

It was actually very funny to see groups of seven year olds, bursting with excitement, read the simple clue and start running as fast as they could. I had no idea where they were running to and neither did they most of the time. As soon as they read the clue, they just started running without trying to understand the meaning of the clue. In their excitement to act, they did not think first. With a little help from the parents, we focused their thinking on the meaning of the clue. Then they were off running again.

Kaizen is one of the keys to success at Toyota. We have attempted to bring kaizen into our businesses with limited success mainly because we did not take the time to understand what kaizen really means, just like my daughter and her friends did on their treasure hunt.

In the most basic definition, we took kaizen to simply mean “continuous improvement”. Easy enough to understand and off we ran to make improvements. But where are we running to? Are we going in the right direction? How do we know?

With greater understanding, kaizen means more than just continuous improvement. Kaizen means gradual, small and frequent steps towards improvements in all things. It is a way of thinking to constantly do little things better. It is a life-long path to set and achieve higher, lasting success. The reason kaizen is lasting is because it is done in small, comfortable steps. The reason kaizen is powerful is that it is done every day.

Let’s find our hidden treasure by taking one small step forward everyday.

New Lean Six Sigma Blog

I just read a new blog called Lean Six Sigma Academy written by Ron Pereira. It is great to hear another voice in the Continuous Improvement world for us to learn from and Ron has many years of practical experience to draw from. Welcome to blogging, Ron. I look forward to reading your posts.

Lean Manufacturing at Boeing

The last couple of months have been tremedously busy for me. That's great from a working point of view however the lack of blogging has been a negative side effect. I will attempt to get back on track and share some of the great things I have seen and learned as I continue on my lean journey.

For the first week of 2007, I am working in Seattle, Washington. Fortunately, I made some free time to visit the Boeing Assembly plant in Everett. I specifically wanted to see for myself some of the lean improvements at Boeing that I have been reading about, like the moving 777 assembly line.

What an amazing manufacturing operation! First off, this plant is by far the largest manufacturing plant I have ever seen. That makes sense for a company with 23,000 employees on site making products like jumbo jets but once you stand in this plant, the huge size simply stuns you. This factory is over 98 acres under one roof, totaling 4.3 million square feet. Just image 911 basketball courts! The ceiling stands 9 stories tall and even the hanger doors are huge-almost the size of a football field!

More amazing for me than the sheer physical size of the plant, is seeing the manufacturing operation of a jumbo jet in person. Even though I just got to see a glimpse of the assembly process, I can appreciate the complexity of the task. The 747 has over 6 million parts and the 777 has 3 million parts. I was told it takes over four months once the parts arrive to build one jumbo jet with a takt time of about one jet every 3 days off the line.

The 777 assembly line was set up as a moving line in September 2006 however for some reason it was not in operation this week. That was a disappointment for me. My tour guide could not provide any details why it was not working. At the end of the line, a huge takt time clock was on display that could be easily seen across the 1/3rd of a mile long assembly line. The best that I could see, everything was on casters from the platforms to the material handling carts. Most of the carts, racks and assorted stations were built with Kaizen pipe. Very little material was stored on the line and all the parts seemed placed in specific floor locations. It also appeared that engineers and other management personal had workstations on the assembly platforms right next to the jets.

Although you could definitely see the progress of a company on a lean journey, like most of us, Boeing still has a long way to go. The work pace appeared downright calm for what I am accustom to seeing in other manufacturing operations. It also appeared that a terrific amount of walking back and forth by employees took place. Boeing has a tough task of pacing work within a 3 day takt time and I did not see any visual indication if that was being monitored or established as standard work.

Unlike what I saw at Toyota, I did not see any problem solving process systems in place for quick reaction at Boeing. Some of you may think that with a 3 day takt time, an andon type rapid response system is not needed. First and foremost, problems need to be seen and not hidden so they can be fixed. The point is to improve the process to fix the problem instead of repeatedly dealing with a problem. It would be way too easy to hide a problem in a 3 day takt time.

Despite what I observed as areas for improvement, the Boeing operation was very cool to see in action. To be fair and accurate to Boeing's lean initiative, if any of you know more about these particular issues and can provide additional insight on how these issues are addressed, I would love to hear about them.

In addition to the 777 line, I looked over the assembly area being set up for the brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliner set for production in 2008. It was easy to see that the lean lessons learned on the 777 and 747 lines will be incorporated into the new 787 assembly line. I can't wait to revisit Boeing in 2008 to see the Dreamliner in operation.

Dynamite to Dry Rot

The world of work is filled with challenges, problems and obstacles ranging from minor irritations to major catastrophes. Some of these issues are truly beyond our control and we react to the best of our ability to overcome the difficulties and pain inflicted by them. But the problems within our control that we allow to exist, in my opinion, are the most wasteful and painful. One prime example is how we neglect our equipment in manufacturing and the effect of unplanned downtime, lost productivity and declining quality this neglected equipment causes our business.

It is sad to see manufacturing equipment that once was a dynamite piece of machinery turned to dry rot, all because it was not important to us to maintain this machine in top working condition. It’s sometimes hard to believe that, at one time, this piece of equipment was a brand new machine primed for productivity.

Some may believe this is just the nature of all machinery and not give it another thought. We simply go to the bank and borrow money for a new one. All things mechanical fall apart, wear out, or just plain die. It’s a scientific fact of life.

Yes, nothing lasts forever. But by neglecting our machines, we suffer with constant breakdowns that never occur at a good time and our machine suffers a shortened useful life by forced deterioration.

In my experience, the useful life of machinery can be maximized by proper care and attention. Even if we have neglected our machines in the past, we can still extend its useable life. Here are five simple ideas that can help.

1. Clean up the machine and keep it clean.
2. Have Operators take the lead in maintaining the machinery instead of the Maintenance Deptartment.
   
3. Simply keep the bolts of your machines tightened.
   
4. Perform daily machine inspection.
5. Take the time to stop and fix the small problems.