Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Kaizen Focus
The focus of kaizen is not on the work we do, it is on all the things that get in the way of the work we do.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Dantotsu - Best of the Best!
After a long, exciting and particular successful kaizen event at one of our plants, I returned to my home office to find a simple wooden plaque sitting on my desk with the words “Dantotsu” engraved on the front. On the back was a small post it note with a short message that read “Japanese word that means striving to be the “Best of the Best” – This is for you.”
After checking around the office, no one knows who left it on my desk and I still don’t know the reason behind this gift. It is possible this is a simple thank you gift. It is also possible there is no reason except someone found it on a 5S Sort and thought to drop it off on my desk.
I look to this plaque as not recognition of some past effort or a 5S activity rather as a vision for the future. A vision to strive to be the Best of the Best in all that we do. It’s a challenge to rise above the status quo and set the bar higher than just good enough.
Whatever the origin of this simple plaque, it sparks my imagination, ignites my curiosity and flames my passion for excellence. All the things I try to do for others along the lean journey. Things we should all do as lean leaders. This simple plaque serves as my mission to guide others better than I have in the past, increase my awareness and accelerate my efforts for excellence. In my mind, it is not a question of if I can do it but how I can do it best.
To become best of the best will require discipline, hard work, determination, self-examination, experimentation and persistence. Even if I fail in this quest to become the best of the best, I will certainly be far better than I am today and the path of continuous improvement is certainly no failure.
After checking around the office, no one knows who left it on my desk and I still don’t know the reason behind this gift. It is possible this is a simple thank you gift. It is also possible there is no reason except someone found it on a 5S Sort and thought to drop it off on my desk.
I look to this plaque as not recognition of some past effort or a 5S activity rather as a vision for the future. A vision to strive to be the Best of the Best in all that we do. It’s a challenge to rise above the status quo and set the bar higher than just good enough.
Whatever the origin of this simple plaque, it sparks my imagination, ignites my curiosity and flames my passion for excellence. All the things I try to do for others along the lean journey. Things we should all do as lean leaders. This simple plaque serves as my mission to guide others better than I have in the past, increase my awareness and accelerate my efforts for excellence. In my mind, it is not a question of if I can do it but how I can do it best.
To become best of the best will require discipline, hard work, determination, self-examination, experimentation and persistence. Even if I fail in this quest to become the best of the best, I will certainly be far better than I am today and the path of continuous improvement is certainly no failure.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Urges
The path on the lean journey is not an easy one as many of us have already discovered. Not only do we do battle with the defenders of the status quo, we are challenged by those that do not understand lean thinking, and struggle with others who simple fear change. But the challenge that I find the most difficult is one that I should have the most control over, that is my own thinking and actions.
All of us experience these moments of doubt, discouragement and defeat. At these moments, we can simply give in to our urges to cut corners, temptations to take the easy way or simple just give up.
It is also at these defining moments that we can become more resolute in our vision. It is our moment to decide our course of action, not just at critical moments but in our daily struggle. It is our choice to make. Do we continue on our path or do we give in to our urges?
Urge to slow down or give up because we encounter a difficult barrier
Urge to be complacent with the status quo
Urge to give a half hearted efforts and not giving it our all
Urge to think of all the ways something can’t be done before we think of all the ways how it could be done
Urge to decide on a solution before we grasp the situation
Urge to provide an answer when a question is a better approach to teach
Urge to just do it ourselves taking away the chance for others to discover it themselves
Urge to focus on the results and not the process
Urge to disrespect others and not take the time to treat others with respect and compassion.
Urge to think negative
Urge to be arrogant in our thinking
Urge to hear ourselves talk and not listen, really listen to others
Urge to run forward without bringing others with us
Urge to think of ourselves before the needs of others
Urge to soften or hide problems
Urge to seek blame
May we all learn from our mistakes along the journey and be mindful of the barriers on the path of continuous improvement, especially the barriers in our own mind and by our own actions.
All of us experience these moments of doubt, discouragement and defeat. At these moments, we can simply give in to our urges to cut corners, temptations to take the easy way or simple just give up.
It is also at these defining moments that we can become more resolute in our vision. It is our moment to decide our course of action, not just at critical moments but in our daily struggle. It is our choice to make. Do we continue on our path or do we give in to our urges?
Urge to slow down or give up because we encounter a difficult barrier
Urge to be complacent with the status quo
Urge to give a half hearted efforts and not giving it our all
Urge to think of all the ways something can’t be done before we think of all the ways how it could be done
Urge to decide on a solution before we grasp the situation
Urge to provide an answer when a question is a better approach to teach
Urge to just do it ourselves taking away the chance for others to discover it themselves
Urge to focus on the results and not the process
Urge to disrespect others and not take the time to treat others with respect and compassion.
Urge to think negative
Urge to be arrogant in our thinking
Urge to hear ourselves talk and not listen, really listen to others
Urge to run forward without bringing others with us
Urge to think of ourselves before the needs of others
Urge to soften or hide problems
Urge to seek blame
May we all learn from our mistakes along the journey and be mindful of the barriers on the path of continuous improvement, especially the barriers in our own mind and by our own actions.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Merry Christmas!
Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year filled with hope and harmony.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Finance Kaizen Success
We completed our finance kaizen event today with a greater appreciation and understanding of the problems our finance associates had to endure monthly in one of financial processes. Working as a focused team, we implemented a new standard work process that made this process just a little bit easier and better.
Final results for our efforts include new documented standard work, 8% productivity improvement, 33% leadtime improvement, elimination of 4 unnecessary reports, and the elimination of one major barrier that prevented seamless monthly reconciliation in this process.
In addition to these immediate improvements, our team found additional opportunities that will require some longer term efforts not discovered until we spent the time to grasp the situation and understand the problem. Our hypothesis, with our proposed improvements, is that our productivity can be improved 50%. Our kaizen team already has developed a solid plan to go after it.
In my last post, I mentioned the fact that a solution was thought up by one of our kaizen team members within the first 8 minutes of our data collection. We did log this idea into our “Parking lot” list to be revisited after we completed our data collection and analysis. This reflected our respect for the person with the idea and our wish not to lose any ideas during our kaizen process. As it turned out, this idea was used as part of our initial countermeasure.
However, if we had jumped right to this idea and skipped our detailed data collection and analysis steps, we would have arrived at only part of our countermeasure and missed entirely the deeper problem. With the deeper problem revealed, we have the opportunity for greater improvement.
More importantly, during this transactional kaizen event, we have helped develop the problem solving skills of several of our financial associates in our quest to improve the process to improve the people.
Final results for our efforts include new documented standard work, 8% productivity improvement, 33% leadtime improvement, elimination of 4 unnecessary reports, and the elimination of one major barrier that prevented seamless monthly reconciliation in this process.
In addition to these immediate improvements, our team found additional opportunities that will require some longer term efforts not discovered until we spent the time to grasp the situation and understand the problem. Our hypothesis, with our proposed improvements, is that our productivity can be improved 50%. Our kaizen team already has developed a solid plan to go after it.
In my last post, I mentioned the fact that a solution was thought up by one of our kaizen team members within the first 8 minutes of our data collection. We did log this idea into our “Parking lot” list to be revisited after we completed our data collection and analysis. This reflected our respect for the person with the idea and our wish not to lose any ideas during our kaizen process. As it turned out, this idea was used as part of our initial countermeasure.
However, if we had jumped right to this idea and skipped our detailed data collection and analysis steps, we would have arrived at only part of our countermeasure and missed entirely the deeper problem. With the deeper problem revealed, we have the opportunity for greater improvement.
More importantly, during this transactional kaizen event, we have helped develop the problem solving skills of several of our financial associates in our quest to improve the process to improve the people.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Finance Kaizen
This week we are working outside the traditional lean domain of manufacturing to apply the lean principles in our finance area on a small process improvement. Transactional work processes are different from manufacturing processes however the lean principles and problem solving approach remain constant.
After our initial kaizen training session, our team started talking solutions within 8 minutes of collecting data on the current state. Some human tendencies are hard to change. It took a little redirecting to get the team to focus only on understanding the current state before jumping to solutions. And it came as no surprise either that we learned many new aspects and details about our problem to consider before we think in terms of countermeasures.
Some of the discoveries so far include:
Incomplete information
Information is inconsistent in format
Information passes through several hands
We have to hunt and search for information
Information spends more time idle than actual processing time
Batch processes are firmly entrenched in the finance world
But probably the most enlightened discovery by our kaizen team is the fact this particular finance process should be thought of as non-valued added from our paying customer’s point of view.
Our lean journey in the corporate office has begun.
After our initial kaizen training session, our team started talking solutions within 8 minutes of collecting data on the current state. Some human tendencies are hard to change. It took a little redirecting to get the team to focus only on understanding the current state before jumping to solutions. And it came as no surprise either that we learned many new aspects and details about our problem to consider before we think in terms of countermeasures.
Some of the discoveries so far include:
Incomplete information
Information is inconsistent in format
Information passes through several hands
We have to hunt and search for information
Information spends more time idle than actual processing time
Batch processes are firmly entrenched in the finance world
But probably the most enlightened discovery by our kaizen team is the fact this particular finance process should be thought of as non-valued added from our paying customer’s point of view.
Our lean journey in the corporate office has begun.
Toyota Culture
“Moving machines takes minutes, but changing the way people think and act takes many years. What we call culture is the way we automatically think and act every day.”
Pete Gritton, Vice President of HR, Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing of North America, as taken from Toyota Culture by Jeffrey Liker and Michael Hoseus
Pete Gritton, Vice President of HR, Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing of North America, as taken from Toyota Culture by Jeffrey Liker and Michael Hoseus
Friday, December 12, 2008
Are you a Floor Sweeper?
Why do we prefer to sweep the floor every day rather than find the source of the dirt?
Journey to Greatness
My personal lean journey began in July 1985 when a former Toyota Industrial Engineer from Japan visited my plant to teach us how to improve. At the time, the term lean manufacturing had yet to exist and we only talked in Industrial Engineering terms of methods improvements. I was just a 25 year-old Junior Industrial Engineer at a Hospital Bed Manufacturing company named Hill-Rom, just three years out of college and not much experience in the manufacturing world. Little did I know that this chance encounter with my first Japanese Sensei would forever change my thinking and alter my professional career before it really started.
I listened intently on the words of this Japanese Industrial Engineer through the help of an interpreter. He talked about strange words like muda, muri and mura. In the middle of his lesson, he showed us a banana and talked about the necessary evil of the banana skin. Why must we buy a banana based on weight with the skin still attached, he asked? We can’t eat the skin, it has no value. What strange thoughts on things I never thought twice about before.
After our brief lesson, he picked three of us to work with him on a special project to show our management what is possible. Our team consisted of our new Japanese Sensei, a tool technician, a setup operator and myself. Our mission if we choose to accept it, perform a complete die changeover in under 10 minutes.
Is he kidding? Our die change took every bit of 1 hour to complete. This is crazy and unsafe.
Without flinching, our firm but patient Sensei told us it could be done. He has done it many, many times before and he would show us. We just had to open our minds and try it.
So with a team not all sure if it was really possible, we began the first steps in our lean journey. Our Japanese Sensei quickly took his pen and made several drawings to help show us what he had in mind. We took measurements, modified the dies, simplified and standardized the attachments and eliminated adjustments. After several attempts, his pen came out and additional drawings were created. Before long we made major improvements in our changeover time.
Our Japanese Sensei seemed satisfied with new quick changeover time but told us to do it again, please. He continued saying we must always practice. So all we heard after that was, “do it again, please”, “do it again, please” and “do it again, please”. By now, we were certainly sick and tired of changing the dies but quickly saw that we were making greater improvements.
Now we were ready to show our management the results. Our die change process went from 1 hour to just over 4 minutes. It was amazing! We didn’t think it was possible yet here it is. We did it. WE actually did it.
In this experience, our Japanese Sensei made us feel that we did it ourselves and he just pointed the way. It was the greatest feeling in the world to me that day to accomplish what was thought to be the impossible. My world of possibility and improvement became endless.
As you may have guessed by now, my Japanese Lean Sensei was Shigeo Shingo. After the successful die change demonstration that day, he handed me his personal pen that he used to sketch out his drawings. It was a simple blue ball point pen with S. SHINGO stamped on it. He told me I was a good engineer and to teach others what I learned. To this day, I still have his pen and try to teach others as a Lean Sensei myself. To Shigeo Shingo, I am forever grateful. He opened my mind to the impossible which makes all the difference to go from good to great.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Another Missed Opportunity
During our kaizen event last week, I was walking up and down the assembly line, practicing my observation skills when I noticed a small hesitation in work by one of our hardware bar assemblers. It appears that he stopped for a couple of seconds to examine an end bar with decals and rub his thumb over one of the decals. No sooner did this catch my attention, when he jumped right back into his assembly groove and fastened the side bar to the casket.
By no means is this examination of parts completely foreign to our associates. After all, we do specify as part of everyone’s standard work to check the quality of our products throughout the process. Quality is number, don’t you know.
However, from my vantage point at about 20 feet away, I could clearly see what caught his eye. The label had a small scratch resulting in a small torn hole. A defect that would most certainly disappoint our customer and clearly not pass our quality standards.
At this point, my thoughts zoomed in on this single unit and my curiosity kicked into high gear. Would he stop the line to signal a problem? Where was our team leader? Would the unit be fixed on the spot or sent down the line? Would the defect be tagged? What was our lean thinking on the line and what behaviors will I see in response to this defect?
Well, I didn’t have to wait long for my answer with our short takt time. After completing the assembly, the associate rushed to the next unit in line. This casket with a small torn label kept moving down the paced assembly line. No andon lights flashing, no buzzers blaring, no quick support help running to our aid, no red tags, nothing. If you didn’t see it just happen, it was like it never happened. Not even a little tick mark on a data sheet to record the problem.
How utterly disappointing it was to see this happen from one perspective and extremely exciting from another perspective. Realizing we have this problem is our opportunity for improvement. It is a chance for us to learn and kaizen.
With my new found understanding of our process behavior, I followed this casket down the line with added curiosity. Would someone else notice the defect? Anyone? How far down the process will this casket go before this defect is seen? Would it get all the way through to final inspection without detection? Would it even be caught by our inspector?
This casket moved along the conveyor matched to takt time, station by station, without a single associate taking notice to the small scratch with a small, torn hole on the bar label. Finally, the unit arrives at final inspection. I figure we have an 80% chance that this defect would be noticed in our human inspection process. The small scratch goes unnoticed and the units is passed, ready to be packed for delivery. I guess this unit fell on the 20% side of the equation.
Before the unit had a chance to continue on to our customer, I pointed out the defect to our inspector. It was subsequently tagged and repaired, a simple repair was all that was required.
Does things like this happen in your operation? If you were part of the leadership at this site, what lessons would you learn from this? What is the true problem or problems? Can you see all the missed opportunities?
By no means is this examination of parts completely foreign to our associates. After all, we do specify as part of everyone’s standard work to check the quality of our products throughout the process. Quality is number, don’t you know.
However, from my vantage point at about 20 feet away, I could clearly see what caught his eye. The label had a small scratch resulting in a small torn hole. A defect that would most certainly disappoint our customer and clearly not pass our quality standards.
At this point, my thoughts zoomed in on this single unit and my curiosity kicked into high gear. Would he stop the line to signal a problem? Where was our team leader? Would the unit be fixed on the spot or sent down the line? Would the defect be tagged? What was our lean thinking on the line and what behaviors will I see in response to this defect?
Well, I didn’t have to wait long for my answer with our short takt time. After completing the assembly, the associate rushed to the next unit in line. This casket with a small torn label kept moving down the paced assembly line. No andon lights flashing, no buzzers blaring, no quick support help running to our aid, no red tags, nothing. If you didn’t see it just happen, it was like it never happened. Not even a little tick mark on a data sheet to record the problem.
How utterly disappointing it was to see this happen from one perspective and extremely exciting from another perspective. Realizing we have this problem is our opportunity for improvement. It is a chance for us to learn and kaizen.
With my new found understanding of our process behavior, I followed this casket down the line with added curiosity. Would someone else notice the defect? Anyone? How far down the process will this casket go before this defect is seen? Would it get all the way through to final inspection without detection? Would it even be caught by our inspector?
This casket moved along the conveyor matched to takt time, station by station, without a single associate taking notice to the small scratch with a small, torn hole on the bar label. Finally, the unit arrives at final inspection. I figure we have an 80% chance that this defect would be noticed in our human inspection process. The small scratch goes unnoticed and the units is passed, ready to be packed for delivery. I guess this unit fell on the 20% side of the equation.
Before the unit had a chance to continue on to our customer, I pointed out the defect to our inspector. It was subsequently tagged and repaired, a simple repair was all that was required.
Does things like this happen in your operation? If you were part of the leadership at this site, what lessons would you learn from this? What is the true problem or problems? Can you see all the missed opportunities?
Friday, December 05, 2008
Illusion
“The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.” Huang Po
Lean Civil Disobedience
After a full day of kaizen yesterday, I made it just in time to watch my son play in his soccer double headed last night. It is always exciting to watch these games as these young athletes, in this case it was the 10 year old and under league, learn the game, practice their skills and have fun playing the game. It also made it very pleasant to watch the game in the comfort of an indoor soccer field while a light snow flurry dusted our cars in the parking lot.
The games were fun to watch even though my son’s team ended up on the low end of the scoreboard in both matches. The games were fairly typical except for one particular incident that caught my attention.
It seems that one of the team members on the opposing team was not happy with the coach’s decision to put him in as goalie. He reluctantly walked to the goal and stood there with his arms folded across his chest. I don’t know exactly why he disliked being the goalie except for maybe the idea that most of the kids say it’s boring to be the goalie or it’s not important. It seems the kids would much rather score goals than block them.
The coach yelled from the sideline for him to put his arms out and be ready. In return, the boy yelled back that he didn’t want to be goalie. The coach answered back that he had no choice and he better get with the program. In an open display of civil disobedience, the boy yelled back that he would play goalie but he was not going to use his hands. When we scored the next goal against this goalie that only half heartedly used only his legs and body to block the ball, he yelled back to his coach, “See I told you not put me in as goalie.” His coached yelled back that he would be the goalie until he started using his hands.
This struggle went back and forth as the game progressed without much change in position between coach and player. Maybe it was the fact that the player was the coach’s son that made it worse. Maybe it was the lack of subs that prevented the coach from pulling his son out of the game.
If you were the coach, how would you have handled this situation?
What would happen if the coach pulled his son out of the game and the team played without a goalie? Would the importance of having a goalie become readily apparent? What kind of message would the coach send?
Can you see similar situations where civil disobedience occurs in our workplace as we progress on our lean journey? Do any of our employees refuse to lift their arms to make a point and wait for a change to fail only to shout “See I told you it wouldn’t work!” How well do we explain the importance of the positions or changes to gain buy-in? Do we respond like this coach on our lean journey?
How often do we place greater importance on winning the game over taking action to teach valuable lessons?
The games were fun to watch even though my son’s team ended up on the low end of the scoreboard in both matches. The games were fairly typical except for one particular incident that caught my attention.
It seems that one of the team members on the opposing team was not happy with the coach’s decision to put him in as goalie. He reluctantly walked to the goal and stood there with his arms folded across his chest. I don’t know exactly why he disliked being the goalie except for maybe the idea that most of the kids say it’s boring to be the goalie or it’s not important. It seems the kids would much rather score goals than block them.
The coach yelled from the sideline for him to put his arms out and be ready. In return, the boy yelled back that he didn’t want to be goalie. The coach answered back that he had no choice and he better get with the program. In an open display of civil disobedience, the boy yelled back that he would play goalie but he was not going to use his hands. When we scored the next goal against this goalie that only half heartedly used only his legs and body to block the ball, he yelled back to his coach, “See I told you not put me in as goalie.” His coached yelled back that he would be the goalie until he started using his hands.
This struggle went back and forth as the game progressed without much change in position between coach and player. Maybe it was the fact that the player was the coach’s son that made it worse. Maybe it was the lack of subs that prevented the coach from pulling his son out of the game.
If you were the coach, how would you have handled this situation?
What would happen if the coach pulled his son out of the game and the team played without a goalie? Would the importance of having a goalie become readily apparent? What kind of message would the coach send?
Can you see similar situations where civil disobedience occurs in our workplace as we progress on our lean journey? Do any of our employees refuse to lift their arms to make a point and wait for a change to fail only to shout “See I told you it wouldn’t work!” How well do we explain the importance of the positions or changes to gain buy-in? Do we respond like this coach on our lean journey?
How often do we place greater importance on winning the game over taking action to teach valuable lessons?
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Master of the Obvious
Getting your Masters Degree in Business? Going after a Master Black Belt Certification? Masters in Lean Six Sigma? Do you secretly wish to be a Jedi Master? (Just for fun). Perhaps some other level of mastery in a specific body of knowledge is what you seek?
All are worthy pursuits in the quest for self improvement or development on the lean journey, except maybe for the Jedi Master one. However, I suggest that becoming a Master of the Obvious is a far greater challenge and one that we should consider utmost on our lean journey.
I am not talking about repeating what has already just been said therefore adding no value to a discussion. What I mean by Master of the Obvious is seeing what is right before us that most of us do not see. It’s about not missing the details. It’s about mastering the art of listening. It is about the ability to grasp the real situation objectively. It is the ability to make some complex things simple. It is about seeing through all the noise and getting to the essence of the matter. It is about making the connections. It is about having common sense that is sometimes not all too common. It is about being open minded to a better way regardless of our past beliefs.
Face it; most of us are oblivious to the obvious. With so much noise, clutter and stimulus coming at us at a faster and faster pace, it is understandable that we have difficulty making sense of it all. It is an amazing characteristic of human nature to overlook things depending solely on what we decide to focus on. It is also amazing that despite all the facts that may be known, we refuse to face reality because of ingrained thinking or habits.
Try this short awarness test of your powers of observation.
Awareness Test-Amazing - video powered by Metacafe
Here is a great example. As reported by the CDC, “Hand washing is the single most important means of preventing the spread of infection”. And every year, almost 100,000 Americans die from infections they catch in health care settings. One of the most obvious ideas (plain old common sense) would have doctors and other health care providers wash their hands as often as they should, right? But some research suggests that less then 50% of the doctors wash their hands as much as they should. Why?
What a waste!
The same can be said of each of us as we leave a public restroom. Some observational studies conducted by the Minnesota Department of Health reveal that at three separate public events, the percentage of females that washed their hands after using the public restroom were 64%, 65% and 75% whereas only 30%, 39% and 51% of the males bothered to wash their hands. And we wonder why we have so many colds going around?
Maybe I’ll ask for only female doctors in the future?
It is a difficult path to be a true Master of the Obvious because many times we are fighting our own human nature and irrational behavior but it is not impossible. The first step is self awareness that we need to improve our skill and then devoting time to practice our skills on a daily basis. Learn by doing.
Learn to Stop, Look and Listen more often. Work in small teams to help each other see what the other misses. Be a teacher and a student.
Make it your mission to develop people.
Be curious.
Open your mind. Have a beginner’s mind. As taught by Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few”.
Go and see for yourself.
Ask why? Ask why 5 times.
Instead of running after ambiguous or poorly defined problems, look at what is right in front of you. Fix it. Now prevent it.
Ask the people closest to the problem for their thoughts and ideas. Ask people the farthest away for their thoughts and ideas. This is not a discussion to share your ideas with them. To many times we are only listening for the pause when others speak as a signal for us to jump in with our thoughts and ideas. We are not focusing on what they are telling us. Keep silent except to ask questions and really concentrate on listening.
Fight the forces of the dark side that cause us to immediately think of the reasons why we can’t do something instead of focusing on how it could be done.
And in the profound words of Yogi Berra, sports legend and true Master of the Obvious, “You can observe a lot just by watching”.
All are worthy pursuits in the quest for self improvement or development on the lean journey, except maybe for the Jedi Master one. However, I suggest that becoming a Master of the Obvious is a far greater challenge and one that we should consider utmost on our lean journey.
I am not talking about repeating what has already just been said therefore adding no value to a discussion. What I mean by Master of the Obvious is seeing what is right before us that most of us do not see. It’s about not missing the details. It’s about mastering the art of listening. It is about the ability to grasp the real situation objectively. It is the ability to make some complex things simple. It is about seeing through all the noise and getting to the essence of the matter. It is about making the connections. It is about having common sense that is sometimes not all too common. It is about being open minded to a better way regardless of our past beliefs.
Face it; most of us are oblivious to the obvious. With so much noise, clutter and stimulus coming at us at a faster and faster pace, it is understandable that we have difficulty making sense of it all. It is an amazing characteristic of human nature to overlook things depending solely on what we decide to focus on. It is also amazing that despite all the facts that may be known, we refuse to face reality because of ingrained thinking or habits.
Try this short awarness test of your powers of observation.
Awareness Test-Amazing - video powered by Metacafe
Here is a great example. As reported by the CDC, “Hand washing is the single most important means of preventing the spread of infection”. And every year, almost 100,000 Americans die from infections they catch in health care settings. One of the most obvious ideas (plain old common sense) would have doctors and other health care providers wash their hands as often as they should, right? But some research suggests that less then 50% of the doctors wash their hands as much as they should. Why?
What a waste!
The same can be said of each of us as we leave a public restroom. Some observational studies conducted by the Minnesota Department of Health reveal that at three separate public events, the percentage of females that washed their hands after using the public restroom were 64%, 65% and 75% whereas only 30%, 39% and 51% of the males bothered to wash their hands. And we wonder why we have so many colds going around?
Maybe I’ll ask for only female doctors in the future?
It is a difficult path to be a true Master of the Obvious because many times we are fighting our own human nature and irrational behavior but it is not impossible. The first step is self awareness that we need to improve our skill and then devoting time to practice our skills on a daily basis. Learn by doing.
Learn to Stop, Look and Listen more often. Work in small teams to help each other see what the other misses. Be a teacher and a student.
Make it your mission to develop people.
Be curious.
Open your mind. Have a beginner’s mind. As taught by Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few”.
Go and see for yourself.
Ask why? Ask why 5 times.
Instead of running after ambiguous or poorly defined problems, look at what is right in front of you. Fix it. Now prevent it.
Ask the people closest to the problem for their thoughts and ideas. Ask people the farthest away for their thoughts and ideas. This is not a discussion to share your ideas with them. To many times we are only listening for the pause when others speak as a signal for us to jump in with our thoughts and ideas. We are not focusing on what they are telling us. Keep silent except to ask questions and really concentrate on listening.
Fight the forces of the dark side that cause us to immediately think of the reasons why we can’t do something instead of focusing on how it could be done.
And in the profound words of Yogi Berra, sports legend and true Master of the Obvious, “You can observe a lot just by watching”.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Are you Chasing the Rabbit?
One of the keynote presentations at the 2008 AME Conference was Steve Spear, author of Chasing the Rabbit. Steve’s presentation was a brief highlight of his new book which I have just finished reading. The main topic was stepping up to the challenge of complexity and examining the rabbits within our industry which is reference to high velocity, market leading organizations to learn how they always seem to lead the pack.
Several interesting points were mentioned like identifying the four capabilities of high velocity organizations.
Capability 1: Specifying design to capture existing knowledge and building in tests to reveal problems.
Capability 2: Swarming and solving problems to build new knowledge.
Capability 3: Sharing new knowledge throughout the organization.
Capability 4: Leading by developing capabilities 1, 2, and 3.
Another key insight is step by step training. Instead of dumping tons of information and tasks to learn in unison on a person to learn, it is suggested that teaching in smaller bits is a better approach. For instance, if you have an assembly line job with a takt time of 57 seconds, let the associate learn only the first element and the teacher perform the others tasks each cycle. Once the employee has mastered this task element, then and only then do you add the second task element while the teacher performs the remaining tasks. After the employee masters the second task, you add the next task. This step by step approach is repeated until all tasks are mastered.
In my opinion, the best part of the book discusses problem solving. The key learning for me is using the problem solving process to learn to become better problem solvers, not just to fix things. The act of problem solving gives us the practice in observing, analyzing and piloting change. So problem solving becomes a means to an end, improve the process to improve the people. WOW!
In Chasing the Rabbit, Steve details some great examples to illustrate from his viewpoint what makes companies a high velocity organization. A great book that I highly recommend.
Several interesting points were mentioned like identifying the four capabilities of high velocity organizations.
Capability 1: Specifying design to capture existing knowledge and building in tests to reveal problems.
Capability 2: Swarming and solving problems to build new knowledge.
Capability 3: Sharing new knowledge throughout the organization.
Capability 4: Leading by developing capabilities 1, 2, and 3.
Another key insight is step by step training. Instead of dumping tons of information and tasks to learn in unison on a person to learn, it is suggested that teaching in smaller bits is a better approach. For instance, if you have an assembly line job with a takt time of 57 seconds, let the associate learn only the first element and the teacher perform the others tasks each cycle. Once the employee has mastered this task element, then and only then do you add the second task element while the teacher performs the remaining tasks. After the employee masters the second task, you add the next task. This step by step approach is repeated until all tasks are mastered.
In my opinion, the best part of the book discusses problem solving. The key learning for me is using the problem solving process to learn to become better problem solvers, not just to fix things. The act of problem solving gives us the practice in observing, analyzing and piloting change. So problem solving becomes a means to an end, improve the process to improve the people. WOW!
In Chasing the Rabbit, Steve details some great examples to illustrate from his viewpoint what makes companies a high velocity organization. A great book that I highly recommend.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
2008 AME Conference Experience
What a great experience to learn from so many lean leaders and practitioners. After two days of attending sessions and networking with others on the lean journey, I have to say I have learned a lot.
I really liked the opportunity to talk with others on the lean journey and share our stories. It is amazing to hear all the great lean stories and there are so many of them out there. It renews my energy levels and fills me with hope for our manufacturing future in America.
Honestly, not all the sessions were flat out homeruns but I learned something in every session none the less. I just wish I could have attended more sessions and didn’t have to choose between so many good stories.
Here is a quick list of lean points that I am taking back to Batesville Casket.
From Dan Jones, Chairman of the Lean Enterprise Academy, UK: We need to accelerate our lean journey and close the performance gap. It is not a choice anymore, it is mandatory for survival. Ask the right questions rather than issue instructions and telling the staff what to do.
From Ken Goodson, Executive VP Operations, Herman Miller: Capture the gains and reinvest. As you free up resources, move them out and give them other tasks.
From David Mann, author of Creating a Lean Culture: For daily accountability-ask why and follow root cause. For visual controls-focus on process and capture the misses. For Leader Standard Work-We should maintain the visuals, convert the misses to improvements then sustain the improvements.
From John Shook, author of new lean book Managing to Learn: When you tell someone what to do, you take ownership and responsibility away. Create a process and provide an environment for improvement. A3 makes it easier to persuade others and understand your thinking. The A3 process leads to effective countermeasures and problem solving.
I did get a few moments to talk with John one-on-one between sessions earlier this morning. We specifically talked about Batesville’s lean journey and lean beyond the shopfloor. I did get a copy of his new book, Managing to Learn and I hope to pass on my review soon. Thanks John!
Other points:
* Hire best fit with emphasis on attitude and trainability
* Lean without education and training is not sustainable.
* To change your culture, you have to work within your current culture to do so.
* Lots of examples of employee led training and developing topic champions within your company.
My session this morning went very well and there were some outstanding questions throughout from an engaged audience. I hope to improve my delivery on a few points in the future but I felt that I got our lean message across. Thanks to all those who attended!
Tomorrow is the last day for me as I head back home. I plan to listen to Steven Spear, author of the new book Chasing the Rabbit (I got a copy of this one too), in the morning and hit a couple of other sessions. I’ll pass on any lessons in my next post.
Monday, October 20, 2008
AME Conference Toronto
I made it to Toronto tonight for the AME Conference this week. It should be an outstanding week and I look forward to learning more on operational excellence from my fellow lean practitioners. As the week goes on, I’ll post on my experience.
Try Something Different Today
One of the barriers to Kaizen is found in the comfortable arms of the status quo. For most of us, we have difficulty breaking away from what we feel secure in doing. If you really think about it, we are creatures of habit.
The biggest reason preventing us from change is fear, either real or imagined. To help us overcome our fear, we should embrace opportunities to practice doing things a little different. This spirit of adventure is extremely helpful in embracing the kaizen way.
You don’t have to do anything radical in trying something different. Pick a small change but pick something. For instance, it could be just trying a new way to go to work or picking a new restaurant for lunch or dinner.
Just last week while in Chihuahua, Mexico, I took this challenge. For the first time, I rented a car for the week and drove myself around in a foreign country. I did have a little help from a co-worker who knew his way around the city which made it a little easier. Certainly, there were some anxious moments but the experience was thrilling to me.
On the way to Toronto, Canada today for the AME Conference, I sat on the plane behind a family of four going on vacation. The two kids were probably 4 and 5 years old on their very first airplane ride. As we took off, the kids were looking out the window, really excited to fly.
Even as we hit a few bumps soon after take off, they filled the cabin with laughter like we were on some amusement park ride. Their laughter was contagious as all the adults around us started to laugh with them. These two kids embraced this new experience with complete joy and pure wonder.
For our lean journey, we could learn plenty from those two young kids. Embrace the experience of trying something different today.
The biggest reason preventing us from change is fear, either real or imagined. To help us overcome our fear, we should embrace opportunities to practice doing things a little different. This spirit of adventure is extremely helpful in embracing the kaizen way.
You don’t have to do anything radical in trying something different. Pick a small change but pick something. For instance, it could be just trying a new way to go to work or picking a new restaurant for lunch or dinner.
Just last week while in Chihuahua, Mexico, I took this challenge. For the first time, I rented a car for the week and drove myself around in a foreign country. I did have a little help from a co-worker who knew his way around the city which made it a little easier. Certainly, there were some anxious moments but the experience was thrilling to me.
On the way to Toronto, Canada today for the AME Conference, I sat on the plane behind a family of four going on vacation. The two kids were probably 4 and 5 years old on their very first airplane ride. As we took off, the kids were looking out the window, really excited to fly.
Even as we hit a few bumps soon after take off, they filled the cabin with laughter like we were on some amusement park ride. Their laughter was contagious as all the adults around us started to laugh with them. These two kids embraced this new experience with complete joy and pure wonder.
For our lean journey, we could learn plenty from those two young kids. Embrace the experience of trying something different today.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Where There is No Standard, There Can Be No Kaizen
These words spoken by Taiichi Ohno have been one of his most popular and well known sayings within our lean community. Typically, we use his famous words to stress the importance of establishing standard work as a baseline to measure any changes to signify actual improvement in our process. Without standard work, we can not be sure what impact our changes had on our process. The emphasis of standard work is clearly placed at the beginning of the kaizen process.
We teach the kaizen process to be four distinct steps:
1. Establish the existing standard work.
2. Analyze the current process
3. Make improvements (PDCA)
4. Document the new standard work
From these steps, we see that standard work is both the beginning AND the end of the kaizen process cycle. Not only is standard work required to begin kaizen, we also need standard work to finish kaizen.
How many kaizen events do we conduct where establishing the new standard work is not completed by the end of the event? Does our activity to document the new standard work normally end up on our homework list? What happens to our kaizen if the new standard work is not documented?
Documented standard work is just a simple written description (with pictures) of the safest, highest quality and most efficient way known to perform a given task or process. It is best written by the associates who actually performs the task and should be written in the most direct and simplest form possible.
How many tasks and processes do we perform daily where there is no documented standard work? How many of the tasks or processes have changed while our documents remain the same making them outdated.
In my experience, we do not place enough emphasis on documenting the new standard work in our kaizen event process so we easily backslide. The result is still the same. If you don’t document the improvements into new standard work, there is no kaizen.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Mi Mejora Continua
While rolling out our My CI program to all our manufacturing facilities, we learned that acronyms do not translate well. In our Chihuahua, Mexico plant, where I am currently consulting on two kaizen events this week, the use of CI (short for Continuous Improvement) was not well understood.
As a result, we changed the name to “Mi Mejora Continua” which simply drops the acronyms and spells it out as “My Continuous Improvement”. By the way, this employee suggestion program has had a fantastic start with over 50% participation level in just two months. We have expanded our kaizen wall fame twice already and filled all three walls up with implemented ideas from our associates.
As for acronyms, I have written in the past about the problems of acronyms as a barrier to better communication. Please avoid them as much as possible. It is amazing how acronym use has embedded itself deep into our culture. Think text messages. How many things are not completely understood in our daily life because of an acronym?
It is just not text messages. A few years ago, while helping my father-in-law out at his shop one Saturday afternoon, a wedding reception was about to begin at the local VFW Hall, which was located next door. As the wedding party made its way down the street to the VFW Hall, all the horns were blaring and people stopped to cheer them on. My 10-year old nephew, who was helping us out, watched with the rest of us as the cars parked out front and the wedding party made its way into the hall.
My nephew looked up to me and asked what the “V” meant in “VFW”. I told him the V stood for Veterans. He didn’t say anything at first and had a puzzled look on his face. So I went on to explain that VFW stood for Veterans of Foreign Wars and a little about this organization.
Oh, he replied and then added that he always thought the F stood for Funerals and the W stood for Weddings and he just couldn’t figure out what the V stood for.
As a result, we changed the name to “Mi Mejora Continua” which simply drops the acronyms and spells it out as “My Continuous Improvement”. By the way, this employee suggestion program has had a fantastic start with over 50% participation level in just two months. We have expanded our kaizen wall fame twice already and filled all three walls up with implemented ideas from our associates.
As for acronyms, I have written in the past about the problems of acronyms as a barrier to better communication. Please avoid them as much as possible. It is amazing how acronym use has embedded itself deep into our culture. Think text messages. How many things are not completely understood in our daily life because of an acronym?
It is just not text messages. A few years ago, while helping my father-in-law out at his shop one Saturday afternoon, a wedding reception was about to begin at the local VFW Hall, which was located next door. As the wedding party made its way down the street to the VFW Hall, all the horns were blaring and people stopped to cheer them on. My 10-year old nephew, who was helping us out, watched with the rest of us as the cars parked out front and the wedding party made its way into the hall.
My nephew looked up to me and asked what the “V” meant in “VFW”. I told him the V stood for Veterans. He didn’t say anything at first and had a puzzled look on his face. So I went on to explain that VFW stood for Veterans of Foreign Wars and a little about this organization.
Oh, he replied and then added that he always thought the F stood for Funerals and the W stood for Weddings and he just couldn’t figure out what the V stood for.
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