A Standup Desk is Lean, Literally

Many of my Lean colleagues have talked about their standup desks. They have shared examples like that of Jamie Flinchbaugh, Kevin Meyer, Ankit Patel, and Jon Miller.

A recent article from Men’s Health brings to light the dangers of sitting.

Scientists at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana analyzed the lifestyles of more than 17,000 men and women over about 13 years, and found that people who sit for most of the day are 54 percent more likely to die of heart attacks.

Similar research actually dates back to 1953, when British researchers found that (sitting) bus drivers were twice as likely to die of heart attacks as (standing) trolley operators.

It doesn’t matter what your lifestyle is. Sitting is an independent risk factor.

In other words, it doesn’t matter how much you exercise or how well you eat. If you sit most of the day, your risk of leaving this world clutching your chest—whether you’re a man or women—as much as doubles.

Sitting in your office chair also has other dangers. It screws up your posture, makes you fatter, and can cause lower back pain.

What can you do? Make your own standup desk like this one.

Photo from Unclutterer Work Space of the Week.

If you can’t standup then these strategies will work in your office.

    1. Take frequent breaks from sitting. Stand up talk a walk twice per hour.
    2. Standup during phone calls.
    3. Hold standup meetings instead of typical conference room.
    4. Don’t write long emails. Get up and talk to the person.

There is also a new calculator to help you understand how many calories you burn by switching to a standup desk.

Provided by ergonomic product company Ergotron, the calculator requires just your weight and the amount of time you spend working (i.e., sitting). The difference in calorie-burn from using a standing desk can really add up (and when you're trying to keep the calories off, every bit counts).

So what are you waiting for? Standup is could quite possibly save your life and it is Lean.

Lean and Green - Together Maximizing Efficiency through Waste Elimination

Last week a modified version of my article "Lean is the means to be Green" was published on The Green Economy Post.

Lean manufacturing practices and sustainability are conceptually similar in that both seek to maximize organizational efficiency. Where they differ is in where the boundaries are drawn, and in how waste is defined. Sustainability expands the definition of waste to include the wider range of consequences of business actions including environmental and social consequences. Lean processes are inherently less wasteful and in this sense promoting lean processes can help organizations become more sustainable.

Below is the article in full.

Many manufacturers know the benefits of lean manufacturing: higher productivity, better quality, reduced cycle time, plus enhanced employee engagement. Lean is excellent at marshaling different groups and individuals into a high performing team focused on rooting out waste.

A Lean organization is commonly characterized by the elimination of the following seven wastes (Ohno’s wastes):

• Waste of overproduction (waste from faster than necessary pace);
• Waste of waiting;
• Waste of transport (conveyance);
• Waste from inappropriate processing;
• Waste due to unnecessary inventory (excess inventory);
• Waste due to unnecessary motion; and
• Waste due to defects.

By adopting Lean Principles, businesses can eliminate or reduce wasteful processes that can slow down the manufacturing procedure and add to costs.

In recent years many companies have established a fundamental goal to minimize the environmental impact while maintaining high quality and service for all business processes and products. This is commonly referred to as sustainability or green manufacturing. According to the Department of Commerce, “Sustainable manufacturing is the creation of manufactured products that use processes that minimize negative environmental impacts, conserve energy and natural resources, are safe for employees, communities, and consumers and are economically sound.”

When implementing lean within our organizations, equipment reliability is a predominant foundational element that enables lean operational performance. Embracing green manufacturing requires giving more focus to environmental and energy concerns during the implementation of reliability improvement projects. Improvements geared toward improving equipment reliability have distinct linkages to environmental performance.

As most manufacturers are starting to realize, the quest to become green takes them right back to Lean. Applying ‘Lean Principles’ – a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvement - is one of the key ways to enhance environmental performance. By applying the tools, systems thinking, and lessons learned from the process improvement methodology they can effectively operationalize sustainability.

Lean and sustainability are conceptually similar. Both seek to maximize the efficiency of a system. This is accomplished through waste and time minimization. The difference lies in where this system (or process) boundary is drawn and how, and in how waste is defined. Lean sees waste as non-value added to the customer; green sees waste as extraction and consequential disposal of resources at rates or in forms beyond that which nature can absorb.

When companies expand the definition of waste to include not only product and process waste, but also the business consequences of unsustainable practices, Ohno’s list of wastes takes a different form:

• Waste of natural resources
• Waste of human potential
• Waste due to emissions
• Waste from byproducts (reuse potential)
• Terminal waste, waste from by-products that have not further usefulness
• Energy waste
• Waste of the unneeded (e.g., packaging)

When the definition of waste is expanded and when it’s understood that the consequences of corporate decisions extend past the company parking lot, Lean can indeed be green. Less waste is good for the environment — and the company’s bottom line — and reducing waste in both products and processes is what Lean is all about. So it makes perfect sense that in order to achieve higher levels of environmental performance, your organization must first adopt the principles and practices of lean manufacturing.

There are also multiple Lean benefits from a green perspective including limitation of over-production. Other benefits include the reduction of obsolete equipment and the ability to provide efficient systems, thereby reducing both energy and materials usage.

Lean manufacturing practices, which are at the very core of sustainability, save time and money — an absolutely necessity in today’s competitive global marketplace. While the pursuit of Green and Lean is not a destination but a journey it is clear that organizations that stretch themselves to build a culture around the values of Sustainability, Excellence, and Equity will ultimately have a big advantage those who do not. Isn’t the ultimate definition of “sustainable manufacturing” to be able to compete and not only survive, but thrive?


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8 Ways to Create an Infrastructure that Supports Lean Replayed

Creating a Lean organization is never an easy task, but with the right Lean systems in place, it can be far less challenging. If you missed Jeff Hajek and I's presentation on creating an infrastructure that supports Lean you can see the replay here.

8 Ways to Create an Infrastructure that Supports Lean

View more presentations from Tim McMahon

Mark your calendars for our next webinar on September 3, 2011 at 12 noon ET. Our topic will cover 10 tips to help supercharge you on your Lean Journey.

Lean Quote: Promoting Respect in the Workplace

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Respect is the foundation stone of organization effectiveness. It encourages us to recognise the skills and experience of every individual and to work together to maximize our collective potential." — Building and Promoting Respect in the Workplace - A Handbook for Managers

In order for any group, organization, or institution to be able to build and maintain itself as a functioning entity capable of achieving its potential, it must be able to manage its interpersonal relationships in a positive – civil and respectful – manner.

In my experience a respectful workplace exemplifies the following 10 elements:

1. People receive credit for the good work that is done.
2. Individuals take responsibility for their actions/behavior rather than making excuses or blaming others.
3. Individuals are committed to keeping each other informed and trust each other to pass along information appropriately.
4. People collaborate on important issues by seeking out each others opinions and expertise.
5. People talk in terms of “we” instead of creating “us and them” distinctions.
6. Individuals focus on the main issue or mission and don’t get sidetracked by differences in detail.
7. Individuals respect organizational structures and roles and don’t use them as weapons.
8. Individuals value each other’s background and experience rather than discrediting each other’s competence.
9. Concerns, criticisms, and conflicts are openly raised, are focused on methods for accomplishing the work, and are discussed in a respectful manner.
10. People speak positively about their work, the organization, and the future rather than negatively or expressing cynicism.

Does your workplace exemplify these signs of respect? What others would you add to this list?



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Guest Post: Using Single Point Lessons as a Teaching Aide

Today I am happy to be guest blogging on Christian Paulsen's Lean Leadership Blog. Chris recently did a couple guest posts while I was on vacation and now I get to return the favor. I decided that I would talk about the benefits of using a single point lesson as a teaching aide.


It is often said that lean is 90% people and 10% tools. Knowledge is the factor which determines the rate of change in organizations. How do we learn and teach this knowledge within our organization? Many organizations use a “train the trainer” method where knowledge is handed down from one individual to the next. This is like the school age game “telephone” where one person tells a story to someone who tells someone else and so on till the end of the line where the final result is a variant of the original. The variation from this type of training can result in confusion, longer cycle times, rework, and defects.

A lean tool that can be employed for teaching is a Single Point Lesson, SPL (or One Point Lesson). Single point lessons originated from TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) as a method to teach knowledge and skills necessary for autonomous maintenance.

Keeping in mind this mantra:

• Teaching occurs when an opportunity for Learning is presented.
• Learning occurs when there is a change in behavior.
• Teaching is only VALUABLE when there is a subsequent change in behavior.

To learn about about single point lessons and to see an example continue reading here.




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Lean Leadership: Getting Executive Buy-in

Last month I was at an AME networking session in our Connecticut region. These sessions provide an opportunity for our members to get together for a couple of hours in the morning at a host company discuss a specific Lean topic. The topics change at every session and are decided ahead of time. Typically the participants represent a mix of experts and beginners on the topic because everyone is on a different journey and have been travelling the road a different amount of time. This is truly the value behind these networking sessions.

Our recent topic was centered around Lean Leadership. I know, this is a broad topic. The discussion focused on how to get executives in your company to want to support and then adopt Lean Thinking. We would all like to work at a company where the top people in the organization don’t just do Lean but live Lean but many of us work at a place where they don’t even necessarily do Lean. Since every company culture is different the way to get executive buy-in will be different. Here is a list of ideas from our discussion to help you convince your management to start thinking Lean:

• Bring Executives to customers who are implementing Lean to benchmark and understand how to better service these customer.
• Define core guiding principles from which common ground and a common vision set the basis for improvement.
• Understand what your leaders are supposed to do not what they are doing. The improvement you make must “replace” not be “additive”.
• How to get leaders “Doing” the right things – Focus on capabilities
       o Have them concentration on what they can do, not what 
          they can’t do.
                 How is your process working?
                 Where is your process broken?
                 What doesn’t work well?
                 What can you do about it?
• Survey the workforce- solve their problems.
        o What do you like? (in Company, Department, Daily Job)
        o What do you wish you could change? (in Company, 
           Department, Daily Job)
• All the manager should understand they are leaders.
        o Example of engineers not thinking they are leaders.
        o Need to lead up and down the organization.
• Understand where you are in the organization.
        o You can’t change it all by yourself- teamwork.
        o Everyone’s input is valuable – listen and let them be 
           heard.
• Get quick, easy wins (Someone gave example of the companies first Kanban was in the break room for sugar).

If you want to learn more about educating Executives in Lean you should read Bob Emiliani’s book Moving Forward Faster.  I recommended this book in a review a few months ago if you want to understand what REAL Lean is and how to support it or lead it in your organization.














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Lean Quote: Appreciation - It's Free and Worth a Fortune

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune." — Sam Walton

Many organizations say that their most valuable resource is their people; but they struggle to recognize the. Business success has never occurred without people and yet people are often treated as an asset of lesser class than the equipment. Put another way, no company can exist without it’s people. Today’s workplace relies on employee thinking, commitment and engagement for success; employees who are celebrated and regularly thanked for their contributions, consistently contribute more, out-perform others and are more loyal. Besides being the right thing to do personally, it’s also great for business.

Consider these three ways to thank and celebrate your employees:

1. Take the time to talk to, and get to know, your employees. The most significant way to thank your employees is to get to know them. Take them to lunch or schedule time to ask about their values, hobbies, and interests. Understand your employees. Use what you now know about them to build a customized skills-improvement performance plan. Spend time with, and become interested in, each of your employees.

2. Ask employees what they think. The best way to feel appreciated is to be included – to feel that your perspectives matter. In a Lean environment, we need input from all of our employees to be successful. Including employees in company issues, challenges, and opportunities empowers them, engages them, and connects them to strategy and vision of the company.

3. Say thank you, and mean it. Most managers actually do thank employees who do great work. Employees work for more than money. They work for the praise and acknowledgement of their managers. A sincere thank you, said at the time of a specific event that warrants the applause, is one of the most effective ways to appreciate employees. Remember the phrase, “What gets rewarded, gets repeated.” Start to say “thank you” or “I appreciate what you do” when it is deserved and it will inspire the behaviors to continue. Make it personal and sincere. Catch employees doing great things and respond. It empowers them, appreciates them, and celebrates their performance.

Appreciating and thanking your employees isn’t hard or costly. So take the time to make a difference in your employee’s life. You will be pleasantly rewarded by them making a difference in yours.



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