Daily Lean Tips Edition #84 (1261-1275)

For my Facebook fans you already know about this great feature. But for those of you that are not connected to A Lean Journey on Facebook or Twitter I post daily a feature I call Lean Tips.  It is meant to be advice, things I learned from experience, and some knowledge tidbits about Lean to help you along your journey.  Another great reason to like A Lean Journey on Facebook.

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Here is the next addition of tips from the Facebook page:

Lean Tip #1261 - Hold Touch-Point Meetings to Review Metrics.

Metrics are useless if they don’t lead to company adjustments and growth. My organization hosts weekly touch-point meetings where the discussion is driven by a focus on company metrics. These meetings help employees develop the habit of responding regularly and directly to the company’s metrics and using that information while it’s still relevant.

Lean Tip #1262 – Avoid Focusing on People Rather Than Processes

In some cases metrics are being used primarily to assess people performance, rather than process performance. This may lead to data manipulation or underreporting of metrics. If people’s careers are dependent on reported metrics, there is a tendency to hide facts or report incorrect data. Individual performance is important, but the focus of an initiative should be on process performance. This will lead to much wider participation within the organization, and when processes improve in performance, everybody wins.

Lean Tip #1263 – Stay Away From Unrealistic Targets

Many organizations set targets without any thought to current performance, process stability or process capability. Industry benchmarks are helpful, but before applying these benchmarks to an organization, the team should analyze current process performance to ensure that unrealistic targets are not set. Unrealistic targets create resistance within an organization and impact team and people performance. In some cases, they also lead to data manipulation or incorrect reporting.

Before setting any targets, the metrics team should ensure that processes are stable and that process capability can be measured in a reliable manner. Process capability should be measured from the customer’s perspective. If teams do not consult the customers, they may find that clients are still unhappy even when targets are consistently met. Involving customers at each stage of target setting helps teams set realistic and achievable targets that will meet customer’s expectations.

Lean Tip #1264 - Measure Before You Manage

Accountability is fundamental to effective management, but it’s impossible to achieve it without tracking each department and individual progress against very specific, measurable goals and objectives. You first need to determine the right metrics and then make sure you have all the tools you need for measurement.

Lean Tip #1265 - Remember that Accountability Starts at the Top

Business leaders don’t always recognize how closely employees will follow their example. But if you want your workers to take goal-setting seriously, you should be prepared to share your own goals – as well as how you came out on delivering on them at the end of the quarter. Such transparency shows your team that you are in the trenches with them, making every effort to achieve what you set out to do – even if your targets were off.

Lean Tip #1266 – Continually Question, Reevaluate, and Refine Metrics

Keep in mind that you will need to reevaluate and adjust your metrics as your business priorities change. Every week, month, and quarter is a new opportunity to test and refine your ability to set and track metrics that will drive growth. When you invest time and thought into setting, monitoring, sharing, and refining your metrics, you’ll be amazed at how much more in tune you are to the state of your business, and how much more easily you can make the critical decisions that can catapult your business’ success.

Lean Tip #1267 - Create Humiliation-Free Zones.

Performance metrics and reviews should not be intended to “name and shame.” Leaders can provide safe havens in which dialogue can take place without making anyone feel put on the spot, and where difficult issues can be discussed without assigning blame. The goal is to solve problems, not to hurl accusations or tear people down. Creating such a positive climate calls for a matter-of-fact, objective manner: assume that people want to do the right thing and that data help them know what the right thing is.

Lean Tip #1268 - Ask Questions; Stress Inquiry on Goals.

We know that it helps to begin with agreement about goals and then to conduct an inquiry-oriented dialogue: Did you do this, did you try that, and what happened? Questions help people deconstruct the details of performance and consider alternatives without becoming defensive.

Lean Tip #1269 – Leaders Need to Model Accountability.

It builds confidence in leaders when they name problems that everyone knows are there, put performance data on the table for everyone to see, and refuse to shift responsibility to some nameless “them.” When leaders accept responsibility (for example, by sharing their own performance ratings), it helps other people get over their fear of exposure and humiliation.

Lean Tip #1270 - Enable Authority of Team Members.

Give your team and its members the power to make decisions. Though this might seem risky, it's a logical progression once all members' roles are defined. Assuming that each individual is qualified to fulfill his or her role means trusting them to make judgment calls when necessary.

Define performance standards for each team member. When everyone knows what is expected, they know what to aim for. Simultaneously, ask team workers to give each other constructive feedback.

Lean Tip #1271 - Encourage Employee Development.

High-potential employees are not satisfied with the status quo. You want these employees on your team. They are typically ambitious, high performing, and dynamic. They will be the future leaders of your organization if they are given proper guidance in their development. If not, be prepared to lose them to the competition.

Lean Tip #1272 - Create a Development Plan.

Planning is crucial to advancing your learning and development. Help your employees establish goals that are aligned with their strengths, interest and experience and then create a plan to get there. A development plan serves as the roadmap that will take you to your goal. It can be simple or complex but it must include action steps, resources, and deadlines.

Lean Tip #1273 - Pair Your Employee’s With a Mentor.

Once their goals have been established, find someone who is in a similar role to the target position to serve as a mentor. Mentoring enables an organization to use it’s existing talent to impart their knowledge and expertise to one another. Everyone – the organization, the mentor, and the mentee – benefits from the mentoring process.

Lean Tip #1274 – Identify Opportunities to Network for Development.

Having a solid network is imperative to the success of future leaders. A network is a great source of information, advice, support and inspiration. Recommend opportunities within the organization, as well as, networking or professional groups that will help them build strong connections.

Lean Tip #1275 - Challenge Your Employees to Move Out of Their Comfort Zone.

You can’t move forward if you don’t grow and you can’t grow if you never leave your comfort zone. When possible, give your employees challenging assignments. Help them prepare by providing them a safe environment to learn from the mistakes that they are bound to make.

Lean Quote: It's Supposed to be Hard

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.

"Of course it’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. Hard is what makes it great." — Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), A League of Their Own

Lean is not easy. It's not easy to understand. It's not easy to implement. And it's especially not easy to sustain. But anyone who has embarked on a so-called lean journey already knows this. Lean, in fact, is hard work and it's a challenge to keep it going.

Lean is a process. It's a culture. It's a system. And at its core, Lean seeks to optimize manufacturing processes and reduce or eliminate waste — everywhere in the value stream.

But Lean is not a quick fix and you cannot pick and choose the tools you use.   The key to ongoing success is to embed Lean as a philosophy, and a requirement in everybody’s role; ensuring the right levels of line-management responsibility and accountability for gradually implementing the various tools and techniques that support it.

Implementing Lean, or any change initiative is difficult.  If it wasn’t, everyone would be doing it, and they’re not.  The answer is that the philosophy, tools and techniques are relatively simple, the hard bit is the culture, people, training, employee acceptance and ultimately perseverance and endurance as improvement does not happen overnight.

 

Book Review: Management Lessons From Taiichi Ohno

It can be invaluable to learn from the creator of a system and the book “Management Lessons from Taiichi Ohno” does just that. Takehico Harada is the author of this comprehensive and informative guidebook into the Toyota Production System (TPS) and to the man who invented it, Taiichi Ohno. Mr. Harada shares firsthand knowledge of tools, techniques, and challenges to deploying Lean from 4 decades of practice applying Lean principles.

The book was translated by Brad Schmidt, a Lean consultant living in Japan. While written to keep the integrity of the original he added his own comments and clarifications to drive home key learnings.

The book is organized into four chapters. In chapter 1 is a collection of 15 sayings directly from Taiichi Ohno.  These illustrate the importance of the role of top management in the deployment of Lean.

Here are the 15 ”sayings” of Taiichi Ohno that Harada wrote down, each of which he discusses.

1. “No One Really Understood What I was Saying, So I had to Go to the Gemba (“the real place”) and Give Detailed Instructions” (7-11)

2. “Kaizen Equals Getting Closer to the Final Process” (11-17)

3. “You Need by the [Assembly] Line Only the Parts for the Car You Are Assembling Now” (17-20)

4. “Building in Batches Stunts the Growth of Your Operations (Don’t Combine Kanbans [improvement systems] and Build a Group of Them” (20-24)

5. “Nine Out of Ten, One Out of Ten” (24-29)

6. “The Foreman or Leader Is the One Who ‘Breaks’ the Standard (When You Make an Improvement and You Can Take Out One Person, Give Up Your Best Person” (29-32)

7. “Multitasking Means Learning the Next Process — Keep It Flowing Until You Reach the Last Process” (32-35)

8. “What’s That Red Circle on the Top Right of the Graph?” (35-39)

9. “Are You as the Manager Having Them Do It, or Are They Just Doing It Their Way? Which Is It, Man?”(39-41)

10. “Standard Work for the Andon [indicator of a problem] Is, ‘Go There When It Flashes'” (42-45)

11. “Standard Work Is the Foundation of Kanban” (45-49)

12. “When the Worker Pushes the Start Button, He Has Stopped Moving. Can’t You Guys Figure Out a Way to Push Start While Still Moving?” (45-52)

13. “You Bought an Expensive Machine, and Now You Want an Expensive Foreman or Engineer to Run It? Are You Mad?” (52-55)

14. “Engineers in Production Become the Horizontal Threads in the Cloth” (55-60)

15. The Lowest Kanban Quantity Should Be Five” (60-63)

  

Chapter 2 goes into more detail on what exactly top management should do and how to go about doing it. Harada introduces the four categories of things:

1. Waiting
2. Being Inspected
3. Being Transported
4. Being Processed.

All four of these are needed to complete things however only processing increases value, others just increase cost. Management must understand this way of thinking.

Chapter 3 is about the role of the front line manager. This chapter underscores the importance of having a vibrant and happy workplace to motivate and empower employees. Harada stresses the importance of mutual trust and team work to effectively implement Lean. If you want a successful deployment, then it is imperative that you value the concept of “all of us doing this together, helping one another out, and doing it at the same pace.”

Chapter 4 covers how one would deploy Lean. Instead of a hard road map to implementation, this versatile guide offers a flexible approach with:

• Expert tips for implementing 5S
• A step-by-step action plan for changing organization to align with kaizen principles
• Management techniques for growing employee empowerment and motivation
• Effective strategies to assess flow and decrease waste
• Approaches to encourage Lean in and outside of your company including suppliers

At only 156 pages this book is a quick read which should be desirable for the target audience, managers. The top management and middle management play a very crucial role in ensuring the success of Lean deployment.

I highly recommend Takehico Harada’s Management Lesson from Taiichi Ohno a must read guidebook for change managers in any organization. It fills in the leadership gaps that are needed to make Lean sustainable.

Happy Labor Day

Happy Labor Day to all my American readers! For a lot of people, Labor Day means two things: a day off and the end of summer. However, Labor Day is a day set aside to pay tribute to working men and women and acknowledges the value and dignity of work and its role in American life.

In honor of today's Labor Day holiday, here are nine "interesting office facts":

1. Americans spend at least 1,896 hours a year at work.
2. One percent of U.S. employers allow employees to take naps during working hours.
3. Women business owners employ 35 percent more people than all the Fortune 500 companies combined.

4. Americans now spend more than 100 hours a year commuting to work.

5. More than 50% of lost work days are stress related, keeping approximately 1 million people home from work every day.
6. When we think, we only use 35 percent of our brains.
7. More people walk to work in Alaska than any other U.S. state.

8. The average office worker spends 50 minutes a day looking for lost files and other items.

9. Forty percent of worker turnover is due to job stress.

10. People spend one in every four and a half minutes online on social networks and blogs.

Americans need today's holiday, since we work more than anyone in the industrialized world. We also take fewer vacations, work longer days, and retire later. And the trend is not positive. One expert concluded back in 1990 that we work nearly one month more per year than in 1970, and time pressures have only gotten worse since.

We celebrate Labor Day because we are all in this world of work together. Let’s enjoy the fruits of our labor and the solidarity of workers, the work we do, and the nation and economy we and our parents and their parents have built. Happy Labor Day!

Lean Quote: No Time for Improvement

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.

"Don’t be too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet!" 

— Overheard by Colleague

Whether a company has just switched to Lean production or is still using a traditional manufacturing approach, if it does not establish an official improvement time policy, very little improvement will ever happen there.

We have seen this everywhere, even in companies which loudly proclaim their commitment to continuous improvement. Little or no actual time is set aside to do the very improvement the company says it wants.

It is an age-old battle — production time versus improvement time. Two worthy rivals attempting to occupy the same narrow 24-hour space. The issue is not which is more important. Production is! This is as it should be: a company is in business to sell its products and services. It must first make them. And that takes time. Production time always comes first.

Without an improvement time policy, however, the danger is that needed improvements will never happen.

Too often improvement is left to chance and the ingenuity of the willing to eke out small pockets of time — and make magic happen. We all know these people. They see the vision burning brightly before them and are determined to make it happen. Time and again, these people prove — with their own mental, emotional, and physical health — the familiar adage: Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

In a sad and important way, these quiet heroes do their companies and the rest of us some bit of harm. When they make magic happen, in the absence of a clearly defined, improvement time policy, they unintentionally send the message that separate time is not needed. Wise, indeed, is the company that sees through this double-think and takes steps to establish the policy nevertheless.

Improvement doesn’t just happen.  It takes time, and in the pressure pot of our day to day activities, there is never enough time to improve our situation. The structure of Lean permits and requires time be set aside for improvement. If managers do not definitively provide time for the task of improvement, then people will know that they are not serious about making improvement a formal part of the work.

Most of us don't set aside time in the day, much less the week, just to improve. It doesn't take much time or skill, mainly just will. We need to be encouraged and reminded that it only takes a few minutes to do kaizen. Without assistance from management, people have no good way to make time for improvement within the workday.

There can be no improvement without the time and resource commitment from management to solve problems.

 

Creating Flow is Critical to Driving Improvement

A Lean Enterprise is centered on the concept of flow. Flow is one of five key Lean Principles identified by Womack and Jones in their book Lean Thinking. They stressed that you need to make value flow. It was this creation of flow that would make it possible to eliminate waste. When material and information flow continuously, there is less waste in the system. This is true by definition. If there were a lot of waste, material and information would not be flowing.

The first step is to focus on the analyzing the value stream. Find out why the inventory is necessary and what purpose the work in progress is serving, then reduce the amount of things that are waiting around.  If frequent machine breakdowns are the problem, then focus on the machine and reduce the stoppages. If the quality is unstable, then repair the equipment and standardize the workers’ processes to reduce variability. If people are holding inventory because they are afraid of running out of parts, then talk with the leader of the area and decide how many parts should be held.  As the ability of the area improves, the inventory can be reduced accordingly. Focus on the foundation of the value stream. Keep reducing the amount of things waiting around and get closer to flow.

Once the amount of things that are waiting is reduced this will mean that you have less time to solve problems that occur in everyday operations.  Problems will appear faster, and also will affect other areas faster. This is actually the desired result. Many things in the company will now have to speed up to prevent production stoppages. Once you get enough strength, you can continue to reduce the amount of inventory.

Creating flow gets production and engineering involved. People have to come up with improvement ideas. Kaizen involves every employee - from upper management to operators. Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis.

Once you get to one-piece flow then you can make a Kanban for the line and start with a downstream pull system. As the name suggests, creating flow is about making and moving one item at a time (or the smallest batch size possible) through a series of uninterrupted steps, with each step in the process making exactly what is requested by the next step while never knowingly passing poor work forward.

Flow is often not actively pursued because people feel it is more realistic to eliminate waste from work processes, introduce workplace organization through 5S or apply other lean tools. This is a mistake – it turns out that, when you introduce flow into any process, problems (i.e., opportunities to deliver customer value) become vividly apparent and demand immediate attention. Introducing flow can be a bit scary, but it can also sharpen your focus on improvements that will be immediately felt by your customers!

A consistent flow of work is essential for faster and more reliable delivery, bringing greater value to your customers, team, and organization.

Lean Quote: Teamwork

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 your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal." — Bill Bradley, American Hall Of Fame Basketball Player, Rhodes Scholar

We all have roles in our organizations but it is the power of teamwork that makes our endeavors successful. It takes everyone working together on a common goal to be successful in Lean.

A team of people can achieve far more than the sum of the total of the individuals skills alone. In business teams can achieve:

They can generate a wider range of ideas and innovation than individuals;
They are able to motivate themselves;
They can bounce ideas off each team member;
They often take more risks than individuals;
They have a range of personalities such as workers, thinkers, leaders who contribute the right balance of skills necessary to achieve high performance;
They support each other and are not just task-orientated;
They can be a support mechanism which provide mentoring and allow others to grow in self-confidence.

Teamwork is important to the success of an organization, but as the saying goes: “it’s like getting rich or falling in love, you cannot simply will it to happen.” Teamwork is a practice. Teamwork is an outcome. And teamwork leverages the individual skills of every team member.

To create effective teamwork across your organization, you need to break down any departmental barriers to collaboration so that you can draw on the best people. You need to set clear objectives and define working relationships so that members can work as a cohesive team, and you must provide tools that support efficient collaboration.

Most people respond well to being a valued member of a team by putting forth their best efforts. Human beings are hard wired to work cooperatively with one another to achieve common goals, so remember that not all performance rewards need to go to individuals. Incentives can be provided to the team as a whole for working efficiently together to reach goals.

Collaboration and team work create an environment that allows the collective knowledge, resources and skills of each team member to flourish. When people work together they can complete tasks faster by dividing the work to people of different abilities and knowledge. Teamwork can lead to better decisions, products, or services.