Monday, January 28, 2013
Is there a Lean way to measure productivity?
Hello folks, I wanted to share my lasted post from http://theleanedge.org which is Michael Balle's website (author of The Lean Manager and The Gold Mine)
The question of the moment is:
Is there a Lean way to measure productivity?
As the ole’ saying goes “you can lead a horse to water……”, well you can give a person a measure but you can’t ensure it’s going to be totally value added. I think most people understand the concept of managing by the numbers or objectives it’s more common than not; if you tell me what you need and you are my boss then I will normally do what is necessary to get you that number especially if it’s tied to my performance evaluation, bonus, wage increase, or promotion (*note just because I meet numbers doesn’t always mean I deserve a promotion). I see this very often in organizations and what is amazing is people will find a way because we have been conditioned to be result driven, it’s our human nature really; the problem lies when we are asked to sift the sand to see if there is any gold there—most often there isn’t.
As always I draw from my experience and my valuable teachings from my Japanese trainers at Toyota (TMMK). I had the very fortunate opportunity to be hired before we actually ran saleable production, this timing gave me the opportunity to see how all the components (thinking) came together to determine how we measured how efficient we were in our processes while bringing the waste to the surface in order to improve and meet customer need. By doing business this way we weren’t able to mask problems so easily like many organizations do without really knowing that’s what they are doing, it’s years of conditioning “that’s how we’ve always done it!”. I often hear folks say to me, “well those processes were easy for you to do because you had a green-field situation, but we are already established (brown-field) it’s very hard to implement that infrastructure or cultural thinking” in an existing workplace. Well, I call…… I will let you be creative there. If you have time to give me ten excuses why you can’t do it (usually leadership); then to me, you can use that time more wisely and begin to look at the order to customer process and ask yourself; “how long I can sustain this current thinking we use in today’s challenging market without knowing what is hemorrhaging out our door?” It truly is scary when you do some cost translations to your key performance indicators.
Some of the numerous lessons I learned from my trainers was to understand first and foremost what does the customer need from our organization, and how does each process work to meet that. So in our case we referred to that as our “takt time”, (this was a German term actually not a Japanese term), we needed to know how fast the customer was pulling from us (this can be any service, output or product). This suggests you may have to involve other departments within the organization like sales, purchasing, engineering, and suppliers. . Was all this easy, no! Did it take discipline and accountability from our leadership, yes!
In our case we looked at it on a monthly schedule based on the past 3 month average. This gave us the information we needed to understand another key component which is machine or process capacity (cycle time), basically what are we capable of? If we aren’t capable to meet what the customer needs then should be a red flag, most organizations can’t tell you this much they just run wide open and stock inventory which looks really good on paper if that’s what you measure.
So it’s important to understand as an organization to be able to differentiate cycle time and takt time. Cycle is what it takes your process to meet the takt time (customer), they do not necessarily have to be the same based on certain factors (leveling, mold or equipment changes). In my experience working in the Plastics department we had factored in mold change time so our cycle time was actually faster than takt time to accommodate for “planned” downtime. It’s also crucial to perform production capacity studies for each process (equipment/machinery), again you must know production capability to recognize gaps to the customer need. **Please note there is a difference between total capacity; meaning I can just run the equipment 24/7 (if you are running to total capacity as the norm then common sense will tell you there will be problems meeting customer need), versus process capacity which can be a normal working day time requirement.
If you were to create an ideal state you would want to know what your customer pull is, and then purchase the specific equipment that meets that need (cycle), but always be aware that even if I meet the ideal state today, tomorrow that may change. So built in to our production system at Toyota was the ability to adjust when the customer demand changed either way, we had to build in flexibility in our processes in order to remain competitive and not pass cost onto the customer. We did this by always understanding takt, cycle, capacity and manpower for every process. Most do not have that luxury of knowing the answers to all the questions above, they may be just deciding to join the Lean journey perhaps, so then it’s time for them to grasp the current state and understand where is the waste, how can we kaizen in those areas, and what other options are possible to effectively meet the customer (manpower, equipment upgrades, or outsourcing to name a couple). If this is the journey you are going down then it’s important to have leadership on board.
Once the takt, and process capacity are understood then it’s time to develop standardized work to assist in determining the manpower necessary for production needs. Each process knowing its capability must have standard work that involves specific steps with times to complete the cycle time. After these are developed then Job Breakdown sheets are created for the key points and reasons in order to use Job Instruction training (JIT/TWI) so each person is able to fully understand expectations so they can see abnormality at a glance and recognize potential improvements as they do the process each day.
So the tool we used to help visualize the cycle time, equipment involved and standardized work was the work combination table. This was how we would know what the machine is doing and when, what the worker was doing and how much time per step, along with any walk time involved to fully see the complete cycle, this was the benchmark for future kaizen. This was done for all processes that created outputs, when you think about it, how you can do business effectively and sustain for the long-term and be flexible without understand these key components? Without them you definitely can’t measure how you are doing based on the customer’s expectation of you and be flexible to their ever-changing needs.
So what does all this mean at the end of the day? So for me as a team leader and a group leader in the organization I needed to know on an hourly basis where I was against the standard, so I had a “plan versus actual” board for each process. This visualized what I did each hour, factored in downtime we had that could have been equipment related, training related, or andon pulls etc. We also had a variable called “wait kanban”, what that meant was the Assembly shop we were providing parts to had downtime which in turn didn’t allow them to return their carts for replenishment (pull system), so instead of continuing to run and “stack” parts, we stopped. This time was not calculated as downtime, but “wait kanban”, which didn’t go against our production efficiency, it was how we did business (TPS), but knowing everything above was necessary to extrapolate all this information. So after our shift each day I was responsible for a daily report to calculate productivity for our group which contributed to a department need; which supported the plant need. This report factored in our capability, our run time, downtime, repair, scrap, delay work, wait kanban, and supplier/vendor shortages. This gave us our daily “parts per hour” efficiency rate, which we based on the expectation which gave us our productivity rate for the day. We knew every day where we fell short of the standard and what we were going to do about it the next day to try not to replicate the same problem (PDCA). This was considered grasping the problem situation or the first step of problem solving. So I often tell folks our infrastructure we had in place always allowed us to grasp the situation or give us a problem awareness at all times because we knew what was happening versus what should be happening based on Assembly pull which was determined by the customer.
Every day we managed to the customer need not a number pulled from a hat that met an objective that looks good on paper short term. If a person doesn’t understand daily expectations based on takt time, cycle time, production capabilities, and standardized work then they are just haphazardly running till the next shift comes in to take over (vicious cycle), not sustainable for long-term growth, nor can you ever understand how to improve. Although I’m describing somewhat of a manufacturing setting this thinking can be applied in any industry. I always ask folks who tell me “that works great if you make cars”, I reply by asking them if they have the 3P’s – Do you have processes? Do you have people? Do you have problems? Then this thinking can be adapted if services or outputs are being created and a customer has an expectation.
Until next time,
@tracey_san
Tracey Richardson
Sunday, January 6, 2013
How to effectively establish Kaizen Promotion Offices (KPO) in Organizations?
Happy New Year to everyone, welcome 2013. Its hard to believe my blog is now 4 years old, boy does time fly when you are on the road learning about Lean :).
My next blog post is shared again from http://www.theleanedge.org hosted by author Michael Balle'. This week's question has to do with KPO's. Please visit Michael's website above to get the opinions of other Lean practitioners!
The question (s):
What practical advice would you offer to companies as they establish their Kaizen Promotion Offices? At the beginning their Lean journey each company faces questions such as:
(a) What is the role of the KPO to serve the organization?
(b) How do we best leverage the KPO for leadership development?
(c) What is optimal size of the KPO organization?
(d) What is right mix of internal / external hires?
(e) Who should the KPO lead report to?
(f) How is the KPO best organized in order to sustain Lean both inside/outside of the plant? (i.e. sales, distribution, marketing, product development in addition to manufacturing)”
MY Response:
(a) What is the role of the KPO to serve the organization? When I see this question it takes me back to when I was taught the essence behind the Quality Circle Program and how they began at Toyota (back in the 1950’s) based on Taiichi Ohno’s vision of developing his people. I remember when I was in my assimilation hiring process (learning Toyota history) they discussed the fact with us (new hires) that the program wasn’t designed to necessarily save the company money (ROI) in the very beginning; it was more so to develop people in problem solving, and their ability to set up systems to see abnormality at a glance. Of course we all know ROI is important, (and many put that ahead of people development) but if people had the ability to “think”and leaders could foster that then, well- the ROI will come. I believe that is a “process versus results”discussion that the Japanese trainers taught us if you have good “thinking”results will follow, not start with a result as the priority. So back in the 50’s Toyota was lagging behind in production capabilities in comparison to American manufacturing so relying on a person’s ability to think and make improvements was absolutely a necessity for them in those days to be successful. It was the start of how “respect for people”got embedded into the culture I believe, they just didn’t have the resources to improve with equipment or other means until later. I will say that ALL of our “off-line”improvement groups/teams at TMMK (just speaking from my experience there) were “formed”from waste-reduction improvement (kaizen events) where we would actually save enough time to reduce a person in the process; this was part of our jobs. Most companies would define that as Lean (reduce head-count or the infamous “less employees are needed”). They were let go, fired, or laid-off. If this is what Lean meant would you want to think about improvements? Unfortunately this is reality for many companies that I have experience firsthand.
So at Toyota our incentive was to reduce waste, reduce people in order to form these KPO’s (ODG’s, SMK teams (smooth motion kaizen) ESI teams (Early Symptom Investigation), Quality Circle champions, Suggestion system specialists, and Ergonomic process evaluators. I could continue to discuss many forms and sub categories of KPO’s that were created from the thinking of the people in the organization (again our job, not an event or special occasion). These positions were never created and hired by an outside person; we created them ourselves, that was all part of the incentive. These positions were opened up to regular employees as a training ground for further development, promotions, or leadership training. They typically stayed in the role from 1-3-5 years then rotated outward to continue to teach to a group or team again they led. Again respect for people at its best.
I would like to take a second and ensure that everyone that may read this or is involved with KPO’s really know how to define Kaizen, I feel based on my time at Toyota and my time as a consultant over the past 15 years it can be a very misunderstood term. Many people in an organization are labeled “continuous improvement” leaders. I ask “what are you improving and how do you know”? They often answer “we make things better”; you can see where I’m going, it can be an endless loop, like Chevy Chase driving around Big Ben (hope you have seen that movie) I think before an organization decides on creating a KPO or whatever they decide to call it, it’s essential to make sure we understand the purpose of the group hence my question why are you doing it? Why is it necessary? Ohno knew, but I’m not always sure today, organizations know and foster this basic principle. A familiar saying for many that have studied TPS, have heard, “without standards you can’t have continuous improvement.” So if you have a group that is about Kaizen I sure hope one of the important lessons taught within the KPO are “standards”,if there is one common thread I see across various industries, is the lack of standardization, so without that how can we improve or measure? So KPO’s can be non-value-added if the purpose isn’t clear, which can just create area where bad habits can form.
So one of the roles for the KPO group is to set the direction for the company’s lean journey and/ or transformation and its purpose, many people can’t define Lean properly so that must be understood as well in my opinion, again why are we doing this? It’s important as others have mentioned to have champions, practitioners, or leaders who have a little more experience in problem solving, seeing abnormality and gemba walks. I caution labeling them experts (I never consider myself one, I’m learning too much daily to be an expert, it implies I know everything; as my trainers would tell me “Tracey-san you are always “leading and learning”.) So these champions should help coach, support and direct the lean activities that align with the Hoshin Kanri or strategy deployment as it cascades downward and upward. Each individual in an organization should have a line of sight to the KPI’s (Q, S, P, C, and HR). There should always be a strategic approach to understand the impact of the KPO group including the long term impact on KPI’s, so there could be a short-term aspect that can be looked at with each problem solved and what people are learning, and a long-term aspect with the company business plan (Hoshin). If I had it my way I would say the “measure”should be on people development as Ohno demonstrated decades ago, but that isn’t always an easy sell in today’s world where results are a strong hold to process. So how do we blend the two?
I think if people, especially leaders, are armed with good problem solving skills then that promotes the ability to always see abnormality and ask why when it’s seen. As Mr. Cho always said: Go See, Show Respect, and Ask Why! This thinking should be in the forefront of every KPO’s mission.
(b) How do we best leverage the KPO for leadership development? If I had an ideal state, or what I call my “fantasy island” moment I would get the highest leadership on board in order to start the company seeing through the same lens, speaking the same language as problems go back and forth (catch-ball) through the levels. If a senior leader is a mentor then they can ensure good habits “thinking” are flowing downward and being captured coming upward. This selected leader must be committed to the lean journey and support the activity even when it seems it shouldn’t make the cut for the day so to speak. The senior person would need to be a teacher for the other leadership team and set the example even if the “numbers” aren’t met for the day. If you decide this is important, then it stays important, otherwise the danger is “add-on”, “flavor of month” feelings start to surface and the people only use it when there is time. Everyone knows how that ends.
(c) What is optimal size of the KPO organization? I think really it depends on the size of the company and the skill level of the members selected for the KPO team. There should be a couple of champions and practitioners and this could be adjusted as it evolves (and as I mentioned above are you reducing waste to have the ability to add more headcount to the KPO). The KPO needs never ending resources and support from other functional areas of the company, like production, R&D, Accounting, Payroll, Human Resources Maintenance, and Engineering for example. Again everyone needs to be on board to create this infrastructure where everyone is seeing through the same lens (Process).
(d) What is right mix of internal / external hires? This would depend greatly on the level of knowledge and current condition within the company. An assessment of knowledge in my opinion would have to be taken in order to understand the current state (skill level). There is nothing wrong with hiring external support, but the end goal is to develop those champions so they can lead and learn simultaneously so eventually the externals wouldn’t be necessary. Even at Toyota we eventually lost most of our gemba trainers after we started production, their thinking is you have to cut the cord to learn at some time, it’s a weaning process over time based on the current state. This could take 1-5 years in some cases, if the company embraces the KPO as a priority and part of the way the company does business this time could be less. What are you willing to dedicate to it?
(e) Who should the KPO lead report to? The KPO should have direct report to the most senior person in the organization. There would need to be a senior level person that supports the daily operations as it pertains to the business KPI’s for each department and well as measuring individual growth. There should be as much emphasis on this development group as there is on production outputs. Going back to Ohno’s vision if people can think and see abnormality at a glance then there are better products/outputs. The motto for the KPO should be something like “Every day, Everybody, Problem solving”. Describing the model I learned from at Toyota it started with the President’s support and that cascaded downward to the team leader on line and floor level. Everyone knew their role in Problem Solving, we worked to develop an infrastructure that became our common language or way to do business, the leader of the KPO should foster this daily as it become a norm, but a project.
(f) How is the KPO best organized in order to sustain Lean both inside/outside of the plant? (i.e. sales, distribution, marketing, product development in addition to manufacturing)” In my experience the KPO can evolve to these different areas as people grow. It can even be different teams in different functional areas with different roles and responsibilities. For example the ODG group was strictly internal to our plant, where, TSSC (Toyota Supplier Support Center), when it began, was focused on external learning (vendors/suppliers). To me the importance lies first and foremost in the internal learning and development of people at all levels to have that line of sight to the company business indicators within their daily work. People need to know and understand what they do need to have purpose and value that tie in to a greater good, otherwise they can guess on their own why it’s important and this can be the start of a morale problem or an unaligned workplace. Once the KPO has been established and measures of process improvements can be seen and replicated through a good thinking process, then begin to take it outward slowly, sustainment and repeatability is the key, if we try to teach people too quickly without the proper learning curve and the ability to mistakes without repercussions then it can quickly lead to more bad habits (results oriented thinking).
I will always be an advocate to people development no matter how you want to label it; if you invest in your people they can determine the success and long-term sustainability of your organization. Growing people can spawn leaders, leaders can develop habits, and habits can create character which leads to an organization that would be label the “place of choice”! That’s what I had the opportunity to be a part of, priceless!
Until next time,
Tracey Richardson
@tracey_san
My next blog post is shared again from http://www.theleanedge.org hosted by author Michael Balle'. This week's question has to do with KPO's. Please visit Michael's website above to get the opinions of other Lean practitioners!
The question (s):
What practical advice would you offer to companies as they establish their Kaizen Promotion Offices? At the beginning their Lean journey each company faces questions such as:
(a) What is the role of the KPO to serve the organization?
(b) How do we best leverage the KPO for leadership development?
(c) What is optimal size of the KPO organization?
(d) What is right mix of internal / external hires?
(e) Who should the KPO lead report to?
(f) How is the KPO best organized in order to sustain Lean both inside/outside of the plant? (i.e. sales, distribution, marketing, product development in addition to manufacturing)”
MY Response:
(a) What is the role of the KPO to serve the organization? When I see this question it takes me back to when I was taught the essence behind the Quality Circle Program and how they began at Toyota (back in the 1950’s) based on Taiichi Ohno’s vision of developing his people. I remember when I was in my assimilation hiring process (learning Toyota history) they discussed the fact with us (new hires) that the program wasn’t designed to necessarily save the company money (ROI) in the very beginning; it was more so to develop people in problem solving, and their ability to set up systems to see abnormality at a glance. Of course we all know ROI is important, (and many put that ahead of people development) but if people had the ability to “think”and leaders could foster that then, well- the ROI will come. I believe that is a “process versus results”discussion that the Japanese trainers taught us if you have good “thinking”results will follow, not start with a result as the priority. So back in the 50’s Toyota was lagging behind in production capabilities in comparison to American manufacturing so relying on a person’s ability to think and make improvements was absolutely a necessity for them in those days to be successful. It was the start of how “respect for people”got embedded into the culture I believe, they just didn’t have the resources to improve with equipment or other means until later. I will say that ALL of our “off-line”improvement groups/teams at TMMK (just speaking from my experience there) were “formed”from waste-reduction improvement (kaizen events) where we would actually save enough time to reduce a person in the process; this was part of our jobs. Most companies would define that as Lean (reduce head-count or the infamous “less employees are needed”). They were let go, fired, or laid-off. If this is what Lean meant would you want to think about improvements? Unfortunately this is reality for many companies that I have experience firsthand.
So at Toyota our incentive was to reduce waste, reduce people in order to form these KPO’s (ODG’s, SMK teams (smooth motion kaizen) ESI teams (Early Symptom Investigation), Quality Circle champions, Suggestion system specialists, and Ergonomic process evaluators. I could continue to discuss many forms and sub categories of KPO’s that were created from the thinking of the people in the organization (again our job, not an event or special occasion). These positions were never created and hired by an outside person; we created them ourselves, that was all part of the incentive. These positions were opened up to regular employees as a training ground for further development, promotions, or leadership training. They typically stayed in the role from 1-3-5 years then rotated outward to continue to teach to a group or team again they led. Again respect for people at its best.
I would like to take a second and ensure that everyone that may read this or is involved with KPO’s really know how to define Kaizen, I feel based on my time at Toyota and my time as a consultant over the past 15 years it can be a very misunderstood term. Many people in an organization are labeled “continuous improvement” leaders. I ask “what are you improving and how do you know”? They often answer “we make things better”; you can see where I’m going, it can be an endless loop, like Chevy Chase driving around Big Ben (hope you have seen that movie) I think before an organization decides on creating a KPO or whatever they decide to call it, it’s essential to make sure we understand the purpose of the group hence my question why are you doing it? Why is it necessary? Ohno knew, but I’m not always sure today, organizations know and foster this basic principle. A familiar saying for many that have studied TPS, have heard, “without standards you can’t have continuous improvement.” So if you have a group that is about Kaizen I sure hope one of the important lessons taught within the KPO are “standards”,if there is one common thread I see across various industries, is the lack of standardization, so without that how can we improve or measure? So KPO’s can be non-value-added if the purpose isn’t clear, which can just create area where bad habits can form.
So one of the roles for the KPO group is to set the direction for the company’s lean journey and/ or transformation and its purpose, many people can’t define Lean properly so that must be understood as well in my opinion, again why are we doing this? It’s important as others have mentioned to have champions, practitioners, or leaders who have a little more experience in problem solving, seeing abnormality and gemba walks. I caution labeling them experts (I never consider myself one, I’m learning too much daily to be an expert, it implies I know everything; as my trainers would tell me “Tracey-san you are always “leading and learning”.) So these champions should help coach, support and direct the lean activities that align with the Hoshin Kanri or strategy deployment as it cascades downward and upward. Each individual in an organization should have a line of sight to the KPI’s (Q, S, P, C, and HR). There should always be a strategic approach to understand the impact of the KPO group including the long term impact on KPI’s, so there could be a short-term aspect that can be looked at with each problem solved and what people are learning, and a long-term aspect with the company business plan (Hoshin). If I had it my way I would say the “measure”should be on people development as Ohno demonstrated decades ago, but that isn’t always an easy sell in today’s world where results are a strong hold to process. So how do we blend the two?
I think if people, especially leaders, are armed with good problem solving skills then that promotes the ability to always see abnormality and ask why when it’s seen. As Mr. Cho always said: Go See, Show Respect, and Ask Why! This thinking should be in the forefront of every KPO’s mission.
(b) How do we best leverage the KPO for leadership development? If I had an ideal state, or what I call my “fantasy island” moment I would get the highest leadership on board in order to start the company seeing through the same lens, speaking the same language as problems go back and forth (catch-ball) through the levels. If a senior leader is a mentor then they can ensure good habits “thinking” are flowing downward and being captured coming upward. This selected leader must be committed to the lean journey and support the activity even when it seems it shouldn’t make the cut for the day so to speak. The senior person would need to be a teacher for the other leadership team and set the example even if the “numbers” aren’t met for the day. If you decide this is important, then it stays important, otherwise the danger is “add-on”, “flavor of month” feelings start to surface and the people only use it when there is time. Everyone knows how that ends.
(c) What is optimal size of the KPO organization? I think really it depends on the size of the company and the skill level of the members selected for the KPO team. There should be a couple of champions and practitioners and this could be adjusted as it evolves (and as I mentioned above are you reducing waste to have the ability to add more headcount to the KPO). The KPO needs never ending resources and support from other functional areas of the company, like production, R&D, Accounting, Payroll, Human Resources Maintenance, and Engineering for example. Again everyone needs to be on board to create this infrastructure where everyone is seeing through the same lens (Process).
(d) What is right mix of internal / external hires? This would depend greatly on the level of knowledge and current condition within the company. An assessment of knowledge in my opinion would have to be taken in order to understand the current state (skill level). There is nothing wrong with hiring external support, but the end goal is to develop those champions so they can lead and learn simultaneously so eventually the externals wouldn’t be necessary. Even at Toyota we eventually lost most of our gemba trainers after we started production, their thinking is you have to cut the cord to learn at some time, it’s a weaning process over time based on the current state. This could take 1-5 years in some cases, if the company embraces the KPO as a priority and part of the way the company does business this time could be less. What are you willing to dedicate to it?
(e) Who should the KPO lead report to? The KPO should have direct report to the most senior person in the organization. There would need to be a senior level person that supports the daily operations as it pertains to the business KPI’s for each department and well as measuring individual growth. There should be as much emphasis on this development group as there is on production outputs. Going back to Ohno’s vision if people can think and see abnormality at a glance then there are better products/outputs. The motto for the KPO should be something like “Every day, Everybody, Problem solving”. Describing the model I learned from at Toyota it started with the President’s support and that cascaded downward to the team leader on line and floor level. Everyone knew their role in Problem Solving, we worked to develop an infrastructure that became our common language or way to do business, the leader of the KPO should foster this daily as it become a norm, but a project.
(f) How is the KPO best organized in order to sustain Lean both inside/outside of the plant? (i.e. sales, distribution, marketing, product development in addition to manufacturing)” In my experience the KPO can evolve to these different areas as people grow. It can even be different teams in different functional areas with different roles and responsibilities. For example the ODG group was strictly internal to our plant, where, TSSC (Toyota Supplier Support Center), when it began, was focused on external learning (vendors/suppliers). To me the importance lies first and foremost in the internal learning and development of people at all levels to have that line of sight to the company business indicators within their daily work. People need to know and understand what they do need to have purpose and value that tie in to a greater good, otherwise they can guess on their own why it’s important and this can be the start of a morale problem or an unaligned workplace. Once the KPO has been established and measures of process improvements can be seen and replicated through a good thinking process, then begin to take it outward slowly, sustainment and repeatability is the key, if we try to teach people too quickly without the proper learning curve and the ability to mistakes without repercussions then it can quickly lead to more bad habits (results oriented thinking).
I will always be an advocate to people development no matter how you want to label it; if you invest in your people they can determine the success and long-term sustainability of your organization. Growing people can spawn leaders, leaders can develop habits, and habits can create character which leads to an organization that would be label the “place of choice”! That’s what I had the opportunity to be a part of, priceless!
Until next time,
Tracey Richardson
@tracey_san
Monday, December 31, 2012
What is the Ringo-sho process, and how does it fit into Lean?
I would like to wish each and everyone one of my readers a Happy New Year, I hope I can continue to bring more value-added posts to you in 2013!
So my last post of the year is shared from my contribution on theleanedge.org hosted by Michael Balle'.
The question is in regard to the Ringo-sho process. Some of you may be saying "what is that?" It is a Japanese term and was used during my time at Toyota.
The question on the website is from:
Lean Global Network: Can you clarify the role of “ringi” in lean?"What is Ringi? The Lean Edge has discussed Nemawashi, but could you clarify the practice of Ringi? How is this linked to A3? How widespread is its use within Toyota? Should that practice be adopted by lean thinkers?"
I will have to admit when I saw the word Ringi in this question, it brought back many memories of my time at Toyota (TMMK). It’s not a word I’ve used or heard much since my time there, even though the thinking behind it could be more common if expressed differently.
As others have mentioned above Ringi or (Ringi-sho) is not necessarily a Toyota creation, it is a Japanese term which when translated (with help from John Shook) means:
A high-level formal authorization/approval process, usually for major policy matters, major projects and represents formal agreement (through nemawashi) of the authorizing parties (always including finance). It is a specific application of A3 (as a document size), used to (to repeat) garner formal authorization for those major policy matters and projects. It is finalized in a formal A3 called a ringi-sho (sho means “document”) that is signed by the authorizers, usually the top executives of the related departments or affected areas or functions of the company.
So as you can see no matter what you decide to label this process (remember its not about what we call these “tools” its the thinking behind them) the importance of it seems to reside around the “approval process” of a project described at a high level which needs financial authorization at an executive level as well buy-in.
It is often necessary to link the project to the Hoshin Kanri goals in order to measure the key performance indicator impact (i.e – Cost, Productivity, Quality, Safety, and Human Resources) otherwise known as ROI (Return on investment) this could be spread over several years. I think a common misnomer about Ringi-sho is because its linked to A3 its often label as a problem solving A3 and this is not necessarily the case. It could stem from a problem happening which a proposal or project could evolve from but a Ringi-sho is more about the financial aspect and approval process at the highest affected levels.
Once a Ringi-sho has been approved then its given a Ringi-sho account number, this number is then attached to any spending / cost around this designated project through Accounting. This project could be a few months in time to a couple of years depending upon the complexity of the project and everything it entails.
So Sammy’s example above touches on capital type expenditures as in- (equipment, buildings, expansions, company events and services). Usually a Ringi-sho is created for higher dollar projects that could be in any range. This could be an area where your specific company could set their own parameters around when you needed high level approval for finances or not.
The important aspect to remember is the relationship to Hoshin Kanri (Strategy Deployment), so once its approved financially and all signatures are completed then it begins to cascade downward to the related areas/departments who will begin to follow through with the project plan and this is where you could see the spawning of the “kanri cycle” which are micro PDCA activities that will take place in order to see the project from start to finish lead by the originator of the Ringi-sho. Each one of these Kanri-cycles could have a status report to ensure that the project stays on task, any contingencies should be reported at this point if it could effect the project plan.
Once a Ringi-sho is deemed “closed” meaning that the project is completed in regard to the financial aspect, then the account number is then closed as well. If at any point in the future some unforeseen cost arises that are related to that closed project a new Ringi-sho would have to be approved for addition funds.
So in the world of “Lean” I believe this “approval process” can be very value added to any company ensuring that funds are spent appropriately for ROI, and communication and authorization to all related parties become a standard practice.
This summarization of Ringi-sho is strictly based on my 10 yrs experience working in production at TMMK and dealing with projects related to the Plastics department and how we used this process to ensure proper approval and allocation of budgets all related to our department Hoshin as it related to the Plant Hoshin (TMMK).
Until next time,
Tracey Richardson
@tracey_san
Last post of 2012 - Happy New Year!!!
So my last post of the year is shared from my contribution on theleanedge.org hosted by Michael Balle'.
The question is in regard to the Ringo-sho process. Some of you may be saying "what is that?" It is a Japanese term and was used during my time at Toyota.
The question on the website is from:
Lean Global Network: Can you clarify the role of “ringi” in lean?"What is Ringi? The Lean Edge has discussed Nemawashi, but could you clarify the practice of Ringi? How is this linked to A3? How widespread is its use within Toyota? Should that practice be adopted by lean thinkers?"
I will have to admit when I saw the word Ringi in this question, it brought back many memories of my time at Toyota (TMMK). It’s not a word I’ve used or heard much since my time there, even though the thinking behind it could be more common if expressed differently.
As others have mentioned above Ringi or (Ringi-sho) is not necessarily a Toyota creation, it is a Japanese term which when translated (with help from John Shook) means:
A high-level formal authorization/approval process, usually for major policy matters, major projects and represents formal agreement (through nemawashi) of the authorizing parties (always including finance). It is a specific application of A3 (as a document size), used to (to repeat) garner formal authorization for those major policy matters and projects. It is finalized in a formal A3 called a ringi-sho (sho means “document”) that is signed by the authorizers, usually the top executives of the related departments or affected areas or functions of the company.
So as you can see no matter what you decide to label this process (remember its not about what we call these “tools” its the thinking behind them) the importance of it seems to reside around the “approval process” of a project described at a high level which needs financial authorization at an executive level as well buy-in.
It is often necessary to link the project to the Hoshin Kanri goals in order to measure the key performance indicator impact (i.e – Cost, Productivity, Quality, Safety, and Human Resources) otherwise known as ROI (Return on investment) this could be spread over several years. I think a common misnomer about Ringi-sho is because its linked to A3 its often label as a problem solving A3 and this is not necessarily the case. It could stem from a problem happening which a proposal or project could evolve from but a Ringi-sho is more about the financial aspect and approval process at the highest affected levels.
Once a Ringi-sho has been approved then its given a Ringi-sho account number, this number is then attached to any spending / cost around this designated project through Accounting. This project could be a few months in time to a couple of years depending upon the complexity of the project and everything it entails.
So Sammy’s example above touches on capital type expenditures as in- (equipment, buildings, expansions, company events and services). Usually a Ringi-sho is created for higher dollar projects that could be in any range. This could be an area where your specific company could set their own parameters around when you needed high level approval for finances or not.
The important aspect to remember is the relationship to Hoshin Kanri (Strategy Deployment), so once its approved financially and all signatures are completed then it begins to cascade downward to the related areas/departments who will begin to follow through with the project plan and this is where you could see the spawning of the “kanri cycle” which are micro PDCA activities that will take place in order to see the project from start to finish lead by the originator of the Ringi-sho. Each one of these Kanri-cycles could have a status report to ensure that the project stays on task, any contingencies should be reported at this point if it could effect the project plan.
Once a Ringi-sho is deemed “closed” meaning that the project is completed in regard to the financial aspect, then the account number is then closed as well. If at any point in the future some unforeseen cost arises that are related to that closed project a new Ringi-sho would have to be approved for addition funds.
So in the world of “Lean” I believe this “approval process” can be very value added to any company ensuring that funds are spent appropriately for ROI, and communication and authorization to all related parties become a standard practice.
This summarization of Ringi-sho is strictly based on my 10 yrs experience working in production at TMMK and dealing with projects related to the Plastics department and how we used this process to ensure proper approval and allocation of budgets all related to our department Hoshin as it related to the Plant Hoshin (TMMK).
Until next time,
Tracey Richardson
@tracey_san
Last post of 2012 - Happy New Year!!!
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Caused versus Created gap A3's (Problem Solving vs Proposal / Strategy)
I thought I would share this short video clip I did at the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) @leandotorg in Cambridge, MA.
This clip gives a brief description of "caused" versus "created" gaps, and which A3 format do you use for each one.
I teach several different types of courses for LEI, 3 of them particularly involve training around Problem Solving A3's:
Please take a look!!
http://youtu.be/VNUpQUFmADk
Until next time,
Tracey Richardson
@tracey_san
This clip gives a brief description of "caused" versus "created" gaps, and which A3 format do you use for each one.
I teach several different types of courses for LEI, 3 of them particularly involve training around Problem Solving A3's:
- Managing to Learn A3 (2-day)
- Lean Problem Solving (1 day)
- Problem Solving aligning People, Purpose and Process
Please take a look!!
http://youtu.be/VNUpQUFmADk
Until next time,
Tracey Richardson
@tracey_san
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Why has the Lean movement largely failed to capture the imagination of the sales team?
Hello everyone, this month's post is being shared from theleanedge.org. where I participate with fellow lean practitioners.
The question on the site is by:
Joel Stanwood: Why has the Lean movement largely failed to capture the imagination of the sales team? Most management teams who testify to having implemented Lean will describe financial impact in terms of shop floor efficiency improvement – direct labor productivity, overtime reduction, inventory velocity, floor space utilization, etc. Paradoxically, in terms of company economics, the most alluring promise of Lean is to boost sales, delivering ever higher variable contribution margins while delighting customers and winning in the marketplace. Yet the language of Lean to unlock the growth engine of the company rarely enters the sales vernacular, and in general, sales professionals are far less likely to have participated in Kaizen. Why has the Lean movement largely failed to capture the imagination of the sales team?
My response:
This is a good question and one that doesn’t facilitate itself for such a linear answer. I think all the responses so far have talked about many different ideas based on all our experiences out there with various industry and gives our readers some good perspectives to build on.
I suppose being part of Toyota in the beginning (1988) when we were setting up the systems at TMMK we realized Toyota Motor Sales (TMS) wasn’t necessarily part of our manufacturing plant (meaning onsite), they were a separate entity as Jeff and others described, but they determined our pull system. We were always told that every car we made was sold and TMS wouldn’t have us build to be building- that would go against the rules right? Many do not see this concept or believe its a feasible way to do business.
Toyota made it very easy for us to understand expectations (standards) and we designed our systems around this “pull” from the customer which we referred to as “takt time”. We got as low as 53 seconds a car at one time due to the pull from TMS orders and worked numerous hours of overtime and saturday’s to keep the customer happy based on that demand and/or the opposite if things slowed down. Our systems were “flexible” so we could adapt to change if the market changed. This happened several times in my time there and we were able to adapt with minimal to any downtime at all, just some good ole PDCA planning and thinking..
We learned we would never be a 24/7 shift producer, we would have only 2 shifts, that had the capability for overtime if necessary and also preventative maintenance (PM) to ensure our equipment could meet expectation with the high demand and lean environment we had. We all knew the “design to sell” value stream and ran “just in time”. You would never see Toyota hire manpower for full capacity production this was why the culture had flexibility embedded first and foremost, and was an essential element of the success of TPS. Time and seconds were important so we learned to value each one.
All of this took understanding the entire value stream from order to customer. Some of you have referenced design-make-sell.
I think to add to that thought Toyota recently has added “service” to this value stream, if you think about it, a service department can greatly impact sales of a product so although they are not part of the actual sales or manufacturing they need to understand the impact of their role in the value stream even after the sale. An important aspect many do not teach or discuss but if you reflect on the past few years you can see how sales could be affected by the lack of understanding in service very easily.
In my experience going to companies outside of the “Toyota” standard (which sits up on a pedestal to many) is eye opening in how removed sales and aspects around leveling and development are not included in their thinking and/or planning. To me it should be one of the first areas to learn since many are measured on “results” their sales, or what some call throughput, but the problem is they forget the process that gets them there and that is dangerous. The ole “process vs results” thing- imagine that.
So what I have seen in the past few years traveling around the US that sales are slowly becoming part of the learning sessions, at least where Im going, or ones that attend conferences I hear more often in class now-, “Im from sales”, I believe a pull has begun and my thinking is this:
If a company has sales as a part of the company, meaning they happen to be internal and are sitting next to accounting and/or the payroll folks then it “should” be easier to see the affects of their decision making, but unfortunately its not. The dangers I witnessed by sales not understanding or going to see the value stream even when its right next to them is they commit a product to a customer, without asking if its feasible, where it fits in the leveling process for manufacturing, lead times, manpower, or cost perspectives. To me this creates a “push” system for an organization, by sales having an entire lack of awareness to the entire value stream then they promise promise promise and when it gets funneled to production, they are like ” we cant do this, why did you tell them we could”, so several things can happen. (there are many that trickle down from this)
1. We prioritize orders by client size, order, or money
2. We push the “not so important” (in their minds) orders in “delay mode”
3. Or we miss the order completely putting at risk the reliability of the company
4. We overnight ship product which can result in very high costs
When these things happen then each day is just a reactive hodge-podge of getting what ever work we can put out and meet as many customers as I can. If no one is tracking the “pain to the organization” in regard to the key performance indicators then it can never get back tracked to sales lack of understanding. This can impact morale, costs, job security, company reliability and throughput.
So I feel its a slow pull, but one none the less, of a company seeing the need for sales to understand the entire value stream from design, make, sell, service and how to have “repeat” and addition sales (growth). Having sales understand this can be a paradigm shift in thinking for organizations on who are attending “learning sessions” whether its from a consultant, at a conference, or self learning from all the great books many here have written.
I believe when companies can get away from push production and embed pull production based on the sales departments improved understanding you will begin to see great things. I’ve began to embed this discussion at a awareness level to begin an understanding of the horizontal – vertical alignment of an organization.
I really appreciate the question, its not an easy one to answer without us all going out to ask deep questions regarding a company’s value stream and capacity, the more that is stressed the more I think we will see a slow change in sales becoming a valuable part of the value stream and the pull being the norm versus the abnormal. I hope this helps, this is my perspective based on my experience with some companies and working with their sales and also my time with Toyota to have a comparison.
Until next time,
@tracey_san
Tracey Richardson
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Check out my latest post on theleanedge.org - Just in Time in Batch areas- where do you begin?
Hey guys, I wanted to share with you my latest post on http://www.theleanedge.org. w/ Michael Balle'. The question is below from Andrew Turner, please see below. You can go to the website to see other Lean author responses or see mine below the question:
Andrew Turner: Where do we start in a Press shop?
“Our company is split in 2 sections, the one a JIT assembly plant, the other a mass production Press Shop. Implementation of Lean in the JIT plant has been relatively simple (not that Lean is ever really simple), however, we are struggling with the implementation in our Press Shop. I know the importance of items like SMED and Heijunka in driving this journey, yet we are battling to get the ball rolling forward. Where do you think we should start the process in the Press Shop?”
My Response:
Hi Andrew, I will answer to my personal experience in regard to this question. I think its a good one, it can bring out many dynamics that fall under that umbrella of thinking “flow vs batch” so I will try to cover several of them within my answer. When I was first exposed to the Toyota Production System (TPS) “thinking” in 1988 at Toyota Motor Manuf. KY (TMMK) I made an assumption that if you weren’t practicing one piece flow then you weren’t effectively practicing TPS. Now to explain that statement I was in a 2-week assimilation class before I ever was exposed to my work area, so we learned how to be “toyota team members” and for us; that was learning discipline and accountability to the methodologies that created our culture. I was hired into the Plastics department where we had Injection Molding processes and other similar “molding” areas. I soon realized that one piece flow wasn’t part of the mix there. We almost felt like we were “breaking the rules”, I quickly learned otherwise. I think a common mistake with Lean today is that if you aren’t practicing or creating flow then you aren’t necessarily Lean. I guess we were never Lean in some areas- ah the horror!!:).
So if you take a few steps back and look at a bigger picture you can see there are many things involved with implementing “flow type” thinking in batch driven areas. So in my experience it started with our Production Control Planning department (PC). As a leader in production I was always given a forecast each month from PC for the next month which helped me drive our production numbers to a very close average based on the last 3 months of pull from the customer. Now some may ask, how can you forecast customer pull so precisely? I say this because its not so linear in other industries, as it is perhaps in automotive, but when you think about it- can I really predict exactly what car the customer will purchase on the lot down to one for one? Unfortunately we can’t, nor can healthcare leaders know what is always coming through the door so you do the best you can to minimize waste and understand and track pull.
So if we use the previous 3 months of data to drive our future need we would try to predict within a 10-15% window, meaning sometimes there was flucuation in customer demand based on options/colors etc, and we tried to deal with that with our daily “leveling” (heijunka) if necessary. Just because our takt time (pull dictated by the customer) may have been 60 sec a part “off the end of the line” didn’t mean every car had to be 60 sec. We had to average 60 seconds at the end. So for example, a high end Camry may take 67 seconds to complete a specific process and a base model may only take 53 seconds, so Im averaging 60 seconds which is part of our production planning to try and forecast this to the best of their ability at level daily which met the montly expectations as close as we could (remember 10-15%).
So if Im given a production sheet for example stating we are making X amount of Camry’s and X amount of Avalons and X amount of Venza’s then I look at those high level breakdown points as my first level of “kanban” creation. A kanban is like an instruction for production or inventory regulation whether you are running one piece flow or batch type. The next level breakdown may look at specific exterior colors or interior colors, then even type of car for example sunroof or not, leather versus clothe.
So to countermeasure our batch areas to be the most efficient the Japanese trainers introduced us to a concept called signal kanban. This allowed us to run just in time with Assembly even though we had 3-4 mold changes per day (sometimes up to 45 min downtime per shift). Of course we looked at SMED too and got our changes down from 30 min to 10 min, but to know how many you were running and when to do the mold changes was mimicking just in time in many ways in an area where you couldn’t do one for one.
So based on the monthly forecast I was responsible for determining how many kanban (we had 20 headliners per a kanban)- in our case the kanban was an empty cart brought back from assembly. I knew how many assembly were going to pull based on the PC forecast, so when they emptied a cart the kanbans were posted on a board signaling us when it was time for a mold change and this same method went into our next shift, so they ran different molds than we did minimizing the changes per shift. The shift leaders worked together and rotated molds often monthly or quarterly based on the pull and to minimize waste. If you can envision a board with hooks by type, color and model we hung our kanban cards showing how many were pulled and then needed to be built by the next shift, it worked beautifully and yet we were still running “batch” but the most efficient way, maximizing every second of time to create as much value as possible. This was similar in our Stamping department as well. The signal kanban was necessary to compete in an Assembly driven one for one off line process, otherwise you would need lots of space to stack parts up if we were just mass producing.
Note** Within our assembly processes for the headliner pieces it was one for one applying hardware for the lighting and sunroof. So we embedded work cells within our mold changing areas that were driven by a one piece flow but at a higher level pulled from a signal kanban mold change system, we implemented the best of both worlds.
The key point is ensuring that your people understand the purpose/importance to stick to the kanban set by production control as much as possible, often times there can be situations where you would have an urge to “stock-pile” parts or “add” extra kanban to boost your inventory for those dreaded downtime days. It’s an absolute discipline when you really run a “batch” flow when you stick to your guns and run to what the kanban orders (in essence the customer) not to an inventory level that doesnt relate to a pull type system.
You also must create standardized work that meets the expectation per process that meets the assembly pull that creates your signal kanban, there was minimal ability for buffer creation if you followed the rules. In our case had about 3 hours of buffer between us an assembly, that kept us just in time and following the rules. It also enabled us to be in a continuous improvement “problem solving” mode- we encouraged a problem awareness type culture(problems were good). We used the Define-Achieve-Maintain-Improve model (DAMI) to ensure if we met a standard we raised the bar and improved it, again this thinking ensured we were respecting our team members ability to think and continuing to raise the bar on our processes allowing us to see waste. Waste can lead to excess inventory if not addressed and that isn’t a friend and shouldn’t be welcomed so we must create that discipline with our people in understanding expectation and teach them to see abnormality to standard at all times. My role as a leader was to live that and develop others in that thinking.
It’s hard to tell you exactly “where” to start without seeing more, but I can share with you my experiences in how I learned based on what my trainers taught me in a “mold changing batch area”. I think the key where ever you decide to begin based on all the replies you will receive is ensure you are utilizing the power of your people, ensuring standards are set so people can see abnormality and ask why, then lastly have a production planning process that forecasts very closely to customer demand and set up your systems with the flexibility to change monthly, bi-monthly, or even quarterly depending upon your product(s) demand. I think our flexibility was the “cake” and knowing the expectation within a tight window (10-15% for example) was the icing. I hope this helped answer your question.
Until next time,
Tracey Richardson
@tracey_san
Andrew Turner: Where do we start in a Press shop?
“Our company is split in 2 sections, the one a JIT assembly plant, the other a mass production Press Shop. Implementation of Lean in the JIT plant has been relatively simple (not that Lean is ever really simple), however, we are struggling with the implementation in our Press Shop. I know the importance of items like SMED and Heijunka in driving this journey, yet we are battling to get the ball rolling forward. Where do you think we should start the process in the Press Shop?”
My Response:
Hi Andrew, I will answer to my personal experience in regard to this question. I think its a good one, it can bring out many dynamics that fall under that umbrella of thinking “flow vs batch” so I will try to cover several of them within my answer. When I was first exposed to the Toyota Production System (TPS) “thinking” in 1988 at Toyota Motor Manuf. KY (TMMK) I made an assumption that if you weren’t practicing one piece flow then you weren’t effectively practicing TPS. Now to explain that statement I was in a 2-week assimilation class before I ever was exposed to my work area, so we learned how to be “toyota team members” and for us; that was learning discipline and accountability to the methodologies that created our culture. I was hired into the Plastics department where we had Injection Molding processes and other similar “molding” areas. I soon realized that one piece flow wasn’t part of the mix there. We almost felt like we were “breaking the rules”, I quickly learned otherwise. I think a common mistake with Lean today is that if you aren’t practicing or creating flow then you aren’t necessarily Lean. I guess we were never Lean in some areas- ah the horror!!:).
So if you take a few steps back and look at a bigger picture you can see there are many things involved with implementing “flow type” thinking in batch driven areas. So in my experience it started with our Production Control Planning department (PC). As a leader in production I was always given a forecast each month from PC for the next month which helped me drive our production numbers to a very close average based on the last 3 months of pull from the customer. Now some may ask, how can you forecast customer pull so precisely? I say this because its not so linear in other industries, as it is perhaps in automotive, but when you think about it- can I really predict exactly what car the customer will purchase on the lot down to one for one? Unfortunately we can’t, nor can healthcare leaders know what is always coming through the door so you do the best you can to minimize waste and understand and track pull.
So if we use the previous 3 months of data to drive our future need we would try to predict within a 10-15% window, meaning sometimes there was flucuation in customer demand based on options/colors etc, and we tried to deal with that with our daily “leveling” (heijunka) if necessary. Just because our takt time (pull dictated by the customer) may have been 60 sec a part “off the end of the line” didn’t mean every car had to be 60 sec. We had to average 60 seconds at the end. So for example, a high end Camry may take 67 seconds to complete a specific process and a base model may only take 53 seconds, so Im averaging 60 seconds which is part of our production planning to try and forecast this to the best of their ability at level daily which met the montly expectations as close as we could (remember 10-15%).
So if Im given a production sheet for example stating we are making X amount of Camry’s and X amount of Avalons and X amount of Venza’s then I look at those high level breakdown points as my first level of “kanban” creation. A kanban is like an instruction for production or inventory regulation whether you are running one piece flow or batch type. The next level breakdown may look at specific exterior colors or interior colors, then even type of car for example sunroof or not, leather versus clothe.
So to countermeasure our batch areas to be the most efficient the Japanese trainers introduced us to a concept called signal kanban. This allowed us to run just in time with Assembly even though we had 3-4 mold changes per day (sometimes up to 45 min downtime per shift). Of course we looked at SMED too and got our changes down from 30 min to 10 min, but to know how many you were running and when to do the mold changes was mimicking just in time in many ways in an area where you couldn’t do one for one.
So based on the monthly forecast I was responsible for determining how many kanban (we had 20 headliners per a kanban)- in our case the kanban was an empty cart brought back from assembly. I knew how many assembly were going to pull based on the PC forecast, so when they emptied a cart the kanbans were posted on a board signaling us when it was time for a mold change and this same method went into our next shift, so they ran different molds than we did minimizing the changes per shift. The shift leaders worked together and rotated molds often monthly or quarterly based on the pull and to minimize waste. If you can envision a board with hooks by type, color and model we hung our kanban cards showing how many were pulled and then needed to be built by the next shift, it worked beautifully and yet we were still running “batch” but the most efficient way, maximizing every second of time to create as much value as possible. This was similar in our Stamping department as well. The signal kanban was necessary to compete in an Assembly driven one for one off line process, otherwise you would need lots of space to stack parts up if we were just mass producing.
Note** Within our assembly processes for the headliner pieces it was one for one applying hardware for the lighting and sunroof. So we embedded work cells within our mold changing areas that were driven by a one piece flow but at a higher level pulled from a signal kanban mold change system, we implemented the best of both worlds.
The key point is ensuring that your people understand the purpose/importance to stick to the kanban set by production control as much as possible, often times there can be situations where you would have an urge to “stock-pile” parts or “add” extra kanban to boost your inventory for those dreaded downtime days. It’s an absolute discipline when you really run a “batch” flow when you stick to your guns and run to what the kanban orders (in essence the customer) not to an inventory level that doesnt relate to a pull type system.
You also must create standardized work that meets the expectation per process that meets the assembly pull that creates your signal kanban, there was minimal ability for buffer creation if you followed the rules. In our case had about 3 hours of buffer between us an assembly, that kept us just in time and following the rules. It also enabled us to be in a continuous improvement “problem solving” mode- we encouraged a problem awareness type culture(problems were good). We used the Define-Achieve-Maintain-Improve model (DAMI) to ensure if we met a standard we raised the bar and improved it, again this thinking ensured we were respecting our team members ability to think and continuing to raise the bar on our processes allowing us to see waste. Waste can lead to excess inventory if not addressed and that isn’t a friend and shouldn’t be welcomed so we must create that discipline with our people in understanding expectation and teach them to see abnormality to standard at all times. My role as a leader was to live that and develop others in that thinking.
It’s hard to tell you exactly “where” to start without seeing more, but I can share with you my experiences in how I learned based on what my trainers taught me in a “mold changing batch area”. I think the key where ever you decide to begin based on all the replies you will receive is ensure you are utilizing the power of your people, ensuring standards are set so people can see abnormality and ask why, then lastly have a production planning process that forecasts very closely to customer demand and set up your systems with the flexibility to change monthly, bi-monthly, or even quarterly depending upon your product(s) demand. I think our flexibility was the “cake” and knowing the expectation within a tight window (10-15% for example) was the icing. I hope this helped answer your question.
Until next time,
Tracey Richardson
@tracey_san
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Can we reduce nemawashi to lobbying ? Is nemawashi checking the relevance of a solution and enriching it with key field actors, or simply promoting / enforcing it ?
Hello everyone,
I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, it has been a busy one for me traveling all around the US and Canada spreading the good word about changing how people think and practice as an organization.
My next blog post is being shared yet again from theleanedge.org where I have been participating in the dialogue answering specific questions posted by individuals and/or companies on their lean journey.
This month's question is:
Can we reduce nemawashi to lobbying ? Is nemawashi checking the relevance of a solution and enriching it with key field actors, or simply promoting / enforcing it ?
I think this is a great question and something we tend to overlook in the communication process of (engaging people). Many have never heard of the word Nemawashi so please check out my answer to the question along with other Lean authors.
Here is the link to the site - http://theleanedge.org/
If you want a link to my specific response be go here - http://theleanedge.org/?p=3845
Until next time
Tracey Richardson
@tracey_san
I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, it has been a busy one for me traveling all around the US and Canada spreading the good word about changing how people think and practice as an organization.
My next blog post is being shared yet again from theleanedge.org where I have been participating in the dialogue answering specific questions posted by individuals and/or companies on their lean journey.
This month's question is:
Can we reduce nemawashi to lobbying ? Is nemawashi checking the relevance of a solution and enriching it with key field actors, or simply promoting / enforcing it ?
I think this is a great question and something we tend to overlook in the communication process of (engaging people). Many have never heard of the word Nemawashi so please check out my answer to the question along with other Lean authors.
Here is the link to the site - http://theleanedge.org/
If you want a link to my specific response be go here - http://theleanedge.org/?p=3845
Until next time
Tracey Richardson
@tracey_san
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