Blog Archives
Lean Positivity
In my previous post I wondered about wasted human potential within a pretend Lean system. Today, I want to share a second hand story of the exact opposite.
I have a colleague that has had the opportunity to be a part of a pretty successful Lean journey. As I talked to him, I became less interested in the mechanics of the change to Lean and more interested in his personal story. The things I’ve heard from him reaffirmed my faith in the Lean process and reminded me why I am so passionate about it in the first place.
At first glance, this guy normally appears to be a bit on the grumpy side. But, when talking about the effect of Lean on him and his workplace, his face literally lights up like a kid at Christmas. When he tells his story, he talks about how the process changed him from being frustrated to loving his job. And about how much fun he had coming up with new ideas to solve problems. He spoke with optimism, not despair, about how to continue finding the waste and savings opportunities after the initial activity took care of the “low hanging fruit” we all talk about. I heard his story about being involved in his first kaizen report out and having Jamie Flinchbaugh in the room. He told of being initially intimidated by Jamie, but then being excited about sharing what he had done and learning from what Jamie said. He spoke of the challenge and commitment involved and of the lasting impacts that being a part of the whole process made on him.
It was in this conversation that the light bulb flickered back on for me. I enjoy being a part of making a business more successful and solving complex problems. But, the real deep down motivator for me is that someone may be able tell a story of the impact that a Lean journey has had on them and that I may have had a part in that process. At our best, we aren’t just transforming processes or balance sheets. We are transforming people. I’d like to thank my new colleague for reminding me of that.
(For the record, I have no connection to Jamie Flinchbaugh or LLC other than owning his book. I was just really impressed by his role in this story.)
Counting Down the Top 10 Viewed Posts of 2011 – 5 Thru 1
2012 is now in full swing. Before 2011 is too far in the rear view mirror, I thought I would recap the Top 10 most viewed posts on Beyond Lean for 2011.
New followers of the blog can use this as an opportunity to read posts they might have not seen in the past. While, long time followers can use this as an opportunity to re-read some of the top viewed posts.
This post will count down the 10th thru 6th most viewed posts of 2011. Enjoy!
5. Comparing Lean Principles to the 14 Toyota Principles (July 2010) – Previous Year Ranked #2 – The first part of a three part series where I compared the lean principles I learned from the Lean Learning Center to the Toyota Principles. This post covers the first five Toyota Principles.
4. Seth Godin and Failing Better (April 2011) – This post dives into a post from Seth Godin talking about how to fail so you learn faster and use that to your advantage.
3. Sportscenter Has Killed U.S. Manufacturing (June 2011) – Manufacturing is fundamental. The U.S. has lost it’s sights on the fundamentals and is just worried about the flashy. The U.s. needs to get back to the fundamentals in order to get back on top.
2. Why Are Lean People Seen As Lean People? (February 2011) – Exploring the question as to why lean people are not seen as more than just lean experts. Looking at a process from end-to-end seems like a good business practice no matter what the role.
AND……
1. 5S in the Office (September 2010) – Previous Year Ranked #1 – Most viewed post for two straight years now. A look at using 5S in the office. What is going too far and how to use 5S in the office properly.
I look forward to more posts in 2012!
My Continuous Improvement: Reflection is Key to Learning
As I look for ways to improve, I am inspired by other lean thinkers and bloggers. I see what they are trying and look to how that might work for me. I try and experiment with things in order to make my job easier and to feel more in control and organized.
I decided to start a series that will be based on what I have tried in order to make my work better. It may be small or large things and most likely it was an inspiration I got from someone else. I hope that by passing along what I have learned that it may inspire others the way others have inspired me.
A few years ago, I took a class at the Lean Learning Center. The class taught the lean principles as presented by Andy Carlino and Jamie Flinchbaugh. One of the five principles is to “Create a Learning Organization Through Experimentation and Reflection.” The point that resonated with me was the importance of reflection. Without reflection, there can be no learning. Reflection is the time when we take what we have learned and applied and decide how it has worked or not worked for our situation as an individual, group, or organization. The difference isn’t reflecting after the fact, but planning the reflection in as part of the process.
It resonated so strongly with me that I block off one hour every Friday morning (or last day I work in the week) to reflect on the previous week. I have been doing this for almost four years now. There have been weeks when I have missed the reflection time, but that is OK. It signaled that something was different. It is such a habit for me that co-workers have stopped interrupting during my reflection time. I look back at the work done over the last week and how to move forward the next week. I make note of some of the challenges and mentalities I have encountered over the week so I can reference them if need be at a later date.
I still have room for improvement in how I reflect and the content to make it even more meaningful, but there is no doubt that doing this has helped me understand how I have handled different situations over the last few years.
It’s not the learning and doing that makes us better. It is understanding how and why the learning and doing makes us better.
Is Your Lean Training a Waste of Time?
Last week, my company had Jamie Flinchbaugh, from the Lean Learning Center, in for some follow up on training his organization gave us back in November. A point that Jamie makes during every session is about doing something with what we learned. If we leave any training session and do nothing with it, then by definition it is waste, because we haven’t changed anything and we can do that without spending time in training.
This is something I have taken to heart for a few years now. Anytime I go to training or learning session, I make it a point to learn something new that can help me in my work. More importantly, I try to incorporate what I learned into my work or thinking where appropriate.
After applying this for so many years and listening to Jamie last week, I finally realized I had never expected the people I am teaching to do anything with what I have taught them.
There are two reasons why I haven’t done it. One is I have never told any class I have taught my expectations are they will take something from the class and apply it. I need to be clear and explicit about expectations.
The second reason is I have never incorporated any time into the class for them to think about and develop an action plan on how to apply something that was taught. If the expectations are to take something from the class and apply it, then I should make it easy for them to develop an action plan. Giving them time in class allows them to think about it while it is fresh. Plus, having a support group to talk to can help. Also, I can be there to answer any questions they have.
I made changes last Friday with a training session I conducted. I set the expectations and I allowed time to think about and develop action plans to apply what they learned. My hypothesis is this will increase the number of changed behaviors and actions after attending my training sessions. Otherwise, it would have been a waste of their time.
Want Things to Change? Then Give the Experiences.
This is my final post about things that really hit home with me during my second go ’round at the Lean Experience class that Jamie Flinchbaugh and Andy Carlino, from the Lean Learning Center, put on at my company.
When discussing lean principles you naturally start to talk about behaviors to look for to understand if that principle is being followed or not. The only way to get people to change their behavior is to change their beliefs (nothing religious just from a lean standpoint). Such as a belief to manage by going and directly observing the work being done and not manage from behind a desk reading reports.
This makes a lot of sense. The part that has always been missing is, how do we get them to change their beliefs?
That answer, as Jamie and Andy explained, is to give them the experiences demonstrating the new behaviors/beliefs and let them experience the difference. In fact, the whole Lean Experience class is designed to set up and give experiences demonstrating the lean principles. It starts the change process. One experience does not change the belief.
While giving experiences may seem straight forward, it isn’t easy to remember to do. This hit home because recently I completely abandoned this while trying to implement a kanban system for a component we use. I have had multiple experiences of implementing a kanban, so I had the belief this was the right thing to do for our situation. But some of our internal suppliers did not. I got to a point of frustration that I told them to just do it and listen to me. Well, I think we all know how that worked………not so good. One of my partners kept building the kanban and did some compromising with the internal supplier and got the kanban up and running. Over the last 2 months, a 20 year old problem that happened several times daily has only happened one time. The internal supplier is ecstatic that we aren’t calling him all the time now begging for the components.
This is the internal supplier’s first experience he has been given with a kanban system. He has now changed his view on it, but still isn’t all the way sold. This is where we have to continue to give positive experiences to continue to change his beliefs.
As we continue to spread lean to more and more people, we have to remember to ask, “How do we give them the positive experiences?”
This concludes my reflections from the Lean Experience class. Here are the links to all the reflections:
Solve Problems to the Generative Level
This is the second to last post about my reflection and learning from the Lean Experience class taught by Jamie Flinchbaugh and Andy Carlino from the Lean Learning Center.
On Wednesday morning, the class participated in the Beer Game. It is a simulation showing the effects of processes on a system. At the end all the teams had to chart their results. A quick debrief showed how different teams used different strategies during the simulation. The eye-opener was that all of the charts from the different teams showed the SAME pattern on every one of them. That really struck me on how processes drive everything (something I have always believed but the example was powerful).
Jamie and Andy went into explaining their Iceberg model that is below.
As problem solvers we seem to talk a lot about being reactive versus proactive. This is definitely better but we never seem to talk about problem solving to the generative level. Jamie and Andy use the iceberg to show how we spend a lot of time reacting to what is happening now (fire fighting). This is what we can see easily so it is shown sticking up above the water.
When we get below the surface, we start to see factors that are contributing to the results. These factors create patterns and when we problem solve to fix the patterns is when we are being proactive.
Being proactive is good but it isn’t deep enough. We need to solve a problem at the systems level so no matter what strategy we use we get the desired out come we are looking for (just like the Beer Game). When we dig this deep and change the systems we are getting to the generative level. This is the level that starts the generation of results we see at the top of the iceberg.
Lets look at a bearing going out on a machine as an example:
Reactive would be to wait until the bearing goes out and the machine shuts down to replace it.
Proactive would be to change the bearing before the machine shuts down when you notice a difference in the machine’s sound or it starts to vibrate.
Generative would be to understand how long the bearing typically lasts before it starts performing at a less then optimal level. The have a maintenance program that replaces the bearing before it can even perform at a less than optimal level.
I know that I have done some of this problem solving in the past but I always looked at it as proactive. I now have a new lens to look at it and ask better questions to make sure we are changing the system and not just addressing the pattern.
Other blog posts about my learnings from the Lean Experience Class:
Systematic Waste Elimination
My three posts this week will be the final three posts about some of the deeper understanding I got from attending the Lean Experience class facilitated by Jamie Flinchbaugh and Andy Carlino from the Lean Learning Center.
One of the five principles of lean they talk about is Systematic Waste Elimination. A common definition of lean out there is a eliminate waste from the process. Jamie and Andy talk about the key word in the principle….Systematic. I remember learning this three years ago, when I took the course the first time, but over time I have lost sight of it. Not eliminating waste, but systematically eliminating waste.
By systematic, Jamie and Andy mean have a structure to do it in. Don’t just go around talking about eliminating waste and expect people to just do it. Have a mechanism for someone to identify and surface the waste. Have a way for that person to go about eliminating (or reducing) the waste. Give it structure and a repeatable process.
Being systematic about eliminating waste, will give the organization a better chance at sustaining the momentum when someone engages and eliminates waste in their work. Having structure will allow successes to build upon one another.
I have seen structure put around waste elimination in manufacturing environments and even office environments such as order processing. I thought about how we could put structure around identifying and eliminating waste in our central lean change agent group that I am a part of. If we can’t do it in our own work, how can we expect others to do it?
Eliminating any waste, no matter how much, will add up and make things more productive.
Other blog posts about my learnings from the Lean Experience Class:
Kaizen Events Are Work Arounds
This post is another in a series of reflections I have had after attending the Lean Experience class by Jamie Flinchbaugh and Andy Carlino from the Lean Learning Center.
For several years, I have have seen kaizen events as a tool. It is a tool to help get people together to drive improvement or to help re-energize the employee engagement. Some may mislead you and say that it is lean to do kaizen events. It isn’t lean, but just another tool of lean. Like any tool, you need to know when is the appropriate time to use it. This was reinforced during the week.
The ‘a-ha’ moment I had is when Jamie described kaizen events as a work around for an organization that does not normally work cross functionally naturally.
In a company that is displaying lean behaviors, people in the organization would work together cross functionally naturally, without being “forced” through a kaizen event. Another way to put it is the internal customer and supplier relationship has a strong bond so both are naturally considered and involved in the improvement process.
If this is the case, then in an organization that working across functional boundaries well, are kaizen events even needed? Are companies that brag on the number of kaizen events, just really good at work arounds? Is the ideal state to have no kaizen events (because of good cross functional work, not just stop doing them)?
If you look at it in this way, then it really pushes how we view the way work should be done.
Other blog posts about my learnings from the Lean Experience Class:
Standardized Work Instructions – Not a Replacement for Skill & Knowledge
I am continuing to reflect on some of the thoughts and principles from the Lean Experience presented by the Lean Learning Center. This one centers around standardized work instructions (SWI). Most people are aware of the benefits of having standardized work instructions:
- Provides a baseline to improve upon
- Reduces variability in the process
- Increased predictability in the output of the process
- Reduces ambiguity in what is expected
- Enables troubleshooting when there is a deviation from the standard
- Etc..
I can’t say that any of this was a new epiphany to me, but the quote from Jamie Flinchbaugh that really sunk in was “Standardized work instructions are not a replacement for skill and knowledge.”
I have always taught that SWI is not meant to turn people into robots. It is there to free up the person’s mind from thinking about the routine, repetitive tasks and let them think about how to improve the process. No matter how I explained it, I always had a hard time getting people to buy in that have great skill and knowledge in the area.
A great example Jamie used was an airplane pre-flight checklist. I might be able to go through the checklist (which is a form of SWI) and complete, but there is no way you would want me to fly the plan. I do not have the skill or the knowledge to do so.
To me just saying the words, “SWI does not replace your skill and knowledge,” would seem like it would engage the employees more. It can reassure them that we aren’t trying to replace them by creating standardized work instructions. It is there to help apply that skill and knowledge in a consistent and effective way.
This was a point that really resonated with me.
Other blog posts about my learnings from the Lean Experience Class:
Andon – Subtle Difference Changes Mindset
Last week, I got a refresher and a deeper understanding the lean principles as presented by the Lean Learning Center. One thing deeper understanding I got was around andon (or signals). We started the week off by doing a case study around Toyota. The case study introduces the andon system that is on the production lines at Toyota.
A quick overview of the system. When an operator has an issue, any issue, they pull a cord at the line. The cord sets off music and lights telling the team leader their is a problem. The team leader responds immediately and asks, “What is the problem? How can I help?”
The first time I took the class, 3 years ago, I learned to use sound with the lights. In case the team leader wasn’t looking in the direction of the lights, the sound would tell them the problem. I have used this thinking in the last three years to install a few andon systems.
For three years, I looked at sound and lights as a way to get the team leader’s attention. Here is the subtle difference that I learned this time. Use the sound to alert the team leader of a problem and the lights to indicate where the problem is.
I know this is very subtle, but had I taking this understanding in the past, I would have implemented some andon systems differently. In some cases, I did you sound and lights to alert and tell where, but that was purely by accident. In some cases, I used sound and light just to alert and the the team leader had to find out where. Having this small change to my understanding gives me a whole new perspective on signaling when there is a problem. It allows me to put in systems with even less waste now.
I know this may seem small, but it has caused me to go back think about the small things and WHY I do them. It has me questioning things I haven’t question in a long time or ever before. It re-emphasized the importance of why.
As lean thinkers, implementers, teachers, and coaches we should always be thinking about the why and gaining a deeper understanding.
