Monthly Archives: January 2014
Shout Out to Fellow Bloggers
I wanted to give a shout out to some fellow bloggers today. Normally, when I give a shout out it has to do with reading something by another blogger that influences me to go and change my work.
Not this time. I have to give credit to some fellow bloggers that have the will to continually read articles and blogs that those in the lean world, like myself, find to be ridiculous.
Bill Waddell, Kevin Meyer, Mark Graban and others continue to read material by others that is so rooted in traditional mindsets that it can be appalling. Yet they do this and provide perspective to the rest of us so we don’t have to waste our time reading it.
I say THANK YOU!
It is always good to read and learn about “the other side.” It helps to combat the myths and misunderstandings of lean.
I have tried this and from time to time can read the other material but I struggle. Knowing that mindset is still so rooted and these “experts” are continuing to think this way can drive me absolutely BONKERS!!! And that is the medial term.
So to Bill, Kevin, Mark and others…Thank you for helping to keep me informed. By doing so, you help to keep my sanity.
My Continuous Improvement: Personal Kanban – 4th Revision FAILED!
A couple of years ago, I read a blog post by Tim McMahon about his experience with using personal kanban to manage his work. It inspired me to try my own. The first one didn’t work as I mention here.
Then I tried again. I had great success with the 2nd board. I used it for a year and a half.
With a new role where I have multiple desks, I am constantly in different areas of the building. I may not be back to my desk for several days or even a couple of weeks. I wasn’t able to keep my board up and I had work to do written in several places.
I wanted to find an electronic kanban that would work for me. I found one that worked well. It was a computer only board. I explain it more in this post here.
This new electronic kanban work well. I could take a note or email myself on my phone with what needed to be on it and then transfer it when I got to my computer. If I had my computer with my, I just added right then.
As a person always looking to eliminate waste, you can see where there was waste in emailing myself and then re-typing it for the kanban board. A friend of mine recommended Trello for me to try. It was web-based. I was able to download an app to my phone which I could open and enter the work and not send myself emails to re-enter.
Everything looked great so I gave it a try for the last 3 months of last year.
It wasn’t hard to use. It had plenty of features and it was setup very similar to the electronic kanban I was using. For some reason, I couldn’t get the flow of it. Trello was not working for me. I tried for three months and I couldn’t get into the flow of using it and making my life easier to manage.
I have no idea why it didn’t click with me but it was a disaster. I forgot some things that needed to be done. I felt disorganized and stressed.
So, to start 2014 I am going back to my electronic kanban board on my computer and not using Trello. I already feel more organized and less stressed since I switched back.
I’m not dismissing Trello yet. I need to reflect as to why it wasn’t working for me. Was it something truly with Trello? Or did it have something to do with the enormous project I was on and I just couldn’t keep up with trying something new at the same time?
The important thing is to understand what was happening because maybe Trello can work for me and help me reduce my waste in maintaining my kanban board.
Learning is important and not just living with a change because we need to change. The change needs to be given a fair chance and if it is failing then you can’t be scared to change back if necessary.
Does anyone else have any experiences with a change that totally failed?
Guest Post: Lean Material Handling: Making Production More Efficient and Profitable
Today’s guest post comes from Danielle M. She has been a dedicated student of Lean Manufacturing methodologies since 2006. It was love at first sight when she read the motto, “Everything has a place; everything in its place” in her first copy of The Toyota Way.
Lean manufacturing seeks out and eliminates waste wherever it can be found. One process that can be overlooked in a manufacturing business is the very end, where products are stacked on pallets, wrapped and shipped out. What follows are a number of ways you can reduce wasted time, effort and money by finding efficiencies in your pallet packing processes.
Material handling and lean manufacturing go hand-in-hand. Without efficient material handling processes, factories and warehouses can’t fully integrate lean manufacturing into their operations.
If you want to increase production time and reduce waste in your manufacturing business, take lean material handling practices seriously. These suggestions should inspire you to make changes in your warehouse operations.
Reduce mistakes, eliminate waste
The most basic principle of lean manufacturing is eliminating waste — wasted time, inventory, movements or processes. Your production systems should be so efficient that employees know exactly what to do with each part, how to do it and when to do it.
It’s important to remember that working faster doesn’t always mean working more efficiently. Take the time to figure out the simplest method of doing something and make that the standard of operation. Ensure that all processes are scheduled to eliminate lag time between work stations; workers shouldn’t have to wait on needed parts, and materials should be worked on immediately.
Improve efficiency with standardized routes
Material handling routes can either make or break a production line. Standardized material handling routes ensure that the appropriate parts reach their destinations on time, that there are no waiting times and that production runs smoothly. Employ standardized schedules in these areas for an efficient material handling route:
- Deliver all components on time. This is achieved by setting up kanbans (signposts or billboards) at predetermined locations so that material handlers know exactly which components to deliver to specific work areas. Each component retrieval cycle should take the same amount of time.
- Use the right equipment to transport components. The weight and amount of components being transported should determine the kind of equipment needed to safely and quickly move them to the designated area.
- Set up even pulls. The amount of finished goods pulled throughout the day should be enough for each employee to manage throughout the duration of his shift, without lag time or being overwhelmed.
Invest in necessary equipment
Using the right material handling equipment to transport and store inventory increases available space and improves production time. For instance, using forklifts to carry multiple heavy items — instead of using dollies to carry a few items at a time — is safer for employees and moves inventory from point A to point B quickly.
Automated storage systems aren’t exactly necessary, but they do accurately track inventory and allow employees to quickly find necessary parts. With these systems, employees input the materials they need into the storage system, and it automatically retrieves the item, without wasted time searching each shelf.
Accurately track material handling costs
Most — if not all — pricing methods in manufacturing are estimated based on actual production time and overhead. In order to get an accurate amount of time spent on an area of production, estimators must frequently communicate with employees and managers to find out where inefficiencies exist and figure out how to eliminate them.
Systems like cost-estimating software track the efficiency and processes using existing manufacturing standards and data. This makes it possible for estimators and accountants to change their company’s processes by adding and modifying the software’s data to accommodate specific needs. Doing so provides accurate information regarding production schedules and pricing, so your company can provide clients with more accurate quotes.
Material handling processes have come a long way from the inefficient systems of decades past, but there’s always room for improvement in the production industry. Constantly examining and identifying flaws in the system is key to making your business a lean, mean manufacturing machine.
Buying New Equipment? Use What You Got.
During some recent blog reading, I was spurred to think about a past situation when a company I worked for was buying new equipment and how WRONG this decision was.
I had been with the company for about four weeks when I heard about a capital expenditure my director had just approved to buy nine more of a patented machine. My company owned the patent. That would give us a total of 99 of these machines.
First question I asked, “Why are we buying more of these machines?”
The response was a typical one, “We they need more capacity because we are meeting the demand.”
I didn’t ask anymore questions at that point. I decided to go and see for myself. This was easy because the corporate offices we were in was part of the main manufacturing building. I had to walk about 100 yards.
During my observations I found two things:
- The overall OEE of the 90 machines was around 35-40% when it was running.
- At anytime I never saw more than 50 of the 90 machines running. This was because we never had enough people to run all the machines.
SAY WHAT?!?!!
After a few hours of direct observation, it was clear there was no understanding of what was really going on.
First, attack changeovers and downtime to get the OEE of the machine up to the 75% range.
Second, why buy more machines if we can’t staff them?!
By my calculations, if the OEE was raised to the 75% range, not only would we not have to buy more machines we could get ride of about 20-25 machines we already had. That would mean our current staffing would be pretty close to what we needed.
I presented this to my new boss and the director, but by this time it was too late. The money had been cut and were pretty much crated and on the road to our facility.
This is why companies should question any new capital expenditures. Companies should be maintaining and using what they have first. The OEE should be at least 70% if not higher before considering adding more capacity through spending.
Do not make any decisions about capital expenditures until the current state is thoroughly understood. The best way to do that is to go and see for yourself.
Counting Down the Top 10 Viewed Posts of 2013 – 5 Thru 1
2014 is now in full swing. Before 2013 is too far in the rear view mirror, I thought I would recap the Top 10 most viewed posts on Beyond Lean for 2013.
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 2013. Enjoy!
5. Making Leader Standard Work Visual (June 2011) – Previous Year Ranked #9 – An example of a visual board from a group I worked with. The board makes the tasks and if they were completed by the managers visual.
4. Don’t Over Complicate the Formula (October 2011) – Talks about simplifying formulas to get you directionally correct especially with calculating kanbans.
3. Need the Mental Toughness of a Navy SEAL (February 2012) – Previous Year Ranked #4 – Inspiration of a Navy SEAL got me thinking about the mental toughness it takes to create change.
2. Keys to Sustaining 5S (September 2011) – Tips to help sustain (the 5th ‘S’) the gains made from implementing 5S.
AND……
1. 5S in the Office (September 2010) – Previous Year Ranked #3 – 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 hope 2014 is a great year!
Counting Down the Top 10 Viewed Posts of 2013 – 10 Thru 6
2014 is now in full swing. Before 2013 is too far in the rear view mirror, I thought I would recap the Top 10 most viewed posts on Beyond Lean for 2013.
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 2013. Enjoy!
10. Comparing Lean Principles to the 14 Toyota Principles (July 2010) – Previous Year Ranked #6 – 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.
9. True Mentoring (May 2012) – Previous Year Ranked #7 – This is my take on true mentoring versus fake mentoring that goes on in business today.
8. Strategy A3 Downloadable Template (April 2012) – A quick description of a strategy A3 with a link to a template that can be downloaded.
7. Guest Post: Selling Lean to People That Don’t Want It (July 2011) – Previous Year Ranked #10 – This is a post from Joe Wilson before he became a full-time author at Beyond Lean. Joe talks about ways to sell lean to people who are not bought into the benefits of lean.
6. Why Are Lean People Seen As Lean People? (February 2011) – Previous Year Ranked #1 – 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.
My next post will count down the Top 5 viewed posts of 2013.
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2013 – Personal Kanban
At the end of the year, John Hunter does a great job of facilitating an annual roundup of business and lean blogs at Curious Cat Management. The roundup is a review of blogs by other bloggers. This year I have the honor of participating in the Blog Carnival Annual Roundup.
A couple of years ago, I read the book Personal Kanban by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry. It is a great book that helped me along my personal kanban journey. From the book, Jim and Tonianne create a blog called Personal Kanban.
There is a great series of posts to help with managing your kanban boards. The topics include how to categorize your backlog to make it easier to understand what work there is left to do, but before you categorize your backlog you should clean it out. Clean out what is needed and what isn’t needed any longer. And how to clean up the done column on the board. The series has some great advice and hints to improve the use of your kanban board.
There are pointers on how to focus the work on a more important project. This post discusses using a larger post-it note for the focus project and the team members being instructed to pull work from here first.
No matter if your a novice or been using kanban boards for a very long time, Jim and Tonianne have great pointers and examples to help everyone improve upon their usage of kanban boards.
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2013 – Lean Blitz
At the end of the year, John Hunter does a great job of facilitating an annual roundup of business and lean blogs at Curious Cat Management. The roundup is a review of blogs by other bloggers. This year I have the honor of participating in the Blog Carnival Annual Roundup.
A blog that I discovered a couple of years ago was Lean Blitz written by Chad Walters. I like Chad’s unique way of relating lean and continuous improvement to the sports world, because there are plenty of examples throughout sports to do this.
Take the respect for people as an example. The NFL was ripe with instances of disrespect this year, from the Miami Dolphins’ handling of the bullying in their locker room to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ unclean locker room leading to three players getting MSRA infections. Not only in the NFL but in college also. This post talks about Coach Kelly at Notre Dame not listening to his players when something was wrong with the gauntlet machine. Chad tackles the issue head on in his posts.
Another topic on the blog is error proofing. Chad talks about how Clemson and Notre Dame handled a color out night at their school for a football game. Clemson was a huge success while Notre Dame not so much. He shows some of the differences. Another favorite is how sprinklers popped up in the middle of an NFL game at the end of last year.
Chad has created a unique blog at Lean Blitz. It is a fun and different way to demonstrate lean principles in action in any environment.
Lone Survivor
In 2012 I made a commitment to read one non-lean book a month for the entire year. As I did, I posted my progress throughout the year. The first book I read was Lone Survivor, by Marcus Luttrell. This is his autobiography and recount of Operation Red Wings as the lone survivor of a Navy S.E.A.L. team that got caught in a fire fight deep in Taliban territory.
It inspired one of the most popular posts at Beyond Lean, Need the Mental Toughness of a Navy S.E.A.L.
The book has now been made into a movie and a great one at that. I always reference this because I find it an amazing story of perseverance and survival. It should be an inspirational story to all and there are lessons that can be learned and applied to many things in life.
If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, I would encourage you to do so. Four men’s lives were in the balance based on a impossible decision. Kill a kid in order to save their lives so the Taliban does not know their position or set the kid free so he can tell the Taliban their position as they are out manned 200 to 4?
The trailer for the movie is below. I would love to hear others thoughts on this.
NOTE: I get nothing from all this. I am not connected in any way. I truly find this story amazing.
Beyond Lean 