Listen to how a greenhouse is effectively using lean tools.

Lean implementation is difficult. Perhaps these hints will be useful.

What did and didn’t work during the first 4+ years of lean implementation at Misco

Short interview focusing on Clean Burn‘s lean successes and failures.

A round table discussion on lean success and failure.

On August 10, 2006 Dwight Bowen was interviewed on the Podcasternews network by Ken Rayment founder of the Better Process Podcast show. This brief interview focuses on the development, process and success of the Lean Thinking Network and interactive. multi-company networks in general.

Perhaps your company is implementing 5S and finding the process challenging.  Resistance to 5S is frequently cultural………..”Hey, we don’t have time to clean up”……..or…..”auditing our facility and organizing and cleaning up each day will increase cost and reduce productivity”.  Most companies find the 5S process difficult, especially when sales are strong.  So how can you motivate your team to see the value and embrace the process?

Visit a local fire department.  For them 5S (they will probably call it “common sense”), is a necessity.  They are in the life and property protection business.  Delays can cost lives, therefore delays are not tolerated in their system.  They have sorted and eliminated the unnecessary, straighten up what is left, cleaned and shined their equipment to insure functionality, standardized their processes to do so and than sustain the process through physical audits (formal or informal).

Lack of Trust The Ninth Waste?

Developing effective teamwork is extremely difficult. What would it take to improve your teamwork? Does trust affect teamwork?

Company leaders; do your reports trust you, does ownership or your board of directors trust you? Do you trust them?

Managers/Supervisors; do you trust your boss? Do your reports trust you?

Everyone else; do you trust your boss? Your boss’s boss?

We all know the eight wastes and the negative affect they have on operations, customer service and profitability:

1. Overproduction
2. Inventory excess/storage
3. Repairs/rejects
4. Unnecessary motion
5. Process inefficiency
6. Waiting
7. Transportation (parts and materials)
8. Underutilizing people – skills, experience, creativity…………….

Some businesses are committed to create and maintain teamwork. I know of two professional sports teams who devote time and money to developing trust among the team members. The Philadelphia Flyers professional ice hockey team spent time at West Point building trust and team work in the fall of 2005. The CSC professional bike racing team spent time in military training in Europe focused on mutual trust and teamwork. Why would they do this? They are already a team of well-paid professionals. Why do they need to focus on creating trust? Both teams contain people from different cultures who speak different languages. Does your company have this situation? If not, do you have trust at all levels? If you don’t why not?

You need effective teamwork to continuously improve operations. Goals and objectives must be team oriented supporting effective teams not individual heroes.

Lack of trust impedes cultural change. Cultural change is a requirement of lean conversation and critical to attaining world-class competitiveness, profitability, and the creation of a better place to work.

And what’s in it for your company? The Toyota Production System has proven itself over and over again in manufacturing, distribution, administrative, service and retail. Identifying then eliminating waste continuously simply works and leads to: improved customer order fulfillment, lower costs, improved quality, shorter lead time, greater flexibility, increased capacity, reduced inventory etc.

Some suggestions to enhance an environment of trust:

1. Frequently hold company wide meetings to discuss issues openly and honestly
2. Leaders, be noticed noticing or walk the talk
3. Leaders, Managers, Supervisors; strategic alignment is critical to earning trust. Clarify and simplify your message and tell the truth.
4. When you make a mistake admit it and take the opportunity to do it publicly. This is a huge step in earning credibility and trust.
5. Encourage effective teamwork by rewarding appropriately
6. Discourage individual “heroes” remember……it’s about teamwork
7. Create a company-wide single measure, or scoreboard, illustrating measurable objectives everyone can affect,

The Stages of Lean (according to Dwight)

1. Beginner – implemented one Value Stream Map “future state” and are experiencing the “honeymoon effect” Improvement is daily, and progress is fast.
2. Stalling – dealing with the post-honeymoon condition. Lean isn’t as much fun and is no longer new. It still makes sense, but it’s getting a little stale. You get what you measure. What are you measuring?
3. Stalled – Lean is part of how we do business, but aren’t we Lean now? “Why do we have to continuously improve? We are better than our competition.” What has been standardized? What are you measuring?
4. Re-emergence – perhaps stimulated by some competitive failure, followed by deep soul searching, commitment and delivery of a carefully audited plan. Not making it to this step defines failure. All companies will stall sometime, some worse than others, it’s how they emerge that will make the difference. Courage, commitment and integrity are the keys. Oh yeah, don’t forget to measure.
5. Sustainability – the entrance to the “promised land” is in sight. We constantly audit our standardization, measure and post key results. Continuous improvement is a natural component of our workday and an expectation of all employees. By the way, don’t expect to ever get to the “promised land” but never quit trying.

I suspect if Taiichi Ohno or Shigeo Shingo were alive and paid me the honor of reading this, they might say… ART!!!??? That being said, I believe the effective use of Kaizen is both art (emotions, opinions, creative, situational, political) and science (balance, flow, rules, standardization, measurable etc). I offer Kaizen as a blend of art and science, with a large helping of common sense on the side.

So what is Kaizen? The Kaizen Institute, www.kaizen-institute.com ,refers to Kaizen as an effective process when it “accomplishes sustainable implementation through the development of the internal structure for deployment and developing strategies that enable the workforce (at all levels) to maintain Continuous Improvement initiatives.”
Bruce Hamilton, President of the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership www.gbmp.org (and the star of “Toast Kaizen”, refers to kaizen as “small and continuous improvements”. Kaizen uses direct observation and collective thinking to identify and eliminate waste “Muda”, unevenness interrupting flow “Mura” and strenuous conditions of workers, machines and work in process “Muri”.

How do you select areas to Kaizen?

Beginner – When you are just beginning you Lean journey, I have found Value Stream Mapping to be the best place to start. This will clarify opportunity and avoid possible “Kaizen drive-bys” which waste both resources and system credibility.

Stalling and Stalled – So you have done several Value Stream Maps, and have implemented toward your Future conditions. How can you effectively use Kaizen? Find the weakest point in your value stream (perhaps administrative) and “Kaizen” out the waste.

How do you select Kaizen teams? Well, tell me about your lean training… has everyone been trained? What do you mean by “trained”? If all the problems are being defined by leadership who then go out recruiting Kaizen team members, either you have not trained effectively or no one believes you will support him or her when the going gets tough. This is not sustainable.

Re-emergence – You have identified and eliminated your cultural and training weaknesses allowing the continuous to gather momentum….. Congratulations

Sustainability – Our objective, when there you are fiercely competitive and getting stronger, people love to work there and we make things simple, have fun and make money. Not bad eh?