JI CardHack - Arrange the Work Area

Last CardHack release for the Job Instruction Get Ready points. This one, like the last, has strong tie-in to 5S skills.

Head over to TWI Service to read more...

Coming soon: Now that you have prepared, its time to instruct - JI 4 Step CardHacks.

Chicken or the Egg

A wise old Toyota dude once said something like, "Without standards, there is no kaizen!"

This one quote has been expounded upon in Lean Churches for over the past decade, at least in my personal experience. The meaning behind this is basically interpreted as this: if you do not stabilize a process, you cannot improve it. On the surface this makes sense, especially if you have the following MBO genome sequence solidly embedded within your DNA: "what gets measured gets done." In other words, it is difficult to understand if an improvement has been truly made, if we cannot measure it. And we cannot measure things if we do not have a base to measure from. Got it? Good.

My refrigerator is not what I would call standardized. Yes, it has two doors, it stands upright, runs on 120V electrical source, and it even has wheels! But the arrangement of food, which foods go in there, how much food goes in there, how long does it stay in there? NOT standardized. The result is what I would call a disaster if I were in a tool room and opened a tool chest and found multiple tools, damaged tools, missing tools, etc.

Let's test the assumption: "there is no improvement without a standard!" If I clean out the refrigerator and set it to the standards that satisfy me, have I improved the situation? My feeling is a resounding: YES!! Perhaps you disagree.

A week later, I see the nice neat organization going south again. Here is where the a debate emerges and seems to take on a different tenor:

"If you had standardized on the arrangement you wouldn't see this variation." Here is the pure technocrat coming out of the woodwork, chastising me for not establishing standard work, not training my wife in leader standard work and not decreeing to the children that they will follow the standard work in the household newsletter, Sharepoint site, monthly meetings, notices in your paycheck and for especially not including adherence to standard work in their familial member descriptions per the terms of their contractual membership in the family. Your adherence to standard work will be discussed in your annual performance appraisal as well. (Just imagine the benefits, your refrigerator will be visitor ready when guests arrive unexpected!) Only then, will we achieve the level of accountability of adherence we need to declare victory in the Lean Kitchen. I see book deals and speaking tours on the horizon...sorry, took a wrong, but typical turn there...

While it is true that my family backslid on the Lean Fridge initiative, did we not learn anything? Can we do something else to further along the effort? Did we not simultaneously improve and standardize the first time? What would we do differently on the second effort? Should we expect similar results? Why? What can we do to change the outcome the second time, the third, the fourth?

This line of questioning begins to breakdown the standardization myth, that improvement can't be had without it and that one comes before the other. Now, before you throw the heresy flag, let me be clear: I'm not saying that we shouldn't create standards.

But a recent discussion on LinkedIn brought to light a phenomenon that has become increasingly prevalent in the world of Leanies: improvement camps. It goes generically something like this: Leansters are over in the standards camp. Six Sigmites are in the variability camp. Generally speaking, these two camps have created a pretty meaningless debate: which comes first, standardization or variation reduction?

Leansters are quick to throw out the Taiichi Ohno quote...we can't improve without standards. Six Sigmites say we can't standardize an unstable process. Really? I'm pretty sure I got my refrigerator from 0% to 100% and then it slid back to 80%. Not perfect, but an improvement nonetheless. Each camp, in my opinion is using an old cliche to fabricate an excuse, masked behind their professions, to not do anything more than the minimum and cast blame against the other. A Leanster would 5S the refrigerator and then audit the hell out of it: the beatings stop when compliance begins.Then we would value stream map it. The Six Sigmite would setup a DOE on ketchup shelf location until the perfect location was had; and then my four year old discovers ketchup - rendering the DOE obsolete. Then he would complain when the Cp goes to hell and blame it on the parents.

This whole debate smacks of the chicken or the egg, and a lot of people buy into it. I've been asked: what should we do first in our lean initiative, because Toyota has an extremely stable process - don't you know?! Well, yeah, sure, but at one point, they did NOT. And over time, it became more stable. But I'm pretty sure that if you look close enough, you will find variability and instability in ANY standardized process. That is just what unbridled change and entropy does to our world. But that isn't what we recognize, instead, we debate which road map we should purchase before we take the journey.

Speaking of roads, transportation systems are inherently an unstable process, don't you think? How many different grades of roads are there? In Vermont, there are officially four grades, and then there are the ones you can drive on with a jeep or ATV. What are the different maintenance practices for those five types of roads? Do the change of seasons have an impact on one practice over another? How do local politics and budgets affect those practices from locality to locality even in regions where seasons are similar? Are roads truly standardized, despite the fact that we assume the nomenclature of "transportation system" implies standardization?

What about the vehicles themselves? Are the engine types standardized? Even within one class of engine, do we see standardization? What about in the material grades used in those engines? Are the engineering management approaches used in designing, verifying and validating engines standardized? What about the motivational and team capabilities between one engineering team and another, even in the same company? Perhaps things are not as stable as we would like them to be. If we follow Ohno's advice, we would improve nothing in the engineering disciplines. Keypoint: do not confuse stability with standards.

More on the vehicles: tires. Are tires standardized? Perhaps in some areas, but not in size.  How do economics and regulations affect these designs: locally, regionally, nationally, globally?

Suspensions, are all suspension created equal? Body styles, safety features, cabin features, etc. Seats, etc. Are you telling me that different fabrics, threads, dyes, equipment, tools and inspection devices are not disruptive to a seat manufacturer that makes a "standardized" product for the automotive industry?

And how do these automobile variables interact with road maintenance? The more questions we ask, the more the chicken and the egg become one.

However, if we look close enough, there are many, many things that involve people and their behaviors, around the process and science of building a transportation system that are standardized. The internal combustion cycle is one thing. Crash physics is another. Around those standards, we see interactions that appear as variability to us and we seek to shape it so that it suits our wants and needs. Variability and standardization seem to be two sides of the same coin.

I can't see how the chicken or the egg is a trick question, and also cannot imagine why on earth we would say that an improvement methodology doesn't apply to ANY situation, since it grounded in basic science and math and human behavior principles.

Furniture shops: Joinery is a very standardized discipline with a robust history and body of knowledge available to us. The same could be said about knowledge of wood materials, grain structures, cutting tools, machinery, finishing, etc. in developing innovative methods around the design, manufacture and finishing of wood furniture. I have a question for furniture makers who say that Lean doesn't apply in custom wood job shops: can you point me to a factory where only ONE type of furniture is made in high volume? Probably not since they would not be in business with that type of business model. Conversely, I can't point you to a factory where only ONE type of car configuration is made in high volume. It is easily argued that a configured car is thousands of times more complex than custom furniture. Why do we split hairs? The phenomenon is most likely rooted in our ability to focus on products which trigger our senses: touch, feel, sound, sight, taste and not process, which engages our mind first.

Once people start thinking about variability and standardization as part of the same problem and solution (which means we start thinking about people and processes as part of the same problems) perhaps then we will stop thinking that lean is simply a trick.

At any point in time, in any part of any process - STOP to take a look and ask yourself some simple questions:

- Is this process stabilized? If not, how can it be standardized?
- Is this process standardized? If so, how can it be simplified?

Both answers are going to eventually take you to the same conclusion, "something must be done". Just remember, one doesn't necessarily precede the other.

The Merciless Genba

It's been a few months now since I've posted to TWI Blog. My new position has consumed...well, what it hasn't consumed, I have spent with my family, not blogging!

However, I was reminded of a genba genshou (workplace phenomenon) the other night while doing some coaching and thought I should take a few minutes to share with you. The story, if you will, starts with me doing some genba observation and coaching the 3rd shift supervisor and operators to practice their observation and problem solving skills. As we focused on one area within their span of control, a few quick observations were made: a) the operator table was too low (2S level problem), and the inspection device had an unused component (1S level problem). Both problems resulted in potential ergonomic and safety issues that all operators recognized as problems that they have just accepted...check that, that is the manager in me speaking. Rather, perhaps they have learned to live with the problems as I wonder if they would welcome these problems into their daily work routine.

The next thing I had the supervisor do was take a photo of their observations. Then I asked a simple question: "What can be done about this?" The ideas came quickly and were simple. Raise the table to a height all operators agree to so one can sit properly at the table. Remove the unused component so the operators reach is not overextended.

Then, a curious question was put back to me: "Are we allowed to do that?" I was stunned by this. Our people, who butter our bread, felt like they could not make positive changes that would improve their workplace and make the job safer and easier. I was ashamed that I had inadvertently stripped their empowerment away from them. It really had come to this! As I chewed on that thought, I couldn't bring myself to cough up the pretentious answer: "Yes, you have my permission to make your job safer."

In trying to grasp this difficult situation, to try and understand this phenomenon, I could only reply enthusiastically: "This is the United States of America dammit, we can do anything!" At a company that manufactures ballistic eyewear for the Army, I got a few "Hoorahs" in reply! Now, I have to resist that awful instinctive management urge to rein them in and control the improvements! Indeed, leadership is a phenomena that is not always easy to grasp.

5S Thinking

A reader at Jon Miller’s Gemba Panta Rei asks:

“I'm having a difficult time coming up with a tracking method for our 5S program. We are running a program with a scoring value but no real tracking method. Any suggestions?”

Jon presents three main questions to consider when thinking about this reader’s inquiry. Jon then asks the GPR readership, “What's your view on tracking 5S performance?” Rather than dominate his comment section in response, here are my thoughts regarding his three questions:

What is the purpose of the 5S program? 

I was like almost everybody else I know when I started “doing” 5S about ten years ago. Basically, I saw it as a shop floor cleaning and tidiness, which is a short way of saying: 5S is a clean-up tool where the result for managers was that we were always “tour-ready” and for genba people - the workplace was clean and safe. This was the main justification for doing 5S for many, many organizations at the time and I’m of the opinion that this rationale still prevails as the justification for doing 5S today.

What I have come to realize over those ten years is that a clean and safe workplace is a benefit, not the desired result, of practicing 5S. Benefit vs. Result. This may sound like the same thing, but it is not.

In my simple mind, the result of 5S is that leaders are consistently coaching people through the basic mental gymnastics of analysis, planning, implementation and reflection on problems and solutions in the realm of workplace organization. This is not a benefit but is a result, or more specifically, the actions taken in the areas of direct influence that people have over their domain in the workplace. So the result of 5S is that people take action.

If the result of 5S is that an individual can take action, then it follows that the purpose of 5S is scalable and universal for groups of individuals. A leader can coach a machinist and take that person through the mental process that 5S requires to organize and streamline the operations in and around the machine they operate. Or, coaching could occur at increasing difficulty levels, e.g., with a supervisor of the entire machine shop, where more complex “sorting”, “setting” and “sanitizing” of standards must be considered.

In short, 5S is a way for leaders to engage people at any level in any process so that they are required to think in a structured way about the process which they control. Notice that I didn’t say the way. 5S follows the PDCA process, like many other Lean ways, so it is actually quite adaptable to many situations if we can get beyond the misconception that 5S is about cleanliness and tidiness. When we take action, the result is an improvement in the process that meets the needs of both the individuals intrinsic needs and the company's goals. A clean and safe workplace is a benefit resulting from taking action; and is not the purpose or the result of practicing 5S.

The proof of this claim is that we do not sort, set, sanitize, standardize or sustain accidents, dirt or contamination. In other words, we do not standardize waste if we are thinking logically in a 5S manner. In addition to this, we do not sustain by continuing our cleaning routines, we sustain by coming up with continuous improvement solutions to eliminate the contamination or accidents. In fact, it is safe to say that 5S attacks our misconceptions and behaviors rather than objects. Workplace objects are just the means to practice attacking our thinking and behaviors.

We do things like analyze motions, movements, heights, weights and infinite genba phenomena so that we make the work easier, of better quality, easier to retrieve, easier to put away, easier to train, communicate, easier to detect problems, etc. This is hard work that we would otherwise not do if it weren't for strong, driven and compassionate leadership. In other words, to realize a deeper meaning of 5S beyond housekeeping, we can look at 5S as analogous to PDCA. Then we can make the leap to the requirement for daily coaching of people to use 5S thinking. Now, how would one go about scoring this?

How do we measure success of the 5S program? 

The first question to ask is: what does a 5S score mean? If you are measuring findings in a traditional 5S audit, then it is likely people perceive that you are effectively penalizing a person/team/area with the score.

Why do people perceive this? We are told that 5S never ends, that as soon as we step into that realm of lean, the journey has no destination, only continuous improvement. When we are halfway through a journey, we do not declare victory. The same can be said of a traditional 5S audit sheet. In the first week the area looks the best it has ever been. We are tempted to not find any problems. The result is a 100% score. But the auditor has been conditioned to use stretch goals, so he cannot give a 100% score. So he nitpicks the area and gives the score of 95%. This leaves the impression that if the nitpick problems are solved, one can achieve 100%. In a lean culture, you cannot be 100% this week, and 70% the following week. The reason is because the definition of continuous improvement is that we never reach 100%. This is proof that our current scoring systems often used with 5S programs are faulty and hides what we are really communicating behind the veil of housekeeping. When we note an audit finding and assign a score then our current thinking about scores contradicts the concept of an never ending journey. We think of scores as outcomes of events that allow us to pass judgment on that event. The final score of the basketball game is 45-38, therefore we can make a judgment on who won the match. But is this what we want with 5S, to say that we won? How do we know if we have won by looking at our 5S score? And can you predict if and when you will win? No, it is impossible. These are just some reasons why the current scoring mentality that we use with 5S is faulty.

Based on this, what are we trying to track?

Jon asks some great follow up  questions here:

“what will ‘good’ look like?”

“Are we aiming for a specific 5S score across the facility?”

“Is it the brightness of the shine from the floor?”

“Is it the level of engagement?”

“Are we looking for evidence of sustained improvement?”

And he offers the best answer: “The best way to track just about anything is to go see the actual status.”

In summary, my experience with 5S is that the purpose is for leaders to take the easiest approach possible to engage people in continuous improvement:

• One-on-one coaching interaction
• Focus on how they directly influence and can change the workplace organization in an incremental, continuous manner.
• And don’t score it. The score is not the goal, improvement and engagement is the goal. Each improvement is a small victory that moves us in a positive direction.

With that said, if you insist on measuring anything. Here are my suggestions: 5S scoring is a back room measure – the measurements should focus on how your leaders are engaging their people, not on how the areas look, kept, maintained or perform. Some better 5S indicators are frequency of visits to genba, number of improvements made by his team/dept/value stream, and anecdotal/factual evidence of improvements. The evidence can be presented by the individuals who make the improvements, or in company meetings, improvement competitions/celebrations, etc. In short, it takes leadership that is brave enough to abandon old ways of doing things and capable of bringing people along with him for the ride!

Fives on the Mind

Five is your new favorite number. Add a Y, S or N after the five. Trust me on this.

Lets start with the five whys (5Y). Do I need to elaborate on the importance of this? Read the section of Toyota Way Field book on causal chain and then go use it. And please don't stop at five just because it is five.

How about the five esses (5S)? The 5S' embody the very simple basics of workplace organization, improvement and building self discipline.

But don't start with either of these, they will come soon enough. You need to start with the Five Needs of every leader (5N).

What are the 5N?

The 5N can be separated into two basic needs: knowledge needs and skill needs. The knowledge needs can be parsed again into:

1. Knowledge of the Work
2. Knowledge of Responsibilities

Leaders must acquire this knowledge. By acquiring this knowledge, leaders can earn respect, grasp the situation more easily when problems do arise and can take prudent steps that are aligned with the organizations culture.

I mention these first needs because I have recently taken on a new role as Director of Quality in a manufacturing company. To say that I need to acquire these two packets of knowledge is the understatement of the New Year. But acquire them I must. The next question is then, what to do with the knowledge that I acquire over time?

Experienced leaders know that they have three other needs:

1. Skill of Instruction
2. Skill of Improving Methods
3. Skill of Leading

In the TWI approach, the skill of instruction is learned through Job Instruction. In my new role, I've asked people in the genba to train me in the job in order to better understand the work and problems that they encounter (knowledge need). Since I've been practicing Job Instruction for several years now, I can also evaluate the company's training effectiveness, its efficiency and other strengths and gaps. Interestingly, there is a direct tie between the 5N and 5S. In Job Instruction, we learn about the "Get Ready" steps of instruction. Two of the steps are to determine if everything is available for work: 1) machines, materials, tools, etc., and 2) is the workplace organized the way the person is expected to maintain it - even during work. Sounds like 5S to me!

Next is the skill of improving methods. It is said that Ohno wasn't satisfied with Job Methods when it was introduced to Japan in the 1950's but that he retained the "questioning method" that was learned in the program. You may be surprised that another "five" reveals itself in Job Methods: 5W1H. Perhaps this odd five-plus-one is best expressed in Rudyard Kiplings' poem:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

O.k., there is a sixth wheel here! But, the answers to 'how' often lead to many improvements. The Job Methods questioning method of 5W1H will bring the leader to many systemic improvements. It is the 5Y questioning method, however, that can allow deep insight - in probably the simplest manner ever devised - to millions of workplace problems today. Incidentally, there is a definite order to the questioning method in Job Methods, it starts with a simple question: "What is the purpose?" and then is followed by a relentless stream of why's until the questioner is satisfied. This gets people thinking about elimination (not needed if purpose is irrelevant) rather than streamlining waste and jumping to false conclusions.

Interestingly enough, the many little jobs I'm learning through Job Instruction can be snapped together like legos and eventually build up into a bigger process that can be analyzed and improved through Job Methods. In other words, as we learn the TWI job skills first, we begin to see how the five needs begin to work together with the five whys and the five esses...

With the skill of leading, learned through Job Relations, leaders aim to maintain and improve cooperation and workplace relations. This is done through the lens of improving problems of production, quality, cost and morale. It is not a stretch to see how improving workplace instruction, methods, organization and increasing problem solving skills can tackle all four problems listed. Where does Job Relations come into the picture? There are a few ways. First, by acquiring the knowledge of responsibilities we are better equipped to lead and maintain good relations. Second, when we talk about stabilizing the process through better instruction of standards, improving methods, machines, materials and environment - what we are really doing is changing the culture of the organization. Job Relations helps the leader help others through the change.

Do we need a huge toolbox to operate daily? Sure, there are a lot of nifty tools out there, but if everybody had a case of the fives - whoa, look out! Yep, I've got a bad case of the fives - and thank goodness there isn't a cure!

TWI Blog - 2009 Year in Review

Following are the top ten most viewed blogposts for 2009. Interesting…50% of them are from 2007 and 2008!? Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone and God Bless!

Job Breakdown Sheet Vs. Work Instruction

Genba, Genbutsu, Genjitsu in Plain English

Life After Death by Powerpoint

Lean Jargon Part II - Muda, Muri, Mura

Lean Jargon Part III - Gemba, Genba?

Job Breakdown Sheet Example

5S, Poka Yoke and Visual Controls

Lean Manufacturing Book Review - Managing to Learn by John Shook

How to Compress a Truckload of Digital Photos in 60 Seconds - JBS Example

Obama's Lean Government?

Connect the Lean Dots

I love this photo. This was seen in the genba and can serve as a 5S Learning Lab. It helps us imagine many benefits of practicing lean if we only embrace problems.

How would 5S make this area ready for work? Tools would be easier to retrieve, perhaps even at the point of use. This would free up space on the shelf, perhaps to create a visual kanban system for the rebuilt units.

More space would also give us an opportunity to re- layout the work area, reducing motion, twisting, lifting, walking and stretching.

This type of problem awareness might allow us to see potential problems, like the refrigerator on top of the cabinet. Is this a hard hat area?

Do we need to open the cabinet to know the inside condition? When we talk about "shine", are we thinking about housekeeping, or do we see shine as an action: "cleaning to inspect?" If we remove the doors from the cabinet and made frequent genba walks in this area, do you expect this level of visuality would help us identify and embrace problems more easily?

Assuming we made some 5S improvements in this area, what other Lean benefits could we expect? Would jobs be easier? Faster? Of higher quality? Perhaps. It is also possible that training could be done more easily, thoroughly and of higher quality. This may also lead to safer, easier, faster and higher quality jobs.

There are many small kaizen opportunities here that will help people connect the dots and see the benefits of continuous improvement through the simple act of 5S. Are you helping them see?

Problems Don't Have a Conscience

I've been learning a lot this month. The past several weeks have been a whirlwind of leading managers and their people in the skill of genba observation in 10 different North American manufacturing plants. Today, I learned that problems don't have a conscience.

Here is the situation. The HMI panel failed, so the engineer put a temporary solution in place. You can see the situation below:


What do you see? The display is resting on the air conditioner. The mouse is not on a mouse pad. Where is the keyboard? Do you see it? There are all types of violations of commonly accepted RULES here: falling hazards, ergonomic hazards, etc.

When I asked the engineer, "What do you see here?", he instantly went on the defensive. I can understand why, I have been stuck in this type of situation as well.

His breathless response was that it was a temporary solution and that the replacement HMI was coming in a few weeks. I smiled and thanked him for his honesty about the situation and his urgency in taking care of the broken HMI.

Then I asked him: "Do problems care if they are temporary or permanent?"

He appreciated the insight. "No, you are right. We are the only ones who care if problems are temporary." During the wrap up summary, he stood up in front of more than fifty people and shared this story with them. I have no doubt that he has improved the way he thinks about problems.

Do problems care if they are temporary in your plant?

Job Instruction and 5S

Last week, I was in a location that implemented a Job Instruction program in the laboratory. We were actually there for an assessment, but often, the conversation came back to Job Instruction. Why? Because the Job Breakdown Sheet (JBS) captures the current known standard and when you are making a judgment, you need a known standard to hold that judgment against.

For example, during the 5S assessment, we were talking about some documentation, manuals, papers, etc. that were well organized. Since a good standard was in place, the conversation gradual moved towards what the next improvement might be. Our judgment then, was that the area had good standards, but needed to move to the next level of organization and improvement. A question arose about point-of-use storage of his equipment manuals.

As we talked the problem through, the lab tech said this: “Look, I want to put all of these manuals together in one location away from the workstation because I don’t use them unless there is a failure. But with 5S we are taught to use point-of-use. I don’t use the manuals to do the job. That is captured on my JBS. So, if I move the manuals to a central location, I can decentralize the things I need, supplies for example – and move those things I really need to the point of use.”

When asked how he came to this conclusion, he offered a surprising answer:

“When I’m training a person using the JBS, I know I need the supply, but because I don’t have a spot for it, I have to go and retrieve it during the middle of training. It should be right here where we use it every time we do the job. Isn’t that a better utilization of the space?”

I couldn’t agree more!

There are two “Get Ready” points in Job Instruction that are not covered in a standard 10 hr session. The first is Get Ready Point #3:

“Get Everything Ready in the Area. Do you have the right equipment, materials, supplies, tools and information?”

Sounds like the basic 1S level of Sorting. Are we able to determine what is needed? Do we determine usage of materials? Is the information we need complete and accurate? These are good 1S sorting level questions to ask.

The second Get Ready point that is not covered in a standard JI session is #4:

“Have the workplace properly organized and standardized. Just the way the person will be expected to operate and maintain it.”

Sound familiar? 5S overlaps so many things. This Get Ready point brings us further into the 5S world, making us consider the 2, 3 and 4S levels. But what we were experiencing in this assessment however, was someone operating within an element of the 5S level: continuous improvement and standardization of the solutions. After all, we are told in Ohno’s Workplace Management that the real meaning of the 5th S: “sustain”, really means to teach. In the context of lean, we are looking to teach self discipline and improvement.

The Job Breakdown Sheet plays a critical role in all of this: a snapshot of the standard. More critical however, is the self discipline to maintain those standards and to open our eyes to waste that violates our own rules. It requires enormous amounts of energy for everyone in the organization to motivate themselves to do this. The most important part of the JI/5S equation is that management assumes a leadership role to learn and then teach the critical skills of seeing waste, problem solving and standardization. The last part of the puzzle is to follow up in order to motivate people on an ongoing basis to constantly be practicing these simple skills.

5S Training Lesson in the Genba

I'm in a Kaizen event this week. No, like really in one, Not as a facilitator, trainer, advisor, but as a participant. It's nice to be on the receiving end of the training and objectives once in awhile.

One of my tasks I volunteered for was to combine four workstations into two workstations. The equipment is simple: pneumatic presses, bins of parts, control panels, jigs, gauges, sensors, etc., need to be disassembled from the tables and reassembled and rewired onto their new tables. But it is a time consuming task that requires tools, information and materials. I learned a good 5S lesson today while working with some tools for this job.

Part of the plant's kaizen event planning is to prepare and maintain a rolling cabinet of tools and supplies handy for jobs like this. Whoever built the cabinet did a great job of placing shadowboxes in the drawers for screwdrivers, wrenches and other tools. Most 5S auditors would be proud.

I made good use of an adjustable wrench today. The tools are easy to use and versatile for disassembly, particularly in breaking torque on the various sizes of bolts on the unit. Then I could go through with a socket and ratchet to quickly remove the hardware.

One thing was aggravating though. Within the shadowbox (made of a foam cutouts) the large medium and small adjustable wrenches were stored like this, in the closed position:
You might imagine grabbing a wrench and having to adjust the wrench from "0" out to 5/8", 7/8" or 1" in order to fit the bolt head. Since I was working with larger bolts, I often would go back to the tool box to put the wrench away with it looking like this in the fully open position......and then have to thumb the jaws all the way back to the closed position so it will fit inside its home in the shadowbox. Annoying!

O.K., alright, it isn't a big deal. But let's think about the job for a minute and see if any lessons may be learned from this experience. First, there does not exist within any part of this world, a bolt with head width of "0". So why store the wrench in the closed setting? Nobody will EVER use it at this setting. Come to think of it, isn't it funny that manufacturers sometimes actually engrave a "0" on their adjustable wrenches?


It is a simple example, but one that speaks to the purpose of 5S. 5S is not about housekeeping or keeping things looking neat, although a clean and tidy workplace is often the result of 5S thinking. The person who put the shadowbox together did a great job of cutting out the foam, but effectively standardized the waste of excessive motion by cutting out foam that only allows the wrench to be stored in the closed position.

So, we must admit that the foam shadowbox is good, but what would be better? What is the next improvement? What would take us beyond the viewpoint of 5S as housekeeping? Here is a small kaizen idea: Store the wrench in a common position, like 1/2", 7/8". Just thumb it to somewhere close to its middle setting. Now, any movement will be minimized while permitting the next user to go in both directions with minimal waste of motion and time:


Perhaps this is a too simple, almost silly example, but we can apply this lesson to many things in the workplace: 5S isn't about housekeeping which often leads to the standardization of waste. 5S is about waste-free standardization.

Lean IT

GREAT article on Lean applied in IT situations. Finally, someone who lists the 5S' in terms of standards and ongoing improvement - NOT just housekeeping.

Also, you will find at the end of this article a nice adaptation of the eight wastes in IT services.

5S Auditing and Coaching Tip: Spot the Difference

Here is a great website to teach people in a fun and interesting way about a simple concept in 5S thinking: comparing standards.

Spot The Difference

When trying to see waste, sometimes we are looking at too big of a picture. We need to go narrow our focus, and go a mile deep on identifying waste. In the Spot The Difference games, we get a good feel of how to do that: 1) we compare similar things - these could be machines, layouts, workbenches, methods, materials. Next we look to understand if there is a standard. If so, which standard is better between your targets for comparison? More importantly, what is different? Determining what could and should the standard be is a difficult thing for us to do, but it is infinitely easier if we focus on the small, narrow and deep. Once we coach people in how to find those opportunities, we can follow up with more coaching on how to improve those situations.

There are many advantages to this small kaizen approach. One, small things make it easy to teach people complex concepts. Lean thinking is chock full of paradox. Most people have trouble looking past their work area and seeing the big picture. A better approach to painting the big picture first, is to get people to focus on the small things. This building block approach helps people build up a sound understanding over time. Yes, it takes more time. But it is permanent and far easier to follow up on and sustain over the long haul.

Henry Ford said, "Big problems are made up of many, small problems." This is good advice when trying to get people to see beyond housekeeping and use 5S as a vehicle for improvement. Get people to compare standards in their workplace, in a similar fashion to the "Spot The Difference" game. Ask them which situation or standard (if there is one) is better. If there is no standard, ask them to think through what the standard should be. In any case, have them quantify their conclusions with a fact based approach. Finally, ASK them, DON'T TELL them, to think of kaizen ideas that THEY can implement and YOU can support. Then get out of the way and don't tell them you would have done it differently. You can get the same result by repeating the cycle we just reviewed. Be a coach.

Ask - Do NOT Tell

I've been wrestling for years now about the different Levels of Problem Solving and Implications that has on People - both from a management perspective and the viewpoint of a worker. My basic conclusion is that much more is gained by asking and not telling each other what to do. Can this apply at all levels? To stick to my own rule, I'll try to outline my arugment here, only by asking questions. You tell me if this sticks to the wall or not.

Basic criteria of progression from simple problem solving to sophisticated problem solving.

Level 1 - Can we see problem?
Level 2 - Can the individucal improve on their own?
Level 3 - Can more than one person improve together on it?
Level 4 - Can cross functional teams improve it?
Level 5 - Are we determining ways to advance HOW we improve?

Each of these criteria have practical implications which can be addressed through more questioning:

Level 1 - Do people use a factual approach to problem solving? Do they go to the workplace to see the problem? Do they use facts to understand, or emotion? Can they determine cause-and-effect? Do they get to root cause? Do they ask questions to understand what is really happening?

Level 2 - Is it enough to simply identify problems? Are people coming up with ideas to solve their problems? Do people accept their responsibility? Do we give it to them? Do we allow them to make mistakes? Are people improving themselves and their work first, before pointing out to others how to improve?

Level 3 - How do we increase our performance beyond having individuals solve problems? Do we encourage individauls to work out problems with others on their own? Do we have robust systems in place that allow individuals to improve how they work together? Are the methods used here the foundation for communication and standardization across the organization?

Level 4 - Can people see how their area and groups affect other areas and groups? Are we focused on local optimization, or systematic performance? Can people mentally jump through and into levels 1-4 quickly, making the connection between business objectives and individual solutions? Are big problems broken down into small problems? Do people understand their role when the organization tackles big problems? Have we fully developed them to meet the demands of their current role? Do they know where we need to be? Do we know where we need to be? How does this understanding translate into one cohesive problem that can be tackled by the organization? Do we know how we are going to get there? Do we know where people best fit with their current capabilities? Are we developing people so that everyone is at Level 4? Do we use the foundations created in Levels 1-3 or do we frequently try and reinvent the wheel?

Level 5 – Are leaders teaching people so that they move up the levels? Are the students able to teach others? Are we ensuring that people master one level before moving to another? Is our problem solving system complex and full of waste? Or is it simple, nimble, scalable and ready for use? Are the elements of each level present at the highest levels of problem solving? Or are they lost to time, attrition, apathy and inactivity? Do we respect the past methods used? Are we adopting principles blindly? Or are we adapting to our environment with the principles as our guide? Are upgrading everybody's problem solving skill, regardless of which level they are at? Do we put the tools first? Or do we put people first?

Conclusion: Is asking or telling better? Which method will help us understand our own problems better? Which method is going to be more likely to prompt action?

One last thought: Is this a way of putting the cart before the horse? Do we sometimes overload ourselves with the unrealistic burden to get to the highest level before we are ready?

Clean Doesn't Always Mean Lean

Mark Graban went on quite a rant the other day at the LeanBlog - cutting up the inspector that was involved with the salmonella outbreaks at the Peanut Corporation of America. This is one story that means a lot to me - I LOVE peanut butter. Well that fact explains why I read the news story linked to Mark's blog post - I wanted to know how this company defiled my second true love!

Mark admirably picked apart all of the problems with the private sector inspection process. We can only assume that the FDA inspection equals the level of the private sector inspection - but at eight times the cost. (Side note: that fact doesn't inspire me to want to go out and sign up for universal healthcare right at this moment!)

Regarding the poisoning of our food, my intuition tells me that it is a rare occasion that these outbreaks occur - and statistically it affects a very small fraction of the population - in this case 0.008% of the U.S. population. That statistic is not exactly heartwarming to the families of nine people who died or encouraging to the 22,500 who were sickened. Regardless, it helps us understand the concept of risk, no?

How could the inspector have missed this? There are many reasons. Mark covered many of them, mostly procedural and bureaucratic or just simply can be written off to laziness or apathy.

There is one quote however that jumped off the page at me:

"Audits are not required by the government, but food companies are increasingly requiring suppliers to undergo them as a way to ensure safety and minimize liability. The rigor of audits varies widely and many companies choose the cheapest ones, which cost as little as $1,000, in contrast to the $8,000 the Food and Drug Administration spends to inspect a plant. Typically, the private auditors inspect only manufacturing plants, not the suppliers that feed ingredients to those facilities. Nor do they commonly test the actual food products for pathogens, even though gleaming production lines can turn out poisoned fare. "

O.k., let me get this straight:

1. Audits are not required by the FDA,


2. Consumer safety is seen as important,


3. Liability, or the cost of reputation, is also important,


4. We don't want to spend a lot of money on auditing,


5. We go with the lowest bidder,


6. We also know that "gleaming production lines can turn out poisoned fare."

Wow, this last point is not only a little scary but most important in making my point. It implies that we are either lulled into complacency by first impressions, we can't see problems through the high gloss of appearance, or we are not looking for problems in the first place. Even the cleanest, best looking operation in the world can turn out scrap. That doesn't sound possible, but we all know it is true. We cannot let first impressions deceive us - we have to go to the genba and understand if the process capability and resulting quality will reconcile with our impressions.

This is a core skill for lean businesses - and one that we cannot delegate to outsiders. The outsiders should be helping us get better at our own self-assessment. This is why we must encourage people to look for, embrace and figure out solutions to problems. In fact, since we are already paying people, it is cheaper to have them do their own diagnostic assessment of the operation. And, if we ask them, often they will tell us the problems they have known about for years and even have solutions for them! Imagine that! We can blame the auditor, but that doesn't solve the problem. We first have to look at ourselves as managers for not developing a culture that embraces problem identification before the problem turns into a consumer safety issue.

By the way, Teddie Peanut Butter is the best!

The 3Gs - Lean Thinkers are Detectives

Genba - Go to the Place – the Crimescene
Genbutsu - Get the facts – the Evidence
Genjitsu Genshou – Understanding the reality - why did it happen

Like a crime scene investigator, a lean thinker looks for problems where the problems occur. It’s hard to look at the whole area and see the details. A CSI agent turns out the lights and uses a small flashlight to look, inch by inch for evidence that could break the case.

Lean thinkers do the same thing in the workplace. Use your finger to focus on a very small detail. Or use a laser pointer. Focus on the detail. Perhaps it is a defect. Or an obvious a trip hazard. A sharp edge in a working area. Everyday, the order form is missing the same information. The sum of the details tell the whole story. These lean detectives find the evidence of abnormalities: the 3Ms, ( seven wastes, instability, overburdens) and they try to understand why the problem occurred.

From here, the Lean detective can understand what happened and work on the steps which will prevent the problem from occurring in the future. They know they can’t put these countermeasures in place alone…there are literally millions of problems to tackle. They know the only way to make this work is to encourage everyone to make small kaizen improvements and eliminate these problems from the workplace.

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Picture Speaks a Thousand Words

Literally.



The image above is created for free at Wordle.net. Thanks to Dwayne Butcher of Lean Accounting Summit for bringing this cool visual tool to our attention...it's easy and you can customize the layout and colors of your creations. Perhaps use this for Lean Promotion posters and presentations around your organization or on your internal web?

Standardizing Waste using 5S

I've railed on mainstream 5S programs for quite sometime now. Thanks for enduring this. The latest travesty was the 5S article in the Wall Street Journal. A lot of companies are making a good go of 5S and visualizing their workplaces, indicating that some folks are taking the genba kaizen to the next level.

The following example though illustrates how we still get caught up in doing 5S without really thinking about WASTE FREE standardization. Take a simple thing found in the the genba - a machine gauge.

Look at the following picture. The gauges do the same thing on different machines. The genba people did a GREAT job of visualizing the ranges on each gauge. But what is the problem here? What questions do you have? Is this waste free standardization? How hard would it be to train someone if many things in the workplace are in a similar non-standardized condition? Which one is correct? Is one process making better product then the other? Is this truly a stable process?



5S is NOT housekeeping. The area this picture was taken was very clean and well kept. So this group had moved beyond the basic cleaning level of 5S: this picture illustrates that the genba people were really thinking about how to make their job easier by knowing the condition of the machine. Cleaning is the basic easy level of 5S, this visualization is another level up. But when our standardization is not waste free, we will have a problem moving beyond the 3S level.

So, the next question our leaders have to ask these people FIRST: is this gauge reading important to the quality of the operation? If not, don't mark it, it so then we have more questions to ask. What is the failure point if the system isn't operating within range? What should the operation range be? How does this affect the operation? Is it in the correct range now? What should you do if it runs out of range?

So many questions that go beyond visualization, yet the visual factory should answer these questions for us.

5S in Wall Street Journal

5S has made it into the mainstream media. An article by Julie Jargon gives a brief overview of 5S at Kyocera's North American headquarters, particularly in the office environment.

I don't know if I should be impressed that 5S is in the most prominent business newspaper in the world, or appalled at the superficial nature of the article. I know the mainstream press is in the business of providing something digestible to its readers, but I just can't take this:

"Companies..., are patrolling to make sure that workers don't, for example, put knickknacks on file cabinets."

"Sweaters can't hang on the backs of chairs, personal items can't be stowed beneath desks and the only decorations on cabinets are official company plaques or certificates."

Here we get an example exchange from the mainstream 5S audit:

"when he got to the accounting department, he discovered a hook on a door and told cash management assitant Deanna Svehla that doors are supposed to be free of such accoutermants. 'But that's where I hang the Christmas decorations,' she said"

"C'mon like there aren't plenty of places to put decorations, " he said, nodding at the orange and black Halloween tinsel strung along the outside of her cubicle. That's OK, it turns out, because it isn't permanent."

The 5S Nazi also noticed a "whale figurine in Ms. Svehla's cubicle and decided to let it go." How considerate of him!

Of course, our current management theory of setting expectations and doling out accountability is enforced through compliance. The main Kyocera office has a compliance score of 88.9%. My guess is that this number doesn't reflect the level of management support and direction given to the program, but rather the number of findings in the workers' areas. By focusing on items as targets for cleaning, that is all these folks can expect to get in return.

Kyocera's management supports this 5S "culture change" through the belief that, "if managers clearly explain why they're doing something, I think most people will understand the rationale."

I for one would like to hear the rationale behind not allowing people to cheer up their personal workplace during holidays, or where we can put our personal items, like knickknacks our kids make for us, or personal photos of family and friends. In policing these targets, what are the workplace problems we are solving here? What sort skill development are you aiming for?

This approach, in my humble experience and opinion, is a sure-fire way to create a superficial flavor of the month that people will label as a housekeeping & cleaning campaign. The guise is productivity, but it smells, looks, tastes and feels like nitpicky mothers telling us to clean up our rooms. In fact, most managers will eventually fell like this, trust me. A FEW people will "get it", but MOST people will resent having someone come into their office and nit-pick them on where their #1 Dad trophy or Bonzai tree should be taped out on their desk.

This article has one, small glimmer of hope where it actually highlights an example of 5S thinking via the co-location for nurses, doctors and assistants into an office pod; thereby realizing some benefits of 5S through the elimination of such wastes such as searching, waiting, motion, etc.

This of course is the point behind 5S, elimination of the eight wastes through waste free workplace organization. Bottom line: don't do 5S unless you are helping people solve problems that make their job easier and safer while creating waste free standardization. More 5S material is available on my website.

In the meantime, you can read the WSJ 5S article for yourself by following this link:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122505999892670159.html

NE Shingo Prize and TWI

Presented at NE Shingo Conference last week. Here is the link to a PDF of my presentation; check the "Conferences" section.