The Discovery of "Lean"

Whoa! I've been out of the blog saddle for a while...been a busy winter.

Speaking of staying busy, Mark Warren has been at it as well. Take a few minutes out of your day to check out this great synopsis about the "Discovery of Lean" by Mark:

I really like the slide above. It best illustrates what is wrong with today's version of lean:

1) We are taught to create work cells because that is lean,
2) The work cells do not really synchronize well,
3) They are not synchronized because the work content is not not balanced,
4) The work is unstable because standards are weak or non-existent,
5) Standards are weak or non-existent because (insert your reason here)

If you follow the chain above in the opposite direction, it is easy to see that people who organize for flow by first creating work standards it is far easier to implement and improve work cell arrangements to be flexible with demand. And of course, Job Instruction is a great place to start with creating work standards.

It is between the parentheses above where leadership can make all of the difference. Managers end up inserting excuses, leaders find the reasons and eliminate them. That is called waste elimination.

Learning to see the waste can be hard, because we are so hyper focused on creating work cells. When the work cells do not work, we resort to old coercive speed up tactics, give up or go back to the old way.

So, I admit it. I'm a purist, the stuff today's Lean is made of is really just a collection of skills and principles applied and developed over 100 years ago. I really like Mark's YouTube video above because it speaks to the validity of principles in systems leadership. I'm curious what all of you think about Mark's story above? Does this resonate? In what way?

(Darn, it is hard to not use the word, "lean")

Hidden Benefits of Job Instruction - Part 2

There are several basic things you do when practicing the skill of instruction:

1) Creating Timetables

2) Writing Job Breakdown Sheets

3) Readying the workplace with correct tools, materials, equipment, etc.

4) Organizing the workplace as it will be used,

5) Training using the 4 step method

6) Following up with people and adjusting plans

In Part II of Hidden Benefits, we ask the question: what is the primary purpose of Writing Job Breakdown Sheets? The primary reason is to organize our thoughts around training. Consider that Job Breakdown Sheets are for the trainer. Job Breakdown Sheets (or JBS) illustrate this in a simple way:

• The materials, tools and information needed to do the job,
• Important Steps, or, the orderly sequence of the job, 
• Keypoints of each Important Steps, or, the quality, safety and special knowledge about the step,
• Reasons for the Keypoints, or, the reason and logic behind why we do things a certain way,

But there are more benefits than organizing your thoughts. When used with a bias towards continuous improvement, questions asked when writing a Job Breakdown Sheets can lead us to habits and behaviors that are sometimes lacking in Lean implementations.

First Benefit to using JBS: What do you see?

JBS are very different than Work Instructions (or WI). See my post on JBS vs. WI for more details. For today, we will focus on one of the key differences: writing a good JBS forces you to go to the shop floor and observe the actual job. This sharpens your observation, questioning and coaching skills. In a past life, I wrote WI's behind an engineer's desk. I quickly discovered that going to the source and pulling information from the production system created a better WI. But even then, the effectiveness of the WI was diluted because of the length and depth of unnecessary details, flowery language and technical jargon. A JBS is concise, short and represents the actual work on the floor. When I learned about Job Instruction and started writing JBS, this alone enhanced my observation, questioning and coaching skills - without those objectives even being my intent...which leads me to the next hidden benefit:

Second Benefit to using JBS: Discovery and Connectivity Support the Business Strategy

A JBS can concisely and accurately represent safety, quality and productivity keypoints - or HOW things are done. In recent years, I've added a small check box column along the right side of the Reasons for the Keypoints:

✔ = Quality
$ = Cost
+ = Safety
↑ = Productivity

In this way, we can concretely illustrate how a keypoint contributes to (Q)uality, (C)ost, (S)afety, (P)roductivity. In lean transformations that focus on tool use, we struggle with linking the activities of people with meeting customer and company objectives related to QCSP. As a result, we create new tools such as Hoshin plans, X-chart Strategic Project Deployment, Leader Standard Work, etc. These management tools are designed to force lean tool use in the workplace. Unfortunately, the success rate of this push style lean transformation is quite low, and the degrees of separation between reconciling the improvement efforts of individuals and customer related goals and objectives is many.

When two people can see how work is directly connected to QCSP objectives we immediately clear the fog around what we are doing and what we should be working on. The pathways to improvement immediately shorten and degrees of separation to success are reduced to one.

I've sat through many, many hours of Hoshin planning realizing that the primary difficulty in doing so is trying to connect the dots between what people do to get results and what the expected results are to be. A JBS helps us make the connection within minutes: by directly observing the work, we are able to see how our work affects business objectives.

Third Benefit to writing JBS: Demonstrate a commitment to development of your people.

When you stop telling people to improve and starting working together with them, people see that there is a plan for them. JBS' are a great approach to deliberately practice working together. When they see that you are thinking about them and taking action, what do you suppose is going through their mind? For some they may feel uneasy. For others, they may be excited. A few may mutter, "It's about time!" If you follow through on your plan, in the long run the team will realize that we are in this together and for each other.

Summary: If you write JBS with others, you are modeling one of the high quality leadership behavior traits: mentoring and teaching. And doing this with others increases each person's emotional intelligence, working with others, resolving differences, testing assumptions, organizing actions, reflecting on results. We need tools to help us do what is required of us for the benefit of our team. A JBS is another deliberate method we can use to maximize the potential of our people.

In Part 3 of Hidden Benefits, we'll stress the importance of readying the workplace for instruction.

Silver Laze

Fil is the winner of Name this Blogpost with "Silver Laze"! Definitely the most original and thought provoking title, if you followed the comments section of this post. Fil, contact me via email and I'll send you a copy of the Job Instruction Participant's Manual! Thanks for your contribution to the TWI Blog!

Here is what happened today...I think it is shaping up to be a good genba lesson for me...

My manufacturing manager came to me late in the day and informed me of a mistake that was made. It was a pretty expensive mistake, but not the end of the world. The short story is that the person who made the mistake knows how to repair the problem and bring it back to standard, but not without a little self-inflicted pain to the budget and schedule. On the other hand, the long story begins with the question: "How can this problem be prevented from reoccurring?" The reason for the mistake is known by the person who did it. I asked him the question..."What happened?"

He replied, "I've done this a hundred times, it shouldn't have even happened." He was feeling pretty bad at this point.

I tried to encouraged him, "Look, I get that, you are good at your job. But these things happen to the best of us. Based on what you demonstrated, this was bound to happen at some point. Don't beat yourself up, its in the past. Let's focus on what can be done now. Can you show me the mold and we will take a look at how things happened?"

This seemed to bring him around and open to discussing mistake-proofing ideas, but I could see that he was still dwelling on the mistake that he felt he shouldn't have even done this to begin with. Part of me did wonder if he thought I was barking up the wrong tree. After all, he was the one that had been doing this for 30 years, not me. What did I know about this anyway? Persistent and maybe even naive, I offered up an idea, careful to not steal his monkey and let him off the hook to think about the problem a bit more: "What if a protective device were installed to prevent damage to the mold? I'm not sure how it could be done and the device would have to be designed a certain way to do the job, but what do you think?"

We discussed this for a few minutes, to the point where he was starting to carefully weigh design ideas. He had concerns about creating a shield, but it would prevent damage from reoccurring. He would give it some thought. He then pulled out the tools used in the incident again and wondered aloud how those could be modified, or replaced, to prevent the damage. We were interrupted by others looking for me to attend a meeting, so I thanked him for fixing the mistake and taking the time to talk with me. I will need to follow up with him in a day or so to see what is next for a permanent solution against recurrence.

In the meantime, I'm really not sure what the lesson(s) are here, but the following things come to mind:

1) The result of the mistake is large, somewhat complex and disruptive in nature.
2) The root cause of this problem is relatively simple.
3) An experienced person didn't foresee this problem occurring.
4) A two minute demonstration of the mistake made it obvious that this has always been a potential problem.
5) If left untouched, this problem will occur again.
6) Are people thinking about potential problems as they do their work?
7) Are my shop floor leaders helping people see problems and supporting them in kaizen solutions?
8) Simple questions can lead to ideas.
9) Would we have come up with credible ideas if we didn't go to genba and directly observe the job?
10) More simple questions led to complicated obstacles in the way of the simple idea.
11) Anything else...?

I have a feeling that this is going to lead to more work... :)

In writing this post tonight, my intent was to share a lesson, but how to summarize this lesson in a simple blog post title? I'll leave that to you. Please email or post your suggestion in the comments below. The winning title will receive one free copy of the Job Instruction Training Manual!

Genba Follow-Up

Here is the follow up to my genba experience a few days ago...

As you may recall, damage was done to a mold accidentally. I followed up the other day after he had fixed the damage and thanked him for the fix, but also for considering my request to think about preventing recurrence.

He said that he had thought about on the long ride to the mold shop and had decided that he could prevent it with tools that were softer than the tool steel he was worried about. A brass punch and aluminum faced hammer were on order and on their way! (The old tools were thrown out!)

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.

Stealing Monkeys

No, I'm not going to steal your pet chimp, but it is often tempting and easy to "steal a monkey" from people while in the genba...

While doing some follow up at a manufacturing plant in North Carolina, I heard this strange phrase from a number of supervisors talking to each other about problems on the floor. One described a problem he asked his people to tackle but were having trouble with. The two supervisors invariably started brainstorming solutions to the problem. The other supervisor stopped himself abruptly and said, "wait, wait, wait...let's not steal their monkey." I asked what this meant and the explanation makes perfect sense:

When somebody has a problem, they have a monkey on their back. We all have problems we must face. If I solve the problem for them, then I have stolen their monkey. What a great way to think about empowerment! And what an easy reminder for you to stop yourself before you solve a person's problem that they could solve on their own.

I heard other people saying, "don't take their monkey" but I like the effect "stealing" has on the concept of being a genba leader. When we steal their monkey, we are basically telling people not to think, not to worry, not to solve their own problems within their control. Why do I say this? When we "take" something from somebody as a genba leader, we do it in the context of helping them. But have we... really? Have we really helped them, or hurt them? Put another way, when we steal a monkey, we are stifling responsibility, creativity, morale, and thinking in the workplace, precisely the opposite of what we want in a lean culture. We wonder why people do not take action, or offer ideas - because we "take their monkeys" for them! We decide to do the heavy lifting for them.

Stealing is wrong. And stealing somebody's monkey is just as wrong as stealing their wallet, we are stealing their ideas, their pride and their creativity before they even have a chance to know it is gone. Don't steal their monkeys!

Standardization, Simplicity and Supervisors

In response to my post, "Message to Gov't: What the...?", Anonymous said:

"For JI you are correct that Toyota does not use much "high" technology but when I toured the place w/ Mike Hoseus I saw a little training area where each work station had a laptop w/ a video and work instructions in place to teach basic skills like using an air gun. I understand they have 3000 such videos standardized across the organization. Technology has its place but should be used with wisdom."

Well said, Anonymous, could not agree with you more.

And where did that wisdom come from? What you describe in that workstation is the result of an evolution of standardization and improvement spanning decades within Toyota. In contemplating the possible side effects of having 3000 standardized training videos in a typically large western organization, the possible downsides are countless. Why? Because many jobs are not standardized to begin with. Yet, for some reason, we try this standardized training approach without first considering if standardization and stability exist in the first place.

Why doesn't standardization exist? Your airgun example is a good one. In some organizations, the choice of tools is up to the person doing the job. So, what purpose would a video serve in this situation? More problems would arise out of the use of the video of an unaccepted standard. Angst, grumbling, distrust, contempt, safety, etc., would result from the passive aggressive (sometimes just aggressive) behavior people have towards those imposing standards on them. The same problems would appear if we were talking about materials, machines and methods.

Many organizations have engineers and supervisors who will make the decision about standardization. A common problem here is that these people do not understand the job to begin with, so their choices regarding stability and standardization are faulty, compounding the problem above.

So let's assume the management expressed their desire to have stability in the process through standardization of tools, materials, machines, methods, etc. Who will carry out these wishes? Ultimately, the people closest to the job know it best, but the good practices they create must be shared with others. A supervisor is in the best position to facilitate this effort. Together, they can decide what is best today, and standardize it. And the determinations they make must be done with purpose: What problems (QCDS) are solved through standardization? We gain stability.

But does your supervisor have the capability to do so? This is what the three J-skills aim to provide. A simple way to get at the problem of standardization.

Assuming some level of standardization is gained, what is next? The supervisor needs to check results. Why? Because standardization has an enemy - chaos. Its like matter and anti-matter. Oil and water. Superman and Bizarro-World Superman. Any effort to create order is eventually countered by disorder - the workplace and process degrade over time - for an infinite number of reasons. Basic natural laws exist in the workplace as well - if anyone can put their finger on this formula - well - congratulations, you are a genius!

The only way to counter chaos in the workplace is to throw oneself into the improvement cycle - ultimately, it is the only way. And if you have non-standardized methods, tools, and workplace practices - JI is a great place to start - DON'T start with videos of non-standardized things.

I like the Job Breakdown Sheet because…

As a trainer, it serves as a reminder for the key points to a job. I don’t forget to train people in things that are tricky, safe or build quality into the job. As long as I use it my trainees are able to do jobs safely, correctly and conscientiously. As I follow-up with people, I can pick up and correct errors or bad habits that have crept into the work. I also like the JBS when I use it with the 4-step method. One doesn’t really work without the other, and if used together, people have fewer questions or problems with trivial things and more questions about deeper subjects. In this way, I can keep the workplace more organized, training is faster, we meet our work-cell objectives more often and people are generally more satisfied with the job.

As a supervisor, I can use the JBS to follow-up with people. I can ask questions about the job to test their knowledge and understanding of our products and processes. I can see and hear what problems are occurring with equipment, materials, tools or people. These follow-up sessions in the gemba give me a daily opportunity to tackle these problems. But since there are so many to tackle on my own, I often coach people into helping solve many of these little problems. After all, they are most familiar with the job, right? Because the JBS is really theirs, I like giving them that ownership and opportunity to contribute to making the workplace better.

As a facilitator, I can get people together and have them work out one best way for the job. They can break down each of their methods and find the common best practices, waste, safety issues, bad habits and what is really needed to add value to the job. A big surprise benefit is that they now have a common vehicle for communication and improvement. The supervisors and managers like this about JI the most. The see it as something much more than training, more like a conduit to problem solving that starts with good training. It isn’t about who has the better method or personal preference anymore, it is about what is the best method and are we working together towards that common goal.

As an engineer, I can see what is really needed for the job, and build lean principles into my designs, layouts and equipment so that we create a waste-free workplace. I also like it when a team of operators, mechanics and technicians get together and invite engineering to a Job Breakdown Session. This gives me the opportunity to ensure that design intent and quality key points that may not be obvious are built into the JBS. This really helps everyone get on the same page and understand the process better.

As a manager, it helps me assess how our problem solving culture is progressing. By using the JBS as a reference during my genba walks, I can see how things really are. The simple act of checking a JBS against what the person is actually doing can reveal a lot about our culture. I can see gaps more easily this way and can address them in a direct and tangible manner. In this way, I can talk with my supervisors about problems and solutions in a factual manner. Because the quality, production, safety and cost key points are built into our JBS, I feel that people better understand how their daily work is tied to the company’s objectives. To things come up as gaps when I talk to our genba people, training and communication. Since we have encouraged the use of JI and the simple JBS, people have said that communication is improving and training has become a way to prevent problems from occurring in the first place.

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.

"We already have a training program"

This is the inevitable response by people presented with a Job Instruction plan. I can't prove it, but I believe this response is the result of believing that training is a necessary evil in running a business. Training is often cut in tough times, and this helps bolster my conviction. Do we not need to run the business in tough times? Isn't it even more important to work smarter in tough times? Since training programs are stronger in good times, the result of this paradigm is that primary purpose of training is to get new people up to speed in order to meet growth. A secondary purpose is to develop people. Let's look at an example: Kaizen Event training. Participants learn kaizen tools and apply them for one week. Hopefully, they use the skills next Monday when the Kaizen event is over. Seasoned lean practitioners know the result.

So, when I hear people say, "we have a training program", I'm naturally a little skeptical.

So, a line of questioning is in order to understand the current training situation: is your training program a 1) necessary evil to get new hires up to speed and 2) used to solve short term financial problems through kaizen; or is training something more in the company?

Don't get me wrong kaizen is what we want. But long term, daily continuous improvement is the real skill that we want built into our leaders and colleagues. We don't want people only thinking about kaizen once a year in the event that a manager selected them to participate in. Nope, we want people bringing their problem solving "A" game everyday to the job.

So, a distinction can be made and should be made. Good JI trainers are able to do this. Is your training program used to solve everyday problems through the development of people? This is what JI aims to do. The mechanisms to do that are numerous but simple:

Standardized training delivery method:

The four step JI delivery ensures that for new hires, trainers are held to a high standard of conveying the same message and skill to each person. Keypoint here is standard work. Also, the trainer is able to deliver in a standardized manner, the keypoints of quality, cost, safety and many other tribal knowledge points that help maintain a high quality of knowledge transfer in the company.

When methods are changed through kaizen, a standardized training delivery method ensures that everyone is refreshed, or retrained in the same fashion. An improvement may affect quality for example, and everyone needs to know what to do, how to do it and why we are making that change in order to sustain it. In this way, training becomes a vehicle for sustaining improvements made through Kaizen. And because JI is so simple, and designed for the workplace trainer, not an administrator - it is far easier to support improvements through training.

Standardized preparation method:

Creating time tables at the workcell or office level ensures that workplace leaders are in tune with what skills are needed. When we decide on what skills are required to meet business needs, we can plan on how to build those skills up in our people. Again, creating timetables at the workcell level is not difficult to do and goes hand-in-hand with the creation of standard work in the area. It is a far higher magnitude of difficulty for an administrator to determine skill needs at a plant level since they are not in tune with the genba. This is why JI is aimed at the supervisor or team leader level.

Creating Job Breakdown Sheets is probably the most contentious portion of JI for organizations who already have a training program. Some of these organizations have no training documents. For them, making the mental leap to JI is easy, as there is little resistance in the document control ranks. For those who have heavy documentation, or perhaps obligated to ISO controls, transitioning to JI would be akin to tackling another ISO implementation. In short, the response is: we already have training documents.

The problem with most training documents is threefold: 1) they are virtually unusable if you believe a standard training delivery method is valuable, 2) they are often written by people are several orders removed from the process (thereby making them inaccurate and out-of-date) 3) from a coaching perspective and for reasons related to reasons #1 & 2, the documents lend little value to continuous improvement efforts. That is not to say that it is impossible - I only question if we could do this efficiently and effectively by a) engaging ALL people in the organization in a small, daily way, and b) using training as a coaching and improvement method.

Job Breakdown Sheets are derived from what is required on the job. The workplace leader is best suited to create a JBS or guide workplace experts in that process. After some practice, people can write JBS is about 10 minutes. And they are often more accurate, relevant and simple than most documents that we are used to. I have seen 10 page documents reduced to a one page JBS that provides the trainer with everything they need to ensure the trainee "knows what they know."

Coaching models:

Coaching and development is where JI draws a clear distinction from common training programs. It is a workplace program, first and foremost. It follows then, that since the primary purpose is to solve problems that involve people, that JI leaders need to be fully engaged in the workplace. It is not uncommon to see JI leaders checking in with workers on a daily basis, asking questions about the job, referring to JBS and drawing conclusions about new problems. In this way, JI leaders can assess if a) current needs are being met, b) understand if training and methods are at the heart of those problems and c) if all is well, prompt workers for new ideas to upgrade the standard. So, JI leaders can become better workplace leaders through the training vehicle.

If I see you sometime and ask you if you have a training program, now you know why I'm asking.

WHY Must This Happen?

This is irritating.

From the Safety Files at online mag, Machine Design.com, we learn how poor maintenance resulted in an on the job injury.

Bottom line: a poorly maintained dock leveler crushed a person’s hand. We can imagine how a five why session may play out in this situation. If you prefer to, please go to the article link above and follow along with the full story and pictures.

Q - WHY did the person’s hand get crushed?

A - The lip on the ramp hit the truck, building up tension and then jumped loose, pinching his hand.

Q - WHY did the truck hit the ramp?

A - Well, it wasn’t the truck that hit the ramp. It’s really the other way around. Normally the ramp clears the truck bed and then in full extension the lifter it swings the lip to extend from vertical to horizontal. This time it didn’t. So the lip just got caught on the truck.

Q - O.k. WHY didn’t the lifter clear the truck bed?

A - Well it did, but it just didn’t get to its full extension which is what swings out the lip and bridge the gap between the dock and truck bed.

Q - O.k., so WHY didn’t the lifter reach full extension?

A - I’m not sure. But we do know it doesn’t work the way it should. I have to manually lift that lip each time. I’ve asked to have somebody take a look at it but nothing has been done.

Q - HOW do you lift that safely then?

A - Well, I use a hook to pull the chain that engages lift mechanism. That allows me to manually lift the lip edge from inside the truck while the dock lowers.

Q - Is that hook provided by the manufacturer?

A - Nope. I made it so I could get the job done. Drivers are waiting for me you know and we have ontime shipments to make!

Q - Well, HOW does the manufacturer recommend to you the operation of that lift?

A - Normally the chain is pulled through a hole on the other side of the ramp. But because it doesn’t work, I have to be on that side of the ramp, inside the truck, to make it work correctly. The hook allows me to pull the chain from inside the truck.

Q - Let's ask a mechanic why that lift mechanism isn't working properly...

By now you should be getting the point, of which there are many.

#1 - A questioning attitude in the genba is the only way to see and understand these types of problems. Hosin Kanri workshops for five days and four glorious nights at an offsite conference center in San Diego will not solve this problem. Only a genba approach will do. (My apologies to Hoshin Kanri consultants in San Diego who may offer pricey workshops for five days - it just seemed like a nice place to go when you are in Vermont and WINTER WON'T GO AWAY!)

#2 - NEVER stop questioning until you get to root cause and can verify your line of questioning through cause and effect. 5Y doesn't really mean ONLY to ask WHY? five times. (tangential- random-thought-taking-over: The next time I see a 5Y worksheet with only five questions on it...well, that's what us lean consultants have marketed it as, eh? We only have ourselves to blame.)

#3 - Our problems do not exist on their own - they live on and become parasitic because we allow them to. The system is a direct reflection of the architects and keepers of that system - namely MANAGEMENT. Leaders make management better.

#4 - There is a saying in lean: "to find the waste, look for the piles of inventory." The same is true with makeshift devices. The makeshift hook is a clue for shopfloor leaders that something is wrong.

#5 - The MOST troubling point out of all of this is that the drivers "had repeatedly complained about the dock leveler problems" - yet NOTHING was done. Scratch that - management allowed something to be done: they permitted the driver to craft a hook so he could operate defective equipment that put his family's livelihood, the business itself, other truck drivers and the leveler manufacturer at risk. This scenario represents the eighth waste in manufacturing - waste of intellect and at the very least it demonstrates ZERO respect for people and in this case the lack of respect went WAY beyond just the employee.

Big Kaizen or Small Kaizen?

Jon Miller at Gemba Panta Rei, poses, in my opinion, one of the most thought provoking questions in the field of Lean management:

http://www.gembapantarei.com/2009/02/a_question_about_kaizen.html

Essentially, the question is which should we choose: Big Kaizen or Small Kaizen?

In my experience, the right answer is both. That is a simple answer though. Here is some more depth to this essential question and why we should all attempt to answer it as part of our strategy in our respective companies:

Jon's question puts us in a predicament when considering the merits of both Big and Small Kaizen. Let's call them Big K and small k for now. On one hand, you get big improvements with big results. On the other hand, you get many small improvements with many small results that when considered as a whole is practically equal to the value of Big K. This reasoning may tend to lead us to the conclusion: "what's the difference?"

Well, like many things in Lean, like waste - it's the things you don't see that make all the difference.

1) Big K pros

• Noticeable fast results



• Big bang for your buck



• Since Big K's are usually run in a pilot mode, makes for great showcase of Lean tools and results in action.



• Sometimes easy to replicate in other areas.

2) Big K cons

• Requires a deep understanding of the problem prior to the event.



• As a lean company matures, it is more difficult to find those BIG problems that require BIG K.



• Hard to sustain, UNLESS physically changed things so that they are irreversible. (i.e., Mistake Proofing)



• If not sustained, money is wasted.



• Hard to teach others about the changes since they didn't experience it (i.e. learn it) for themselves.



• Sometimes hard to replicate in other areas.



• Not all Big K participants are involved in the event. Often, wallflowers are left behind in the real learning that should take place.

That's just a short list, there are more I'm sure you can add.

3) Small k cons

• Some ideas seem frivolous and a waste of time.



• Takes time to see results.



• Requires intense management support at ALL levels.



• Requires EVERYONE's involvement. Tough to pull off.

4) Small k pros

• EVERYONE is involved.



• Easy to teach people when you are focusing on small things.



• Individuals OWN their improvements because it is their idea. Sustainment is easier.



• Improvements get better over time as people see waste more clearly.



• Easier to support small k's versus BIG K's.

I'm a BIG proponent of the small k approach. Involvement at all levels is superior to the typical Kaizen Event approach. Improvements tend to sustain themselves - because the person who put the idea in place uses it as part of their work. Also, it easier for management to support by adopting a questioning attitude:

"What is the problem?"
"Do you know what caused it?"
"No? Can you find out?"
"Can I help in anyway?"
"Do you have any ideas about how to eliminate that problem?"
"Any ideas how to make it easier? Safer?"

Asking simple questions about small problems is a lot easier for ALL managers to do on a daily basis instead of relying on ONE Lean manager struggling to "sustain" many Big K's that most people haven't really bought into anyway. My argument is that a "sustainment" industry is growing in the management consulting world that would largely vanish if managers simply asked employees for their ideas and devised a system to get them into action.

I believe that the figures in Jon Miller's graphic help us ask the right question, but what that graph doesn't show is the typical backsliding that occurs with Big K. His graph shows the plan. The following graph shows what normally happens:

Yes, some backsliding occurs with small k ideas. But the slide is small and doesn't affect the overall improvement trend. Plus, not all small k ideas are big impact. In fact, the goal of kaizen is to get involvement so that we as leaders have opportunities to teach others about how to improve, how to learn, and to upgrade the overall problem solving skill set of our people. In contrast, Big K falls far short of this involvement ideal, because it is a project, management and results oriented gaining us little buy-in from EVERYONE - unless it makes every one's job easier, safer or better. For example, holding a kaizen event to install a kanban pull system often doesn't achieve this - it only achieves the tactical goal of reducing inventory. This is why it is sometimes difficult to sustain the gains made in Big K events.

Cement Heads are People Too!

O.k., so this week I face the ultimate Lean change agent challenge: working with a certified cement head. You know who I'm talking about: someone who simply either refuses to "get it" or simply can't "get it". I don't mean to say I'm working with a dolt - that is HARDLY the case. Smart guy, knows his machines inside and out. But don't talk to him about Lean. Doesn't want to hear it.

So, what is stopping me from asking him a simple question? How about these for starters?

"What is the problem?"

"How do you know?"

"If we did this, then would the problem go away?"

"No? What other problems could occur?"

"Do you have any ideas about how to prevent that from happening?"

"No? What about this? Can you try it?"

"Yes? O.k., what can I do to help you get this into action?"

TIP for working with cement heads: You don't need to "get" or speak Lean to be able to ask these KAIZEN oriented questions. Wish me luck. So far, so good.

Overheard at the Airport...

One side of a conversation overheard at the airport:

"So, you will add a piece of cardboard?"



"O.k., right. Yes, but it can't be just a piece of cardboard, it needs to be one of those corner guards."



"Right, you should shrink wrap it too. Like we do for all other pallets."

I'm not even 10% sure what this is about. But a few unfortunate thoughts cross my mind:

1) Why is someone at the airport mandating shipping standards to someone else who is probably doing the work?

2) Are there not shipment standards in place?

3) Seriously, am I hearing a conversation over which cardboard to use to protect the skid?

4) Why do I need to tell somebody to do something that they do on every other job?

Not to jump to conclusions, but if I were a manager overhearing this conversation - I would have a lot of questions. Possible lack of standards being the main focus of my questioning.

When we talk about the competitive nature of U.S. industry and wonder out loud how we will recover - I have to consider how many millions of times per day this level of inefficiency occurs because of the sheer lack of standards. Again, I'm likely jumping to conclusions, but a line of questioning about what standards exist would reduce the level of possible micromanagement and grief that goes hand-in-hand with these overheard conversations.

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.

Genba, Genbutsu, Genjitsu in Plain English

O.k., I'm tired of playing translator. And I don't speak Japanese!

The three Japanese "G's" are:

Genba
Genbutsu
Genjitsu or Genshou

Genba means the actual place
Genbutsu means the real thing, the actual thing
Genjitsu or Genshou means the actual situation

A lot of people I know cling to the Japanese words for a very simple reason: it is easy to remember the 3G's this way. Another, more cynical, reason is that the Japanese words lend an air of supremacy to the Lean guru at the front of the room who is trying to wow his client.

The drawbacks are you can lose a few people just by pretending that this stuff is more than exercising our common sense - and whether we like it or not, many workers don't like to be told that the Japanese are eating our lunch because of a few simple, easy to remember words. Our workers know the reason we are losing and it isn't because of translation problems!

So here you go: the 3G's in English. Anyone can remember it, anyone can do it:

Go and see
Get the facts
Grasp the situation

I'm still working on the the 3M's!! Give me a break!

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.

Learning to See Waste in the Genba with 5S

Lots of Lean pros spend countless (well, we are counting) hours in training people about the wastes in manufacturing. Despite how much mainstream Lean training expounds the value of learning to see waste in your work, many people are still blind to it.

In the newest Shingo book, Kaizen and The Art of Scientific Thinking, Shingo talks about comparison and the division of “things”, as a way to compare and move to the next levels of problem solving. The whole thing is a little abstract, but there are some practical applications of comparing two things to arrive at conclusions. One example comes to mind: the standards between two machines. To illustrate this example, look at the following pictures – can you see the differences?



This is a tough photo hunt! Fortunately it is easier to compare things in our gemba. Often, with two machines in the gemba that SHOULD be the same, we unfortunately find that they are not. The reasons for this non-standardization are many, but the simple fact remains. Machines that should be the same should actually be the same. Anything other than that is bound to produce waste. This is a simple concept you can teach people on the shop floor. Grab a digital camera and compare two machines, two processes, two methods, two areas, etc. Here is an example:

Do you see the difference? What is the frequency of lubrication? Which one is right? Are we using the right grease? All kinds of questions are made by simply comparing two things. Often we can arrive at simple improvements through kaizen teian (suggestion) systems using these simple 5S comparison methods.

Lean Jargon - the 3G's in English

Frequent readers of the TWI Blog may recall a serial rant I made on Lean Jargon some time ago. Subjects of those series were the three G's or three gens: genba, genbutsu and genjitsu.

If you find that the Japanese words are not helpful in getting people to remember the three G's - try and use these 3Gs in english:

Genba - Go to the workplace
Genbutsu - Get the facts
Genjitsu - Grasp the situation

It isn't exact translations, but these 3Gs are fundamentally the same. Hope this helps!

Concluding Follow-Up to Genba vs. Gemba?

I've spent a good amount of time with my teacher this week and I asked him about the Genba vs. Gemba question. Which is it?

He told me that "they are the same." Basically, because the "n" & "m" are indistinguishable in writing, they are the same. However, sometimes he told me that he would hear genba and then other times he would hear gemba.

Essentially, they mean the same thing and he told me that the only proof I would ever have is if I went to Japan and listened to Japanese managers talk! He did say that the same problem sometimes applies to genbutsu vs. gembutsu, etc.

In the meantime, you say tomato and I'll say tomato! Either way, it means "actual place".