The construction industry has been mired in an environment that has been siloed and antiquated for years. The view has been that things have always been done a certain way and there is no reason to change. Meanwhile, numerous industries have embraced lean methodologies and have significantly reduced waste, improved efficiency and delivered higher quality products which meet or exceed customer expectations. Surveys show that at least 50% of processes involved in planning and construction are wasteful. The industry has adopted lean construction methods, which are starting to change an industry that lagged behind others.

Learn more here about lean construction!

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Since 2006, Great American Cutlery has built the reputation for making the finest quality traditional pocket knives in the US. Located in historic Titusville, PA, the brand focuses on a hands-on process which yields the most beautiful and high quality pocket knives on the market. Their products exceed expectations from customers by producing a product that first became a mainstay in the late 19th century.

Check out the unique insights to the process that is Great American Cutlery!

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Since 1906, the name Rolls Royce has been recognized as quality and luxury in transportation. Throughout its legendary history, discerning people from around the globe have chosen Rolls Royce vehicles for their transportation. They are understood to be the finest example of luxury and comfort in motor vehicles. Take a few minutes and immerse yourself in the luxury of Rolls Royce.

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Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can shape strategy and fact-based decision making inside businesses, only if those inside the organization act on them.  It doesn’t matter how brilliantly you’ve aligned your KPIs to your strategy, or even how brilliantly you have captured and presented the relevant KPIs, if they aren’t used as they were intended. If you aren’t using your KPIs to inform your decisions and drive performance, then you are wasting your time and effort.

Check out this informative video!

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Key performance indicators (KPIs) are among the most common tools used in business to help manage more effectively and guide the progress of the organization. They provide clarity to murky issues and put the spotlight on potential opportunities. Key performance indicators can help an organization predicate an impending storm and avoid potential downfalls.

Leaders often misunderstand or overuse the term. They tend to relate key performance indicators to any type of business data measurement. To be effective, key performance indicators need to be metrics that matter to the business of the organization. KPIs need to be linked to the overall strategy of the organization, which means to first identify what matters the most and what provides the proper measurement. Leaders and key stakeholders can monitor these indicators over time and adjust plans and programs as needed to improve the KPIs in support of the organization’s strategic goals. The ideal process for identifying and implementing key performance indicators involves the leaders and contributors regularly revisiting and revising the measures. This is a fine-tuning process, which takes time and diligence by all parties.

Key performance indicators can shape strategy and fact-based decision making inside organizations. It doesn’t matter how brilliantly you’ve aligned your KPIs to your strategy, or even how brilliantly you have captured and presented the relevant KPIs. If leaders aren’t using your KPIs to inform their decisions and drive performance, then they are wasting time and effort. A well-designed set of KPIs should provide a clear indication of current levels of performance and help leaders make better decisions that brings the organization closer to achieving its strategic objectives. By avoiding the pitfalls, leaders can ensure KPIs are designed, implemented and used exactly as they were intended – to help the organization succeed and avoid the inevitable storm.

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Push and pull models of manufacturing are two major approaches implemented by organizations. The decision on which approach to use is often based on their business strategy. Push and pull-based models in manufacturing starts at the planning phase and continues through the execution stage.

Watch this informative video on Push/Pull Production!

https://youtu.be/a7YvJB0n16I

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In taking a cue from manufacturing, marketing departments are embracing the principles of lean agile practices. Research shows that over the past five years, 77% of marketing departments have embraced lean agile principles, and 67% of those have shown increases in both revenue and profits. Needless to say, lean agile principles are making an impact in the marketing community.

Please take some time and watch this informative video on the topic!

https://youtu.be/j-r5W_Eq4G4

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Marketing professionals are starting to take their cues from the manufacturing industry and adopt lean agile principles to improve performance and value. A common tool in lean agile practices used in manufacturing are sprints. The two practices are complementary, and achieve significant results when applied appropriately.

Recently, a marketing director with a Fortune 100 organization observed the lean agile process of sprints in their engineering team. They would use month long bursts (sprints) to create and test the potential value of projects. At the end of each sprint, the engineering team would examine what worked and what didn’t. If it was deemed a success, the process was adopted. If it didn’t, then the process was eliminated from consideration. The marketing director found inspiration in the process and success of the engineers, and imagined the same success in the marketing department. Research shows that 77% of marketing departments had adopted lean agile practices in the past five years. Of those respondents, 67% of those organizations increased revenue and profits. This clearly shows the potential of lean agile practice performance in the marketing profession.

Marketing Lean Agile Sprints Work

In this specific marketing department, the director adopted the lean agile process of their engineers and started on a new journey of excellence. The director prioritized a list of their most important projects and delayed lesser ideas until later months. They went to work and ran sprints on their top priorities. When they made their marketing process more customer centric, they also found they started sharing a common language with others in the organization. The overall team started working together and better understanding individual roles. The marketing department developed the process to where they would run a large project and two smaller ones each month. They were able to focus the efforts of marketing to better fit into what the rest of the organization really need form the team. They developed a year-long plan for their sprints, which significantly improved the overall effectiveness of the marketing team. The marketing department was better able to say no, not right now to requests and really focus on what made a difference for the entire organization. The entire team was able to become more comfortable with both failure and honesty. It was like new life came into the department. A mindset developed within marketing that they could experiment with campaigns to reduce workload and effort when putting a new product into the marketplace.

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When first learning about TPS and lean, most become focused on the tools. They tend to be flashy and lend to endless discussion about technique and application. But as you gain experience and understanding of lean and TPS, an epiphany occurs. The true essence and spirit of the applications are about continuous improvement and respect for people. The are truly the two pillars of lean and TPS. Waste reduction and management tools are not pillars of the methodology.

The essence of methodology is that each individual employee is given the opportunity to find problems in his own way of working, to solve them and to make improvements.

Wakamatsu and Kondo, Toyota experts

The essence of lean thinking and TPS is simply put. Keep the focus on building people, then building products, which includes creating an environment of challenging the status quo. The true brilliance and strength of the TPS and lean thinking is the ability to harness the intellectual power of the average employee. This concept is lost on many organizations who get themselves lost in the tools and miss the obvious simplicity of the concepts.

The concept of respect for people not just about the customer or end user. It refers to everyone inside and outside of the organization who has contact with the process. This means line workers, support personnel, vendors and supply personnel. If you follow through with this principle, you will continually analyze the process and seek perfection with involving the customer. This will nurture the ability of the organization to self-identify problems and lead to continuous improvement, or Kaizen. Ultimately, the organization will start to challenge everything and embrace change with ease. More important than the actual improvements, the true value of continuous improvement is in creating an atmosphere of continuous learning and an environment that not only accepts, but actually embraces change.

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The true concept of lean and TPS has two main pillars. These two pillars are respect for people and continuous improvement. Many organizations who try and embrace lean thinking and TPS are often distracted by the tools, instead of focusing on the true strength of lean thinking. Accepting the concepts of the two pillars will allow organizations to challenge everything and embrace the mindset of change.

Check out this informative video on the Two Pillars of TPS and lean!

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One of the most significant parts of Lean manufacturing is Visual Management. It is truly one of the most overlooked, but simplest tools available to manufacturers. Managing visually is the ability of a system to show the current status to anyone that stands and observes any part of the operation, within 30 seconds. It may be the production status, delivery status or a machine status. There must be indicators in place to let everyone know how things are going. Here are the basic elements of Visual Management:

Information Sharing – Simple notice boards that include graphs of performance summaries, customer surveys and key team achievements.

Standard Sharing – Sharing of standards and expectations in a visual manner, done regularly and in the same format.

Build In Standards – Sharing of standards to make it difficult to deviate from the expectations. A common example would be a Heijunka Box.

Deviation Warning – One of the most common visual management tools is a shadow board. It simply indicates where something should go or warn when something is missing.

Stopping Abnormalities –  A simple alert when an abnormality occurs and allow the issue to be corrected. They are either manual or automated signals that highlight the occurrence.

Preventing Abnormalities – These seek to prevent an issue from occurring rather than alarming when the ice occurs. Simplest solutions are the best. Airline lavatory lights are a fine example, as they illuminate when the lavatory is occupied and prevent others from attempting entry.

So, the next time you are on your factory walk, look around. Stop and observe what is really going on around you. With proper Visual Management techniques in place, you should quickly be able to grasp and understand how each area around you is performing. If you are seeing problems, who is alerted to the issue and what are they doing to correct it? If you cannot quickly understand the status of each operation quickly, then it is time to revisit your Visual Management program and strive for simplicity and clarity.

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Elon Musk…innovator and visionary. The guy is mass producing electric cars that are sexy, digging tunnels under Los Angeles and trying to go to Mars. When he gets focused on a vision he typically makes it happen, against all odds. Recently, Tesla hit a downturn with manufacturing, and a board of directors who were seeking to remove Musk from his company. Let’s talk about adversity!

It may be a great time to post this inspirational video and recharge with the lion of Elon Musk:

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Visual Management is one of the simplest, most effective tools of Lean manufacturing, but often overlooked. The key to success is simplicity. If anyone were to walk through your manufacturing operation, they should visually be able to understand how the operation is performing. It should be clear and concise.

Check out this educational video on Visual Management:

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Heijunka is the Japanese term for leveling. It is a technique for reducing unevenness (Mura) which in turn reduces waste (Muda). It is crucial to the development of production efficiency in Lean manufacturing. The goal is to produce goods at a constant rate so that further processing may also be carried out at a constant and predictable rate. 

Check out this informative video on Heijunka!

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After value streams have been solidified and embedded, Heijunka is a crucial process implementation in every successful lean organization. Heijunka quickly and elegantly helps organizations meet demands while reducing waste. By definition, it means leveling’ and enables production to efficiently meet customer demands while avoiding batching and results in minimum inventories, capital costs, manpower, and production lead time through the whole value stream. It truly is the key to stability.

Since the beginning of mass production, the technique of batching has been used to produce large lots of products, typically, without taking into consideration the demands of the customer. Output not purchased by the customer, is then placed into inventory for future use. This results in uneven product quality, overworked equipment and personnel, thus creating waste. Ultimately, manufacturers experience confusion and disorder because customer buying patterns are never consistent. In addition, when goods are placed into inventory, profitability is adversely impacted.

Heijunka helps organizations avoid these types of waste and inefficiencies, bringing production closer in line with customer demand. That type of flexibility in production allows organizations predictability and stability, thus experiencing better average production volume over the long term.  By adjusting production to mirror customer demand as closely as possible, waste and inefficiencies can significantly be reduced. When organizations make all product types and maintains a small inventory buffer throughout a year, there is greater flexibility to meet changing customer demand patterns. The buffer inventory will be liquidated during the year and production will be able to meet periods of peak demand and erratic customer purchasing.

It is understood that manufacturers exist to meet customer demands, with the highest possible quality product and maximizing profitability in operations. Understanding that customer buying patterns vary, Heijunka can closer mirror those needs to efficient production. This allows fulfillment of customer needs and significant reduction of waste in the manufacturing process.

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