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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The function of recognizing all demands for goods and services to support the marketplace. It involves prioritizing demand when supply is lacking. Proper Demand Management facilitates the planning and use of resources for profitable business results.

Enjoy this educational video on Demand Management!

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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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“I say an hour lost at a bottleneck is an hour out of the entire system. I say an hour saved at a non-bottleneck is worthless. Bottlenecks govern both throughput and inventory.”

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

There can be multiple causes of slowdowns and disruptions in workflow. One of the most serious causes can be bottlenecks. When efficiency is crucial to an workflow process, a bottleneck can significantly impact the bottom line and customer satisfaction of any organization. A bottleneck analysis offers an organization opportunities to improve efficiencies, customer satisfaction and ensure workflows at an even rate.

A bottleneck analysis is a detailed process where an organization gathers as much detailed information about the flow of a particular product or process. Specifically, data is gathered about the point(s) in the process where workflow is bottlenecking. This type of analysis can be done specifically to identify the cause of a bottleneck that is causing problems, or to learn about processes where a bottleneck is likely to occur in the future. The bottleneck analysis will provide important information about how things are done, and how they can be improved.

When performing the analysis, it is crucial to not only look at where the bottleneck is occurring, but the entire workflow process. This will give a better picture of what is really occurring at all stages of the process, along with what occurs just before and after the bottleneck. If a bottleneck early in the workflow process is eliminated, it may result in a new one forming further down the line. A properly performed analysis will not only help to find solutions to the existing bottleneck, but will also help to prevent new ones from forming. 

Preventing bottlenecks would be ideal to avoid having to manage and resolve them in the future. There are ways to work around them when planning the production environment. Giving employees free rein over minor decision-making will allow them to make the decision they feel is most efficient. Establishment of standardized exchanged protocols can minimize the potential for future bottlenecks to occur through minimizing downtime. 

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We are proud provide you a recap of five of our most recent blogs for your enjoyment and reference. Please do not forget to dive into the archives from time to time and catch up on reading you may have missed!

Using Regression Analysis to Improve Cause and Effect Analysis

Understanding the Change Acceleration Process Model (CAP)

What Are the 5 Factors for a Successful FMEA?

What’s the Connection Between a Scatter Diagram and Correlation Analysis?

7 Steps to Better Benchmarking

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The 5S methodology was developed in Japan, and was identified as one of the techniques that enabled Just-in-time manufacturing.

Two major frameworks for understanding and applying 5S to business environments have arisen, one proposed by Osada, the other by Hirano. Hirano provided a structure to improve programs with a series of identifiable steps, each building on its predecessor.

The 5S methodology has expanded from manufacturing and is now being applied to a wide variety of industries including healthcare, education, and government. Visual management and 5S can be particularly beneficial in healthcare because a frantic search for supplies to treat an in-trouble patient can have dire consequences. Although the origins of the 5S methodology are in manufacturing, it can also be applied to knowledge economy work, with information, software, or media in the place of physical product.

Enjoy this informational video on 5S.

https://youtu.be/F7hk_sMings

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There is much confusion around Lean tools and the practice of a Gemba walk. Most commonly, leaders sometimes confuse a Gemba walk with the philosophy of Managing By Walking Around (MWBA). The two philosophies are truly in opposite camps, without similarity.

Gemba walk denotes the action of going to see the process, understand the work, ask questions, and learn. It is also one fundamental part of the Lean management philosophy.

The concept and development are credited to Taiichi Ohno, an executive at Toyota. It is an opportunity for staff to stand back from their day-to-day tasks to walk the floor of their workplace to identify wasteful activities. It is designed to allow leaders to identify existing safety hazards, observe machinery and equipment conditions, ask about the practiced standards, gain knowledge about the work status and build relationships with employees. The objective is to understand the value stream and its problems rather than review results or make superficial comments. Gemba walk is one of the five Lean guiding principles that should be practiced by Lean leaders on a daily basis. Usually, it is an activity that takes management to the front lines to look for waste and opportunities to practice Gemba Kaizen, or practical shopfloor improvement. They are crucial to maintaining the disciplined adherence to Lean process designs, part of the Lean support role permeating all leadership positions.

The more observation and problem solving that happens with operators on a Gemba walk, the more successful and enduring the changes will be. There is no rule that says a practitioner cannot take a Gemba walk at any point in a process change. In fact, reviewing ideas, piloting changes and tweaking implementation issues are all great uses of the Gemba walk. As a leader’s confidence builds in solving problems with many tools, the more problems you will solve directly on the shop floor, and consequently be able to coach others to recognize their abilities within themselves to solve the challenges they face.

A Gemba walk is not an opportunity to find fault in others while they are being observed. It is also not a time to enforce policy adherence, except possibly serious safety problems or gross violations. If a Gemba walk is used punitively, employees will shut down and resistance to change will rise rapidly. A Gemba walk needs to be approached from a place of mutual respect and interest in making things faster, safer, easier and just plain better.

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Hoshin Kanri is a process used in strategic planning in which goals are communicated throughout the company and then put into action. This method of strategic planning originated from post-war Japan, but has since spread to the U.S. and around the world. Translated from Japanese, Hoshin Kanri means “compass management.” The individual words “hoshin” and “kanri” mean direction and administration.

It requires a strategic vision in order to succeed. From there, strategic objectives need to be defined, with goals being written for a year-long time frame. Leadership needs to avoid picking too many goals in order to stay focused on what is important. The biggest goals then need to be broken down into smaller goals, on a weekly and monthly basis, and then implemented so that everyone, from management to the factory floor, is in agreement on what needs to be accomplished.

The goals should be reviewed on a monthly basis, with a larger annual review at the end of the year. Performance measurement is also a key part of the process. Hoshin Kanri is a top-down approach, with the goals being mandated by management and the implementation being performed by employees.

Systems need to be in place to ensure that objectives from senior management are effectively communicated all the way down the chain of command. A catchball system is often used in order to aid in the execution of the strategic plan. A catchball system seeks to get opinions of both managers and employees through meetings and interactions in order to ensure the bidirectional flow of goals, feedback, and other information throughout the organization.

Organizations that use Hoshin Kanri often follow a Think, Plan, Implement, and Review process, which is comparable to W. Edwards Deming’s Plan Do Check Act cycle.’ This is because Deming played a role in the spreading of quality control principles that influenced the development of Hoshin Kanri.

Learn more about Hoshin Kanri and download a template

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Lean manufacturing includes a set of principles that Lean thinkers use to achieve improvements in productivity, quality, and lead time by eliminating waste.

There are many tools and concepts that Lean companies employ to support the above principles and eliminate waste. Here is one of those tools to know.

Heijunka Production Leveling

Production leveling, also known as production smoothing, or by its Japanese original term heijunka. It is a technique for reducing the Mura (unevenness) which in turn reduces Muda (waste). It was vital to the development of production efficiency in Lean manufacturing.

The goal is to produce intermediate goods at a constant rate so that further processing may also be carried out at a constant and predictable rate. Where demand is constant, production leveling is easy, but where customer demand fluctuates, two approaches have been adopted: 1) demand leveling and 2) production leveling through flexible production. To prevent fluctuations in production, even in outside affiliates, it is important to minimize fluctuation in the final assembly line.

A heijunka box is a visual scheduling tool. It is a concept originally created by Toyota for achieving a smoother production flow. While heijunka is the smoothing of production, the heijunka box is the name of a specific tool used in achieving the aims of heijunka.

A heijunka box is a wall schedule which is divided into a grid of boxes or a set of pigeonholes or rectangular receptacles. Each column of boxes representing a specific period of time, lines are drawn down the schedule/grid to visually break the schedule into columns of individual shifts or days or weeks. Colored cards representing individual jobs (referred to as Kanban cards) are placed on the box to provide a visual representation of the upcoming production runs.

The box makes it easy to see what type of jobs are queued for production and for when they are scheduled. Workers on the process remove the Kanban cards for the current period from the box in order to know what to do. These cards will be passed to another section when they process the related job.

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It Only Works For Manufacturing

Lean Principles: They only work in manufacturing. It’s a statement you hear more often than not. Even though many organizations across the service industry are adopting Lean principles and practices, the concept just hasn’t been sold. So many understand the value of Lean principles, but just cannot get their head wrapped around how it would apply to them in the services sector. They don’t manufacture a ‘widget’ and they don’t see a production line, with idle workers or backlogged production. Without those situations challenging them daily, they just don’t understand the connection.

Lean Principles in the Service Industry

A typical observation within the service processes is a variation of the 80-20 rule: a small percentage of work typically eats up a disproportionate amount of time. In one internal support function, 75% of transactions took less than five minutes to process. The remaining 25 %, more complex transactions, account for 60% of the total time expended daily. These examples can be a huge drain on productivity and are typical for many service processes. In manufacturing, the ‘widget’ is the product. In the service industry, the customer is the product and their satisfaction is the focus of the process. When satisfaction is missing, the ‘widget’ is broken and product is not going out the door. The customers then abandon the organization in favor of a competitor that does offer the right ‘widget’.

Service Quality and Focus

Implementing Lean practices and principles is really about a mindset and change management. Without a tangible ‘widget’, employees are your best insight into practices and customer behavior. Involve them from the beginning of any process and you will get their buy-in and support. Making continuous improvement will then make a permanent change in the culture and produce the change you are seeking. The elusive ‘widget’ will then become tangible and visible to those in the services that you are providing. Add to that unwavering support from the top and encouraging teamwork at all levels, and you will have found the right way to apply Lean practices to your service organization.

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When a problem or issue surfaces in quality management the set of tools and techniques used to get to the bottom of it are essentially part of Root Cause Analysis (RCA). Although some people prefer to take a freestyle approach to problem-solving, RCA’s tools make the whole endeavour more structured and methodical. This has been shown to lead to excellent results.

Some of the tools allow you to look past what is obvious to uncover the underlying cause. Others allow you to visualize the problem so you can look at it from a different perspective. And each tool is designed to help you see the real, hidden issue, which will prevent the problem or issue from ever happening again once fixed.

This saves the team a lot of time. Constantly working on surface problems is nothing more than patchwork. If the main cause isn’t fixed, the problem becomes recurring – sometimes it gets worse with each reoccurrence. Furthermore, it prevents the team from focusing on the wrong cause or something that doesn’t need to be fixed at all.

When it comes to RCA, there are many tools that teams can use. Here are the most common ones.

Fishbone Diagram

When the problem being faced is complex in nature, the fishbone diagram is used. It allows the team to categorize possible causes into homogeneous groups and sub-groups. It is especially handy to use in the event the root cause is hidden under various surface problems. Another name for the diagram is the cause-and-effect diagram.

5 Whys

The 5 Whys puts you in the shoes of a detective trying to uncover the root cause of a problem. There’s nothing complicated about it either since all you have to do is ask the question “Why?” five times – as a rule of thumb, not a hard rule – until the underlying cause is revealed. It works best on rudimentary issues, so it might not be the best option if there is a need for quantitative analysis.

Pareto Chart

Causes are 20% responsible for the effects seen 80% of the time. This is the underlying principle behind the Pareto Chart. This visualization tool provides a snapshot of common errors so they can be seen from a glance. It shows their causes in descending order, helping you tackle them in order of relevance and urgency.

Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA)

When a system encounters a particular failure, the FMEA is the best tool to use to shed light on it. The Failure Mode component of the tool is about brainstorming potential things that can lead to system failure. These are the failure modes. Effects Analysis dives deeper into the effects of each of the failure modes identified in the previous step.

Conclusion

Taking Root Cause Analysis seriously is just one of the many ways organizations achieve Six Sigma. There’s no one way to carry out RCA since every problem is unique to the organization. While other tools can be used to conduct RCA as well, these are ones that successful organizations use from time to time. Each one has proved time and time again to be effective and getting rid of problems and issues once and for all.

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Lean was born out of manufacturing practices, but in recent times, has transformed the world of knowledge work and management. It encourages the practice of continuous improvement and is based on the fundamental idea of respect for people. Womack and Jones defined the five principles of Lean manufacturing in their book The Machine That Changed the World. Take some time and listen to Womack discuss the five principles of lean.

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It is imperative for the top management of any business to have a thorough knowledge of true lean principles. A basic knowledge of lean tools, however, does not suffice.

In a nutshell, the lean principles focus on respect for people, continuous improvement at all levels, and a continuous focus on delivering customer value. This, however, necessitates a transformation in leadership as well.

Lean strategies can only be truly effective if they are accompanied by effective lean management. The latter helps champion the lean principles, provides valuable insights and guidance, and ensures that the principles of the methodology are being used to optimize the system as a whole.

Lean Management and Support

There are various tools and techniques that the leaders and executives of businesses can adapt to transform themselves into lean managers and help contribute the most value to the customer.

• The senior executives should learn to standardize their information flow and believe in the practice of eliminating waste.
• The top management should continuously observe the work done as a routine task.
• They need to reinforce appropriate behaviors and highlight them everywhere.
• If there is a need for change, communicate it to the entire business and ensure that the whole team understands.
• It is important for managers to actively engage themselves in the day-to-day affairs of the business. They need not just support the other employees, but be there out in the front to lend a helping hand whenever required.
• The top management should provide continuous support and stay committed to the values of the business.
• Lean managers need to shift their mindset. From a supervisor, they need to shift their role to a teacher and a coach. Lean leaders lead gently and by example.
• The management must ensure that the principles are used with the right goals in mind. It is essential to maximize the delivery of value to the customer in a sustainable fashion.
• Lean businesses focus on continuous improvement and experimentation. They know that the people dealing with the product are the ones with the best ideas for improvement and thus listen to every idea with an open mind.
• Do not spend unnecessary time in long feedback loops up and down the organizational structure. Ensure decisions are made in a timely manner.
• It is essential to understand the important variation management and good tolerance to achieve greater value and cost-effectiveness.
• Lean leadership can help bridge the gap between the tools and a continuously improving and self-sustaining organization.
• Lean management focuses on the scientific method. Leaders must strive to create an environment that targets continuous improvement.
• It is also important to acknowledge and celebrate improvements. If team members report their successes to a leadership that is not familiar with the tools and terms, they might not realize the importance of the success.
• Leaders should trust the experience, skills, and knowledge of their employees. Hire smart and ambitious team players and arm them with the right tools.
• Most importantly, leaders must learn when to let go and get out of the way. Leaders are not supposed to do the work but to lead teams and prioritize the right work so as to foster a great value for the customer.

Conclusion

The lack of understanding is one of the major hurdles that need to be overcome if you need to ensure that the upper management is involved in supporting initiatives for improvement. Learning the importance of the lean tools and methodologies and leading teams the right way without micro-managing the work is the key to success.

Team-building exercises are a great way to identify employees who are great team players as well as those who can possibly hinder teamwork. They are not just fun games, after all. Continuous support and commitment at the level of the top management are of utmost importance for a company to achieve their end goals.

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Lately, Six Sigma and Lean have become key buzzwords for progressive organizations that seek to improve their efficiency. Six Sigma denotes a methodology used in business management that makes use of a scientific approach to measure quality while reducing defects and variations. On its part, Lean is a combination of philosophies, tools and methodologies that make up a management system to scientifically solve business problems.

These two methodologies are often used hand in hand by many organizations within a variety of industries which combine mindsets and methods adopted from each approach. There also exist a number of frameworks for the two approaches. Most of these tools can be used to great effect by organizations of all kinds, even those that have not fully embraced the twin methodologies.

5S

This is an organizational paradigm for the workplace and has been developed to help companies improve safety, streamline workflow and reduce waste in their processes. This approach is an abbreviation for its five main principles: Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardize and Sustain.

5 Whys

Among the essential tenets behind lean thinking is that the root causes of any problems that arise need to be addressed, not worked around or covered up. These underlying causes of issues at the workplace can often be uncovered if the simple question, Why? is asked five times. Each answer is documented and the process repeated until the root cause of the problem has been identified and resolved.

A3 Reports

Named after the paper size commonly used at the offices of Toyota, A3 reports are single-page documents which summarize all that is needed to make decisions and report on a particular process. They condense a lot of information from multiple sources into a single, easily-digestible document that can then be acted upon. Typically, they include current process flows, goals, analysis and recommendations for implementation.

Control Charts

Control charts make it easier for business leaders to visualize process output over a set period of time. Because control charts predate Six Sigma and Lean, they can be associated with either of the two methods. They are used to help management establish common cause variation (indicating that there is no change in the process) as well as special cause variation (a key indicator of shifts in a system or problems within a process).

DMAIC

DMAIC is an abbreviation for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. Many people consider DMAIC to be the most important tool in the Six Sigma methodology. This is an improvement cycle that helps organizations to improve, optimize and stabilize their processes, and is regarded as the Six Sigma roadmap for resolution of business problems.

Kanban

The word Kanban literally means shopkeeper’s sign in Japanese. This visualization methodology helps to facilitate just-in-time manufacturing as well as a streamlined workflow in a range of industries. The key idea behind Kanban is the use of visual cues in order to guide delivery of inputs to processes when needed. It minimizes the required stock levels of raw materials, work in progress, components and finished goods.

Standard Work

If predictable and consistent results are to be achieved by a business, it is vital that every process is carried out in the same way every time, no matter who is carrying out the tasks associated to the process. One way to achieve this is by developing, documenting and enforcing standard work. Standard work is a representation of the organization’s current best practices for performance of different parts of its processes.

Value Stream Mapping

This is a lean tool which is designed to ensure that each part of a business process offers tangible value to the customer. In this case, value can be defined as something which a customer would be willing to pay for. When carrying out a value stream mapping, the current processes are examined and documented. Any step, task or expenditure on resources that does not produce value is eliminated or improved.

Conclusion

Each of the Six Sigma and Lean tools outlined above can be used independently or in conjunction with another to help a business achieve quantifiable goals. Most businesses that adopt the use of these tools enjoy measurable results with regard to quality improvement, staff engagement, cost savings and customer satisfaction.

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