Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker is Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan, owner of Liker Lean Advisors, LLC,  Partner in The Toyota Way Academy, and Partner in Lean Leadership Institute. Dr. Liker has authored or co-authored over 75 articles and book chapters and eleven books. He is author of the international best-seller, The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer, which speaks to the underlying philosophy and principles that drive Toyota’s quality and efficiency-obsessed culture. The companion (with David Meier) The Toyota Way Fieldbook, details how companies can learn from the Toyota Way principles.

This is the keynote talk given by Jeffrey Liker at the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters Lean Conference.

https://youtu.be/qvliu21MxK4

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As a Lean Six Sigma professional, we are fascinated with the question of “why” when we see failure in business practices. It is in our DNA to ask that question and drill down, to expose the facts. When you look at two recent business failures, our heads are filled with the question “why.” The failure of Takata and Samsung have been the best examples of business failure that you should understand and examine.

Quality Failure of Epic Proportion

The quality failure of Takata and Samsung have shaken their industries to the core. What is puzzling for Lean Six Sigma practitioners is the fact that both industries touted themselves as being fully immersed in the practice of Lean Six Sigma. Even more disturbing is the relationship of Takata with Toyota, who is often seen as the “gold standard” of quality improvement. Without the advantage of having intimate details of both organizations, one can only speculate on the causes of their epic failures. Those details will probably never be available outside of the highest levels of those organizations. However, a reasonable Lean Six Sigma professional can only speculate as to why these failures occurred. That speculation reasonably states that the failures can be linked directly to failures in the quality processes. Their commitment to the practices and philosophies of Lean Six Sigma practices slipped on a major scale.

Understanding the Important

As Lean Six Sigma professionals, you must take a look at at these two failures with the best detailed scrutiny available. The analysis will undoubtedly show that there were breaches in their systems and process. Their integrity and commitment to quality improvement practices were compromised to a point that there was no possibility of return. Their behavior not only damages their brand, but has shaken the confidence of their customers, which will not be short-lived. It will be a long hard climb for Takata and Samsung back to a point of respect in their industries.

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The Boeing Challenge

Lean Production ‘Toyota’ style is going full throttle at Boeing. As competition heats up between two aerospace giants, Boeing and Airbus, Boeing is looking at every opportunity to produce their new 777X as the most cost effective and highest quality aircraft in production. As with any other highly technical and competitive industry, success in the industry is a “game of inches.” Every improvement can equate to significant savings and quality advancement. To bring this point home, Boeing hired Walter Adisho as VP of Manufacturing and Safety. Adisho was previously with Toyota, where he oversaw manufacturing at their plant in Kentucky.  Boeing’s commitment to change couldn’t be more serious.

The Boeing Plan for Lean Production

The Boeing plan is to use newer and more standardized manufacturing techniques for its new 777X jetliner, paving the way for more significant savings as it gradually feeds the changes back into existing assembly lines. This approach will draw significantly on lean production lessons learned from outside the aerospace industry. It will also provide Boeing the opportunity to significantly impact other production lines. Standardization and efficiency will be the mantra of Boeing moving forward.

Climbing Higher at Boeing

With standardization in the aerospace industry being limited, this is the perfect opportunity for Boeing to take advantage of lean production. Typically aerospace production is at a lower rate and requires significantly more technical and custom production. Boeing’s plane making chief has challenged engineers to think about build quality when designing aircraft so they can be produced more affordably. Boeing says a clean-sheet design for a 21st-century aircraft plant would weave a single thread from the drawing board to the parts cart on the factory floor. If you look at aerospace with market demand rising, Boeing needs to start thinking differently and move efficiencies from the auto industry into this arena.

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Most problems are dealt with in superficial ways.  Very few people and organizations actually arrive at the root cause of their problems.  At Toyota, they employ Root Cause analysis in almost everything they do.  One problem solving approach they employ is the Lean A3 Problem Solving Method.

A3 is a paper size, typically 11″ x 17″.  There are actually several A3-type paper sizes, and Toyota believes that when you structure your problem solving around 1 page of paper, then your thinking is focused and structured.

Below are the steps of the A3 process, followed by a real-world example of an A3 collaborative problem solving that I was a part of while I spent a short time at Toyota.  The steps below are taken from Dr. Durward Sobek’s very informative site [1. http://www.montana.edu/dsobek/a3/]:

Identify Problem or Need

Whenever the way work happens is not ideal, or when a goal or objective is not being met, you have a problem (or, if you prefer, a need). The best problems to work on are those that arise in day-to-day work and prevent you from doing your best.

Understand Current Situation

Before a problem can be properly addressed, one must have a firm grasp of the current situation. To do this, Toyota suggests that problem-solvers:

• Observe the work process first hand, and document observations
• Create a diagram that shows how the work is done – a value stream map will be helpful here.
• Quantify the magnitude of the problem (e.g., % of customer deliveries that are late, # of stock outs in a month, # of errors reported per quarter, % of work time that is value-added); if possible, represent the data graphically.

Root Cause Analysis

Once you have a good understanding of how the process (i.e., the one that needs to be fixed) currently works, it’s time to figure out what the root causes are to the errors or inefficiency. To accomplish this, first make a list of the main problem(s). Next, ask the appropriate why? questions until you reach the root cause. A good rule-of-thumb is that you haven’t reached the root cause until you’ve asked why? at least five times in series.

Main Components of an Ishikawa Diagram

1. At the head of the Fishbone is the defect or effect, stated in the form of a question.
2. The major bones are the capstones, or main groupings of causes.
3. The minor bones are detailed items under each capstone.
4. There are common capstones, but they may or may not apply to your specific problem. The common ones are:

• People
• Equipment
• Material
• Information
• Methods/Procedures
• Measurement
• Environment

After completing your Fishbone Diagram excercise as a group, it is helpful to test your logic by working the bones: top-down OR bottom-up like:

this happens because of g; g happens because of f; f happens because of e; e happens because of d; d happens because of c; c happens because of b; b happens because of a.

The excercise above is crucially important ” you must test your logic so that it makes pragmatic sense and that the atomic root cause is actionable ” that is, you can do something to correct it, reduce it, or eliminate the root cause.

Once you or your team arrive at a root cause for a specific capstone, then you typically cloud it to identify it as a root cause. A good rule is that there is typically *NOT* 1 root cause for a problem, but potentially several. Below is a diagram of one fishbone, decomposed:

Countermeasures

Once the current situation is fully understood and the root cause(s) for the main problem(s) has been unveiled, it’s time to devise some countermeasures. Countermeasures are the changes to be made to the work processes that will move the organization closer to ideal, or make the process more efficient, by addressing root causes. Generally speaking, we recommend that countermeasures help the process conform to three rules borrowed from Steven Spear and Kent Bowen and slightly expanded:

• Specify the outcome, content, sequence, and task of work activities
• Create clear, direct connections between requestors and suppliers of goods and services.
• Eliminate loops, workarounds, and delays

Develop the Target State

The countermeasure(s) addressing the root cause(s) of the problem will lead to new ways of getting the work done, what we call the target condition or target state. It describes how the work will get done with the proposed countermeasures in place. In the A3 report, the target condition should be a diagram (similar to the current condition) that illustrates how the new proposed process will work. The specific countermeasures should be noted or listed, and the expected improvement should be predicted specifically and quantitatively.

Implementation Plan

In order to reach the target state, one needs a well thought-out and workable implementation plan. The implementation plan should include a list of the actions that need to be done to get the countermeasures in place and realize the target condition, along with the individual responsible for each task and a due date. Other relevant items, such as cost, may also be added.

A3 Example

Below is an example from an A3 project.  The context for the A3 Report below is around the question “Why was the end-of-shift clean-up not being completed?”  This question drove the team to follow the A3 method and subsequent root cause analysis to arrive at the root causes and implement solutions.  This activity below was done proactively done by the team with full support from management.

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A company that I once did some work for was very concerned about the burden it was placing on its people and on the earth.  In what follows, I will show that a firm can still be enterprising, care about people, and care about the earth.

As a review, let us first discuss Value, Waste, and the perspective of the customer.

What is a Process?

A process is an systematic activity comprising of smaller activities that culminate in an outcome ” service or product. A process can take up time, space, and resources. All processes can be categorized into the following categories: Value-added, Non-value added but necessary, and Non-value added.

From the Customer’s Perspective:

1. Value-added: This step in the process adds form, function, and value to the end product and for the customer.
2. Non-Value-Added: This step does not add form, function, or assist in the finished goods manufacturing of the product.
3. Non-Value-Added-But-Necessary: This step does not add value, but is a necessary step in the final value-added product.

(2) & (3) naturally create waste, of which there are 7 types:

1. Over-Production: Producing more than is needed, faster than needed or before needed.
2. Wait-time: Idle time that occurs when co-dependent events are not synchronized.
3. Transportation: Any material movement that does not directly support immediate production.
4. Processing: Redundant effort (production or communication) which adds no value to a product or service.
5. Inventory: Any supply in excess of process or demand requirements.
6. Motion: Any movement of people which does not contribute added value to the product or service.
7. Defect: Repair or rework of a product or service to fulfill customer requirements.

It’s important to understand Value in terms of the customer.  From the customer’s perspective, Value could be defined in the form of a question:

Which process steps (and associated costs) do our customers not have to bear?

It’s a revealing question ” most companies are glad that they do not have to reveal how their product or service is created, for fear of their inefficient processes and wasteful operations revealed to the customer.  This stance is sometimes aptly called “not revealing how the hot dog is made”, amicably referring to the unknown contents of the hot dog.

Burden on People; Burden on Earth

It is easy to see how the 7 Wastes above add substantial cost to the firm, reducing it’s margins, and negatively impacting the customer.  But, what is less obvious is the burden that inefficient processes have on the earth.

I was on the Supply Chain and Logistics side of this company.  This company aimed to reduce usage of packaging and wrapping material through simplifying specifications for packaging and wrapping and by promoting the use of returnable containers or bins.  As a result of the efforts of a lot of caring people, this company reduced its volume of packaging by 15% than the previous year.  Below is a picture of the results:

What is remarkable is that by lessening the burden on people by reducing the weight, bulk, volume, and material used for packaging, the earth also benefits because there is less CO2 used and less material is required to the same work.  What is not highlighted is that safety and ergonomics was also a huge benefit — people now deal with less weight, bulk, and volume, which makes for a safer work environment.

This reduction of material used is a big win for People and for the Earth.  What is also important, though less important than People or the Earth, is that costs were reduced by a substantial amount, which increases the gross margins of the firm, making shareholders very happy.

A False Dichotomy

Contrary to popular thought, there is an opportunity to be a good steward of the earth, take care of people, and also be an enterprising capitalist.  The example above is a case study that supports that fact.

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James P. Womack

Dr. James P. Womack was born on July 27, 1948. His dreams are the reason behind his successful career. He decided to leave Arkansas, the place where his family was living from 1820, after completing his high school. Cars and speed were always a source of fascination for James, so he decided to pursue his passion as his career and focused his studies on the urban transportation system. He relocated to Chicago and obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago. Living his passion, he went to Harvard to pursue his Masters in transportations systems, followed by a Doctorate at MIT in political science in 1982 (His dissertation was on the theme of industrial policy comparison among U.S., Japan, and Germany).

During the period 1975-1991, he was associated as a full-time research scientist at MIT and directed a series of comparative studies of manufacturing practices around the world. He was the Chief Researcher and project director for a project that led to the publication of The Urban Transportation System: Politics and Policy Innovation in 1978 by Alan Altshuler with Dr. Womack and John R. Pucher.

While serving as the research director of MIT’s International Motor Vehicle Program, he led the research team which coined the term lean production to describe the business system of Toyota.

Contributions:

Introduction of Lean to Manufacturing: Lean Thinking is a design philosophy and approach which was pioneered by Toyota after the Second World War. James Womack and Dan Jones in their book Lean Thinking which was published in 1996, defined the way to reorganize the provision of goods and services, different from the concept of mass production’ given by Henry Ford and called it lean production’. In 1990, Dr. Womack and co-authors Daniel T. Jones and Daniel Roos also published The Machine That Changed the World. The original manuscript had an academic title which was later changed by the editor Eleanor Rawson. She proposed this title to James but he objected stating that no machine has been discussed in the entire book. But Eleanor was unfaded and confident that the proposed title will still sell. It became one of the most influential books on manufacturing ever published. Dr. Womack has also been the author or co-author of several subsequent business books on quality, including Lean Thinking, Lean Solutions, Seeing the Whole and Gemba Walks, and he has also written more than 150 articles.

Establishment of the Lean Enterprise Institute: In 1997, the Lean Enterprise Institute was established by Dr. Womack. LEI is a nonprofit organization responsible for education, publishing, research, and organizing conferences. The Institute is responsible for developing hypotheses and performing real-world experiments in real-world manufacturing plants to observe if the hypotheses are accepted or rejected. The goal is simple: to make the things better. Though Dr. Womack was the Chairman and CEO of LEI till 2010, he still continues to render his services as a senior advisor. In 2007, a Lean Global Network of 23 other nonprofit institutes with the same mission was started around the world by LEI. They led emphasis on the importance of thinking out of the box and going beyond the immediate and predictable boundaries of the firm and looking at the holistic perspective i.e. entire set of activities required for producing the desired product or service.

Conclusions: The influence of lean principles and Dr. Womack on manufacturing is unmatched.  While some key-persons associated with the manufacturing sector view lean as a methodology of inventory management, Dr. Womack considers it a management philosophy. Lean’s primary aim is to create more value for customers by devising ways for employees, suppliers, and customers to work together effectively and creating more satisfying work for everyone.

Dr. Womack is still associated with MIT and the world of manufacturing as well as the automotive industry. He is currently working on developing a project that involves hyper-connectivity, asset sharing, and alternative energy.

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At first, it may be hard to believe that it is possible for a process which was developed for efficiency in supermarkets could be adapted to the world of healthcare. During the 1940s, Toyota employees observed that supermarkets in the U.S. were able to easily and consistently offer customers food whenever they needed it, without the need to hold on to large quantities of inventory. They noted that supermarket coolers were stocked using a first-in-first-out system that restocked from back to front. There are visual cues placed within each stock room that let employees know exactly how much inventory they should order as stock gets depleted.

The Japanese car manufacturer then applied this system successfully into its operations, allowing it to increase efficiency. Toyota coined the term kanban as the name of this methodology. Much later, companies like Virginia Mason pioneered the adoption of kanban to make the process of providing healthcare more efficient and effective. Here are three ways kanban can help make the healthcare industry more efficient.

1. Use of Kanban Inventory Software Solutions

Through the use of technology such as software, barcodes and RFID tags, tracking of inventory patterns and levels at healthcare facilities has now been made much simpler. There are many kanban inventory solutions available today to fully automate the processes involved. While many facilities still implement a two-bin system to great effect, the use of kanban software makes use of scanning of RFID tags and barcodes to supplement the bins as well as an electronic database to give accurate inventory tracking.

A robust automated system based on kanban principles manages the entire supply chain more efficiently. It signals when a restocking order is required when a bin is depleted. It is also capable of tracking lead times in order to ensure that a facility always has a sufficient amount of stock available.

In addition, managers of healthcare facilities can make use of kanban inventory software to produce reports on productivity.

2. Consolidating Supply Inventory

In the field of commercial healthcare, suppliers are experiencing shrinking margins because of steadily declining reimbursement levels. For instance, in the orthopedic industry, firms are forced to produce lower volumes of products, which means that the benefits of implementing a kanban system may not become immediately apparent.

In spite of this, DJ Orthopedics, a firm which specializes in the creation of non-operative regeneration, repair and rehabilitation products has successfully trialed a kanban system. Within one of the company’s manufacturing facilities, they put in place a five-sided kanban inventory system which stores kanban cards for most of the products within its inventory.

Any time a particular item requires replenishment, there is a card which signals the crew and suppliers who are in charge of the store room. The system has helped the company to reduce its warehouse size and cut down on production times. The lean kanban system has also let the company improve on its on-time deliveries while increasing its profits compared to its peers in the healthcare field.

3. Merging Workflows to Reduce Staff Workload

In order to match staffing demand, hospitals may think of the need to redeploy staff from other departments within the facilities. In the experience of many healthcare professionals with regard to workload reduction, flexibility of the workforce, leveling and cross training, the solution to congestion will often be found outside departmental bounds. Lean kanban principles teach that effective countermeasures to these problems can be found when examined across the entire organization.

Facility resources personnel in particular need to be able to move between an emergency department and hospital wards whenever required. Workload needs to be shared by the entire hospital. Through the use of kanban cards and automated systems, it is easier to move staff from one part of the hospital to the other as required, without any negative effect, similar to how inventory is ordered as required.

Conclusion

Stores managers in hospitals often feel more comfortable when holding on to large stocks of supplies in fear that they may unexpectedly run out. However, the flip side is that this often leads to excessive inventory and expired items. It may take time to convince them that a lean kanban system is reliable, but in the end, it is worth the effort.

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The Yamazumi chart can work amazingly well for any process-based company. By implementing this easiest of tools, it allows the company to better understand where time is being potentially wasted in each process, which alone provides a number of advantages.

However, to better illustrate this point, we can look at just three reasons as to why a Yamazumi chart should be used in Lean manufacturing. By studying these reasons, it should then make it easier for the reader to understand how and why they can use this chart within their own business or process-driven application.

1. It Reduces Time Wastage

Wasted time is wasted money, and no organization wants to go ahead and waste money if it can be avoided. So, any method that can reduce this possibility should be embraced with open arms, and a Yamazumi chart is a free and simple approach that generates results.

By being able to look at each process individually and the time that each step takes, it is easier to see it in a visual format to then know where time is being wasted.

Imagine that a particular part of the manufacturing process has a number of steps. The Yamazumi chart would have one bar for that process, with additional bars for each individual aspect, but within the one bar would be a block for each individual aspect. Think of it as being Process 1 followed by Process 1:1, then 1:2 and so on.

When you then look at the chart, you can see how long it takes for part 1:2 compared to other sections and determine if too much time is being spent on that part of the process. As a result, changes can be made in the process to reduce that time, leading to a faster end result and a better outcome overall.

2. It Can Lead to Processes Being Rearranged

The Yamazumi chart can allow you to determine which option is better by looking at each individual component of each part of the manufacturing process. Then you can try to work out if the order should be changed. It’s all about optimization from a time-based perspective, and it simply presents the information in a way that is easier to follow and to compare across the board. In fact, when companies such as Toyota use this approach to streamline the manufacturing side of their business and change the order on production lines, that gives us strong evidence that this method can be used on a large scale too.

3. Achieve a Sense of Balance Toward your Goals/Targets

By gaining insight into the time spent on each process, as well as coming to terms with the best order, it can mean that the target process will then become far more balanced thanks to employing one of these charts. By becoming aware of the potential wastage at various stages, it ultimately delivers something that is more efficient and still achieves that end result that the manufacturing process requires.

If the process is unbalanced, then it can ultimately lead to issues,  making up for lost time or not enough energy being exerted into various key areas due to too much time being spent elsewhere. A balanced approach to business strategies and production will always lead to a better outcome overall.

Conclusion

The three reasons mentioned are not exhaustive or final, but they do provide you with some of the insight into the way in which these charts can be an extremely effective tool for a Lean manufacturing company to employ. This simplistic approach can lead to astonishing results, as well as potentially change the entire manufacturing process, but when the end result is far superior, then this form of optimization should be embraced rather than being viewed as a problem.

The post 3 Reasons to Use the Yamazumi Chart in Lean Manufacturing appeared first on 6sigma.

The A3 problem solving method, like many other concepts related to Lean manufacturing, originated at Toyota and saw active use at the organization for a long time. The name is relatively simple to use and very intuitive for leaders who already have at least some experience in the area of lean, and it’s seen many applications since its original inception.

Basic Idea

The standard way of implementing the A3 method is with a specific chart drawn up on a sheet of A3 paper, which is also where the method gets its name from. The chart is flexible in its design and can be adapted to various different industries and styles of work, but its elements remain pretty much the same across the board. The only difference is in the way they are combined with each other, as some organizations might choose to omit specific parts of the chart.

Each step of the process is categorized under several major groups, which are used to split the solution into discrete general parts. Generally, you can split the process into four steps:

• PLAN develop a basic plan for addressing the problem and identify each individual step required for adequate planning
• DO put the plan into action and implement all necessary changes in your organization
• CHECK verify the results of your solution and make sure that you’ve actually made a positive impact on the company
• ACT ensure that successful solutions are spread with the appropriate parties that can benefit from them in the future

Additional Details

While the four steps mentioned above outline the general process, a typical A3 chart would have more steps than that, typically around eight. For example, the planning stage can be separated into three or even more unique stages identifying the requirements for the current solution, identifying the points of the organization that will be affected by the implementation, figuring out the root cause, and so on.

How you’re going to split up those steps is up to you, but it’s important to think of the future and always do this separation in a way that allows you to reuse the chart in case of another problematic situation later on.

For example, not all companies need to put a lot of effort into the ACT stage of the solution, as sometimes the implementation will be done in the only department that’s affected by it, and nobody else needs to know the exact details of how the problem was solved. After all, sharing too much information can be just as counterproductive as sharing too little, and you should avoid burdening departments with irrelevant details that don’t matter in their current work.

Refining the Method in the Future

Once you’ve successfully implemented the A3 method in your organization a few times, you may start to notice some common points that affect how well it works in the specific context of your operations. With enough time, you’ll build up some experience and intuition in this area, and you’ll start to identify some patterns in the way A3 is being applied.

In the end, you’ll likely come up with a version of A3 that’s fine-tuned for your specific organization and even perhaps some departments, and as long as you keep that version tuned to any new developments in the company, you should see good results in the long run.

Don’t Forget the Alternatives

Another important detail that you shouldn’t forget is that A3 is just one of many problem-solving techniques, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be the ideal one for each type of problem that arises in your organization. A good leader will take a lot of time to familiarize themselves with the current trends in the field of problem-solving methodologies, and will always stay up to date on new developments.

Conclusion

The A3 method is a great tool once you grasp the idea of its usage, and while some situations definitely call for an alternative approach and A3 is not the ideal solution in those cases, solid knowledge of this particular methodology is still an incredibly useful asset to have in your toolkit. Even if you don’t end up using it a lot, simply familiarizing yourself with the fundamentals of its operation can open your eyes to some general high-level concepts in workplace organization and optimization.

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Lean principles are all around us nowadays, and it’s hard to miss all the talk about it. Yet at the same time, people often find it hard to pinpoint the exact ideas behind lean, and even some experts in the field may find themselves confused if you brought this up with them. So, in the end, what exactly is lean, what kinds of ideas is it based on, and why is it important in the modern world?

Eliminating Waste Efficiently

The core idea behind lean is to reduce the amount of waste created in the organization’s work, that is, harmful practices which lead to a decrease in productivity. There are many types of waste, and some are highly dependent on the specific industries they are relevant to, but the core concept is the same across the board waste refers to any practice which decreases the output of the organization and has a negative impact in the long run.

Sometimes waste is trickier to identify, and certain factors that seem productive can in fact contribute to its creation more than you’d expect. A common example are the constant meetings that some companies subject their employees to, a practice which has fallen out of use in some parts of the world but is still applied heavily in others.

Managers commonly believe that these meetings are boosting everyone’s productivity and involvement in the current project, but the case can often be the exact opposite if not enough care is taken when planning those events to ensure that they are actually necessary. Some companies have found that they can easily cut down the number of meetings they’re doing by more than half and still enjoy the same degree of productivity.

Keeping Things Simple

Another idea that’s heavily emphasized in lean teachings is that you should always strive to keep things down to a bare necessary minimum. Don’t create unnecessary complexity, even in cases where you expect it to be useful in the future. In fact, this kind of premature optimization is one of the most harmful behaviors displayed by inexperienced managers, and it alone can severely drag down the performance of an organization and cause huge issues in the way it’s run.

Striving for simplicity can have some great benefits on the way the organization functions as a whole. People will be able to understand each individual system better, and they will be able to make more educated decisions for the development of those systems in the future when the time comes for that.

On the other hand, when a problem arises in any part of an organization designed with simplicity in mind, it’s often not hard to find its root cause and address it directly. When you have multiple layers of complexity stacked on top of each other, you often have to do a lot of backtracking to figure out exactly what went wrong in a specific situation, and by the time you’ve identified the problem, it may already be even more serious.

Where Did This All Start?

Lean can be traced back to Toyota, who laid the foundation for lean methodologies in manufacturing almost three decades ago. Since then, the area has seen lots of active developments from all over the world, and once everyone realized how useful it can be for simplifying processes of all kinds, work on it really took off and gained a proper pace.

Today, lean is one of the most actively studied methodologies, and it’s applied in many areas outside of manufacturing where it originated. You can even find it in places like software development, and we’re sure that given enough time, lean will pop up in even more areas of life in the future.

Conclusion

Understanding what lean is all about is one of the first steps you should take to improve your company as a serious leader. Once you’ve grasped the initial concepts, you’ll find that building on top of that foundation can be a very easy task, especially if you already have the appropriate mindset from the beginning that is, thinking in simplified, abstract ways, and always trying to dig down to the root cause of each problem you run into.

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The A3 problem solving method originated at Toyota, but since then it’s spread all over the world and to many different industries. It’s flexible enough to be easily adapted to a variety of contexts, and it doesn’t take too long to get used to applying it to your own company. Healthcare in particular is a field that has benefited a lot from the adoption of the A3 method, and it’s not hard to find examples with a little research. How exactly does the method benefit this particular environment though, and why has it gained so much popularity among healthcare workers?

A Constant Need for Change

Healthcare is a hectic world and it’s one of the fields that is noticeably impacted by developments in technology. This means that a design that worked well yesterday might be practically obsolete tomorrow, and you have to always be on your toes when designing the layout of your facilities.

The A3 method allows you to get a concise, sensible overview of your current operations, and figure out exactly where potential bottlenecks could be. It’s not that easy to get this kind of overview when looking at raw data alone, and visualizing the problem with the help of the typical charts used in the A3 method can be extremely helpful.

Avoiding Mistakes

Doctors are regularly under a lot of pressure, and it’s frighteningly common for professionals in this field to make mistakes. It can sometimes take a long time until the root cause of a recurring error is discovered, and it’s also not rare to learn that the problem has been right under your nose the whole time.

For example, if certain mandatory reports don’t always pass through the appropriate channels for them, this might not get reflected in the general documentation, and it’s the type of problem that could easily slip through the cracks. When you do make a good top-down overview of the whole operation, you should start seeing the important patterns quickly enough, and any problems should become obvious.

On the other hand, the A3 problem solving method is also ideal for creating an environment where everyone has an appropriate level of accountability for their actions, as it helps you link every person in the organization to a trail that’s easy to follow.

Laying down the Foundation for Constant Improvement

As we mentioned above, medical facilities tend to be subject to rapid development and they regularly get access to new technology to use. This also means that the staff must be kept in the right mindset for constant improvement, and this is something that the A3 method can help with. If you keep running into issues with implementing a certain type of new technology, you can break down the problem into its fundamental components and figure out where the major bottlenecks are. Again, a top-down view of the whole operation of the hospital/clinic can go a long way in ensuring that no issues come up when something new has to be brought into the picture.

Ideal Physical Layout for Patient Convenience

Last but definitely not least, you can improve your operations a lot by making the place more physically convenient for patients. The A3 method is an obvious contender here, as it can give you a very convenient overview of how your current layout is affecting the rate at which patients can be treated. This in turn can have quite the impact on the general morale in the facility, and it can improve the relations between your physicians to a great extent. This might sound exaggerated, but in the end, addressing simple problems one by one can result in positive effects tacking up quite quickly.

Conclusion

There’s a good reason the A3 problem solving method has gained popularity outside of its original field of inception, and healthcare is just one example. We’re sure that we’re going to see many more in the coming years, especially when one also considers how much evolution lean-related methodologies have been seeing recently. If you’re interested in how A3 can help your own place out, definitely take a look at recent developments in the field and see if it would be appropriate for the issues you’re experiencing.

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Thinking One Step Ahead with SMED

Proper optimization is not just about making the facility run well with the current parameters in mind, but also to allow it to run as efficiently as possible in the future, considering upcoming developments. You have to always be one step ahead of the current environment and make informed strategical decisions.

SMED stands for Single-Minute Exchange of Die, and it refers to a methodology for improving the processing rate of a manufacturing plant. It achieves that by streamlining the process of switching from one product to the next one in line, and ensuring that all of your machines keep running at optimal efficiency at all times. It can also be used in an office setting, such as switching from task to task.

From a lean perspective, we want to complete tasks one at a time. When we batch our work, it’s often a result of the time required to changeover from product to product, or task to task. SMED can help us reduce the changeover time, to make it more efficient to operate in smaller batches.

SMED is also referred to as changeover reduction.

Going in depth

There are many intricate details to SMED.  It’s a more general term referring to the process of changing targets within your work. The name of the methodology also comes from the fact that Toyota, in the past, identified larger dies as the most problematic objects in their manufacturing chain. Dies in an office setting could be a software program that takes time to load.

Changeover times are often responsible for the biggest slowdowns in productivity, and that streamlining the process of switching work could have dramatic effects on the overall output of the business.

It’s also important to note that single-minute refers to the idea that those “exchanges” should occur in a single-digit minute (0-9 minutes), not necessarily in sixty seconds. Anything up to about ten minutes is okay in the eyes of SMED, although of course the specific time is going to vary from one company to another.

SMED and continuous improvement

SMED goes hand in hand with continuous improvement, as it can allow you to always seek to maximize the potential capacity of the organization. It’s a technique that can be applied regardless of the specific current situation, making it highly flexible and suitable for incremental upgrades. What’s more, SMED can ensure that an organization running with more advanced modern technology is always utilizing that technology to its full potential, looking for opportunities to improve its output.

What exactly should you do to implement SMED though? There are several main components to the methodology, and the exact way of using it is going to vary across the board. The general idea is to ensure that there is a clear separation of internal and external setup, so that the state of the machines or computer systems can be reset as quickly as possible.

• Internal Setup – Time spent in changeover when the machine or system is idle
• External Setup – Time spent in changeover when the machine is working on something else

For example, when you look at the time to changeover your work, how much could be done while you’re finishing up the last job or project? Could someone else be getting the next item ready to go? Getting these tasks started earlier is an example of moving from internal to external setup.

In addition, the creator of SMED states that it’s important to focus on standardizing the functionality of the company’s machines and systems, not the specific output they’re producing. In a manufacturing setting, clamps should be functional, or alternatively fasteners should be removed completely if that’s not possible. This reduces the actual time to complete the task.

Introducing some additional intermediate steps in the process can also have a positive effect on the overall performance. Sometimes the lack of buffer zones can be a major contributing factor to performance issues, and 5S is a great method to ensure that those problems don’t go unnoticed.

Last but not least, there is also a strong suggestion that the company should look into automating as much as possible from its current range of tasks. This is an obvious one in many industries, especially auto manufacturing where SMED is rooted. Priority should be placed on the internal setup tasks that slow down the overall changeover time.

Conclusion

SMED can be a great way to always have a good edge in your company. It’s a flexible technique that can be highly useful to a variety of different organizations, and it’s also aligned with the current trends in technology and the direction we’re moving towards for the future. There are some clearly valuable lessons to be learned from SMED, and every leader should make it a point to familiarize themselves with the principles behind it as early as they can in their career.

Learn more about SMED >>>

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Developing Others

This is one one in a series of 4 articles about Toyota’s Stages of Leader Development

For a good leader, developing others should be just as important as developing themselves, and this is a concept deeply rooted in kaizen. Coaching should be done on a regular basis within the organization, and there should ideally be a structured system for it which everyone eventually goes through. It doesn’t matter what level an employee is currently on, you never know where they might be a few years from now. Identifying those with leadership potential and giving them the appropriate leverage to grow and realize it is a key component to running any organization correctly. For those not on the leadership path, there is still lots of opportunities to expand their skill set, and become more valuable to the organization.

Structured coaching

There should be some structure to the way coaching is done in the organization. It’s not a process that should be driven by random decisions, and ideally, there will be a proper reporting system that allows for deep analysis of results. That way, potential candidates for accelerated development can be identified quickly, and the organization can promote those that will truly drive it forward.

Toyota has some controversial views on their coaching, although many agree with the company’s decision to have a 5:1 ratio in the coaching sessions. This makes it clear that a lot of emphasis is being put on driving everyone’s skill level up, and it gives all employees ample opportunity to get the extra knowledge they might need. Too often, leaders in other companies manage 10-50 employees at a time, while doing work themselves (in an attempt to save money). The first thing that gets dropped by the management is the time they spend coaching, and people don’t get the full opportunity to develop in those business models.

Benefits for the leader

More importantly though, this also allows you to grow as a leader. You should never forget that coaching sessions are a two-way street, and there is often a lot you can learn in the process of coaching others, perhaps as much as your employees themselves will learn from the coaching.

For example, not every leader is a good teacher by default. Even worse, some people mistake their vast amounts of knowledge for good teaching abilities, leading to a lot of frustration and slow growth in the coaching sessions.

Even if you’re confident in the way you teach, you should still ask for feedback from your employees during and after those sessions. You should also make it clear that this feedback is for constructive purposes and won’t impact anyone in any way. One way of getting that point across is to use anonymous online forms, but it’s not usually necessary to go that far as long as your employees trust you.

Propagating knowledge down the chain

While you are coaching others, you’ll most likely be given some coaching sessions yourself. One of your duties as a leader is to facilitate the propagation of this information down the chain as effectively as possible. The purpose of your training is not only for you to learn, but to give you the necessary skills to teach your teammates and direct reports as well.

Providing resources for growth

Other than the coaching sessions, you can also provide the company’s employees with some resources for them to develop their skills on their own time. Every company can benefit from a good self-learning internal tool, although it might not make much sense in a smaller organization. It all depends on using the best resources for the current scale of the company, which in itself is another critical skill for a good leader. One popular idea is to have the employee identify a mentor within the company that they want to work with, based on that leader’s background or current job role. If your organization has a culture where leaders are not afraid to develop their future replacement, you are on the right track!

Conclusion

Having to train and coach others is inevitable for any good leader, and the sooner you implement the necessary skills for that in your organization, the better results you’re going to see in the long term. It’s also important that you develop your ability to transfer the information you’ve been taught to those below you, as this will be one of the most critical aspects of how quickly the organization is able to grow.

Read about the other stages of leader development at Toyota >>>

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What Are the Differences between a Leader and a Lean Leader?

While many company leaders nowadays are aware that lean practices are great for continuous improvement and stable growth, far from everyone in such a position is clear on the exact meaning of what it takes to be a “lean” leader.

It’s not just about throwing a set of new rules and guidelines on the employees and calling it a day there’s a very specific set of skills that any good lean leader must possess in order to succeed, and push their organization forward.

Critical listening is key

Leaders are always subjected to a lot of feedback from their employees across various levels of the organization. It’s inevitable for someone in this position to get flooded with opinions and suggestions from multiple directions, and filtering that feedback becomes a critical skill.

Listening to everyone is simply impossible that’s one of the fastest ways to create a lot of waste in the leader’s work. As long as you take the time to ensure that the feedback you’re getting is actually relevant to the current situation, this will save a lot of effort for everyone.

Of course, employees also like to see that their feedback actually matters, which means that you’ll still want to pay attention to what they have to say, and get back to them about their request, even if it’s not feasible or unable to be implemented. The critical thing to take away here is that you simply shouldn’t automatically treat every piece of advice coming in as critical and requiring immediate attention.

If the feedback is coming from a couple layers below the leader, this identifies a potential problem. The employee may not feel comfortable going to their immediate leader, or has tried many times, but the issue hasn’t been resolved.  A lean leader will work to help mentor and coach their lower level manager, in order to be able to solicit and request feedback from their employees in the future.

It’s best if you have some systematic way for your employees to submit feedback for the company’s leadership. That way, everyone will feel encouraged to contribute to the evaluation process, and employees won’t feel pressured when they actually have something that they want to share. This also prevents feedback from getting lost or overlooked, and it increases visibility beyond the leader who initially got the feedback or idea.

Put yourself in their shoes

Another factor that separates a true lean leader from the rest is how well they can understand what their employees have to deal with on a daily basis. To achieve this, sometimes you’ll want to put yourself in an employee’s shoes for a while and see things through their eyes. While this sounds simple enough, it’s a skill that many leaders simply fail to grasp on a meaningful level.

Some employers have taken this concept to extreme lengths in the past, such as actually taking on the responsibilities of low-level employees for a while until they feel like they have a good grip on the situation. While this can sometimes produce good results, it can also create a lot of waste and shouldn’t be attempted by default.

In fact, these extreme situation is the norm for Toyota. They require their leaders to have worked on the factory and worked their way up the company, in order to properly learn how to manage their employees. All Toyota Presidents have spent their entire career at Toyota when they were named President.

Embrace your mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes. Leaders are no exception, and the difference between a bad leader and a good one is how they respond to those situations. A true lean leader will be able to take something useful from this kind of incident, and learn how to improve their work in the future. On the other hand, bad leaders will not only try to sweep the problem under the rug, but they may also try shifting the blame on others.

It should go without saying that this leads to the creation of a hostile working environment, and it’s really in nobody’s favor. As long as you are able to demonstrate that you welcome criticisms for your mistakes, and that you will improve the situation in the future, this is all your employees will need to see.

Things should work the same way when the roles are reversed. When an employee makes a mistake, they shouldn’t be punished or fired for it. Everyone should be given a platform to embrace their failures and show that they’ve learned something from them. Lean leaders assume people come to work to do a good job, but the process failed, and the process should be improved.

Conclusion

There is a huge gap between a lean leader and a traditional leader. A company with a strong lean leader in front will be able to make huge leaps of progress in their area of responsibility, with relatively little effort. This creates a situation where everyone will keep striving for continuous improvement when they see that their efforts aren’t wasted.

And in the end, a good lean leader should be able to transfer their skill set onto their employees effectively, allowing them all to follow in his/her footsteps a few years down the road.

The true measure of a lean leader is the long-term accomplishments of the employees they managed.

Have you worked for a leader that didn’t follow these lean leader principles? Add your comments below…

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What We Can Learn from the TWI Service

When the United States government implemented Training Within Industry, it was more of a way to address an immediate need, and ensure that the country could survive in a difficult situation. After the war, TWI slowly lost popularity, as companies were succeeding without it (due to a strong economy). Despite being an effective way to drive a company forward, many organizations have only recently started to pursue TWI.

So what exactly has TWI taught us, and how is it being applied nowadays to boost the productivity of companies around the world?

The philosophy has expanded quite a lot since its initial iteration, and it’s seen a lot of attention from some specific companies, such as Toyota and Kinetico.

Feedback should matter on all levels

One of the key concepts behind TWI is that everyone should be able to provide feedback about the current state of affairs, including the low-level workers at the frontline. In fact, because TWI was created specifically to handle a lack of fresh working hands, it’s particularly well tailored towards ensuring that new employees can be brought up to speed as quickly as possible.

This, as it turns out, TWI works best when those new employees are given a chance to voice their concerns in a systematic manner. It’s also important to be able to filter the legitimate concerns within this flow of information, which requires higher-level management to accomplish.

Training new employees should be done according to a rigid system

Standardizing processes is what lean manufacturing is all about, and TWI shares a lot with the core concepts in lean manufacturing. One of the key ideas behind TWI is that all new workers should undergo a standardized training course that presents the material to them in a standard way.

This not only ensures that everyone can get up to speed faster, but it also helps spot mistakes in the training itself. In addition, workers can more efficiently cooperate and assist each other while they’re learning, resulting in even more noticeable improvements of the training.

This doesn’t just apply to newcomers to the workforce, either. TWI can easily be scaled up and down, to ensure that workers across all levels are being given the appropriate skills that they need, in order to advance in their jobs.

In the past, companies typically wasted a lot of time on convoluted training processes, and the potential of new employees used to take much longer to bring them up to speed.

Thanks to the advance of TWI in the modern industry, that’s no longer has to be the case. We now understand the importance of ensuring that everyone can contribute to the process immediately. And as it turns out, an employee often doesn’t actually need that much in order to get started, and perform their basic duties correctly.

Roadblocks should be identified as early as possible

Sometimes, the training process of a company will be developed in a way that leads to unexpected roadblocks. These are often hard to predict early on, requiring a lot of careful analysis of the data coming in from training sessions.

TWI once again focuses on dealing with issues as early as possible, immediately after they’ve been identified. This means that a potential problem should be resolved urgently, instead of trying to work around it, hoping that it’s just a temporary hitch.

This is opposed to the traditional process that most companies used to follow, which put a lot of scrutiny on reports of potential problems with the training, and the eventual resolution takes too long.

We can still learn a lot about TWI. The modern iteration is still evolving, and we’re likely going to see it going through some serious changes over the next years, especially when technology gets added into the picture.

Conclusion

Even if a company does not immediately apply TWI to its own processes, it’s still important to dig within the philosophy and see what it has to offer. There is a lot we can learn from the way TWI works, and we’re barely scratching the surface of what’s possible right now.

Have you combined technology with TWI principles? Please share your results in the comments below…

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