Giving Kaizen Away: "Kaizen is the plants' business, not corporate"

One of the most common mistakes when lean six sigma initiatives are launched is that kaizen, and its cousin, kaizen events become ‘corporate business’ instead of the plants’ business. Corporate lean six sigma initiatives usually start with a team experts visiting sites to DO kaizen instead of TEACHING kaizen. I have seen and I have been one of the well-intentioned corporate LSS or CI experts routed to plants around the world to identify projects, set priorities and push kaizen with great success at first. Improvements are visible and waste is eliminated. What is wrong with this approach? While it can work based on the tenacity and leverage you could gain from corporate; at the end, kaizen does not stick and die out very soon after. How many of us have seen, when visiting plants within your corporations, storyboards with to-do lists that were never completed or old value stream maps never updated after the corporate kaizen event set to create them? They are reminders that the command and control kaizen approach led by experts to solve problems would face initial success, but failing to create a permanent transformation. What alternatives do we have? Consider to give kaizen away. As the old saying “give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for his lifetime”, teach the plants to run their own kaizen event. Measure your success by the participation and learning of the local team not only by the results. Let the local team leaders to lead the kaizen event stead of you. Push for experimentation by the local leaders and, most important, be a coach not a player. As a coach your job is to give kaizen away not to do kaizen.

Result-oriented people: virtue or flaw?

A couple of days ago I was asked to review a very impressive resume for an open position in LSS that called my attention. In the very sentence of the self-description section of the resume, the candidate described himself as “result-oriented” person. Is result-oriented a virtue? What about “process-oriented”? How does a result-oriented or process-oriented person fit within a lean six sigma transformation?

Results counts and at the end, they are the only thing that counts. For instance, most of us are in business corporations, and businesses are here to make money. And we make money when we get good results: good products, at the lowest cost and when the customers need them. However, the difference here is about how we get to these expected results. In other words, what processes do we use to get results?

Results are the outcome of a process. In lean six sigma, we aim to get good results from a controlled process, because they will be repeatable. That is why the Toyota Production System (TPS) is “process-focus” not result-focus. On the other hand, a result-focus approach or person might not care how the results are achieved as long they are achieved. We can get good results from uncontrolled process if we work harder (e.g. more hours working, more pressure to our teams, more resources for inspections, check and others) and have some luck, but the truth is that this is not a sustainable option. In fact, I had my fare share of firefighting corporate battles in which I was routed to sites that were a “disaster” in order to fix problems. Bad results from uncontrolled process simply mean that we are not doing our jobs and, paraphrasing Albert Einstein, ‘insanity' is to expect different results from doing the same thing over again.

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” 
― Albert Einstein

Toyota Talent

What is the secret of Toyota? Here some key thoughts from Toyota Talent

• It is not possible to duplicate the success of any other company by merely imitating its techniques as it was point out by Robert E. Quinn in Building the Bridge as You Walk on It. He states "The techniques are valuable but people cannot learn to make them work if they are not challenged and supported in the process of learning how to make them to work"
• The concept is simple to understand but very difficult to apply. It requires a dedication to personal change and to the realization that only through facing adversity and hardship will the true benefits be achieved. It is simple but not easy.
• While Taiichi Ohno did not believe in blindly adopting someone else's program, he did borrow voraciously from others: TWI Job Instruction training method. Ohno did not blindly adopt the TWI method but took the bulk of it and modified it to fit Toyota's system.
• Training and Development: Identify the critical knowledge within the workplace and to provide a means of transferring that knowledge effectively
• The acquisition and transfer of knowledge is the only way for people to expand their capabilities and thus improve the performance of the company
• "No goal, regardless of how small, can be achieved without adequate training" Ohno, Toyota Production System: Beyond Large Scale Production, p.69
• "You cannot separate people development from production system development if you want to succeed in the long run" Isao Kato, 02/2006
• Compare to GE and the "vitality curve" described by Jack Welch in his book: JACK: Straight from the Gut. Welch suggests to "let go" the "bottom 10 percent" of performers. While this argument makes logical sense, it overlooks the responsibility of the company to develop people to their highest potential. The reality is the workforce became disengaged and not aligned to the corporate mission. A better approach should be "We will do our best to help you develop the skills and abilities you need to be successful, but you develop the skills and abilities you need to be successful, but you are responsible to make your best effort"
• "Create an environment where hardworking people would thrive and lazy workers would either jump or get thrown right off the buss" the situation will take care of itself - James C. Collins, Good to Great, 2001 p51

The Toyota way is about culture

Toyota Culture

Preface:

4Ps pyramid:

Foundation is the long term philosophy, to provide value to customers and society. Investing in lean processes, which concentrates on shorting lead time by eliminating waste. Eliminating waste is done by people using rigorous  problem-solving methods.

4P's in the 14 principle of the Toyota way are about culture:

• Philosophy is about Toyota's purpose and why they exist
• Process is what Toyota believes leads to operational excellence
• People are what drive Toyota forward and culture is what teaches the people how to act, think, and feel to work together toward a common goal.
• Problem solving is the way Toyota people focus their efforts to continually improve

Would you like a 25% cost savings while becoming greener?

In 2006 during the ASME Congress and Exposition in Chicago, I presented a white paper about my personal hands-on experience of the great benefits in delivery, productivity and environment impact by using slipsheets instead of pallets.

In a first glance, it is surprising to realize that the use of slipsheets is still insignificantly used despite of the benefits. In fact, with global supply operations increasing in volume and cost, one could imagine companies would like to realize savings 25%-level savings. Here is what I think is happening:

1. The old "Silo" organization still king in the supply chain operations. To see the benefits of using slipsheets, one requires to see the complete value stream of moving a product from China to Mexico and from Mexico to the US. Supply chain operations are still organized in "silos"  where different departments have a slide of the value stream and their performance is measured for their individual performance under their direct control. Similar to silo manufacturing organizations. the  "divide and conquer" principal behind Taylor's approach. With this level of specialization and ownership collaboration is difficult as incentives are on sub-optimization regardless of the whole. What would be the benefits of all the expenses and hassles of becoming slipsheet-ready for the plant manager shipping the products out? None. His time and of his team would be better used in many other projects impacting his "numbers". So the solution is to involve the highest level of the organization to see the whole picture. Yes, but it is not that easy as it sounds. Even at the highest level, ins some organizations, operation responsibilities may be even keep in silos.

2 - Social and Economic Inertia. As in physics, a body requires an initial burst of momentum to break free and to move forward in a different direction, in our organizations, current conditions are prefer due to physiological and economical inertial. In addition to fair to change and preference to stay in our conform zones, economic and personal relationships and interest built and maintained for years will be required to break on this change. The closer we look into the past, the farther we are from a future.

For sure, there are more reasons...let me know.

View Repsco Inc. cost comparisons

kaizen approach

I. Basic Principles
1. Focus on:
(1) Produce what is needed now (orders received)
(2) Produce in the quantity needed now (orders received)
(3) Sell Just-in-time
Implement in this order and aim for cost reduction through the relentless elimination of waste: implementing Kaizen.


2. Cost reduction as the main driver:
(1) Cost reduction, not cost accumulation
(2) Profit and cost
(3) Production methods alter costs


3. The notion of waste(Muda)
(1) Definition of waste
(2) Types of waste
(3) The evil of "overproduction"
(4) The concept of efficiency
(5) Operation availability and rate of operation


II. The two pillars of production
1. Just-in-time-production
1.1. Continuous process flow
(1) MAN - multiple process handling, standing "operation" -> walking "operation"
(2) MATERIALS - one piece flow, synchronization, elimination of isolated "job shops"
(3) MACHINES - realize the 1:1 relationship among processes, operations and equipment
                            - equipment that can rectify flow
(4) CUT LOT SIZES - reduce set-up times


1.2. Output requirements  determine TAKT time
(1) Takt times and standard operations
(2) Flexible manpower line (minimal manpower)

1.3. The pull system

(1) The pull system & fill-up system

(2) KANBAN

2. Autonomation (Jidoka)

2.1. Movement vs. work

2.2. Quality is built in to process

(1) difference between machine autonomation & automation

(2) autonomation of manual lines - Fixed stops

2.3. Flexible manpower line

(1) separating the work of machines and humans

(2) eliminating "superfluous viewers" through autonomation

(3) Preventing the recurrence of abnormal situations

2.4 Shop mgmt is the mgmt of abnormalities

(1) Visual control

 - Give people standard operations, fixed-position stops and pacemakers

 - Give objects KANBAN, standard work-in-process and production control boards

 - Give machines ANDON signal lamps

(2) No work/full work control

(3) ANDON

(4) POKAYOKE

(5) Autonomation (JIDOKA) continuously