Why is everything all lined up?

I walked past a work station last week and noticed something different. 

 

The base of the station had been rotated 45 degrees from the orientation it has had as long as I've worked here. 

 

"What's the story on the table shift?" I asked one of our associates.

 

She grinned and told me the story.  Bottom line was one of her colleagues had correctly and creatively observed that in the current work flow, rotating the table created more room.  "It really works like a top," she exclaimed, "much less congestion as we move material in and out."

 

Which got me thinking. 

 

We like things lined up.  Everything at right angles.  Evened off.  Matching. 

 

Usually, that's a good place to start.

 

But, once you see the vision of the value in a steady stream of small improvements (as this work team has), knocking something out of line makes even more sense.

 

Keep learning.

 

 

Structural Waste

The dome light went out on my car last week.  I headed to the car parts store, looked up the proper replacement bulb in the catalog next to the bulb section, found the bulb and then stopped.

 

I have one bulb in my dome light.  Every car I've ever owned has had only one bulb in the dome light.  Yet the blister pack hanging on the rack at the part store had two identical bulbs in it.  Not one. 

 

With no alternative and considering the $3.29 price for two bulbs to not be worth making a fuss, I bought two bulbs.  One went into my car and the other onto the shelf in my garage which captures all miscellaneous parts. 

 

And I'll forget it is there.

 

In three or five years, I'll need another dome light and do the same thing all over again, leaving me with two orphaned dome lights gathering dust on my garage shelf.

 

So why two bulbs on the blister pack? 

 

Probably a decision to "add value"...for the manufacturer.  Double the output, double the price, all with the same cost for distribution.  

 

Yet it is waste for the end user. 

 

What do we think of when we make these decisions?  The end user?  The one who will complain? 

 

It is not as trivial as it looks, in the rough-and-tumble of business.  It is also a measure of a firm's commitment to reducing waste.  But does someone inside the firm "speak for the customer" in such discussions?  And, if she does, does anyone listen?

 

Value-Added Data Entry

Customer service regularly gets a bad rap.  We seem to expect it to be bad, much like college dormitory food; no matter how tasty the dish, it must bad, just because it came from the dorm kitchen. 

 

So a good example of customer service deserves some kudos plus a chance to learn. 

 

A complex piece of family business required us to wire some money recently via Western Union.  I set up the transaction on their web site and received a preliminary confirmation number for the transfer.  But the web page instructed me to call a toll-free number to complete the transaction.  A little befuddled by this, I nevertheless dialed the number.  As I expected, a recorded voice greeted me and then asked me to punch in the confirmation number, which I did. 

 

To my surprise, after only 10 seconds of elevator music, a live person greeted me, by name, before I said anything.  She then explained briefly why I needed to call, which made sense in the context.  She asked a couple more questions and we were done. The business was completed the next day. 

 

How did this work well?  Western Union was prepared, technically and operationally.  Their systems took my simple confirmation number and tied it into the screen viewed by the person answering the phone.  It all flowed seamlessly, added value and was very prompt.  Someone thought that system through well.

 

Nice job Western Union.  You teach us a good lesson. 

So what DOES an engineer do?

My colleague April recently served on a panel presentation by practicing engineers for high school students and their parents at the engineering college of a nearby university.  Along with the usual questions about engineering education, qualifications and test difficulty, several wanted to know "What does an engineer do anyway?"

 

A Civil Engineer on the panel explained her job was "to make sure buildings don't fall down" which meant she spent all of her time at the computer, crunching equations.

 

An Industrial Engineer explained he too spent all of his day at the computer, making sure all jobs were well-planned for efficient use of labor.

 

Attention then turned to April, also an Industrial Engineer.  Ever the diplomat, she acknowledged there was technical work which required time on the PC.  "But," she added, "the great part of my job is the amount of time I get to spend on the shop floor with our associates, improving processes." 

 

The other IE bristled and shot back a comment to the effect "real engineers don't go on the floor." 

 

His company is also in deep financial trouble. 

 

Coincidence?  Perhaps.  But illustrative of a productive culture.

 

Keep on learning. .

 

 

Trimming Value at the Margins

About four years ago, I wrote about my "jugban" system, a simple container-kanban system I use to replenish the distilled water with which I clean my contact lenses each morning. 

 

This evening, I stopped by the local grocery store to refill the recently-emptied jug in two-jug system.  I put my money in the water dispensing machine and it fed a gallon into my jug.

 

Well, almost a gallon. 

 

Well, actually, only about 90% of a gallon.

 

I've used this same machine for a couple of years.  Yet, over the past six months, I find that I gradually get a little less than what I got the previous time.  To the point now it is quite noticeable.  The price has stayed the same.  But is this just a drift in the controls in the machine?  Or is the machine operator trying to improve his/her margin by dialing back the volume?  The machine stated it had been serviced just a week ago.  But did anyone check the calibration??

 

The water is not a big deal.  But the simple drift, the simple loss of value made me wonder if the owner was also cutting corners on the filtration system or the reverse osmosis membrane. 

 

What I could see (volume of water) made me wonder about what I couldn't see (microscopic quality of water). 

 

Am I doing any of the same things?? 

 

Made me wonder.  I hope it makes you wonder as well. 

 

Keep on learning. 

What price sophistication?

A guy in our local network of Lean companies told me of an interaction he had recently with an exec at his company.  In short, he was tracking the short-term status of one inventory item which had been giving them fits.  To do this, he checked the inventory level at the close of business each day and wrote it down on a sheet of paper to see the trend.

 

The exec saw this sheet of paper and became quite agitated, bewildered why he didn't use a particularly unwieldy piece of software the company had.  My inventory-tracking friend didn't know quite how to respond and the awkward interaction concluded, unsettled. 

 

This story reminded me, strangely enough, of Occam's razor.  A 14th century philosopher and friar, William of Occam is said to have first postulated this "razor" (olde-speak for "rule of thumb") to guide decision making.  Translated in numerous ways, it essentially says "when confronted with multiple solutions to a problem, choose the simplest one."  

 

We have more tools for data and communication than any generation has ever had.  Properly used, they are awesome and speed good decisions. 

 

Properly used.

 

Often, a simple pen and paper is all we need to solve a problem.  That's what William of Occam had.  And we're still talking about him. 

The Chain

An overnight storm caused a power outage which really messed up our network server recently.  As the IT guys scrambled to restore digital sanity as people arrived at work the morning after, I was surprised at the resultant atmosphere. 

 

Folks emerged from office and desks disoriented, even angry, frustrated.  The network, the email, the Internet connections; all so ubiquitous and seemingly necessary that their removal fundamentally altered the work environment.

 

Fascinatingly, people began to talk.  Even this seemed hard, though.  The face-to-face discussions, unplanned and unplugged, were all new.  And strange.  Some adapted poorly.  Some adapted well. 

 

The effective found the day invigorating.  A gear-shift, one which stimulated creativity.  The less-effective made excuses behind it, even began finger pointing.

 

Are we so chained to our laptops we are unable to function without them?  Are our collective conversational skills so dulled by our addiction to keyboard we can't talk?  Is our ability to make good business decisions blunted by this dependence to spreadsheets?

 

It all made me wonder. 

 

 

 

 

The psycology of going to gemba

I've seen two useful examples in the past week of being, or not being, in gemba, the place where work gets done.

 

A good friend on the west coast vented about a phenomenally frustrating meeting he had in his company.  In short, it seemed some folks in a related but politically-higher-status department produced a chart, fully color-coded and arrowed, telling his department how to run things.  All with no warning. You can imagine the annoyance and insult he felt.  When someone who does not see or connect with your work area tells you something without either observing or listening, you feel defensive.  And hardly interested.  It feels like a power play instead. 

 

Here in our fair city, Jerry told me of a consultant visiting a work cell at his plant.  Fairly quickly, the consultant sensed serious discord between the team leader and the associates.  There had been earlier reports of this, yet they had been ignored.  You see, the Plant Manager had not been to the actual the work cell; he had only reviewed reports, prepared by the Team leader.  Why did the PM avoid the cell?  On discussion with Jerry it seemed that organizational structure, history, the PM's busy-ness and lack of deep interest all contributed.  To the consultant, the problems (and possible solutions) were crystal clear...largely because he physically sat in the work cell for 90 minutes and observed.  Will it improve, Jerry wondered?

 

There's no substitute for direct observation.  Go walk to the some work area, any work area, today.

 

Keep learning. 

 

 

 

Making a go from batch to flow

Imagine my amazement to see a great example of Lean from our state government!! 

 

It happened last week when the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles mailed out the renewal notice for our automobile registration.  As long as I can remember, we've renewed our plates in April; last name begins with "E", so you renew in April.  And, the BMV has been notorious, also for years, about being THE place to avoid on the last day of any month, as people from the same section of the phone book all thunder in at once to get their renewal, just in the nick of time. 

 

No more.  And there is a lesson here.

 

Beginning this year, the BMV spread out their deadline dates, to typically be on the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th.  And, in one policy decision, the move from the monthly "batch" to a much more even flow.  Given the workarounds for certain holidays, they went from 15 to 49 due dates.  They estimate the maximum number of vehicles coming due on any one date will drop from 625,000 to 398,000.  Lower stress for employees, shorter waits at the BMV, lower likelihood of errors, much more even volume, easier scheduling of employees; all flowing from the move to cut the batch size radically.

 

Look around you...what was happening monthly which can happen weekly?  Cut the batch size!! Surely you can do as well!

On being nimble vs visionary

With the Dow closing below 7000 for the first time in 12 years yesterday, a local financial manager, just back from an appearance on CNBC, sent out an email last night capturing his view of the investment free fall.  His central observation:

"We stand resolved that the ability to react is now more important than the ability to predict."

As I read this, it hit me as very applicable to any setting in which we seek to deliver value to a customer.  Customers change their mind.  The worlds in which our customers work change, constantly, in ways we can never predict.  Clearly, the current economic downturn is creating more uncertainty than we have seen in a generation. 

So why would we attempt to "predict" the future?  Why not focus instead on being able to react more rapidly than ever?  To be more nimble, more versatile, more flexible?  To build systems and people to be responsive?  To build systems which do not depend on being clairvoyant?

The answer is obvious. And is the Lean leader should be spending time.

Keep on learning.