Gutter Project Update 

Several weeks ago, I posted the first intro to the Gutter Project, an effort on my part to learn more about lean project management by actually conducting one.  I also committed to doing it “in public” and letting this group view what we were doing.  We have been working on it, even though other events events have gotten in the way of my writing.  Here’s the latest though. 

• Keeping the story of “why are we doing this” is crucial.  More so than I imagined.  Just this morning, Chad asked what the point was.  Not that he had a problem…it is just that he has other jobs too and wanted to reorient. Dave did an excellent job of capturing the story; so well, he did it by asking  great questions of the group.  ( More on project story telling )
• Promises are an effective tool for maintaining progress.  I use a simple spreadsheet to keep track of these, leading to a weekly calculation of “Percent Plan Complete” or PPC.  If you’d like to see what this looks like, Email me and I’ll send it to you.  Feel free to use or modify.
• Mock ups really have helped in our “design” process.  I constructed a simple scale model of the space we had to work with, and then made same scale models out of the two gutter machines, coil storage racks and wrapping table.  We then simply began to move the “machines” around the space.  It brought many issues to light about real world flow issues we would not have seen otherwise.  It also brought about a much simpler system for handling coils than we had earlier. 
• We have consciously not set deadlines for the entire project, even though we have set clear expectations of each promise.  Why?  The project is uncertain; we are in new waters, as we’ve never roll-formed metal before.  We did not believe it was prudent to set a time to build until we believed we had a reasonable flow for the end product.  In this case, the implementation costs have kept going down, as we get the layout and machines cleaner and cleaner.
• All of us are smarter than any of us.  While we’ve heard this old saw, it is true.  Bringing in key players to review the progress has vastly improved anything that any one of us, particularly me, would have come up with. 
• We miss us when one of us is not there.  As a corollary, it is key to have regular participation.  Three of us were gone one Friday (our regular meeting day) and that knocked things back for a week.  One colleague had a surprise conflict come up last week and his wife go in for surgery…we’ve missed him now for four weeks.  And we need his expertise. 
• PPC is a useful metric.  We are cumulatively at 87% PPC right now.  We have worked at getting the conditions of satisfaction for each promise stated clearly and agreed to.   

We have a long way to go to start building our own gutters.  I’ll keep you posted as we go along.   

I hope this is helpful. 

 

“..and all of the children are above average” 

Garrison Keillor uses this tag line to conclude his monologues on A Prairie Home Companion and it is funny because it lays out a common truth in an unusual way…we want to make things better than they can possibly be.

Well, I read a marvelous description of this tendency to misuse averages in a weblog I have grown to enjoy.  Jeff Angus writes a blog that combines two of my very favorite subjects: business and baseball.  Called Management by Baseball, Jeff writes long and insightful posts on management subjects, using baseball as the example.  [If you like baseball, you’ll enjoy Jeff’s blog…if you are into art history, you probably won't.  But if you are into art history, you are probably not reading this blog either J  ] 

In the piece I cite above, Jeff describes how three-fourths of baseball writers believe that their team will have a better record this year than last year.  A statistical impossibility…as the sum of all wins and losses for all teams will always be equal.  And thus, unless one or two teams are totally abysmal, only half the teams can improve…half will get worse.   

All of the children can’t be above average. 

A core practice in a Lean enterprise is to “Document Reality.”  Dreams and hopes have a place; we live in reality.  I do a disservice to my company and my colleagues by not capturing reality.  Do capture some reality today.  Look it square in the eye; write it down; ask what you can do about it.  

I hope this is helpful. 

 

 

Getting Boatloads of Ideas

Just received the latest newsletter on Lean from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers .  Included is a terrific article on cultivating ideas from staff .  It describes a method and power from getting lots and lots of ideas…2-5 per employee per month.  Not suggestions, but implemented ideas, at the workplace level.  

It stems from a new book, Ideas Are Free by Robinson and Schroeder.  I haven’t read it yet, but it appears to be useful.   

My experience (further grounded by observing two daily start up meetings just this morning) is that the team leader is a key person in getting these local improvements.  When she a) identifies an annoyance and then b) asks for a way to address that annoyance, she lets the team know that it is OK to make proposals.  When she then follows up on them, encourages them, charts them, and (gasp) requests others to make further improvements on the improvements, the team gets the hang of it.   

OTOH, when the team leader sees local improvements as an imposition of paperwork and/or boring and/or irrelevant, surprise, the group shows little involvement in improvement.   

Check out this book or The Idea Generator: Quick and Easy Kaizen by Norman Bodek.  Great material.  And then you can make it happen on the shop floor. 

I hope this is helpful. 

On Pain and Change

In an invigorating conversation this afternoon, a colleague in another company and I wondered aloud "what is it that causes one to initiate change?" To make any process improvement requires doing something different. And, if we are to be about process improvement, how do I, as a catalyst for such improvement, initiate such a change?

We realized as we talk that most change seems to stem from some pain. Some undesired feeling or event that is worse than making the change. Two personal examples:

• I started flossing my teeth regularly right after college when I had my first job and was paying all my own bills. No dental coverage at the time, though and a mouthful of cavities. "If you flossed, you wouldn't be in here," was the fact put at me bluntly by the dentist in beautiful San Bernadino, California. And, seeing my small paycheck made even smaller by repeat payments to the dental office, I decided that flossing wasn't such a dumb idea after all.
• I began this blog when I realized that I added clarity to my thinking about lean and about business by writing. And, by writing in "public" was far less painful than just "wondering" in private. So I took the plunge and, 2.5 years later, still write, still value public discourse in this venue.

So is pain necessary for change? Do you have examples? Can you assist the effort to understand this a bit better? If you do, post a note in the "comment" section below or email me directly. I'll write more on this...it helps me learn.

I hope this is helpful.

Feel free to forward to a friend. Email me

Lean Pizza??

I was dispatched earlier this evening to the local Papa John's pizza outlet to pick up a large sausage and a small mushroom and breadsticks (no Atkins diet going on here, apparently) for the expanding family. I anticipated some delays, as the outlet is on Purdue's campus and since the dorms don't serve meals on Sunday evenings...well, you get the picture.

And was I ever surprised. A busy place, yes. Delays, no. In fact I purposely lingered because I saw some very astute workplace design.

The layout was tight. All the pizza preparation took place in a space about 12' x 20' (or about 3m x 7m). It was cozy. Yet it did not seemed cramped. Stations were right next to one another. The 14 or so college-aged employees did not have to walk to pass the pizza to the next stage.

The layout was "U" shaped just as good work cells should be. At one "open" end of the U was the dough, ready to be kneaded. The other open end of the "U" was the boxed, ready-to-go pizzas, right next to the cash register. The cashier merely listened to my name, turned and handed me the boxes. Down one leg of the "U" was the preparation. The closed end was the pizza oven. The other end of the "U" was the packaging. Clean, crisp. Of interest was that the materials moved in a clock-wise direction, not counter-clockwise as the best Lean operations do.

Visual tools abounded as I looked around the preparation area. From 15' away, I could see the visuals helping the pepperoni layout guy know just how many slices to lay down and where. Right next to the phone was the four-key steps to ask a phone-in orderer. All laminated and at eye level.

Information seemed to flow well, at least in one small example. I handed the cashier a coupon my wife had clipped, which was unfamiliar to the cashier. She knew who to go to, however and asked a seemingly-responsible person how to handle it. It worked...and saved me $7 on the deal.

I would have loved to have observed for a half hour or so and to have made some estimates of throughput and cycle times. But, given the well-known success of Papa Johns, I suspect the figures are favorable. I have know idea if they have a formal method utilizing lean or not. But the sparseness, closeness and U-shaped-ness sure had the fingerprints of good design.

Examples abound. See yours today. I hope this is helpful.

Feel free to forward to a friend. Email me

Back Blogging Better Now 

I’ve been pretty sparse in blogging lately.  But for a good reason…my son and daughter-in-law are now parents of twin boys!   Since my son is currently deployed with the US Army in South Korea, Susan moved in with us and so Gretchen and I have been pretty involved in the latter stages of the pregnancy and the boys’ arrival on February 13.  

Yeah, it makes me a grandfather.  Still don’t have my mind fully around that.  But the boys are healthy, as is Susan, David got some special leave and has been here for a couple of weeks and we all have a profound sense of gratitude.   

Not to say that observations about Lean haven’t been coming…I have a full list to write about.  That will be forthcoming, so stay tuned.   

And don’t call me “Grandpa” yet…please.  Just ask me how the twins are doing.

Email me at:                 jely@fbibuildings.com

Toyota post

 

News on Toyota’s Expertise 

Many thanks to Karen Wilheim of Society of Manufacturing Engineers for passing on to me a link to a special report from Detroit Free Press on automotive manufacturing.  The entire report is here .

Of particular interest to readers of this blog will be the article describing  Toyota's expertise at its Georgetown, KY Camry plant .  It’s a little long but quite detailed.  I hope you find it enjoyable. 

 

It's the System, Stupid

Just got a link to a terrific summary article on thinking about what a broad Lean Enterprise looks like. Published in Industry Week. Great stuff, I encourage you to read it.

Feel free to forward to a friend. Email me

The Gutter Project--Intro

How do we get a mid-sized effort done in a Lean setting? While much of Lean literature is focused on the basic tools of kanban, flow, 5S, and such, how do busy people in a hectic environment make something new?

My friends Hal Macomber and Frank Patrick write with great experience and breadth on the subject of project management and I have learned much from them. I'm now launching into an experiment in this which I'm going to make fairly public via this blog. I want to see what, if anything, I've learned. Further, I want to learn while I do, rather than learning in a vacuum. I invite your scrutiny as I try to do this in the open. Here's the deal.

The Story of the Project

We are attempting to insource the manufacture of the gutters we use on the eaves of our buildings. We've purchased them from various vendors over the years. But, to get to a more "just in time" delivery, we want to make them ourselves. We've reviewed this with our current vendor and they have concurred. Further, they will supply us with the steel coil we need to make the gutters.

The Participants

At this point, four of my colleagues are with me in the effort. Bryan and his team will do the physical renovation of the area in which we will make the gutters. John has two roles. He'll end up supervising the manufacture when we get going. Secondly, he's a near-genius on machines and all things mechanical. I need him to fabricate all the pieces/parts that will go into this. Ken understands the supply of material and the flow of inventory marvelously. He'll keep us in coil. Dave understands better than any of us the design of our buildings and the process by which we will generate work orders. My job is to run the project, be accountable and document what we are learning.

As we get into the project, others may join us.

Current State of the Project

We have approval from upper management to proceed. We have a reasonable budget to get the job done.

Other than that, there is nothing. The five of us met for the first time Friday. Well, er, uh, not all five. Bryan forgot to write the meeting time down and so I have to bring him up to speed on Monday. First Improvement: Send out meeting reminders.

In our 90 minute initial meeting Friday, we mostly talked about the broad objectives of the project...in fact it was almost all story telling. Why gutters? Why now? Why not with our existing vendor? Where will we build it? How much space to we really need? Who else needs to know about this? No Gantt charts yet. No timetables yet. No major lists of task...in fact, only two specific items so far on the list. My objective was to get these very smart colleagues to grasp what it was, broadly, we want to do. And, then, let them percolate on this in their own worlds.

Project Metrics

At this point, we will use Percent Plan Complete (PPC) to assess our performance. At it's simplest, we'll document the promises individuals make and then assess if they fulfill those promises completely. If so, it is complete. If not, it is not complete. Yes/No assessment. A fundamental of Lean. We will then look each week at our PPC, both for the week and cumulatively. Best practices seem to point to phenomenonal results when PPC exceeds 80%. How will we do??

Next Steps

Only two for next week. Both mine. a) Review the plans with Bryan, who missed the meeting. b) Get a current quote on the gutter machine. So, our PPC next week will be either 0%, 50% or 100%.

Current Learnings

Best stated by Dave, our very perceptive and deep thinker on the team. "How do we squeeze this in with all the other 'key' projects we're each working on?" Yeah. That's it. We'll be watching this.

I hope these postings will be helpful for you. I invite your comments, via the comment section here or via email to me. Thanks for listening. Feel free to forward to a friend. Email me

On Being a Lab Rat

We've been interviewing recently for May grads and summer interns at a number of colleges and universities in Indiana. Last night was another such event, an open info meeting on campus.

In the midst of the candidates, well-groomed with resumes in hand, was another visitor. After chatting and discussing some of the usual introductory questions, we wondered a bit just why she showed up...her background didn't seem a fit for what we were offering. Then we discovered her reason for stopping in.

It turned out she was a doctoral student examining how interviewers form impressions about interviewees. Thus, she came to observe my three colleagues and me as we interacted with candidates for jobs.

Yep, we were the lab rats and she was the scientist. Perhaps it was quite fitting that we had a tray of cheese and crackers in the back of the room. I solved the maze of tables and chairs quickly to get my share of the cheddar and Colby. I hope I passed. At least I didn't get an electric shock.

Seriously, our unexpected guest was quite professional. She took many, many notes and was a keen observer. What was she writing down, I wondered. After the event, she offered some useful feedback and thanked us warmly for welcoming her. It still felt a little odd, though.

Which was good. In many efforts in a Lean transformation, we who "have the knowledge" go onto the shop floor and "observe" what is going on. And I'm sure a lot of the fine folks I've worked with have felt like lab rats at the time. Which is not a great feeling.

How to deal with this better? Be more clear, at the first step on the shop floor. Explain to the folks just who I am and why I'm there. When I'm done, share all the notes and observations. Be respectful. Understand it's odd to work when you know someone is observing to see just how it is you are doing what you already know how to do.

And, be grateful for those moments when the shoe is on the other foot. I hope this is helpful.

Feel free to forward to a friend. Email me