With this said, I still stand by my position that put head to head the stop watch – even in the hands of experienced experts like yourself – will never be as effective as a video camera.

We can do our best to explain why we are timing folks and ask why till the cows come home… but it’s been my experience over the past 14 years that humans either tighten up or speed up (as another commenter mentioned) when the stop watch comes out.

I just saw the video camera in action in a recent kaizen event. It worked wonders (52% throughput increase after 2 hours of timing and study)… the operators are still talking about it. I dare say the same thing wouldn’t have happened had we broken out the stop watches and clip boards.

As an experienced industrial engineer with a thick skin after literally thousands of time studies, I don’t get offended easily by this type of IE humor. I did laugh a bit when reading this post. Despite another popular stereotype, most engineers do have a great sense of humor. But Ron, come on now…fondling a stopwatch, yelling “start” and referring to the employee being observed as a victim? Based on your storyline, it is easy to point out some opportunities for improved communication and training all around. I have used the video camera approach which works well..good point. However the stopwatch is also a great tool when used properly and used with the respect for people principle in mind. Ask the 5 whys to the problem in your storyline, would a ban on stopwatches address the root cause of the problem?

I’ve used video analysis as a method in hospitals for three years. I’m a bit believer in the method. But I think the reason it works is that I train people from the organization to video each other. They learn the types of waste and Lean concepts, then THEY do it. The process experts are watching and coming up with ideas, not some outside Lean expert who knows relatively little about a pharmacy. When you involve people and let them watch themselves on tape, it’s very powerful. They see things that are surprising… “I really do that??” They come up with improvements… it’s peer-to-peer, not “expert to peon.”

That said, some teams have chosen not to use video because getting patient and family waivers would be unwieldy. They had to scribble furious on their notebooks… clipboard, no stopwatch. It was a bit harder to involve the employee being observed without the video, but we still worked together to let them debrief on what had happened.

In the UK, the National Health Service uses video analysis in their Lean efforts, namely their “Productive Ward” initiative focused on nursing and patient care. You can see a video that shows some of that video taping at this link, although finding the exact video isn’t easy… make sure to read their instructions for how to find Episode #1.

http://www.institute.nhs.uk/quality_and_value/productivity_series/productive_ward_%3a_video_documentaries.html

As always, great question for discussion Ron!!

If you need to use a stopwatch, I agree it is so important to communicate first and get their buy-off. I like to use humor as well and propose to wear a sash that says “HALL MONITOR” or tell them my name is Brian and not CLIPBOARD GUY.

Being at gemba with a stopwatch has opened the door for people to appraoch me with ideas on how to improve the process I am timing.

To avoid stopwatches, there have been great moments where people have timed themselves with tick sheets as well!