Lean Six Sigma Academy

We’re finishing up the final touches on a new course over at Gemba Academy called “Lean Lingo Explained.”

In this course Brad Schmidt, the managing partner of Gemba Japan, explains what several lean terms mean in great detail.

Muda Explained

One of the words Brad covers is muda.  Most of us refer to this word as waste… and it is.

But, like many lean terms, the word muda has a much deeper meaning when you study the Japanese Kanji.

No Money in Muda

As it turns out, the characters on the left that make mu actually mean ‘nothingness.’  And the characters on the right that make da mean ‘money.’  Click the image above for a larger view.

So, in essence, muda literally means ‘no money’ which makes perfect sense when you think about what muda is… we’re doing work that our customer’s aren’t willing to pay us for!

Never Stop Learning

The thing I love about lean is how I personally never stop learning.  You see, I’ve been practicing lean for awhile and feel, at times, I have a decent grasp on things.

Then I listen to someone like Brad talk and realize how little I know.  You see, Brad has probably forgotten more about lean than I will ever know.  It’s humbling, yet inspiring.

The lesson?  Never ever stop learning.

Guest Post by Michael Lombard of the Lean Builder Blog

Have you seen any of Conan O’Brien’s “In the Year 2000” skits? They were funny when he started doing them way back in the 90’s, and were even funnier when he kept doing them long after the turn of the millennium.

I don’t know if it was the quasi-futuristic clothing, the dude with the falsetto voice, or Conan’s ridiculous predictions, but that was some hilarious television.

In that same spirit, I’d like to make some ridiculous predictions about what Lean Leaders will be like in, let’s say… 10 years from now (in the year 2020). Here goes:

Prediction #1: In the year 2020… Lean Leaders will do a great job of utilizing Social Media.

I predict this because Lean Leaders place a high value on collaboration, just-in-time communication, and overall organizational awareness…all of which are enhanced by social media. Just check out some of the things Hal and the gang at Lean Project Consulting are already doing with micro-blogging and other tools. Or check out this list of Lean folks I follow on Twitter.

I predict Lean Leaders in 2020 will utilize micro-blogging, blogs, collaboration software, and yet-to-be-invented tools to improve the flow of knowledge and communication in their organizations.

Be honest, do you chuckle when you hear the word ‘Twitter?’

Prediction #2: In the year 2020… Lean Leaders will be leaders in Project Management.

Project Management as a profession is a relatively new phenomenon. It has arisen in response to the chaos that globalization and innovation have wreaked upon organizations in recent history. Products and processes have to be constantly reinvented nowadays to keep pace with the market, so organizations have to constantly manage a portfolio of change projects.

Good project management (i.e. the PMI PMBOK methodology) provides a solid base of stability for projects to be performed. However, as Lean Leaders understand, creating process stability is not the end, but the beginning of improvement. Taking Project Management beyond basic stability and into radically improved flow will be the next great leap for Project Management, and I predict it will be the domain of Lean Leaders.

Have you used Scrum or the Last Planner System? Check it out if you want a preview of what mainstream Project Management might look like in 2020.

Prediction #3: In the year 2020…Lean Leaders will have infiltrated a wide range of industries.

This is already happening. Lean Healthcare, Lean Construction, Lean Military…you name it—Lean advocates are seemingly everywhere now, just in small numbers at the moment. By 2020, I see Lean becoming more generally accepted and Lean Leaders becoming more common in a wide range of industries.

I say this because global trends seem to indicate that resources of all sorts (money, energy, water, etc.) will become more and more scarce, thus placing a premium on the ability to minimize waste—the domain of Lean Leaders. Every industry will be affected by these global trends to some extent, which should create broader demand for Lean Leaders.

Are you pioneering the use of Lean in your industry? If so, let’s hear about it!

Prediction #4: In the year 2020… Lean Leaders, out of necessity, will get really good at organizational design.

Pop quiz—If Lean is a clearly superior approach to management, then why hasn’t it become the standard for all organizations? Why have we yet to make the great leap?

Maybe it’s because we have failed to address deeply ingrained organizational barriers, such as: antiquated accounting systems, short-sighted employment practices, pathetic talent development strategies, rigid vertical management structures, and so on. We need people who can address these issues with authority.

Many of the most talented Lean Leaders I’ve met have had backgrounds in Industrial Engineering, Supply Chain Logistics, Operations Management, or Six Sigma. They’re highly technical people. I predict that future Lean Leaders will not only be technically skilled, but will also display a much deeper understanding of organizational factors. We need to take the big organizational decisions out of the hands of the bean-counters and put them in the hands of the people that can tell the difference between value and waste.

If there was one thing you could change about your organization’s design that would help your Lean initiative, what would it be?

Prediction #5: In the year 2020… things will be so radically different that my predictions will seem as ridiculous as Conan O’Brien’s.

But that’s okay. My hope is that Lean Leaders will surpass my predictions sooner than expected, and that by 2020 they will already be figuring out new ways to improve the world that we’ve yet to anticipate. In so many ways, they already are…which makes right now, 2010, an exciting time to be around the Lean world.

Don’t you agree, Lean Leaders?

About the author: Michael Lombard is a Lean advocate and Project Manager, based in Dallas-Ft. Worth, currently exploring career opportunities in all industries and locations. You can view his profile here, his Lean Builder blog here, or contact him directly at mlombardjr@gmail.com.

Another hat tip to Jon Miller for first posting this video of Paul Akers and the FastCap team practicing lean thinking.

What you think of this process? Do you do something similar at your place of work?

Guest Post by Alicia C. Simmer of KHC

There’s a choice to be made in how hospital leaders approach implementing lean: either let lean run free or force lean efforts to be coordinated.

Running Free

In the ‘running free’ approach, power is distributed to departments and groups to make improvements => the on-the-floor experts focus on their issues and make changes that allow them do the right things, the right way.

This sounds great, right?

People are empowered to change their environment. Lean becomes incorporated into the culture and mindset of the hospital staff. Change and efficiencies are realized where the rubber meets the road.

Hospitals have a history of this approach, based on the theory that since change is so hard to accomplish, small changes anywhere are sure to make the situation better.

Is This Really Better?

But is that really better? This uncoordinated approach can lead to waste-shifting rather than waste-elimination, and the voice of the customer is very easily lost.

While small teams work in their silos, patients flow through the entire system, using resources at almost every level.  The lack of coordination minimizes each Lean accomplishment because the work is isolated in the individual environment, leaving the patient to work around the inefficiencies of a non-systems based approach.

What do you think?

It makes me wonder if instead, leaders should begin with goals derived from the ideal patient experience, and then work on Lean projects that produce strong, standardized processes across the hospital or hospital system.

Hospitals/healthcare is the slowest industry to change, so we can learn a lot from manufacturing.

What do you think?  Should we focus our efforts in a coordinated manner or allow the running free mentality to continue?

Alicia C. Simmer, a senior healthcare consultant with KHC, shares some insights on implementing Lean in hospitals. She runs Lean operational improvement projects for healthcare facilities and new facility planning projects, and she can be reached at asimmer@khcthink dot com.

A year ago I, along with my good friends Jon Miller (Gemba Panta Rei) and Kevin Meyer (Evolving Excellence), began one heck of a journey as we launched Gemba Academy.

We started with humble beginnings – 1 course with 12 videos and 0 customers. Booyah!

Growing Up Quickly

But, after a lot of hard work – and lots of PDCA – I’m excited to say that we now offer more than 70 videos covering a wide range of topics including 5S, the 7 Wastes, Value Stream Mapping, Quick Changeover, and Practical Problem Solving.

And while this definitely makes me happy, the most amazing – and humbling – part of the journey has been the fact that we’ve managed to reach such a vast and dynamic group of amazing customers with the good news that is lean manufacturing!

1 Year Anniversary: Free DVDs

So, to celebrate our 1 year anniversary we’ve decided to run a special promotion.

The gist of the promotion is this… anyone that purchases an online subscription to a single course or a package of courses receives the accompanying DVD or DVDs absolutely free.

For example, if someone subscribes to our most popular online offering – The Complete Lean Package - for either 6 months or 1 year they’ll also receive the Complete Lean Package on DVD (an 11 DVD set valued at $795) FREE of charge.

First 500 Customers Get the Goods

This promotion is effective immediately but is only valid for the first 500 customers or until March 31, 2010 – whichever comes first.  So, if you’re reading this message on Sunday, when I first posted it, you have a head start on the rest of the world!

To learn more please visit our website for all the details.

Thank You!

Finally, I know many clients of Gemba Academy are regular readers of LSS Academy.

As such, I’d like to extend my most sincere thanks to you.  Words cannot express how much I, and the rest of the Gemba Academy team, appreciate and value you.

Hat tip to Jon Miller for first posting this video of Paul Akers preaching lean on Fox News.  Yes, preaching lean on the most watched news station in the free world – Fox News. Check it out for yourself!!!

I recently came across the video below and was intrigued by many aspects of this “rolling tool cart.”

Here are some of the things I liked.

• It was made for around $50 according to this article.
• It’s on wheels
• It can be moved to point of use eliminating motion
• It seems to be relatively safe to use
• It doesn’t take up much space

Here are some things I think could be improved.

• Do we really need that many tools on one cart or should we only focus on the tools we use most?
• If something was missing would we know?
• While labels are not everything… I’d at least like to see the drawers labeled.

What do you think?

What do you think of this?  Thumbs up or thumbs down?

My first manufacturing experiences were with two different multi-billion dollar manufacturing companies who happened to run massive ERP systems meaning we had massive MRP systems running the shop floor.  Sound familiar?

Anyhow, as a young lad out of college I just assumed this was how everyone operated. I also assumed everyone dealt with the issues of the “system” saying there were 150 widgets on the shop floor when, in fact, there were only 78.

As an aside, I once remember a conversation I had with a production control manager who assured me we had enough parts to complete a particular job. In fact he vehemently pointed to his monitor and said, “Look, we have over 300 parts!”

I was younger then, and less politically correct than I probably should have been, and went on to explain that I didn’t give two you know what’s what his computer said… I was just down on the floor and saw with my own eyes that we had less than 100 parts!

Go to Gemba

Well, after convincing him to get up out of his chair we went to the floor together and he saw that I was right.

I wish I could say we turned MRP off and implemented heijunka and world class kanban loops… but, alas, we didn’t.

It wasn’t until later in my career at another company that I saw how well kanban can work when implemented properly – the key words being implemented properly.

You see, I have also witnessed kanban failures and it’s not pretty.  Not pretty at all.

5 Things to Verify Before Implementing Kanban

With this said, here are a five questions I would strongly encourage you and your organization ask before attempting to implement kanban.

1. Do you have the necessary in house expertise? In other words, do you have someone on your team that has worked with kanban before? If not, I would encourage you to seek help from outside resources.  Hire some help or go visit some companies that are successful and do some intense benchmarking.
2. Do you even need kanban? Here’s a dirty little secret… kanban is not the end all, be all to a lean system. In fact, if your company’s information and material flows smoothly from the moment you take the order until you ship and collect cash… rock on with your bad self! You probably don’t need kanban. Continue to focus on improving flow and reducing lead-time.
3. Do you understand what heijunka is and why it’s closely connected to kanban? Attempting to implement kanban without first leveling and smoothing production is absolute suicide.  It’s like trying to run a marathon with a clamp on your nose and duct tape over most of your mouth.
4. Is your production process stable? If you are producing defect after defect or your machines are constantly breaking down you must address this first.
5. How are your changeovers? If you are to level and smooth production via heijunka (see above) quick and efficient machine changeovers are highly recommended.  So start here if needed.

Now, these are just 5 questions to consider. I am not pretending to assume this list covers everything… but it does include 5 questions you should definitely contemplate before attempting to implement kanban into your production system.

What do you think?

Do you agree with my list? Would you add anything?  Do you have any kanban success stories or, gasp, horror stories? If so, what went right? What went wrong?

Guest Post by Mark R. Hamel of Gemba Tales

OK, there probably weren’t many lean practitioners in the Middle Ages, but Thomas Aquinas, the 13th century theologian, philosopher and all around brainiac did play a significant role in developing the concept of subsidiarity.

So, what the heck is subsidiarity?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, subsidiarity is the notion that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level. This principle should be applied within government, the military, business and the gemba.

Now this does not mean that the plant floor, office, lab, field, clinic, etc. becomes a venue for democratic rule (Hey, let’s take a vote. Should we adhere to this standard work today?). No, properly applied subsidiarity IS a lean principle. It facilitates a bunch of things, including:

• Developing, involving and empowering the workforce. For example, natural work teams, whether they are comprised of manufacturing leads and operators or a physician, nurse and medical assistant, need to feel that they own the process and its performance. They also need to feel, in the context of standard work, that they can and must identify issues and opportunities and apply daily kaizen.
• Ensuring that the right people make the right decisions at the right time in the right place. We all know how central planning worked for the Soviet Union. Why let people who are not at the gemba tell those who are what to do (tactically speaking)? The worker-executed standard work, worker-managed visual controls and the worker’s immediate proximity to the process mean that they should be able to identify abnormal conditions before anybody else and then respond within the structure of a certain escalation protocol (think jidoka). Those at the local level also do not need a “middle man.” For example, on more than a few occasions when I was helping people develop production kanban systems, the planning guys wanted the kanban card to come to them, so that they could then schedule the line! HUH?! Why don’t we just give you planning guys the wristwatches of the guys running the line, so you can tell them what time it is as well?
• Keeping leaders focused on the right stuff. Lean leaders should be focused on the system and the related process adherence/performance, while also coaching others and providing necessary resources (think lean management systems). By staying within their bailiwick, they can better attend to the breakthrough objectives of the value stream, business unit, etc. and help develop a lean culture. Lean leaders should not be micro-managers and they should not be a barrier to continuous flow, especially the flow of information and ideas.

What do you think?

So, what do you think? Do you have an example of effective or ineffective applications of the principal of subsidiarity?

Mark R. Hamel, a senior lean six sigma implementation consultant, shares his humble insights on lean at Gemba Tales and is the author of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers published Kaizen Event Fieldbook: Foundation, Framework, and Standard Work for Effective Events. He can be reached at mark, over at kaizenfieldbook dot com.

Over the last year several new lean and six sigma related blogs have appeared.  I follow most of them.   Some I like more than others… which is to be expected I guess.

Anyhow, one of the newer blogs that has definitely caught my attention is Gemba Tales, written by Mark R. Hamel.

Mark is a lean six sigma consultant, as well as author.  He definitely seems to know his stuff and I have learned a lot from him already.  In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I have enjoyed his blog more than any other over the past month.

With this said, I’d highly encourage you to check out Gemba Tales if you haven’t already while also subscribing to his RSS feed.

I suspect 3,000 to 4,000 people will read this article within the next 24 hours.  Nothing would make me happier than each and every one of you checking out Gemba Tales while also subscribing to their RSS feed.

Also, Mark and I have exchanged some emails and I may have him convinced to do some guest blogging over here at LSS Academy!  Let’s see.

So go on now, get out of here and check out Gemba Tales. But please be sure to come back soon!