Looking for someone else practicing Lean Product and Process Development in Canada.
Likely in southern Ontario.
Please message me
No Satisfaction at Toyota
Great article by FastCompany, key points:
It restructures a little bit every work shift.
10 hours in painting. Robots did much of the work, then as now, but they were supplied with paint through long hoses from storage tanks. “If we were painting a car red, before we could paint the next car white, we had to stop, flush the red paint out of the lines and the applicator tip, and reload the next color,” Georgetown literally threw away 30% of the pricey car paint it bought, cleaning it out of equipment and supply hoses when switching colors.
Cars now spend 8 hours in paint, instead of 10. The paint shop at any moment holds 25% fewer cars than it used to. Wasted paint? Practically zero. What used to require 100 gallons now takes 70.
Not only does Georgetown use less paint, it also buys less cleaning solvent and has dramatically reduced disposal costs for both. Together with new programming to make the robots paint more quickly, has increased the efficiency of its car-wash-sized paint booths from 33 cars an hour to 50.
“We’re getting the same volume with two booths that we used to get with three, so we shut down one of the booths.” If you want to trim your energy bill, try unplugging an oven big enough to bake 25 cars. Workers dismantled Top Coat Booth C, leaving the open floor space available for some future task.
shutting down Top Coat Booth C liberated a handful of maintenance engineers–who turned their attention to accelerating the next round of changes. Success, in that way, becomes the platform for further improvement. By the end of this year, Buckner and his team hope to have cut almost in half the amount of floor space the paint shop needs–all while continuing to paint 2,000 cars a day.
tenaciously competitive quality
Lean / continuous improvement have been around for more than a quarter-century.
You outflank them next decade. They just don’t realize it.
Toyota wasn’t just another workplace but a different way of thinking about work.
Contrasted to the American business culture of not admitting, or even discussing, problems in settings like meetings.
please talk to us about your problems so we can all work on them together.'”
improvement is much more realistic, much more human
improving something starts after understanding the standard – understanding how we do it now. If you don’t understand what you’re trying to improve, how do you know that your suggestion is an improvement?”
How come the checkout lines at Wal-Mart never get shorter?
How come the customer service of your cell-phone company never improves, year after year? How come my PC gets harder to operate with each software upgrade?
doing it in every single department, every single day. They’re doing it on their own
You simply can’t lose interest in it, shrug, and give up – any more than you can lose interest in your own future.
Doing the task and doing the task better become one and the same thing
Job Interviews - How to Spot Toxic Management
"48% of managers hadn’t received any management training in the previous 12 months and 33% of companies did not offer any training at all." How much does your business offer?
“Bad management can originate in a structure that does not allow better behaviour. A “toxic” manager is rarely alone in a company. They are tolerated by the organization, if not supported outright. These kinds of practices can be found at other levels within the organization, the bad manager being only one active piece of a harmful system.” - some executives protect employees and ostracize those who - in the best interests of the company - point out the damaging behaviour.
“to identify gangrenous companies, it is worth looking at staff turnover” - one of the reasons to work with executives understanding this & absenteeism early in acquisition assessment or turnarounds
https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/job-interviews-how-to-spot-toxic-management
High Trust Organizations, Innovation & Performance, Humour & Leadership
Maybe he’s floating
In most of the turnarounds / ramp ups I do one of the major cultural shifts that holds companies back is the blame environment they foster. Management has to replace their outdated toxic behaviour (& harassment lawsuit liability) to build an environment where all employees & staff are comfortable and encouraged to be open about problems and ideas. While to many this is common sense, executives do not always make the connection; here are some stats from a fast co. article (link below) quantifying performance results in firms with safe environments, and some of the psychology behind it:
There is a wealth of research that links high-trust organizations to innovation and performance. The 2016 HOW Report, a comprehensive study of organizational effectiveness, concluded that employees who work in high-trust environments are 32 times more likely to take risks that might benefit the company.
They’re also 11 times more likely to see more innovation relative to competition,
and 6 times more likely to outperform others in their industry.
managers perceived to have a sense of humor are rated by subordinates as 23% more respected and 25% more pleasant to work with.
In contrast, a 2018 Gallup study found that nearly 50% of Americans have left a job to “get away” from a manager. Employee turnover has increased 88% over the last decade, costing companies billions.
Reorienting towards humor is a fundamentally profitable enterprise that today’s leaders can’t afford to miss. One study found that adding a lighthearted line at the end of a sales pitch—like “my final offer is X, and I’ll throw in my pet frog”—increases customers’ willingness to pay by 18%. Another set of studies found that employees who rate their leaders as having a sense of humor—any sense of humor—are 15% more satisfied with their jobs and rate their leaders at 27% more motivating. A set of studies run by Brad Bitterly, Allison Wood Brooks, and Maurice Schweitzer demonstrate that when people use humor at work, they’re attributed 37% higher status, and seen as more competent and more confident.
We can chalk this up to the (brain) cocktail these teams are serving up. When people laugh, a neuro-chemical response is activated: their brains flood with dopamine (which increases happiness), endorphins (which increases resilience), and oxytocin (the same “trust hormone” released during sex and childbirth—plus a way to do it that’s more HR-friendly). These hormones make us feel calmer, more confident, and more resourceful—which lowers stress and unlocks more creative thinking.
Humor is such an important leadership trait we teach it at Stanford’s business school
As trust in authority figures erodes, teams want leaders who are inspiring and relatable.
Comparing Lean in Manufacturing and Insurance - Mark Deluzio
I have a lot of notes from this, may post if requested; watch it twice
Senior Management's Willingness Determines Success or Failure
Michael Balle is an excellent resource to learn from:
“Lean systems are really about establishing the conditions for learning - this is the key to a deeper understanding of lean.”
“From a leadership point of view this requires balancing the focus between today (solve problems now or you won’t have a tomorrow) and tomorrow (worry about the next product or you won’t have a tomorrow either). This never is simple and, again, can be learned only through experience.”
“In the end, the success or failure of any serious effort hinges on THE WILLINGNESS OF” senior executives “TO ADOPT revolutionary…”
great comment also: “people confuse a system to produce value more efficiently with a system to add value: continuously develop people to find better ways”
Recognizing the Old (and Totally Outdated) Philosophy of Leadership
The Modern Leader Creates the Conditions for a Problem Solving Culture
highlights from Jim Luckman’s article, link below
“Start by considering whether or not you are operating within an outdated model of leadership”
“you are likely operating inside the old paradigm, typical of most companies, that imposes blanket solutions on performance problems without first understanding your organization’s real, most urgent business problems.”
Recognizing the Old (and Totally Outdated) Philosophy of Leadership
“common leadership practices that consistently create poor outcomes.”
“Another outdated idea? Most leaders today still believe that maximizing profits is the purpose of the organization.”
“It addresses the focus on customers vs. profits.”
“What percentage of your daily activity is tied to maximizing profit (sales growth and cost savings) vs. improving value delivery to your customers?”
The impact of lean on the financial performance of an SME
“typically 3 years after the beginning of the transformation businesses will have the opportunity to dramatically outperform their non-lean industry peers.
management should learn to see the methodology as a #Strategy rather than a set of tools, and framing the transformation as the development of a system for continuous improvement and learning rather than the simple improvement of processes.”
Don’t Demonize Employees Who Raise Problems
They hired her to make the firm better, but the firm’s leadership wanted to believe they were already great.
Some management demonize people, accusing them of being the problem instead of solving the problem that is being raised.
It’s not comfortable to see your shortcomings; this discomfort causes leaders to deflect and defend, and when leaders do this, they limit whether their organization advances.
article here: https://hbr.org/2020/01/dont-demonize-employees-who-raise-problems
Are you practicing Operational Excellence with your Sales team?
Excellent summary of Daily Management including practicing daily management in the Sales & Marketing department.
link to article: https://planet-lean.com/lean-transformation-daily-management
What is Margin Retreat?
- avoiding price competition by moving into higher-margin products or services
Develop your self awareness around whether you are avoiding price competition by moving into higher-margin offerings (called Margin Retreat). It is a common response in business to increased competition, however it can “lead to corporate suicide”
When you do this, someone will pick up the business you’ve decided to leave, establishing a presence. Over time they continue picking off the parts of your business they want, driving you into smaller & smaller pockets of demand, however you are focused on higher & higher profits and do not notice. Seeing the higher margin business reinforces this decision.
As your company retreats, its costs & footprint likely stay the same (or rise), while you leave a bread crumb trail for competitors to expand up.
As competitors are now fulfilling your vacated ‘low margin’ positions, your revenue base stops growing. It may eventually shrink to the point it can no longer support your fixed costs around the operation. The typical levers managers pull in response are ‘restructuring’ and ‘cost cutting’ feeding more ‘reason’ to chase higher margin business, repeating the cycle, driving further shrinkage, which unchecked can spiral to extinction.
This idea has been around since 1990 and still worth being mindful of.
Do you have self awareness around where you may be doing this?
Post examples where you see this in comments
ways to start 5S and implement Lean in a job shop environment
“I recall you inquired about ways to start 5S and implement Lean in a job shop environment.”
– email excerpt I recently sent that may help some others on this who are also looking for more of the ‘how to’
For 5S:
You can find a lot online and many books may provide a good guide; where in your facility you start may provide additional leverage.
I prefer to let problems determine the counter measures, so perhaps you have a problem this can potentially address. Initially focusing on this 1 spot that would make the biggest difference to help people experience benefit. You’re probably familiar with the 5 steps – Sustain seems to be the one most people do not ensure, so Sustain may be the one to place more emphasis on regularly after.
Communicate with everyone what’s being done & why. There’s a typical 15% productivity improvement from a #5S rapid improvement event the operators in that area will experience. We had an operator who was quite pleased because they didn’t need to search the shop for their tools.
Once you’ve done this, look for the next area. Once you have a few done, you may want to have a similar system to your Job Instruction where different people support each other on progressing areas and it’s visible to all. I like my employees to have friendly reviews of each others areas. We also have a map up of each area in the plant to clarify zones, however you might not need this.
John in the tool room is actually a great example - even if not through the 5S steps – of how much easier work can be through organization;
I can provide examples from several different plants I’ve done if it helps
also read Getting at the Larger Purpose of 5S by Karl Ohaus here: http://www.lean-transform.com/articles-by-our-partners/getting-at-the-larger-purpose-of-5s
Implementing Lean in a Job Shop
Every job regardless of quantity has repeatable processes, they just might be more broad. For instance, you still receive an order, order material, receive it, setup a machine, do the work, and ship it. Even if it’s a single piece order.
Always being set up, and preparation for each new job for quick turn around may enable time based competition; you’ve already started quick changeover which is a big part of this, and 5S will help reduce search times.
You can look for commonalities in parts or setups; you may want to look into how Procedure Quantity Analysis helps you route product. I would do both
Pay attention to whether the most common problems are due to materials; supplier relationships can play a big part if you are experiencing external delays regularly; this may show up through value stream mapping or some other method of tracking defects in your process.
For us it is missing information: 49% of all problems are due to missing information, initially in the sales process and if it isn’t available up front it triggers 2-3 problems due to the same missing information (plus associated rework increasing lead times to customers)
I have yet to see a job shop where it cannot be applied
I hope this helps; curious how things are going; and feel free to reach out anytime
Best,
Ryan Cartier
“Many CEOs will tell you they spend time on the floor. But those visits are often tourist or diplomatic visits”
@nicochartier Founder CEO startup Aramisauto
“even though you trust your teams, reality is probably not what they tell you with PowerPoint...”
“Many CEOs will tell you they spend time on the floor. But those visits are often tourist or diplomatic visits”
from “Command and Control” to “Orient and Support”
“last year our EBITDA grew by 44% versus the previous year; a key part of this result comes from better teamwork within the executive team.”
“One of the main missions of a CEO is to build teamwork in the company, and this must start with the Executive Committee”
“realize as a CEO that you’re more useful as organizing conditions for teamwork than being the one who knows everything and decides everything.”
full read: https://www.lean.org/LeanPost/Posting.cfm?LeanPostId=1092
Toyota Flow System
"with something as complex as a business transformation, sticking to a one-size-fits-all methodology is dangerous."
"In today’s hyper-competitive and complex world, we must be able to serve customer needs incredibly quickly – lest we become a victim of disruption."
"Given the speed of business today, the iterative nature of improvement we are used to is no longer an option: there is no time for changes after a product hits the market, because it’s already time to develop the next one."
Excellent example of a company focusing on people instead of tools happening at NORMAC.
Employees & staff demonstrated a better understanding of current operational practices than most management I meet. Period.
Employees led the tour instead of management, explaining the lean concept for attendees to understand, and then how they applied it to solve a particular business problem in their area. This included how they shifted focus from just reaching a certain # to how it’s achieved.
What stood out different here was the practice of behaviours by all staff & employees, and how they were sustaining them instead of just showing off the typical before & after application of a tool. In addition to TWI JI they also practice Job Relations, and some of the learnings of how they’ve changed the conversation & work to treat everyone as an individual.
ideas
Tour participants provided feedback & an ‘outsiders perspective’ to further NORMAC’s business.
It was an honour to present the AME award. I hope to visit again and see how they’ve continued to progress their business.
Things Lean CEO's outperforming you understand about it:
"fundamental to the means and methods of the firm."
"a complete, coherent system of thinking that addresses the strategic concerns of senior leadership."
Lean Accounting Is Simpler, Faster, Cheaper, and More Accurate Than Traditional Management Accounting, so Why Don’t More Companies Use It?
“To sustain a lean transformation, top executive and financial managers must know how to transform traditional accounting practices to a new system that not only is lean itself but also supports lean practices.”
Getting at the Larger Purpose of 5S
Top tier content by Karl Ohaus
- will help most people who don’t understand 5S; however only those who so will truly appreciate it
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/getting-larger-purpose-5s-karl-ohaus
GE's CEO 'stunned' to learn that a major factory had only recently started using Continuous Improvement.
- how many other people share this experience when they walk into a company and see how behind it is with current business practices?