continuous improvement

City of Calgary’s newly elected mayor could adopt continuous improvement

What kind of results would this yield? see below

 

Here are some results from a city the practiced excellence in governance for about five years: Cape Coral, Florida

 

Cape Coral Florida.jpg

A previous write up explained by 2007 the return on the invested consulting dollars was 14 times – counting only hard dollar savings.

 

In July 2009 the city report included this sample of results:

 

  • Team reduced the time to obtain a permit for construction 61% from 21 days to 8 days.

  • 54% reduction in time required to hire a firefighter went from 66 days to 30 days.

  • Lot mowing time was reduced 63% from 52 days to 19 days to mow the grass once and send a notice of violation to the property owner.

  • The cycle time for first reviews in Site Plan Development initially decreased to 5 days from 28 days. The time currently is 8 days.

 

18 events in seven City departments resulting in about $2 million in cost savings and/or cost avoidance.  The goal in every event is to increase productivity and reduce cost without sacrificing quality and the service to our citizens.”

- Lean Government Coordinator for the City of Cape Coral: Ms. Roop

 

I save the results in files when I find them, however they change their websites and occasionally the previous links do not work.  I cannot find whether Cape Coral continued generating results beyond 2012.

Cities & governments that continue employing lean thinking achieve ongoing consistent results for constituents, improve services while reduce lead times and costs; Calgary is capable of this.

 

minnesota map.gif

Here’s an example of a results report at the state level – it can be applied at any organization or government level – this is just a better example of results in a wide variety of government services. Unfortunately the link is not working, just going to copy & paste; formatting is off but read through you’ll get the picture


Continuous Improvement Minnesota

2010/2011 Results

Agency

Division/
Unit

Fiscal
Year

Tools
Used

Results Achieved


Department of Administration

Real Estate and Construction Services

2010

Kaizen
event

Improved real estate leasing process time by 67 percent. 

 

Fleet and Surplus Services (FSS)

2010

Kaizen
event

Reduced time to enrol fleet vehicles in M5 be 69 percent.


Department of Agriculture

Dairy and Food
Licensing Division

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved customer service through an 80 percent reduction in the amount of time necessary for reviewing and issuing license documentation to customers.

 

Lab Services Division

2010

Kaizen
event

Improved operations through a 33 percent reduction in elapsed time and a 25 percent reduction in task time for the “short path” lab results reporting, and a 68 percent reduction in elapsed time and task time for “long path” lab results reporting, with potential staff time-savings of 2.2 FTE per year.

 

Dairy and Food
Licensing Division

2010

Kaizen
event

Reduced the time for an establishment to get a license by 99.8 percent.


Department of Commerce

Consumer and Industry Services

2010

Kaizen
event

Reduced average time to process an insurance product file by 65 percent.


Department of Corrections

Shakopee Facility

2011

Kaizen
event

Used evidence based practices to prioritize and balance offender work assignments and self-development opportunities while maintaining offender programming schedule.

 

Information Technology

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved customer service processes with FootPrints service ticket system for internal and external staff.

 

Willow River/Moose Lake facilities

2011

Kaizen
event

Reduced and leveled out inmake movement to reduce congestion, reduce staffing costs, and improve safety.

 

Faribault Facility

2011

Kaizen
event

Increased staff productivity, reduced traffic through truck gate, and reduced offender pull-outs and down time.

 

Stillwater Facility

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved the efficiency of the facility movement schedule resulting in increased facility security, increased offender production hours, and maintained facility programming.

 

Shakopee Women's Facility

2011

Kaizen
event

Reduced the amount of staff overtime, refined current overtime monitoring process, and identified potential cost reductions in the future.

 

Red Wing facility

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved business operations by developing a staff schedule that maximizes staff resources, increases programming time and maintains staff safety.

 

Togo Facility

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved operations by developing a staff schedule that maximizes programming time, coordinates schedule among units and defines core schedule requirements.

 

Shakopee Facility

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved operations by streamlining intake and transportation processes, resulting in more effective use of staff and other resources.

 

Shakopee Facility –
Work Release Program

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved operations by streamlining work release processes to maximize the length of eligible offenders’ stay in the program.

 

Willow River and
Moose Lake Facilities

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved internal operations by completing 100 percent of mandatory staff trainings with the fewest scheduling tasks and by reducing instances requiring excessive communication.

 

Lino Lakes facility

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved service by ensuring that 100 percent of offender releases occur on the correct date through the creation of a one-cycle work flow that eliminates duplication of effort and ensures the appropriate use of staff resources on priority tasks.

 

Offender Classification

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved service by refining the process that ensures consistent application of the offender classification system.

 

Faribault Facility

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved service by increasing the number of mandated offenders enrolled in the literacy program; reduce the number of offenders called out from literacy classes and align literacy program schedule with that of other DOC facilities.

 

Togo Facility

2010

Kaizen
event

Improved operations by developing a staff schedule that maximizes programming time, coordinates schedule among units and defines core schedule requirements.

 

St. Cloud Correctional Facility

2010

Kaizen
event

Simplified staffing schedule by reducing the number of officer start times from 17 to eight in order to balance the needs of both the institution and the staff.

 

Willow River/Moose Lake Correctional Facility

2010

Kaizen
event

Created new staffing and training schedules that more adequately balance training requirements and coverage of officer posts.

 

Lino Lakes

2010

Kaizen
event

Improved workplace safety. 


Department of Employment and Economic Development

Trade Adjustment Assistance

2011

Kaizen
event

Redesigned financial process in preparation for new statewide financial software. Reduced tasks by 41 percent, waits by 55 percent, handoffs by 71 percent, and total process time by 47 percent.

 

Minneapolis WorkForce Center/Dislocated Worker

2011

Kaizen
event

Reduced time for determining eligibility, standardized forms, client folders and process steps for a 77 percent reduction in process time and 29 percent reduction in task time.

 

Unemployment
Insurance Division

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved customer service by creating a standard process for applicants to follow; reduced the amount of time applicants need to access specialized employ-ment services.

 

Unemployment
Insurance Division

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved customer service through a 50 percent reduction in phone inquiry response time.

 

Unemployment
Insurance Division

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved customer service by reducing the amount of time needed to resolve an extended unemployment coverage request to an average of one day from the previous 14-25 days.

 

Workforce Centers

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved workflow and customer service by redesigning customer service areas, improving signage and improving the allocation of technical resources.

 

State Services for the Blind

2011

Kaizen
event

Reduced the elapsed time by 71%, and the  task time by  42% to provide an assessment  audio technology requirements for clients seeking employment services

 

Financial Management

2011

2P – Process Preparation

Developed a new process that will allow for the efficient interface between the DEED Workforce 1 work tracking software, and the State’s new financial tracking system, SWIFT

 

Workforce Development/Trade Adjustment Assistance

2010

Kaizen
event

Developed a standard process for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) requests and will create TAA program policies for consistent and accurate responses. The new process reduces total process time by 53 percent and task time by 70 percent.

 

Unemployment
Insurance & Workforce Development

2010

Kaizen
event

Established standard process for referrals from Re-employment & Eligibility Assessment (REA) to Re-employment & Eligibility Services (RES).

 

Minnesota Investment Fund

2010

Kaizen
event

Reduced process time for disbursing community development grants by 93 percent.


 

 

 

 

 

Department of Health

Vital Record Unit

2011

Kaizen
event

Standardized birth and death certificate application process, reduce tasks by 40 percent, waits by 79 percent, handoffs by 50 percent, and total process time by 96 percent.

 

User Support Services

2011

Kaizen
event

Standardized video conference scheduling tools and processes to meet increasing demand, save time and maintain high quality of work for a 22 percent reduction in tasks and 25 percent reduction in handoffs.

 

 

Commissioner's Office

2011

Kaizen
event

Created a standardized emergency communication response process to be utilized within the agency and with partner agencies/stakeholders.

 

Licensing and Certification Division

2011

Kaizen
event

Reduced the elapsed time to schedule and capture nursing home surveys by 34% and save approximately 3 FTEs of staff time.

 

 

 

Commissioner's Office

2010

Kaizen
event

Utilize a standard electronic system to process and track inquiries and empower key staff to make response decisions. The new process will lead to savings in paper, supplies and staff time and be 67 percent faster than the old process.

 

Licensed Home Care

2010

Kaizen
event

Reduced time for home care license pre and post survey process by 62 percent.


Department of Human Services

Contracts Division

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved business operations by reducing the elapsed time for processing a professional/technical contract by 40 percent and reducing the amount of staff time necessary for processing a contract by 30 percent.

 

TSS Testing

2011

Kaizen
event

Documented the testing process, eliminated unnecessary duplication and testing, and detected quality issues earlier in the process while mainting high quality standards. Reduced process time by 46 percent and wait time by 50 percent.

 

Central Imaging Unit

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved business operations and availability of information through a 58 percent reduction in the time required for preparing and imaging health care enrollment documents.

 

Medical Assistance Program

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved customer service through a 37 percent reduction in the time needed for determining eligibility on requests for medical assistance (MA) payment of long-term care (LTC), from an average of 87 days to 55 days.

 

Adoptions Record Unit

2011

Kaizen
event

Reduced the elapsed time to process a scanned adoption record file by 30%. Reduced the amount of task time required by 3 FTE per year. Will save thousands of dollars in paper and printing costs.

 

Human Resources

2010

Kaizen
event

Developed a consistent hiring process for central office, SOS, and MSOP. The new process will reduce the elapsed time of the bidder fill process by 57 percent and no bidder fill process by 40 percent.

 

Health Care Administration

2010

Kaizen
event

Improved process time for gathering MMIS estimates by 78.5 percent. 

 

Health Care Administration

2010

Kaizen
event

Streamlined the bill analysis and fiscal note processes, created a bill prioritization system, updated forms to match the new process, created standard work and a central repository for all bill analyses and fiscal notes.


Department of Military Affairs

MN Army National Guard

2010

Kaizen
event

Reduced the time it takes to capture vehicle usage and distribute vehicles by 80 percent.

 

MN Army National Guard

2010

Kaizen
event

Reduced Enlisted Personnel System (EPS) packet process time by 64 percent.


Department of Natural
Resources

Office of Management and Budget

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved internal operations through a 75 percent reduction in the amount of time needed to request and receive legislative authorization, from an average of 12 weeks to an average of three weeks.

 

Forest Planning Unit

2010

Kaizen
event

Improved business operations and resource management through an 80 percent reduction in the amount of time needed to develop and adopt forest management plans, from an average of three years to eight months.


Department of Public Safety

Driver and Vehicle Services

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved customer service through a 70 percent reduction in processing time for expedited title transfers.

 

Human Resources

2010

Kaizen
event

Reduced hiring process time by over 50 percent.

 

Bureau of Criminal Apprehension

2010

Process
redesign

Redesigned process for providing customers with permission and connectivity to BCA services.


Department of Revenue

Return Mail Processing Unit

2011

Kaizen
event

Reduced the amount of re-sent mail by 60 percent, reduce the elapsed time to re-send mail by 75 percent, and reduce costs of re-sending mail estimated at $80,000 per year.


Department of Transportation

 

2011

Kaizen
event

Standardized training announcement process, created announcement template, developed training calendar for a 57 percent reduction in task time, a 33 percent reduction in wait time, and a 38 percent reduction in total time for the training announcement process.

 

Office of Civil Rights

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved service through an 80 percent reduction in the amount of time needed to review and clear Disadvantaged Business Enterprise contract applications, from an average of 63 days to an average of 12 days.

 

Materials Management

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved business operations by standardizing the materials acquisition process and reducing the cycle time from an average of 18 days to 15 days for each contract.

 

Financial Management

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved business information by ensuring that accurate, clear and consistent financial data is avail-able to agency managers and leaders as quickly as possible.

 

IT Development

2011

Kaizen
event

Improved service by streamlining the IT development process, reducing lead time by 45 percent and leading to quicker project assessment, improved customer satisfaction and reduced staff time commitment.

 

Operations Division

2010

Kaizen
event

A 68% reduction in elapsed time for vacancies filled by bid and 69% reduction in elapsed time for vacancies filled competitively. The new process also includes a one-stop shop for vacancy related information and enhancements to the Strategic Staffing Plan.

 

Platting Process

2010

Kaizen
event

Reduced time spent developing plats by 36 percent. Eliminated handoffs and reduced total wait time by four weeks.

 

Geometric Design
Support Unit

2010

Kaizen
event

Reduced the time it takes to process design exceptions by 85 percent by establishing response timelines and enhancing training.

 

EDMS unit

2010

Kaizen
event

Reduced the Electronic Document Management System process time by 56 percent.


Department of Veterans Affairs

Hastings Veterans Home

2011

Kaizen event/
root cause analysis

Developed a more efficient morning routine for meeting patient needs at the Hastings facility.

 

State Soldiers
Assistance program

2010

Kaizen
event

Improved customer service through a 70 percent reduction in task time and a 58 percent reduction in wait time in the process for reviewing and approving financial benefits for qualified veterans seeking assistance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minneapolis Veterans Homes

2010

Kaizen
event

Created standard of work for resident mealtimes and staff break times to make process more resident centered with an emphasis on teamwork and enhanced communication.

 

Minneapolis Veterans Homes

2010

Kaizen
event

Created a streamlined admissions process that is easier, faster and more understandable for families, residents and staff.

 

Hastings Veterans
Homes

2010

Kaizen
event

Created a more efficient referral and lab process.


Minnesota State Colleges and Universities

Office of the Chancellor

2011

Kaizen
event

Reduced the process time for filling vacancies needing classification by 54% and vacancies not needing classification by 62%.

Metropolitan State University

Student Admissions

2011

Kaizen
event


Reduced the elapsed time to evaluate transfer credits and determine eligibility for admissions by 75 percent.

 

Registrar's office

2010

Kaizen
event


Improved class scheduling process time by 61 percent.


Pollution Control Agency

Communications Unit

2011

Kaizen
event

Developed a streamlined, standard process for making updates to the PCA website.

 

Surface Waters

2010

Kaizen
event


Redesigned the water quality assessment process.

 

http://www.lean.state.mn.us/LEAN_pages/results.html

 

 

 

No Satisfaction at Toyota

No Satisfaction at Toyota Paint Shop FastCompany.jpg

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 standardunderstanding 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

https://www.fastcompany.com/58345/no-satisfaction-toyota

Department of Corrections Transportation Fleet Improvement

Improved its transportation vehicle purchasing, resulting in $2.5million dollars cost avoidance in long-term vehicle replacement expense as well as achieving several other efficiency, environmental (cleaner air produced by reduced fuel emissions) and safety benefits. Read whole article pdf

Dept of Corrections Transportation Fleet Improv.jpg

2017 Strategic Lean Project Report link:

https://results.wa.gov/sites/default/files/DOCP117.pdf

David Belson's Letter to WSJ

David Belson’s letter to the Wall Street Journal in response to last week’s front page article about hospitals cutting costs and laying off staff. WSJ erroneously stated that efficiency caused a lack of being prepared for an emergency such as Covid-19. Noting how misleading this is, David wrote the WSJ.

They published his letter on Monday, shown here:

Lean Hospitals David Belson.jpg

7 Wastes for Crushing in Quarry & Mine Operations

Quarry 32604860.jpg

Not everyone easily spots the waste in their disorganization, including mining & quarrying operations, yet it still adds cost & time, impacting your tonnage, output, and profits.

The ability to identify waste enables people to a problem to solve, a starting point to develop them.

Waste: Any activity that consumes resources without creating value for the customer, or Any activity for which the customer is not willing to pay.

All wastes fall into 7 categories (below).

Use this as a checklist draft to help you identify where the wastes are in your quarry or mine and remove them to make your work easier. *draft – looking for more examples of these:

1.     OVERPRODUCTION

What is it? Producing what is unnecessary, when it is unnecessary, and in an unnecessary amount; - more, earlier, or faster than is required by the next process or customer.

Quarry / Mine Examples:

  • Producing products/aggregates which are not required customers

  • Producing products during a time of the year when they will not be used

  • Producing more product than there is demand for by customers

  • Providing copies of reports to people who have not asked for them & will not actually read them

  • CC’s on emails

  • Mining capacity surpassing the plant’s ability to process, or making more aggregate than is required by the next process - before it is required/can be processed, or faster than needed (that waits before the next step can process or consume it)

Causes

Misalignment to customer demand. Inaccurate forecasting. Large volume shots. Batching. Equipment breakdowns. Weather (preventing processing). ‘Making the month’ instead of making to demand.

2.     TIME ON HAND (WAITING)

What is it? Waste of which the causes originate in waiting from materials, operations, conveyance, inspection, as well as idle time attendant to monitoring and operation procedures.

Quarry / Mine Examples:

  • Delays when parts haven’t arrived; stock outs; waiting for equipment, parts, tools or supplies

  • Waiting for a meeting which is starting late

  • Waiting for upstream operations such as drilling and blasting

  • Waiting for break downs to be repaired before doing work

  • Trucks waiting at a dump site, queuing or standing empty;

  • Operators may sit idle waiting for material or do nothing while their machines are processing

  • Waiting for information, decisions, clarification of instructions, replies from engineering, management, head office

  • Excavators waiting for haul trucks to return

  • Waiting for people or contractors to show up

  • Anything that stops, slows or hinders production.

Causes

Unclear direction / instruction / manuals. Unlevel workloads or schedules. Supply chain delays. Lack of planning. Lack of preventative maintenance; unplanned maintenance or quality events. Not having the right tools or equipment. Cone liners & wear parts not changed once worn, trying to ‘get a bit more’ out them causing catastrophic failure & downtime.

 

3.     TRANSPORTATION / CONVEYANCE

What is it? Conveyance itself is waste because it creates no value. Created by conveying, transferring, picking up/setting down, piling up, and otherwise moving unnecessary items. Also created by problems concerning conveyance distances, conveyance flow, and conveyance utilization rate. Obviously parts & product must be transported, but any movement beyond absolute minimum is waste. - Any inefficient or avoidable transit/conveyance of material, information, equipment or people.

Quarry / Mine Examples:

  • Moving processed product from one location to another before it can be further processed

  • Collecting items from various locations for an assembly/repair (as opposed to having them all kitted one place)

  • Long travel distance caused by process-oriented layouts

  • Moving supplies into and out of a storage area

  • Moving equipment for processing in/out of locations

  • Moving individual files from one location to another

  • Moving parts and products unnecessarily

  • Driving

  • Hauling material further than necessary

  • Transporting rock, work-in-process and finished product around the site

  • Back haul trip of empty trucks

Causes

Poor layout. Using haul trucks instead of conveyors (in most cases). Availability of customer-specific material. Lack of flow planning. Fuel transportation. Crushing too far from blast site. Sub-optimal pile placement.

4.     WASTE OF PROCESSING ITSELF (OVER PROCESSING)

What is it? Unnecessary processes and operations traditionally accepted as necessary; & incorrect processing. Actions that add no customer value.

Quarry / Mine Examples:

  • Extra of anything - multiple screenings of same aggregate, excessive conveyance, etc.

  • Performing incoming inspections when supplier processes already guarantee defect free products

  • Continuing to train employees in tasks/skills which are no longer needed

  • Overwatering roads

  • Performing steps that have become unnecessary because of design or process changes

  • Making ‘tidy’ piles

  • Processing steps that are not technically justified

  • Hard copies of reports available online

  • Redundant capture of information (ex. writing by hand, when directly inputting to a word processor follows)

  • Multiple recordings & logging of same data

  • Unnecessary data collection

  • Excessive greasing (can also blow seals or generate friction/heat)

  • Achieving a tighter specs than the customer requests, can make use of or benefit from; higher grade than customer is willing to pay

  • Drilling more holes than necessary

Causes

Inefficient equipment/components. Outdated technology. Not maintaining/updating standard operations, training, etc. Narrow focus on specific parts of the operation instead of looking at the entire system. Handing off notes for input instead of direct input. Unclear requirements or specifications.

 

5.     STOCK ON HAND / INVENTORY

What is it? Inventory waste is when anything – materials, parts, assembly part – is retained for any length of time. This includes not only warehouse stock, but also items on site that are retained at or between processes. A buildup of material or information that is not being used; the direct result of overproduction; keeping unnecessary raw materials, parts, WIP & finished goods. Having more than the minimum stock required for a precisely controlled pull system. 

Quarry / Mine Examples:

  • Finished products for which there are no orders

  • Making more than is required by the next process

  • Making it earlier or faster than needed; underproduction or overproduction

  • Items that can be ordered on a JIT basis

  • Excessive spare parts; parts sitting in storage facilities

  • Paperwork/email to be processed

  • Unutilized equipment

  • Excessive ‘safety’ stocks

  • Stock queues before machines

  • Any material or supply in excess

Causes

Large volume shots. Batching. Supplier ‘minimum order quantities’ or buying extra ‘because it’s a good deal’. Equipment breakdowns. Weather (preventing processing). Inaccurate forecasting. Ordering more than needed ‘in case,’ or items that ‘might’ be needed. Quality or yield problems. Inconsistent rock supply.

6.     MOVEMENT

What is it? Unnecessary movement, movement that does not add value, movement that is too slow or too fast. Operators making movements that are creating no value. We can also identify waste in the motion of machines & equipment.

Quarry / Mine Examples:

  • Excessive walking - between work stations, to look at online information, to get a tool or materials

  • Moving to catch up with production

  • Driving to job locations or to get supplies/raw materials

  • Awkward loading patterns

  • Searching for tools, parts, papers which should be clearly labeled with a location

  • Changing locations for meetings

  • Operators walking long ways for meal breaks or hand off

  • Lifting

  • Reaching for things

  • Haul trucks navigating suboptimal roads

Causes

Poorly located tools; disorganized tool boxes. Feed conditions causing uneven screen load; unused screen area. Ordering more inventory than needed, maintaining & marshalling it. Lack of ergonomic design & placement. Loss of material (poor fitting skirts, holes, flashing; transfer points). Unclear locations for parts; disorganization. Failure to review mine/quarry layout & adapt as material stripping proceeds. Trickle feeding/failing to choke cone. Road conditions, surfaces & obstacles.

7.     MAKING DEFECTIVE PRODUCTS

What is it? Waste related to costs for inspection of defects in materials and processes, customer complaints, scrap and rework/repairs. Anything that does not meet customer specifications or requirements of form, fit, function, or timing/delivery. Results in inspection to catch quality problems or fixing an error already made (inspection, rework, and scrap). 

Quarry / Mine Examples:

  • Product does not meet customer specifications:

  • Oversize/fines

  • Hardness/durability

  • Cubicity

  • Late delivery

  • Recirculation - material through the crusher more than once

  • Costs of processing complaints

  • Making large lots of bad product instead of catching a problem after one or two units

  • Fixing errors made in documents

  • Dealing with complaints about service and/or repeating the service

  • Making incorrect documents

  • Repairing trucks/equipment after oil overfills; replacing seals after over greasing

  • Using defective raw material or parts

  • Repeating an equipment repair done incorrectly or with wrong/failed part

Causes

Variance in: raw material, processing methods, equipment maintenance or setup, employee training/experience, customer communication. Stockpile segregation. Wrong cone liner configuration or closed side settings; wrong screen cloth. Using work arounds instead of addressing root cause. Poor drill patterns. Poor quality or defective parts.

Which do you have in your operation?

What’s missing from these examples?

 

*adapted from previous article to include all 7 wastes & more examples

Lean is creating a 900-strong CI team in a gold mine

Lean really has spread to every corner of the world – no matter how remote – and to every sector of the economy

‘Our aim is to ultimately have a 900-strong Continuous Improvement team.
To get there, we need everyone at Round Mountain to buy in.
Once that’s the case, we will be able to stand on the sideline and support people in driving change themselves.’

https://planet-lean.com/kinross-gold-mine-lean-management

lean-transformation-of-a-gold-mine-in-Nevada-shows-the-power-of-people-development.jpg

Applying continuous improvement to maintenance

Stork-Railway-Services-overhauls-train-bogies-using-the-lean-methodology.jpg

‘time it takes to fully overhaul has gone down (51%) from 7.1 weeks to 3.5 weeks’

“in the past we have focused too much on the execution of what we had learned, rather than on the preparation needed to ensure it would work.”

Full article: Applying lean thinking to the maintenance of train bogies

https://planet-lean.com/stork-railway-service-lean-management

What HR needs to know about recruiting Lean Talent

Some summary points from an article posted at www.PeopleOrchard.ca:

When recruiting lean talent:

You are looking for someone with preferably NO INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

o       They bring value by not understanding it through the ‘stupid’ questions they ask, which those familiar with the process would never ask, helping them to understand it. 
o       This gets those with industry experience to see things differently – helping THEM break down and rebuild the process.
There currently is no standard to determine lean training/certification. 
o       There is no green belt or black belt – it is not related to six sigma – but many consultants use this framework, adding to the confusion
o       There is no greater ‘certification’ than true experience and results as a measure of qualification.
Skills you are looking for:
-          Coaching, patience, questioning, problem solving, interpersonal skills, communication & facilitation skills, leadership,
-          Someone who is interested in working with people to learn how lean will apply to your unique situation, because you are different; NOT someone who tells you how it applies
-          Someone who has NO experience in your industry
Yes, a lot of it is counter intuitive at first.  Keep learning click here

A language they don’t understand: Lean in Spanish

Did you learn about Lean in Japanese? Why are we teaching it in Spanish?

 

Is making a translation sheet for terms rework or over processing? What about using it? Could we be more effective?

 

We had this feedback during process improvement work at a hospital with a clinician who previously completed her PhD on Jargon being a Power Differential.

 

Regarding our use of Spanish terms instead of English to teach lean concepts, she said whenever we use a foreign language:

 

- “it alienates people because you’re speaking a language they don’t understand.”

- “We do this in health care; it’s like we have a culture [the medical culture where we have our own language]”

- “we are not communicating in a language to understand [for end users like patients]”

- “It’s a culture we [medical professionals] all understand, and that myself {medical professionals] maintaining my own culture is more important than ensuring communication actually occurs.”

- “Speaking in another language unintentionally excludes those who don’t understand it.”

 

Does this promote resistance?

 

Are you focused on the end user of your communication if teaching something in a language they don’t understand?

 

What’s the feed back from your learner on language preference?

 

Examples of Spanish we use to reference lean:

Muda - waste

Kaizen - continuous improvement

Poka-yoke - mistake proofing

Heijunka - leveling

Jidoka - human autonomation (independence)

Sensei - teacher

Gemba - workplace

Hoshin Kanri - strategy deployment

 

We already use English for 5S;

Should we start using more Spanish terms? Why not?

There is an English translation for each Spanish term.

 

As continuous improvement leaders we set an example – and look for areas we can self improve; should we use the same language as those we’re talking to?

 

If during this article you thought “Why are they using Spanish?” -that’s how you audience feels when you use Japanese.

 

We welcome feed back on this – in a language we understand.