A Few Weeks back you might have watched a video we titled Single Piece Flow Mastered by Children, In the video a 6 and 8 year old reduce a process time by well over 60% and they have quite a bit of fun while performing the "Kaizen" too. Drive by any school or sit and watch a child play at the park and those children will teach you a little bit about life and how we should live it. But they too learned how to live life from somewhere. Maybe a parent, Maybe a teacher, a good morale leader or just somebody they admire. One way or another they were taught by someone at some point; As we grow older in "experience" and more seasoned with life we transition from School to work and now we must earn a living and we must try to survive in this world. If we take a look back on our life and for just one second and think about our own personal childhood or the children we do our best to teach we can see that those same children are our fellow employers, our bosses, or the people who work for us; It's true "These people are like my Kids."
With that thought in mind, let's ask a question, "what have I taught the people I work with today?" Sometimes in our transition to work we miss a great opportunity to develop the people around us. Like children every experience in life is an opportunity to teach them some principle of life and much the same in our work every experience is a "Call to lead and guide" somebody to learn, improve or perform their Job duty. We're not suggesting that Employees are like children although it may feel this way at times, but we are hinting that there may be some power in seeing our fellow workers in the Same Light as our children. Communicate often with them Can you remember every holiday morning when you or your children would wake up excited and ready for the adventures of the day? Probably the first thing you did was go and give your caretaker a hug and all though it might have been early in the morning you just wanted to share your excitement. As leaders and developers of others we should make it one of our days goals to promote that same excitement in those we work with. whether it is a morning huddle or an employee just coming up to say "hello" these are opportunities to give them energy for the day and get to know them. Best of all it can be done in under 5 minutes, but the results will last just as long if not longer than the memories of a holiday morning. Reflect, then say goodnight Families all across the world meet at dinner tables, bedside or on couches to catch up and answer the question "How was your day?" One purpose for this universal question is to show that you genuinely care about how somebody's day was. Do we do the same for those that we work with? A simple walk to the Gemba at the end of the day can create a powerful opportunity to Reflect on the day and politely say goodnight. It will also create an opportunity to reveal how there life is going and how you can support them in their tasks at work. Hansei the Japanese practice of Reflection can be very powerful when performed as a team and in a one to one conversation. Give them Opportunities to Learn and see them as you would see your Children See them as you would see your Children? That's crazy, right? Maybe, but do you remember the moment you held a little baby in your arms and thought to yourself "What is the most important thing I could teach this Child that will help them succeed?" Like that moment if we give our employees opportunities to learn and skills to be successful, they will inherit a desire to grow in many different ways. Let's take as food for thought the employee who always has something to say. It is a given that person has a desire to talk and to be heard so maybe with a little guidance and coaching that person is the perfect facilitator for your next Kaizen event. Or How about the employee who is always coming to you with "problems," well maybe he's the one who needs to know how to Value Stream Map, Root Cause or Kick off a Charter. When we see people for who they could be much like we see children we in essence define the vision for them which makes it much easier to help guide them in that direction. Just as Children grow up in the world, fellow employees grow up in Careers. When we take opportunities to teach one another and support daily continued development we create a Culture that makes for a much more productive and fun "Playground Environment." Ponder this idea if you will that we have a responsibility to support and develop one another in the same manner that we develop our children, When we see each other as who we could, can and will be we become true leaders and support the notion that "These people are like my Kids" and I have a responsibility to develop them.
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One of the Most common thoughts or comments that we have heard over the past year has been "We are waiting for our ERP implementation to stabilize then we are going to look at Lean." While multiple Strategic Initiatives can certainly be a scary thought one without the other may leave you feeling like a crash test dummy.
In the Most general sense of the topic we can assume that ERP/MRP focuses on the Information side of a Value Stream. We all know that Job Shop and Intermittent manufacturing environments produce an obscure amount of information waste and certainly being able to automate and supercharge that part of the Value Stream can and will produce great results for any user if their efforts are aligned correctly. But let's play with the idea for one second, If a car is crashed into a wall with a supercharger, does the result change? Well most likely yes, the damage is much more severe than if it was traveling at a reasonable rate. Similar to this concept ERP/MRP without Lean often times sends information flow slamming into a brick wall. It helps to understand that everything even information is susceptible to a Takt time in one respect or another. Infact often times when activities are performed at a faster rate than they should be we begin to make visible the wastes of Mura and Muri, which in turn causes an organization to fall even more out of alignment. Likewise it is often Visible when companies attack the Value Stream with such activities as Cycle time reduction and SMED projects but do not address the issues that naturally come with any ERP/MRP implementation, you know the garbage in garbage out principle, you inadvertently create materials that are not as accurately tracked leaving KPI's and Metrics susceptible to inaccuracy. Although Agile concepts can be applied to Networks and Enterprise/Material resource planning systems Organizations most often don't address these major systemic issues. Just think for a second MRP gives us time phased requirements which suggest to the user what they need to produce to fulfill current demand, but these requirements are often driven by inaccurate lead times, non existent wait times and cycle times that aren't even estimated well. The point is this Information side of the Value Stream can receive Lean Concepts and principles too, but only if we address it. One other Key element that often get's set aside is that information in ERP/MRP is either "informative" or action orientated. What does this mean? Well, we check the system to either gather information and "check things out" or we check the system to receive "exceptions." Exceptions are action orientated promptings that suggest to us something needs to be done, keep in mind these exceptions are based on various elements of data that is placed in the ERP system, if this information is not correct the exceptions may/will create additional waste in an Organization. In Summary, MRP/ERP applications can and will yield powerful Turbocharged results in many different ways, however unlike Lean it is our stance that it may leave you feeling like a crash test dummy when the initiative is implemented without Lean Strategy and Tactics. MRP/ERP may tell you if a product has become discrepant, sits for to long, or needs to be released, but it will not prevent quality issues like Poka Yoke, It will not correct the exception based message without action and certainly if a routing, process or bill of material is incorrect ERP/MRP can not correct it unless there is action by the user. Although you may end up with a powerful "System" in place quite certainly if the "System" in terms of Organizational system does not have standards and a Culture of Continuous Improvement you will certainly at one point or another slam into a wall. Try and push a chain from one side of the room to the other, What happens? Now take that same chain and pull it from one side of the room to the other, Now what happens? You might have experienced what is shown in the picture above. When we try to push the chain it tangles, coils and eventually bunches up to where the links move rather inefficiently. But if we pull the chain from one side to the other, the links become tight and move at the pull of the chain. This analogy is very much the same as a work environment. Let's take a deeper look at each one of these systems and Find out exactly what is so great about the Pulling Concept.
Push The push system has been used for years in traditional manufacturing and forecasting environments, we see it fairly frequently in Make to Stock environments, although not 100% make to stock businesses are Push Systems only. The easiest way to understand what a Push system actually is, is to think of it this way.... In a push system there is no Order attached to the Product, that means that we make the product prior to any demand being created. As you may have guessed this requires very accurate forecasting techniques and often times can create a severe "bullwhip effect" as the forecasting travels up the supply chain. The other element as you can imagine that can distinguish a push system is the direction that Information flows through the Value Stream. In the Push environment information and product chases after the customer in hopes of attaching a sales order to the system in some way shape or form. As you can probably imagine two of the most notable forms of waste associated with a push system are Overproduction and Excess Inventory although quite honestly any time product is produced before an order is maintained there is much more waste than that in the value stream. Often times in a true Push system there are absolutely no limits on the amount of Work In Progress which as you may have guessed creates a lot of unbalanced workload and unnecessary burdens on your team. Even though the Push system tends to get a bad rap nowadays there are a few benefits to the Push system however the benefits really almost never outweigh the costs when you dig deep into it. Pull As you may have imagined in our Chain experiment there are many advantages to a Pull system or a "demand" driven Organization. The first that you may have been able to visualize dragging your chain around is that the chain tightens and the links stay in line, much like the chain when you pull the work down through the supply chain often times it is much easier to keep your "links" in line. The pull system is only activated by a Customer order, which means that the large majority of WIP has an order attached to it in one way or another. One Example of a pull system might be in a Kanban system, when one bin is empty it triggers the production or replenishment of that item in "need". Essentially the Pull system is set up for items that in one way or another have a "Customer Order" attached to them. Keep in mind that although the Kanban system is an easy way to understand a pull system the goal is not Kanban the goal should always be true one piece flow. True Pull set's limitations based on customer desires and the demand being driven, if there is no limitations in place there is a good chance that you may be looking at a push system. Push-Pull To Push or Pull? that is the question, Ideally we always want to create what the customer wants and has committed to, but often times it's not either or, it is when? You see most environments are at some point in the overall system push and then transition into pull. The point at which this happens is a strategic decision that an Organization must decide on. One Key element in deciding where the transition happens is in the visibility that other partners have, that one element can help the switch from push to pull much easier. Remember too, that in a push system you are paying all the time with no guarantee of repayment so if at all possible try to pull much more than you push. Overall the widely accepted better practice certainly is a Pull system, So why is it that so many people still push in today's day and age? Well there are quite a few reasons why, next week we will talk about a few elements of Inventory control and why some companies still operate on somewhat of a "pushy" basis. Although We don't Often notice it, a "Value Stream" has a flow much like the Stream you see in the photo above. The Concept of a "Value Stream" is easily understood in this analogy. Let's imagine for a second that you have clearly defined "What Value is", those elements in the Stream are the Water. Water is the Value added elements of your Value Stream or your product or service that a customer is willing to pay for, is made right the first time and is being transformed in some way. As you may have guessed, in any Value Stream there are some "rocks in the water". Those rocks are the activities that impede the efficient flow of the Value Stream. They Could be Muda like the photo Shown below Or they Could come from one of the other two Origins of Waste Mura and Muri. None the Less those Rocks that you see are Waste in the Value Stream. They are the elements in your shop or Office that are causing late deliveries, poor quality, frustrating processes and resources that aren't doing quite as much as they could be. Often times the rocks do not rise all the way to the top of the water, you know we see it everyday so we "work around" or "deal with" it, but they still impede the flow of the Value Stream. This is one of the main reasons we use "Value Stream Mapping", so that we can make those "Rocks" or inefficiencies in the process rise to the top and become completely visible. One other Key element to a Value Stream Map that can be quite powerful is that it has the unique ability to capture both Information inefficiencies and Material Inefficiencies. This can be quite important as you might not realize the queue time of an email until it becomes visible. As we begin to map multiple "Value Streams" we start to understand how each Stream begins to affect the Ocean and what the interaction between the multiple Streams is like in relation to the overall system. Finally we get to a place where the entire system is Understood and we can now begin to plan the most efficient route forward. This part takes a great deal of time to get to and much effort too, but the results that Value Stream Mapping can bring certainly are worth the efforts. One by one you remove all the rocks in the water and eventually you look back on a well balanced, gushing stream of water or shall we say gushing "Stream of Value."
Try it out today, Map a Process out you never know, you may end up removing an entire dam..... In this week's Series on Value Stream mapping we will look at the What, Why and How of Value Streams. Over the course of this week Lean Strategies International LLC will define what a Value Stream is and how Value Stream Mapping can assist in making the Value Stream more visual and we will talk about some reasons why Value Streams are such a powerful tool to use in any work environment. Finally we will give you one example of how a Value Stream map can be laid out. To Start off we should define what a Value Stream is. A Value Stream includes all the steps both necessary and unnecessary steps that take a product from the early stages of a raw material or service to receiving the cash from the customer. We identify these steps as Value added and Non Value Added steps, this is why it is referred to as a "Value" stream, Some activities in the stream add value others just add waste. There are in essence many different types of Value Stream maps, however the three most common that you will see are the Process Level map, Business or Organizational Map and finally the Extended VSM. A process level map would document activities in a specific department or a defined cell one example may be the way a purchasing department may release a purchase order if all the activities fall under that department it would be safe to say a process level map is appropriate to use. The next type of map that is used is the Business or Organizational Map, these types of maps commonly document activities that require the efforts of multiple departments in an organization. For instance if that same Purchasing process uses the efforts of planning, production, accounting and Program Managers it may be more appropriate to map the value stream with a Business type map sometimes referred to as a 3D VSM or Factory VSM. The final type of Value Stream Map is the Extended VSM, these types of Maps generally show the entire system across multiple organizations. Let's Look at one Example of a Value Stream that may help us to understand the Value Stream a little bit better. You and I are going to eat some Taco's. We will define the Value Stream at the Process level. First- We Stand in Line to Order our Taco's Second- We place our order Third- We wait for them to check that they have everything they need Fourth- They confirm Fifth- They fix the Taco's Sixth- we receive the Taco's and Seventh- we eat the taco's You Can probably tell by this example which activities are value added to a Customer and Which activities are not. When the Value Stream becomes visual we now have a Value Stream Map, which identifies or Map's out the activities performed in the Process. This is a very basic example of a Value Stream map, We are sure that more details could log much more savings, but let's dig a bit deeper here. As you can tell the (Muda) or Non-Value added portion of the Value stream takes up a significant portion of our Taco trip. This is very common in Work environments too, Infact if it's the first time you have documented your value stream it is not uncommon for the Non-Value to be almost 75-80% of your Value Stream. This brings us to our next point What we tend to do is press on the Value Added portion of the Value stream, which not only is what the Customer wants to pay for but often times will yield only seconds in savings (i.e. running machines faster than they can handle, pushing employees, unbalanced workloads) and more often than not yields broken machines or disgruntled employees. But as you can tell if we focus on the Non-Value added portion of the Value Stream and Eliminate waste we can often yield much larger results. Hopefully you are beginning to understand the possibilities and power a Value Stream Map can bring to your Lean Strategy. Tomorrow We will look at some examples of Why you would use a Value Stream map including moving from the Current state to the Future State.
Over the years many tools have been used to "discover" solutions or decide on the best possible tactic to move forward. One of m favorite tools to use is the Cause and Effect Matrix. There are many tools that can help you decide what inputs should be applied to a process but The solution matrix seems to work very well for engaging teams, It in many ways forces teams to engage the "Gemba" and creates interdepartmental teamwork. There are a few crucial steps that need to be captured when using a cause and effect matrix; In hopes that you will better understand the process, here is one example of a basic Cause and effect matrix. The example shown above is just one basic example you can make them whatever way works best for you though. Typically the C&E matrix is used to help hone in on the best possible Inputs (shown in grey) that will give you the best possible impact. There are 5 basic steps that will make this tool work for you; 1. Identify what is important to the Customer - As with anything else we want to understand what is important to the Customer. One example may be a customer buying a hamburger; It may be important to them to have the hamburger well done, made correctly and for the hamburger to fill them Up. Those things that are important are known as the "Voice of the Customer." We place those items in the Red section. Now that we have identified what is important to the Customer we can move on to the second portion of the Cause and effect matrix. 2. Prioritize What is Important to the Customer This is a good time to ask the Customer, which one of these is most important to you? Try to limit the priority numbers but common sense tells us if there are 10 important things to a customer your scale will be 1-10. Since in out Hamburger case only 3 things are important we will use a scale of 1-3. This is a great time to really understand your customers priorities and more importantly why. Well now that we know what is Important to the Customer and just how important it is amongst the other suggestions we can begin to load in our Inputs. These are the ideas/variables that transform in the process to create the Outputs. 3. Document and Identify Process/Product Inputs At this point you may have a Value Stream Map, SIPOC Map, or a process documented one way or another. You can identify some of the inputs in the Map on your Cause and effect Matrix or you may wish to simply visit the Gemba and speak with process owners. Whatever way you choose to get the inputs we will place them in the Grey Section. Now you can see that after speaking with the process owner we came up with four ideas. This is where the Cause and effect Matrix will become your best friend..... Which one do you do? 4. Rank How effective the Inputs are on the Outputs Now we are ready to rank how effective the Inputs are on the desired customer Outputs. You can use any scale you want but be sure to make it quantifiable. For our Purposes I will use a scale of 1-5, 1(no impact) 2(minimal Impact) 3(Impact) 4(Good Impact) 5(Perfect Impact). That brings us to the Final Step.
5. Do the Math and act on the Best Percentage After doing the Math it looks as though our biggest impact input is to Create a Standard for making the burger. Keep in mind this does not mean that the others are any less important or won't yield some result it just simply means that with minimal resources and a budget in place, Item number 2 would be the first to act on. As you can tell the Solution matrix is a very efficient way of making opinions quantifiable. If you are interested in how you can create your own solution matrix or want a copy of the one used in this article please feel free to email us at info@leanstrategiesinternational.com. A Job Shop is typically a small sized manufacturer who runs custom and semi-custom work. They may have repeat orders but more often than not Job shops take "the hard to engineer" stuff and make it. Now, certainly having flexibility allows for the research and design of new products but a common struggle in the Job Shop world is a combination of Product Variability, Scheduling and resource utilization. So how does Lean Solve these common issues?
Lean Focuses on the process instead of the person or the part. Certainly making a good part is good and will yield positive results for any organization but the concept is "The right process will produce the right result" every single time. For this reason defining the results that you want is very important, then we can look at how the value stream get's you there. Let's look at some common "results" in job shops. The Setup (spend less time) Job Shops are often times the ones making very intricate parts and have a somewhat "intermittent" environment to begin with, for this reason a job shop can really benefit from Setup reductions. In a Job shop a lot of time is spent just setting up the various components of a job so that you can run it. Then you avoid changeover so that you don't have to to "Set-up" again. 50 some odd years ago these ""Set-ups" may have been okay but as the need to streamline parts and be competitive at a global level has developed customers are not always willing to pay the set-up anymore. SMED and set-up reduction is a great skill for the people on the machines to master, infact..... Throw away the belts, yes we said it throw away the belts and teach your front line force to see and identify waste, differentiate between value and non value and reduce setup times and you will see some huge results. Teach the Frontline to see the difference? The major difference is seeing and differentiating Value from its non-value counterparts. In a Job shop when the part is on the machine and running it is still yielding value just like a part in a production shop. But how about the queue, wait and move? Were not hinting at anything here, well yes we are but in a Job shop identifying non value can be powerful. You will find as you walk through any Job shop environment that a good place to start your lean journey (like many other manufacturing environments) is removing the waste from Processes and Systems. If everybody in the Shop knows the elements of Value and Non-Value and the proper way to map their Processes or Systems you will have a much better shot at improving your business overall. Keep in mind we used the words systems and processes above. Those two words indicate that yes there is a material flow but more importantly you will find Information flow to be a major improvement opportunity in a Job shop, most likely those opportunities with Information flow will yield much bigger results than the material flow. Be aware of Differences and Similarities Although Much of the Tactical side of Lean's strategy is the same there are some pieces of a Job shop puzzles that need experience and have to be molded very finely. For instance you may wish to use elements of Just-In-Time pillar like Kanban system. A Kanban system can act as a trigger rather than jumping straight into continuous flow (which varies by product). Although Some elements of a Job Shop are clearly different than a Production environment, Waste no matter how you look at it is still waste and can still be treated in much the same manner. In a Job shop finding solutions for the Mura origin of waste becomes much more critical to seeing results. This will require Level loading/heijunka type applications. Keep in mind you may never obtain a perfectly leveled "job shop" but the improvements you will find in the leveling realm will certainly place a smile on your face. In Short, Lean in a job Shop is just as effective as a production environment. Although the forms of waste will be unique in there own respect, that is the same in all organizations. Along with Increased Capacity, Reduced Manufacturing times and improved utilization of Assets Job Shops will often be able to do much, much more with far less resources when jumping into a Lean Strategy. Overall seeing a Sleek streamlined and efficient job shop truly is a beautiful site and all though you may not see it at first glance you can bet that there are elements of Lean in many Job Shops. In Closing, Is Lean for a Job Shop? You better believe it. We have all heard the term "Lean Culture" and there are many different ways to define this unique sort of culture that everyone dreams about. But first let's start off by addressing the question "why is culture so important?"
Culture does many things in the environment it overlays, one of the main reasons we speak so often about Culture is that it assists us in Survival. You see Culture makes us unique and with out it everyone acts and behaves rather differently. Now we all know that we have our unique personalities and skills which make us who we are but Culture helps us to understand why someone behaves the way they do. Often times when the culture is not defined a company's performance would be rather "lumpy". Now, please don't misinterpret the "defined culture" infact it is rather important that the culture of a company is flexible and adaptable, why you ask? When a Culture is adaptable it is better able to change. If the environment changes the culture to must change to meet the needs of the environment it is now in. Now this sort of change is not a guarantee to any organization's survival what it is though is a much better chance at your survival. Let me focus in a bit more on some aspects of a lean culture, although this may sound odd or unrealistic but the traditional "Plant Manager" may have a general idea of what is going on in his plant, but general ideas do not really define the culture of lean. The fact is the traditional Plant manger is usually troubled by: 1. Poorly defined Goals and objectives 2. Changing philosophies 3. Almost no time on the floor 4. Poor Quality, Capacity, and On Time Delivery These are problems that need to be solved, true, but the environment that they create is reactive which then creates a culture of the famous "firefighting." In a Lean Culture it seems odd but the goal is awareness. That awareness is around many different things, such as problems, waste, solutions, and performance. You can pick the measure but the concept is aware. Taiichi Ohno once said; "The work place is motivated by; Mutual survival, appreciation for excellent work in itself." In a Lean environment that is what people do they support one another in surviving. That support is focused on both internal and external customers but none the less it is support. A truly lean culture focuses not just on the elimination of waste but on the survival of each other. Here are a few things you can do help each other Survive; 1. Put the Customer first, We have all heard the saying "the customer is always right" but what we are talking about is putting the customer first. There is no specifics to putting the customer first just simply understanding their needs, doing everything you can to meet those needs and understanding there is often times more than one customer. 2. Create and Support Kaizen. 3. As a Leader Support appropriate Culture, Now don't mistake this statement, leaders come at many different levels of an organization..... We are all leaders in one way or another, but notice it does not say "define" culture only "Support" or drive appropriate culture. This can be done through clearly defining roles, responsibilities, expectations and set through examples and recognition of those who stand out. As a side note be aware that how you reward and punish people will impact the company culture too. When you support appropriate culture you understand the environment and what the people need to survive; their values, their traits and what is important to them. At times you may need to pivot but supporting appropriate behaviors can in turn support appropriate cultures. As you travel along in your own personal Journey, whether in life or a lean strategy remember to help another survive and be a constant example of what it means to help and support the culture you hope for. This in turn will allow you and your Organization to survive in any environment, even if the seas get a little stormy. Yesterday while speaking with a friend of mine he shared with me something interesting that I had seen time and time again. He pointed out to me that the production rates of his shop had been increased by nearly 20%, I said "wow, that's fantastic how did you do it?" His reply caught me off guard a bit when he said, "well the shop wasn't running the machines at full speed so we cranked them up." I pondered his response for a second and then pointed to a gentleman on an old bridgeport and asked "Can you tell me what that gentleman is doing over their?" without going to deep into my conversation I will say that what he was doing was adding Value to a product for a customer.
You see it is much easier to understand when you see the drill bits transforming the raw material into a valve stem and ask in the context of a customer....... "would I be willing to pay for that?" the answer most likely will be yes because the activity is producing the product. After the Value added concept was made clear we walked by some material sitting in queue, I pointed to the material and asked "Can you tell me what this is doing here?" he said "It's waiting to be put on a machine." Again without driving to deep into our conversation he began to realize that his description "waiting" identified a form of muda. Often times we may press on the Value added portion of a value stream not completely realizing that this only makes up between 5% to 15% of the entire activities. But the portion that the customer is not willing to pay for get's no attention. The point is the next time you find yourself pushing a machines pace be aware that without a TPM program in place you may just break down the part of the Value Stream the customer really wants and leave the real opportunities for improvement just hanging around. Last year while at a plant in California a comment was made to a worker that sounded something like this "We are really starting to gain buy in, people love this Lean thing." Of course for any Lean Practitioner who hears this sort of conversation they will probably stop and listen for a bit. The conversation went on with another question; "That's great, can I ask you something?" "Of Course!" The other gentlemen replied, "Do you see people going and doing or do you hear people Saying?"
What the Sensei was referring to with his somewhat pessimistic questioning was a great point that often times can be seen in Organizations. He was asking are people recognizing and removing waste, is there a feeling of calmness and yet production presses on at the same rate or faster or are they justing saying Lean is great? Often times this is a common struggle in the beginning of a Lean Journey, what you are dealing with is a behavior change or a shift in Culture. As you may already know shifting behaviors is not always the easiest thing to do. Here are Three basic principles why people do things that may help you begin to shift your Organization's Culture; 1. Often times people do things because they have to. 2. People then do things because they feel Obligated to. 3. People begin to Love what they do. As vague as these three statements are we would ask that you sit and ponder these three items for a bit. Then ask yourself How can I help somebody to love what they are doing today? Be aware that whatever tactics you may use to help someone could shift a behavior, however you want to make sure your driving the right behavior, so paying someone $50 or giving them a TV may not drive the right behavior. After you have completed your task we would love to hear from each of you, What did you do to help someone Love what they do? At the beginning of the New Year many people are making New Year’s resolutions or setting new Targets. As one of the guilty parties in a past life it was not uncommon for me to make a resolution myself. One day while reflecting over the amount of resolutions that have been made over the traditions history I thought to myself, “Why is it that we make resolutions, but so often fail to keep them?” I thought about this for quite some time before the answer came to me. I was sitting at my desk reviewing an A3 document and for the first time had realized that this A3 thinking the world had been speaking of, was no longer thinking at all for me. Now I don’t mean to say that thinking is not sometimes required when reviewing A3’s but rather that I had looked at so many of them that the process had become very simple for me. If you’re not familiar with what an A3 report is, I have attached one for you to view and please feel free to print it out and use it as a template if you would like, this one will be based on a PDCA A3. As you can tell this A3 follows the PDCA method of Problem solving, but if you look a little deeper you can see that it reveals a story about the project or problem. Much like New Year’s resolutions at one time for me, I realized that to keep them we must change the way we think. The A3 thought process has become so powerful because it works like a standard operating procedure through consistent repetition our minds begin to memorize the Stories told and more importantly the methods used.
Let me give you one last example, Sometimes my children will come to me with a problem, after I hear the problem I sometimes will ask them, “What should we do first?” Since the DMAIC method of Six Sigma is more familiar to them they will sometimes say “Tell you the problem” or in other words define what is happening. As the adult I will often Measure how serious the matter is or if anything can be done but every now and again my two beautiful girls pull out their black belts and measure too. Then as a family we “Analyze” what can be done. Once we have come to a logical decision and everyone agrees with the solutions, we begin the Improve phase. Of course the Sustain is on mom and me to change behaviors but often times there is not much to Sustain. This may sound a bit crazy to you, Kaizen at home? But what is being done is actually creating a method for the mind to solve problems. It can be done anywhere, on a soccer field in an office or on the shop floor. The more and more we repeat the more and more our mind begins to engrain what we are repeating and thus we advance our A3 thinking. Although there are many reasons for the failure of resolution’s it may help us to keep them if we made the thought or activity we resolve to change part of our normal thought process. Then just like an A3 Story we may have a better chance at losing that 20 lbs. we have been talking about. Have you ever thought about how your Values and Company Culture might be the most valuable assets you have in a business? Everyday we look at our bottom line in terms of production, but few have considered the point that real rewards may come from focusing on the Core values and current company culture of a business.
A company often times will develop Values to go with their Vision and Mission statements, but the benefits of these values are far more than just words on a wall. Values help guide the decisions that we make in our work environment they guide Operational activities and help decide who we will and who we will not partner with. As the new year approaches we pose a question for each of you; Have you taken stock of your business culture yet? Here are five questions that may help bring things into alignment for the new year; 1. Does your values align with the vision of the company and do they drive the proper behaviors? 2. Do you have a statement that reminds employees what your core values are? 3. What is your plan for building those values into your organization? Do you have one? 4. How are employees motivated and trained to act on those core values? 5. How are you tracking your results? Questions like these take time to answer and could very well be the key to a shift in 2016. Happy Holidays everyone and a very Successful new year from all of us at Lean Strategies International LLC. A few days after Thanksgiving has past we all begin the scuffle for the best holiday deals or preparing for the next big event. What a joyous time of year November and December brings; to gather together in family and friendship serving one another and reflecting over great memories, who can't help but enjoy. But alas it also brings the realization that 2015 is coming to a close and soon 2016 will ring in the new year with new goals and new strategies for us to race to finish line after.
Year after Year leadership will meet in secret meetings day after day and talk about how we do this, how we do that, and what are we going to do this time? it just happens some things get placed on the back burner and others require intense laboring action to strategically position us for implementation. This month's article will offer 7 very effective tactics to execute strategic planning like no year before. It is our hope that as we close out the year we can assist you in any way possible so that the strategy for next year will be much easier to execute. Step 1- Lock in your Vision The first step is to establish where you are now compared to where your organizational vision says that you should be. It's common knowledge that a company's vision provides strong guidance of where we are steering the ship, with that said if you don't have a vision get one and lock it in, share it and share it some more. Step 2- look for and develop Strategic Objectives Strategic Objectives are significant improvements that force organizations to grow. Usually these sort of objectives take between 3 and 5 years to achieve. There are many different ways to develop strategic objectives, a few tools that we can recommend from personal use are the Ansoff Matrix, visioning, metrics/charts, strategic SWOT analysis and the interrelationship digraph or our favorite ©TEMP (The enterprise measurement plan). Whatever tools you use try to get at least 2-3 solid Strategic Objectives that you can all agree to take action on. Step 3- Develop Tactics for the year The tactics for the year should align with the 2-3 Strategic objectives, yes you guessed it this is the how of accomplishing those strategies. One last tip, Place them in a Gantt chart and schedule them so that they meet up with the Strategies schedule. Step 4- Take Action (Deployment) This is where the rubber begins to meet the road, but don't take off to fast. First we need to figure out How we take those 2-3 Strategic objectives and turn them into Tactical objectives that departments can work to at every level. One way you can do this is by deciding together at the top level what the priorities are, then also through consensus establish appropriate metrics for the goals and behaviors you want to drive. After you have done this look over that gantt chart and add in what you may have missed or mold what was already on there. What do we mean mold? This means tie your targets directly into leadership's priorities and go from executive to management to supervisor, go to everyone and share it with them. This will help align the organization for deployment. Be sure that each level of the company goes into more and more detail appropriate to the position so they are very clear, it will also help to give them a copy of the entire plan. This alignment period will help to ensure that people are focused and it will assist in integrating other departments to meet targets. Make sure everything in the plan for the organization aligns back up to the Vision. Step 5- Implementation Now that the rubber is on the road and we are all pointed in the right direction we can take off. Alignment is complete everyone has a copy of the plan and was a part of it's development and the priorities meet leaderships goals, now it's time to execute. At this point you may have various Kaizen events going on it could possibly be innovation projects or our personal favorite ©TREAT 1,2,3 process improvements. As you may already know in this phase specific methodologies are used to execute the various tactics that were developed in order to complete the targets that are set. Step 6- Check Up (monthly) It's important as the days go by to re assess the company's progress and make sure that everyone is still headed in the direction of the vision. This will require you to ask a few questions; 1. Is the plan we made achieving our vision? 2. Are we meeting deliverables? 3. What pivot points do we need to make to get back on course? 4. What support can I provide to help the team? These questions help foster a culture of accountability and keep people moving in the right direction. Step 7 Review and Restart That's right the first year will provide a great learning experience compared to the many years prior, so Review. We suggest the review happens every 11 months this will allow a month period to lock in the pivot points and adjustments for the next year. It goes without stating but when you move back to step one the "current state" should be closer and closer to the Vision than the years before If not adjust accordingly. We at Lean Strategies International LLC have enjoyed this past year and wish you the best as we approach 2016, of course there have been many ups and downs for each and everyone of us but we firmly believe that with effective planning each of you can meet your goals. as always if there is any support we can provide feel free to email us at; info@leanstrategiesinternational.com. And do us a favor, enjoy this great holiday season with your family and friends, And remember Education is the one gift that will never stop giving back. Happy holidays! |
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