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01/31/2012 01:49 PM
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My company's supply chain started a lean initiative three years ago. Each year we have reviewed our strategy for building a lean culture. With that, we have set project and tool usage requirements for our front line supervisors and managers.
Each are required to complete two lean projects, approximately two months in length each, utilizing an A3P and three other lean tools.
The intent was to make sure everyone used the tools so that we could have a coaching opportunity.
Now, we are questioning the need for project and tool requirements and are curious how other companies are structured to help build lean culture and tool use.
Our supply chain operates in 15 facilities across the US, has approximately 500 management and 8,000 non-management associates, and has a dedicated OPEX team (one in each facility and six regional managers).
Any feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Walt Lewis
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02/01/2012 01:18 PM
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Hello Walt. I believe your feedback will be richer here if you clarify a few things first:
1. First, what do the progress metrics look like? (Are you making progress? What has you believing that project and tool requirements are not needed? Because they're not being used? Because they're not being used correctly? ). There are three basic assessments you are probably looking at (product flow, information flow and technical problem-solving flow). Were the project and tool requirements were introduced to assist with the technical problem-solving flow?
2. You ask about how others have helped build a lean culture. Curious to know your history there also. What have you done to date?
If I'm right....you'll see both more questions like this here to clarify the questions that need to be answered .... with rich ideas to follow. Good luck!
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02/01/2012 01:18 PM
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Walt,
One of the problems with forcing lean down anybody's throat is that they won't really learn or internalize anything. That would be bad. And if all you measure their use of tools, all you'll get is people using tools that were forced down their throats. More bad.
Unfortunately, it's tough to measure progress from afar on any lean implementation. If you tell people they need to use lean tools to reduce inventory, they'll find any number of ways to reduce inventory. Some of them might even be lean. Many of them however are not. If you tell people that they have to participate in some number of Kaizen events, they will. But they may not accomplish or learn anything.
The truth is that the best way to measure how well somebody is doing with lean is to go to Gemba and see what's really happening. Are people learning what waste is and how they can eliminate it? Are lead times dropping because batch sizes are being forced down, thus improving flow? Are people measuring process performance in smaller and smaller increments? Are improvements continuous - and driven by Policy Deployment rather than sporadic and random? Are the workers actively engaged in the continuous improvement process?
I could go on and on, but I think you get my point.
Tom
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02/02/2012 12:26 PM
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Thanks for the reply, Jeff.
1. Our initial goal was to get everyone through fundamental training to allow everyone to understnad the basic principles/tools as well as vocabulary. We accomplished this goal in 2010 and have followed it with refresher training on topics requested by each facility. The projects were a requirement coming out of training so everyone had an opportunity to use tools outside of a classroom.
In 2011 we set the requirement for 2 projects to be completed. We felt that without the requirement our folks wouldn't choose to work on projects, slowing our lean journey. Over the year there were some great projects that fully utilized lean principles and improved flow/reduced cost, but most were completed with resistance and only helped "turn on the lightbulb" for some of our supervisors.
We've had enough wins that we believe we can start highlighting real project results as a way to get others on board. But, we want to be careful not to lose any momentum we've gained. We feel we're walking a tightrope between alienating people by requiring projects and having people stop buying in when they just "opt out" thinking lean.
2. Our history is as follows:
- A team of 10 managers was brought together to develop a plan to begin a lean journey in our organization
- Our team laid out a 3 year plan that included training for all associates, management and non-management
- Non-management associates attended a 2 hour "learning map" sessions that reviewed the basics of why we needed to become lean and familiarized them with lean terms (value/non-value add, 5S, visual management, etc).
- All management attended a 3 day class that provided an in depth view of the history of lean, why we needed to become lean, and a case study that provided use of basic lean tools. This class was put together by a 3rd party lean consulting company
- We also began training Green and Black belts during this time. OPEX team members were given priority for Green Belts. Key OPEX and Engineering team members were given Black Belt training by the 3rd party consultants as well.
- During this time we also implemented an idea submission website for all supply chain associates. To date we have recieved over 12,000 ideas. Approximately 1 in 3 are implemented. The ideas started out more as a venting platform for non-process improvement related topics, but have gradually shifted toward process improvement ideas.
- We are also working on facility "certification level" criteria for implementation in 2012. The criteria will focus on many things, including: % of associates trained, % of associates that have participated in kaizen events, 5S levels of acheivement, number of Standard Work Instructions in place, use of visual management, use of pull systems, etc.
Hopefully this helps give a better picture of our journey and will generate some discussion. Looking forward to the discussion.
Walt
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02/02/2012 12:27 PM
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Hey Tom, thanks for the response.
One of our concerns was exactly that, "cramming lean down their throats".
We are seeing good use of lean principles in pockets around the network, but we're looking to put some standard practices in place that will provide opportunity to reach out to the OPEX team for assistance in putting lean to work.
I was just curious what methods others used. Is it just having senior leaders being vocal about the importance of lean? Is continued training a good method? Are kaizen events a good way to get people intersted?
I'm sure it's a combination of all of these types of things, just curious if anyone else has experienced particularly useful practices within their organization. Thanks, again!
Walt
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02/03/2012 10:26 AM
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I recommend that you check out the Lean Implementation plan on this website under the tab "What is Lean?" and the the tab "Action Plan" (http://www.lean.org/WhatsLean/GettingStarted.cfm) or the Shingo Prize Model and Application Guidelines (http://www.shingoprize.org/shi...assessment.html
).
I think you will see that implementation of lean is not about tools. It is about creating a culture. It is a good start to have everyone trained in Lean but that is just the start.
With the foundation your company has created you can now go to the next level, not more of the same.
Good luck.
Mod Note: Edited message to fix links.
Edited: 02/03/2012 at 10:26 AM by Lean Moderator
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03/19/2012 04:46 PM
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As Robert said Lean Implementation is not just about tools, its about the way you use them. I will pitch in one useful tool that you can use for process improvement, and that is ProcessModel, with this tool you can virtually simulate your models and manage your models (supply chain) from last years and just add what has changed.
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04/04/2012 04:21 PM
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Hi Walt
Though projects sound great especially to those in high executive positions, history shows that you can gain far more in the longrun from smaller kaizen improvements.
Toyota today rarely hold events in production operations, but they constantly promote and allow for team improvement activities. Though any single kaizen may not sound impressive the total results are huge. A close friend works for a company that held a few large events early on to get the ball rolling, but today they no longer use them, yet every month they are expected to report dozens of kaizens, in several different areas. The results of all these small individual kaizen are huge by the end of the year.
Trying using measureables like monthly, quarterly, and yearly Value Stream improvements such as takt time reduction, error reduction, waste reduction, injury reduction, energy reduction per unit, enviromental improvements, etc.
Here is an example based on a real situation. An assembly line started by having one finished item leave the line every 66 seconds, after dozens of small improvements throughout the year it now has a product leaving every 60 seconds. Their energy cost is exactly the same, as is their labour costs and support and overhead costs. They can still sell everything they produce, and per unit profit is the same as before. What they gained was the ability to produce 24 more days worth of product and its associated extra profit, while being able to marginally reduce their product price, strengthening their position against competition. They also gained a major reduction in the cost of defects, because these were cut in half by the smiple poka yoke their people designed. The added cost of all these small improvements amount to a few thousand in materials for building the poka yokes, and making minor changes to equipment. It was covered by the first couple of days worth of extra production. A year after they manged to reduce the time between units leaving the line another 2 seconds with barely any cost at all. Since energy and overhead represent almost 40% of the original finished product, being able to spread it over more units is a huge benefit, yet not once was there any project undertaken, they can not tolerate the line being down for any real period of time. Each kaizen was proposed and reported using A3s, and the range of Lean and other tools they used to achieve these results was huge, yet the vast majority of these kaizen only ever used one tool.
I think your executive team needs to reconsider what they want from Lean, if they want it to truly flourish they need to be slightly less rigid, and instead of looking for big flashy project using multiple tools look for a lot of small actions that move you in the right direction by solving small problems. Having large numbers of small kaizens solving small problems, will deliver results and ensure that a Lean culture takes hold in your organization.
Live Lean and Prosper
Robert Drescher
ELSE Inc.
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04/05/2012 12:43 PM
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Hi all,
Nice topic but not sure we can applying success, On my working place to make sure our factory running with Lean, we has decided and comitment to apply Lean from operator until CEO. our Lean jurney are :
#. Find out one succes factory/brand in the word as succesfully Lean implementation (lets say Toyota), Banch mark to Toyota for learn/gemba(if possible)
#. Tell the story (tell the success story of Toyota to all employee, this one way for penetration of Lean)
#. Provide vision/mision the factory (let say"Number one in the word 2015)
#. Starting from visi/mission and compare with our competitor, we can describe for All activities with current VSM and future VSM we call "Srategy plan" (annual, quarterly, & monthly), We have mother A3 (COE, Dir Prod & Dir Supporting), Baby A3 (provide by all dept head aligment with Mother A3).
#. KPI ; Using dept head A3 to measurement lean jurney and measurement success and benefit of lean on each dept. A3 report by Monthly, quarterly & yearly.
#. Close monitoring and coaching all dept head and workers to applying Lean and improve KPIs' by PDCA approach.
#. Optimize all leader up as problem solver by using PDCA ---> will impact to improvement and new ideas to improve their current facility.
I hope our lean jurney can support your spirit to applying Lean.
Cheers,
Ssagalagun-CI leader
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