Lean Really is Simple!
In June, 2021 I had the privilege of facilitating a webinar called “Lean is Simple” with Paul Akers. Paul Akers is a manufacturer who developed the concept of ‘2 Second Lean’ and now speaks all over the world promoting Lean and how simple it can be to achieve great success with it, and have fun along the way. He also has a number of books on 2 Second Lean that he gives away for free on his website in multiple languages at www.paulakers.net
2-Second Lean’s name comes from the fact that Akers asked all his employees to give him one 2-second Lean improvement every day. Often the savings is higher than that and the accumulated benefit is a real competitive advantage. Especially in such a tight labor market, I’m amazed at how many companies are not choosing to work on improving processes to reduce required manpower and errors. It’s kind of like this cartoon:
There is a CI adage that says, “The more you look, the more you see.” This has several facets and one of them is that as you start to improve processes, you reduce the inherent “noise” in the process, or issues, which contribute to the belief of the unpredictability of a process.
Of course, the first step to improvement is to create Standard Work that you can then steadily improve. Having everyone perform tasks the same way is a good way to reduce some noise, but not all. This allows smaller issues to show themselves, much like lowering the water level allows the rocks at the bottom of a stream to poke through the surface of the water. These smaller issues can then be worked on, further reducing noise and exposing other issues, and the virtuous cycle repeats.
As you examine a process on a daily basis and get comfortable with the people and the cadence of the area, you can start to spot more subtle issues. The father of the Toyota Production System, Taiichi Ohno, used a technique we now call ‘Ohno Circles’ with new employees. Ohno would take a piece of chalk and draw a circle out on the shop floor. He would then tell the new employee to stand there. “How long should I stand here?”, the trainee would ask. Ohno would reply, “Until you see something.”
He would then leave the trainee to stand there and to observe the ebb and flow of the process, the rhythm of people and parts movement in the area. The story goes that he would leave the new employee in the circle for hours or days (checking up periodically) until they “saw” something. After watching a number of cycles, the trainee would perhaps spot an issue that hadn’t occurred before. Maybe the forklift has to stop retrieving a pallet from a rack and wait for pedestrians to pass before safely proceeding.
The key here is to understand that many times problems don’t occur with each transaction or cycle. Many issues are infrequent: The printer doesn’t smear every page, just “every now and again”, “I tried to call and the line was busy”, “I meant to log in but somebody was on the computer first”. These are things that don’t necessarily stop the process, but they do create delay or errors, at a minimum, as people try to sort out the situation.
I think of these things as "friction in the process" because it slows down progress and makes every accomplishment harder that it has to be. Some people say, “Well, that’s just the way it is.” Meaning we can’t do anything to fix it. Lean people understand better than that.
When I lived and worked in Asia, one of my responsibilities was to manage a team of manufacturing engineers and technicians at a nearby plant in Bangkok, Thailand. Often I would tell the team, “I want you to be away from your desk half of the day. And, I don’t care if you wander the shop talking about your weekend plans or your garden, I want people to see you every day and know that they can talk to you about issues that arise or problems that they have.”
Once the engineering team overcame their natural tendency to work at their desks and send lots of emails, production employees started telling and showing them about problems in operations that they could work on. The result was predictable – productivity and morale increased dramatically for very little money.
Once we understand the issues that occur, and their relative impact, we are more than halfway to remediating or eliminating them. Very often the solution should be “low cost or no cost.” A good team working together can find innovative, low cost countermeasures for many issues that, at first glance, would seem to require a technological solution. For example, an owner thinking that implementing barcodes will make up for poor inventory management in the operation.
See? Lean really can be simple!
Enjoy the Summer weather. All the best.
