Category: Gemba

Gemba, Leadership, Lean and Continuous Improvement, The Leader

3 Steps to Having Time for Gemba

Glenn Sommerville

A very common question I’ve been asked over the years is,

I don’t get out to the floor anymore, what can I do?

Most people understand the importance of gemba and going to the floor to see and understand what is happening.  However, many leaders as they continue to move up the corporate ladder or take on more responsibilities, struggle finding the time to do gemba.  They give priority to everything else and essentially hope they have time to go to the floor.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.  If left to chance, it won’t happen.

Well, the solution isn’t glamorous or earth shattering at all, but with a little discipline and planning, there is hope.

 

1. Schedule time for gemba.  It starts by literally placing time in your calendar by scheduling an event or meeting weeks in advance.  In fact, make it a never ending recurring meeting.  Schedule them several times a week so that should you have a priority conflict, you still have time in your calendar that week to do gemba.  As an example, if you want to have time for a 1 hour gemba twice a week, I recommend scheduling a 1 hour “Gemba Walk” event three to four times a week for the entire year or longer.  When slotting these Gemba Walks, select times that increase the odds of them actually occurring.  Don’t swim upstream fighting the workplace currents.  In other words, step back and think of your typical week.  There are generally days and times that will be easier to do gemba than others.  Select those time slots and not the days/times when you know there is likely to be a high risk of other conflicts, priorities, or conflicting business conditions.

2. Make gemba part of your weekly personal planning.  As you do your personal planning for the coming week, ensure that you review your calendar paying particular attention as to when you have your gemba’s scheduled.  Check for conflicts and adjust as necessary.  This provides you the opportunity to decline meetings if gemba is a priority over them, or to reschedule your gemba to ensure it happens rather than accepting meetings regardless then wondering why you have no time to do gemba.  If you proactively scheduled more gemba time slots than you need you can make a decision to cancel some or leave them just in case a last minute issue arises during the week.

3. Add “Gemba Walk” to your Leader Standard Work.  Add the number and frequency of Gemba Walks to your Leader Standard Work (LSW) as this can be an added reminder for you to complete it, but more so to provide you with a record of how you are doing.  If you are completing this aspect of your LSW, great no action required.  However, if you look back at your LSW and see that you are frequently missing it, or perhaps always missing it on a specific day/time, then you can think about why and what you need to do differently going forward to increase your ability to attend your gemba.

The above 3 steps have been my approach which has worked well for me.  I find step 3 is important over the longer term because the business and priorities do change over time.  It’s too easy to get caught up in the day to day urgent things that have to get done and before you know it, weeks have gone by and you aren’t getting to the floor as much as you should.  Weekly review of your LSW and looking back over the longer term will highlight to you that you need to take some action to course correct.

If you are already successful at doing regular Gemba, please share your approach in the comments for others to learn from.

 

Gemba, Leadership, Lean and Continuous Improvement, The Leader

Results are in: A Leader’s Best Question

Glenn Sommerville

Did you take on the Leadership question challenge last week?

If not, you can find out about it HERE!  It’s not too late to learn about it and try it!

If you did take on the challenge, this is where inter-activeness comes in.  If you found the question useful and/or will add this to your list of leadership questions going forward, click on “Like”.

For those of you that are willing to invest a little more time, leave a comment and let us know how it worked for you or what surprised you the most about it.  Alternatively, what is your favourite Leadership question to ask?  A comment only takes a minute and others will learn from your experience, or if they haven’t tried the question yet, they may give it a try as well!

Although I’ve used this question for a long time, what I enjoyed this week when I took on the challenge, actually was not the response or reaction I got from the people I asked, but rather later on during a gemba when I didn’t ask someone the question, one of the leaders on my team did.  Awesome!  That’s what it’s all about.  Imagine if all our leaders frequently ask this question and then act on the response?

If you like this question, be sure to add it to your Leader Standardized Work, make it a regular question when on a gemba walk, or during your next 1:1.

Gemba, Leadership, Lean and Continuous Improvement, The Leader

A Leader’s Best Question

Glenn Sommerville

Try something different this week.  What if we can collectively make a profound difference in our workplaces and teams this week by asking and taking action on what might just be a leader’s best question:

What frustrates you?

I love asking this question.  Well actually, I love the result of asking it.  It is astounding what you will learn from your operators, support teams, or leaders of leaders.  This is not a lean or CI thing, this is a great leadership question for any leader.  Ask it of anyone on your team whether they be hourly or salary,  work on line or in the office.  The response will provide you with some great discussion for sure, and likely actions to help them be a happier and more effective person within your organization.  Who wouldn’t want that?

Here’s the deal.  If you are willing to give it a try this week click on “Like” so we will have an idea of the impact we’ll have across many companies and industries.  Ask at least 3 different people on your teams.  Leave a comment on the post after you have asked a few people “What frustrates you?” and let us know your thoughts on the value of asking this question.

If you want to challenge others to do the same, please share this post.

Let’s do this!

Gemba, Leadership, Lean and Continuous Improvement, The Leader

Teaching your eyes to see

Glenn Sommerville

An important skill for leaders is to learn to “see”.  This means seeing beyond what most people see, or at least a different perspective of the same image.  Teaching your eyes to see is a learned skill, that once mastered, opens your eyes to many new things.

Teaching your eyes to see

An example of teaching your eyes to see that I experienced while on an in depth TPS training in Japan several years ago involved learning to see 1/10th of a second kaizens.  1/10th of second is very difficult to see and is the slightest of hand motions, movements, or on equipment, tiny adjustments.  We were given the task to reduce the cycle time within a production line by 30 seconds, but to do so through 1/10th of a second kaizens.  Well, being experienced operations guys and after observing the line for several cycles, it was obvious what needed to be done.  With some changes to the layout moving equipment closer together, adjusting the material flow, and some other equipment modifications, the 30 seconds was a done deal.  As part of the training, we had to prepare a scaled drawing detailing each of our kaizen ideas.  The drawings would be reviewed by the Sensei and if approved, they would be implemented.  On day one, we spent several hours drafting our kaizen ideas and provided the completed drawings for review and approval.  The Sensei took one look at the proposals and proceeded to tear them in pieces and literally threw them in our faces and shouted “1/10th of a second kaizens”.  This happened several times for most of the day.  We were ready to kill this guy, but then suddenly, like a light switch, we were able to see these subtle movements of waste and we could see 1/10th of a second kaizens.

Although, I don’t advocate this method of teaching, it does emphasize the point that we do need to learn to see; to really see what is, or what is not happening in a process.  It is important to see those subtle forms of waste, abnormalities, opportunities, and I suggest, clues that then beg questions.  Usually good questions!

As an example, one time while on a gemba, we came across a box of rubber gloves attached to a column of the building.  Above the box was a sign that said “Gloves are for hazardous material spills only”.  I stopped dead in my tracks.  This was crazy on so many levels!  I didn’t just see a poorly made sign and duct taped glove box.  I saw many questions and concerns such as:

  • How often are there hazardous material spills happening?
  • Are spills so frequent that we think we need gloves conveniently placed?
  • Are these spills actually “hazardous materials”?!?!?!
  • With the gloves free for the taking, are hazardous material spills happening and not being reported?
  • Does the leadership even know when the spills are happening and investigating?
  • How are the gloves and wastes from the spills being disposed?
  • Assuming for a minute that it was a good practice to have the gloves available, how do they get replenished?
  • Are the people cleaning up these spills properly and adequately trained?
  • Why are spills happening in the first place?
  • Who the heck authorized this?

STOP!!!  TIME OUT!

SONY DSCThis example is pretty astounding, scary and may seem hard to believe, but yet it is true.  It is even more disturbing that many leaders walked right past this sign during the gemba and didn’t even notice it.  Even more frightful, the building leadership had walked past it many, many times and didn’t really “see” it!

 

So how do you learn to see?  Practice.

Go to the floor with a specific purpose to learn to see.  For example, go with a focus to see one specific thing such as arm over reaching, bending, twisting, outdated signs or posters, trip hazards, pinch points, sign effectiveness and meaning, opportunities to cause product damage, unnecessary motion, a specific type waste stream, sources of floor debris, etc, etc.  The point is dedicate an appropriate amount of time to see a very specific focus.  Look for that focus and only that focus.  When you see it, ask yourself as many questions as you can about that particular item.  See beyond the obvious.  Look for deeper meaning, symptoms, evidence, abnormalities.  Repeat often with a new or different focus.  With practice you will soon see these things naturally and without effort.  Once you learn to see, you won’t be able to turn it off.

Nope, it’s not rocket science.  Seems too easy, right?  Try it, you’ll like it!

How did you learn or teach others to see?  Leave a comment and let me know!  If you found this article useful or interesting, please “like” it to give me feedback so I know what is of interest to you.

 

 

 

Gemba, Lean and Continuous Improvement

The best place for a meeting… is on the roof!

Glenn Sommerville

So where is the most effective place to have a meeting?

At the process, point of discussion, or the place that is most effective at visualizing your point of view, problem, or solution.

After only a couple of years of operation of a new automotive paint shop, the engineering team brought a capital project to me for approval to replace the cooling tower on the roof.  It had basically rusted out.  Without it we could not operate the paint shop.  The cost of the project was $3.5M and it was not budgeted.  Since it was out of budget, we had to request additional funding from the overall capital “emergency” fund which subsequently needed the President’s approval.  After I had reviewed and approved, I requested the engineer to schedule the review with the President as soon as possible and to schedule it on the roof of the plant.  He looked at me and said “pardon?”.  I repeated a-c-4-1446676-640x480(1)myself.  He said there was no way the President would go up on the roof.  I told him to schedule the meeting and I would look after getting the President to the roof.

Given that the existing unit was only 3 years old, I was concerned that we would be told to patch it up somehow.  There was no way that would have worked.  We would then need to come back again with additional quotes, justifications, reasons why fixing it would not work, or we would have to attempt to repair it.  We didn’t have this kind of time.  Sure, pictures might have worked, but after seeing the pictures and the actual condition myself, there was no comparison.  Within a couple of minutes of the President being on the roof and seeing the actual condition he said “where do I sign”.

So why is it so many meetings to discuss problems and proposals are scheduled in meeting rooms or offices?   Get out on the floor, the process, or the place that is most effective at visualizing your point of view, problem, or solution.

A picture may be worth a 1,000 words, but seeing is believing!

The saying “seeing is believing” is very accurate and you can learn a lot by going and seeing.  It gives you the opportunity to see or tell the real story.  It’s a lot more difficult to exaggerate or downplay something when everyone involved sees the same thing.  Additional eyes may also see different things that otherwise would go unnoticed.

As a leader have you ever had someone on your team advise you of a problem and then tell you everything is under control or “it’s not that bad”?  Later it blows up on you and you wonder what the heck just happened.  Or the opposite, where the “sky is falling” and you push the defcom5 button only to find out it was really nothing at all?  Alternatively, maybe you have tried to get something approved that was absolutely necessary and the need was obvious to you, but your boss sent you away multiple times to answer questions or get more data?  Now, how different would things have been had you gone to the location to see the specific problem or topic of discussion?

Whether it’s a process, piece of equipment, software, administrative function, or procedure, go & see it with your own eyes.  Or if you are the one making the proposal, explaining the problem, or making the case, take the team to the best location that supports your point of view and position on the subject matter.

So get out of the conference room and go to the roof!  Go and See!