Tag: continuousimprovement

Leadership, Personal Development

Leadership Development Includes Learning to ‘See’

Glenn Sommerville

While on a hike recently, I saw this rock amazingly balanced on its endpoint. It wasn’t as obvious and easy to see as the pictures indicate either! There we lots of people on the trail, many stopping at this lookout, and looking right past this rock without noticing. Their loss!

It reminded me that our leadership development needs to include learning to ‘See’. I believe this is an essential skill for leaders. Seeing beyond what most people see or at least seeing 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 – Learning to see

An example of teaching your eyes to see that I experienced while on an in-depth TPS training program in Japan several years ago involved learning to see 1/10th of a second kaizens. 1/10th of a second is very difficult to see and equates to the slightest of hand motions, movements, or on equipment, tiny adjustments. We had the task of reducing the cycle time within a production line by 30 seconds but doing so through 1/10th of a second kaizens. Being experienced operations guys and after observing the line for several cycles, it was apparent to us what was needed. With some changes to the layout, moving equipment closer together, adjusting the material flow, and other equipment modifications, the 30 seconds was a done deal. As part of the training, we had to prepare a scaled drawing detailing our kaizen ideas. Our Sensei would review the drawings, and if approved, the improvements would get implemented. We spent several hours drafting our kaizen ideas on day one and provided the completed drawings for review and approval. The Sensei looked at the proposals and very clearly expressed his disapproval! We received a similar response several times over the following couple of days. We were ready to throw in the towel, but then suddenly, like a light switch, we could see these subtle movements of waste and 1/10th of a second kaizens.

Although I don’t necessarily advocate this teaching method, it emphasizes that leadership development needs to include learning to see what is or what is not happening. It is important to see those subtle forms of waste, abnormalities, opportunities, and, I suggest, clues that then beg questions. Good questions!

For 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 handwritten sign that said

Gloves are for hazardous material spills only

This situation was crazy on so many levels! We didn’t just see a poorly made sign and a duct-taped glove box. We ‘saw’ many questions and concerns, such as:

  • How often are 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 of?
  • 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 are they adequately trained to do so?
  • Why are spills happening in the first place?

STOP!!!  TIME OUT!

This example is pretty astounding and 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 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 on seeing one specific thing. Such as arm overreaching, bending, twisting, outdated signs or posters, trip hazards, pinch points, sign effectiveness and meaning, opportunities to cause product damage, unnecessary motion, a specific type of waste stream, sources of floor debris, etc., etc. The point is to dedicate an appropriate amount of time to see a particular focus. Look for that focus and only that focus. Ask yourself as many questions as possible on that specific item when you see it. See beyond the obvious. Look for deeper meaning, symptoms, evidence, and 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!

Contact me:

For additional information on High Performance Leaders Inc., click here.  Or follow on LinkedIn.

You can email me with any questions at glennsommerville@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glennsommervilleL2R/, or on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/gsommervilleL2R.

If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com

Lean and Continuous Improvement, Uncategorized

Proof-of-concept Line Trail Guidelines

Glenn Sommerville

We (HPL) have been working with a few different clients recently where there has been a need for proof-of-concept line trials. To me, line trials are a lot of fun! Well, they can and should be. Think of them as a sandbox that we can build out our creative and innovative ideas and concepts to see if they will work in the real world. However, to be effective and result in meaningful outcomes, line trials need to follow a robust Plan, Do, Check, Act/Adjust (PDCA) process. A common mistake when undertaking line trials is an inadequate plan! A good rule of thumb is to spend approximately 70% of your PDCA time and effort (not including the actual trial build duration) in planning for the trial.

Given the importance of proof-of-concept line trials, HPL has created two documents to help plan and execute effective line trials, as follows:

Both documents are available for free download from our HPL website’s tools page using this link.

While recently reading “Leadership Moments from NASA, Achieving the impossible“, by Dr. Dave Williams, one of the statements in the end of a chapters ‘Leadership Insights’ stated:

Simulation creates an environment where failure is a safe opportunity for learning.

Although the quote was referring to space flight training and simulation, the same is very applicable to proof-of-concept line trials. Really, the only failure of a line trial is not to follow a proper PDCA process because something may negatively or falsely impact the trial. Even when the trial doesn’t produce the desired result, it should not be deemed a failure when line trials are made to be a safe time and place for those involved to experiment and learn. So even if a line trial results in a less than expected or disappointing outcome, as long as we’ve learned from it, it’s a great successful failure!

I hope you’ll find these two new tools helpful. Let us know what you think or if we’ve missed anything.

Tx’s Glenn!

Gemba, Lean and Continuous Improvement, Personal Development, Problem Solving

The conflicts of line trials

Glenn Sommerville

One of the things I’ve always loved is the simple kaizens (continuous improvement). I was reminded of this recently working with RAB Design Lighting when the team there was conducting some line trials. Having coached the team on the importance of detailed trial planning and real-as-possible process set-up, but also the need to be balanced with simplicity, low cost, and high flexibility, I was thrilled to see their creativity and ingenuity that met these two potentially conflicting criteria. See examples in the pictures below.


The two criteria mentioned above is important because you want a trial to simulate the real line conditions as much as possible, however, things will definitely change as you learn more. So you don’t want to invest time and money building/buying a lot of things that may not actually be used in the permanent line or that may require several iterations of changes to get just right.

When conducting line trails careful planning is necessary. Planning such as: Clearly defining the purpose of the trial is critical. Determining what are you trying to prove, disprove or discover. Setting up the line to simulate as close as possible what the actual real line will look and feel like. Protecting the trial from “noise” or other things that can negatively impact or distract from the purpose of the trial. Although some of these things maybe real, you should try and isolate them from initial trials if they are not directly related to the purpose. There is a time and place to allow real time disruptions and abnormalities but not in early trials. Identifying and defining the number of trial observers, their roles, responsibilities and tracking needs. Deciding on what metrics to track and measure throughout the trial and who is going to do that. Scheduling, taking into account breaks, lunches and shift end, is also important.

Trials are to experiment and learn. They can also be a great deal of fun along the way! 

Congratulations to Denis Arsenault, P.Eng. and the RAB Design Lighting team for the successful trial this week! I’m looking forward to the next one!

Contact me:

For additional information on High Performance Leaders Inc., click here.  Or follow on LinkedIn.

You can email me with any questions at glennsommerville@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glennsommervilleL2R/, or on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/gsommervilleL2R.

If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com

Leadership, Problem Solving, Visual Controls

Leading Problem Solving Series – 1 Second Understanding in Non-manufacturing

Glenn Sommerville

We had a great turn-out and received very positive feedback at our last Lunch & Lead Series on the topic of “Leading Problem Solving”, however, we also received some comments that it was difficult for those in non-manufacturing spaces to relate to how they can lead problem solving in their area.  Over the next few posts, we’ll cover off the topics from the Lunch and Lead Series but with a non-manufacturing focus.

If you missed the Lunch & Lead Series, it is available free at our on-line content site here as a “course” but don’t let the terminology fool you, it is just the video recording of the event, divided up into smaller duration “lectures” that correspond to each of the agenda items. Go check it out…

The first topic was the establishment of standards that within a very short period of time, as in a few seconds, anyone can determine if something is normal or abnormal.  As in manufacturing,  visualization of some standards in non-manufacturing areas are relatively easy.  These are the things that when out of standard negatively impact the team’s ability to do their work. 

Examples could include a common reference library of regulations, policies, or other documented information. Being able to quickly find what you’re looking for or identifying any that may have been misplaced can prove very helpful, save time, and reduce frustrations. In the virtual world, similar standards are useful for organizing digital storage by establishing standard file structures and nomenclature.

Other examples could be as simple of establishing standards around team supplies, tooling, or equipment.

In non-manufacturing areas the challenge often is that the “work” and “work flow” is not overly visible. For example, an engineering project is comprised of various tasks that engineers need to complete. The challenge here is that often with development type work, the engineers are dealing with a lot of unknowns or because it maybe the first time creating “something” there are no standards for it. In these cases, you want to establish standards around the work flow, provide a framework of generally accepted principles or benchmarks, and provide clear escalation mechanisms when things are not going as expected or planned. An effective way to visualize these is through a visual control board.

In the first example we will use a technical team that is responsible for completing some type of project type work. This could be product design, tooling or test equipment design, or construction/fabrication.

Figure 1

The layout of the board would be done in such a manner as to indicate the tasks that need to be completed by whom within a “standard” period of time. These standards could be industry standards, standard times as determined by the organization, benchmarks, or in the case of creative/innovative never been done before work, best guess estimations or established service level agreements (SLAs). It can also be with reference to the project milestones. Often, there is a strong reluctance to do this because of the “unknowness” of how long it should take to complete these tasks, however, referencing to the milestones allows for faster visibility of potential project delays or impacts. This should not be used to place blame or put undue pressure on those involved, but rather, provide the opportunity for escalation that can lead to additional resources, rescheduling of downstream tasks, and/or important communication of the status of the project to critical stakeholders.

Typically this would be visualized by day for a 1 to 2 week window for each person assigned to the project within a specific team. The board can be either physical or virtual board as long as the task assignments by day by week can be displayed. Each day the board is reviewed by those working on the tasks and their next level up leader. At the daily review, abnormalities to the standards would be very visible indicating a task is behind or that there has been some kind of difficulty or risk associated with it identified.

A pareto of issues can be created and built each day to help the team focus on the biggest issues that impact their work. Often in these types of situations, unplanned work plays a key role and has a significant impact on the teams ability to complete their project(s). Using a different colour sticky in this case to indicate unplanned work is very visual and can easily be tracked in the pareto as an issue. The leader can then assist the team in quickly resolving the issue through problem solving. The problem solving should not occur at the meeting, but rather a commitment made between the appropriate stakeholders as to what the next steps are and by when.

In the second example we’ll review a procurement situation. Typically a procurement team’s work flow is within a computer system. However, critical information is also usually available within those same systems. Again using a visual board and placing critical reports on them with visualization of abnormalities to standards is a good approach. For example, perhaps there are SLAs as to how long it should take for a purchase order (PO) to be placed. An aging report or having each buyer indicate which of their purchase requisitions (PR) are out of that standard helps to visualize purchasing abnormalities. Unfortunately, too often, we can experience payment problems to our vendors and then get ourselves into trouble when they refuse to continue to ship. Then talk about abnormal work to clear that up! Perhaps a metric that shows outstanding payment aging would be beneficial to avoid such situations. Again the abnormalities can be tracked in a form of a pareto for deeper analysis and problem solving. The point is to identify the aspects of the teams workflow that can or is having the biggest impact on their ability to effectively do their job or on the organization.

A third example is for a sales and marketing team.  They can visualize their work flow on a visual board and meet daily to review.  They could visualize main proposal work content and status.  Discuss new risks that arise that may pose a threat to winning the project, as well as visualizing the probability of a win and the financial status of the sales plan vs actual.  They can also capture lessons learned to improve their quoting and proposal process to drive continuous improvement, as well as to quickly identify abnormalities or issues that could impact a proposal so that problem solving is quickly initiated and/or escalated.

Although non-manufacturing work tasks are less naturally physically visible, the same principles apply.

You need to establish the standards the team is to follow, make them visible in some manner usually through a visual board, and then there needs to be some form of controls in place to manage and problem solve through the abnormalities.

Controls could include variance to SLAs, escalation mechanisms, layered process audits to confirm standards and identify areas needing focus, for example.

In the next post, we’ll discuss how TIM WOODS can apply to non-manufacturing areas.

Contact me:

For additional information on High Performance Leaders Inc., click here.  Or follow on LinkedIn.

You can email me with any questions at glennsommerville@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glennsommervilleL2R/, or on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/gsommervilleL2R.

If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com

Lean and Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement Is Not About The Tools, It’s A Mindset!

Glenn Sommerville

There are plenty of tools out there to help us with continuous improvement projects or for problem solving, but it’s not about the tools!  It’s about the mindset.  The mindset to simplify, make things better, reduce errors or defects, and reduce waste.

IMG_20190407_0959273It’s that time of year, at least where I live, that we anticipate warmer weather soon.  We hope!  That means the sap will start running for the annual maple syrup season.  A friend, that owns a farming business, asked me to help him tap some trees and hook up the sap lines in preparation for the sap to start running.  Sure beats the old days when I helped empty the buckets!  Man that was hard work!

Snyder Heritage Farms has various products, one of which is maple syrup.  Although not considered a large farm, they tap 2,500 trees with 3,800 taps pulling approximately 250,000 litres of sap through 24,000 feet of small lines. The small lines converge with 10,000 feet of larger main lines leading to the evaporator which boils the sap down to produce about 5,500 litres of pure Canadian maple syrup in an average season.

IMG_20190407_0959534

Even though I had helped in previous years, I was given a brief training course by the owner, Kevin Snyder, on the standard work to install the taps and connect the sap lines.  Kevin gave me some key quality points to ensure the hole was drilled properly, the tap installed correctly, and the line secured tightly.   What impressed me most though was his continuous improvement mindset.  He had determined the most efficient paths to walk through the bush to minimize walking, placement of the tractor in proximity to where we would need to reload with taps while minimizing the walking distance to/from the tractor to do so.  He established working zones for each helper to maximize coverage while eliminating any duplication or cross over.  He had nail pouches to hold the taps, harnesses for the drills so they were easy to carry and to set aside when not drilling, while eliminating the risk of setting them down in the snow and then leaving them behind.  All these things make sense, but what struck me most was his mindset.  He was very focused on making the process as efficient as he could to both reduce the burden on the tappers and make them more efficient, while also improving the process to reduce defective tap holes, taps, and hose line connections that could impact vacuum pressure and reduce sap yield.  At one point I complimented him on all the improvements he had made and for his mindset.  Kevin’s response as he trekked off into the snow covered bush to put in more taps was,

“When you’re the little guy, you have to be efficient!“

It is true smaller companies need to be efficient, but so do larger companies!  Unfortunately, sometimes larger companies lose focus and forget the importance of the team’s mindset by hammering out new tools while insisting the team find a “problem” to apply them.  Tools are important, but it’s the black-claw-hammer-on-brown-wooden-plank-209235mindset that is most important because mindset is what creates the drive for continuous improvement.  After all, not everything needs a tool to improve.  Sometimes, just pure observation, common sense, and know how is all that is needed.  Mindset coupled with tools can be powerful, but when you have a bunch of tools without mindset, everything looks like a nail waiting to be hammered!

Maple Weekend – 4th & 5th April 2020

IMG_20190407_1037409If you are near the Kitchener-Waterloo area, Snyder Heritage Farms hosts “Maple Weekend” on 4th & 5th April from 10:00am – 4:00pm where you can bring your family out to their farm for an instructional tour of the sugar shack and how maple syrup is made, take a tractor ride to visit the maple bush, and enjoy freshly made pancakes and sausages.  It’s a fun couple of hours for the family on a nice spring day, and of course, there’s lots of fresh maple syrup!

Snyder Heritage FarmIMG_20190407_1006115

1213 Maple Bend Rd.
Bloomingdale, Ontario

 

 

 

Contact me:

For additional information on High Performance Leaders Inc., click here.  Or follow on LinkedIn or on Twitter at @hp_leaders.

You can email me with any questions at glennsommerville@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glennsommervilleL2R/, or on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/gsommervilleL2R.

If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com