Tag: Lean and Continuous Improvement

Lean and Continuous Improvement

Non-Manufacturing Example of High Performance Culture & Continuous Improvement!

Glenn Sommerville

Unfortunately, many people still think that continuous improvement, high performance cultures, and/or people-centric concepts are for manufacturing.  Those that do, are definitely missing out!

Point and case:  Scott Smith and I recently had the opportunity to visit and participate in a gemba (go & see) with Karla and Michelle from the Paris Dental Centre.  This is not your run of the mill dental office, and they certainly demonstrate that these concepts go well beyond the typical manufacturing environment!

Our gemba started at the main entrance at the front reception desk where the receptionists quickly greeted us with a smile and asked how they could help.  What was different than what I’m used to in a professional office was that their duties had been stream lined with the customer in mind.  How?  There were no phones!  They managed the direct face-to-face contact and relationship with their customers, rather than answering a continuously ringing phone line of incoming calls.  They focused on their customer, value streamed the roles/responsibilities, and created smooth flow.

As our gemba took us throughout the facility, it was obvious that 5S (sort, set in order, shine, standardize, sustain) principles were also in place as this rather large and very busy dental centre was orderly, and had effective visual controls throughout the facility.  Each of the main departments had visual team boards where the teams would conduct daily stand-ups to review their performance results, discuss ideas for improvement, and communicate important messages.  Even the dentists had their own board where they met daily to review performance and drive improvement in their work.  Standardized work was being implemented in the various roles throughout the office as well.

Now, are there opportunities to do more or to improve further, gain more engagement?  Of course!  We all have those opportunities!  What we have to remember is that continuous improvement, high performance or a people-centric organization is never ending.  Why?  Things are always changing!  Everyone on this journey hits the wall at some point and feels they are not progressing.  What’s important to reflect on is where you’ve come from, keep doing what’s working, tweak what’s not, and then keep plugging away at the next steps towards where you want to be.

Great job Paris Dental Centre, keep up the good work!

Cover picture:  From Paris Dental Centre – Michelle Vaandering, Karla Stonham, Heidi Burton Paris Dental Centre;   from HPS – Scott Smith

Similar topics: 

Gemba by any other name is… go & see! Gemba is NOT just for manufacturing processes!

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

Contact me:

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

 

5S, Lean and Continuous Improvement, Uncategorized

3 Critical Necessities For World Class 5S

Glenn Sommerville

Do you struggle maintaining good 5S conditions?  Ever wonder how some companies are able to sustain world class 5S?  It comes down to whether you have a complete 5S system or not.  Typically, one or all three of these key components are missing, broken, or are not consistent enough to sustain good 5S conditions.

Most people think of 5S as “Everything has a place, and everything in it’s place”.  Some think 5S is just about keeping things clean and tidy.  Sure, it’s both of these, but more importantly it’s about having a complete system of being able to quickly and easily identify abnormalities and either take action, or ensure action is taken to correct the situation.  When you have more than one person within the same space, things are going to get out of place.  Stuff happens in any working environment.  A robust 5S system will quickly highlight these deficiencies and allow appropriate actions to be taken to address the root cause.

When 5S is a struggle to maintain, typically one or all three of these components of a robust 5S system are either missing, broken, or at the very least lack the consistency necessary to sustain.

1.  Standards – to define normal vs abnormal conditions

Home position tape or markings are pretty common in any environment that has a 5S program.  However, the standards must go well beyond just identifying the home positions of equipment, tools, etc.  The standards that lead to world class 5S include minimum and maximum levels, how long things should be located in certain designated locations, FIFO/LIFO controls, ability to quickly identify normal vs abnormal conditions, identification of known abnormalities, documented operating procedures, maintenance routines, safety requirements.  Standards should be practical, easy to maintain, and be visual and documented.  Reliance on ‘institutional knowledge’ is a very good indicator that your standards need attention.

2.  Escalation Process – what to do when there is an abnormality

Really escalation process is an extension of standards, but we’ve shown it as a stand alone component due to its importance and that it is very commonly overlooked.  World class 5S systems have very well defined escalation processes for what to do when there is an abnormality.  Abnormalities are going to occur.  Of course through continuous improvement these abnormalities should be tackled and improved, but in any on-going and growing environment, if you are going to continue to exist, things are going to change.  With change, comes some level of abnormality.  You need to plan for the abnormalities by having clear standards as to what to do when faced with one.  These processes may include installing signage that identifies the abnormality is known, who is taking action, when it will be resolved.  They may include notifying a specific person or high level leader of the situation.  It some cases, the process may call for the operation to stop until the abnormality is resolved.

3.  Visual Controls – make abnormalities stand out and be seen

Everyone is dependent on our computer systems these days out of necessity.  I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t use them, but what I am suggesting is that there is still a need for good visual controls that highlight and make what is in the computer systems visible to employees and leaders.  The problem with most computer systems is that they only highlight problems if you look in the system.  Also, for those who may not have access to the system, they don’t see the concerns or may not fully understand the magnitude of the situation or know if it is getting better or worse.  This can drive a disconnect as to priorities, urgency, and actions required.  Use of visual controls are extremely important to maintain world class 5S so that any abnormalities are made very obvious to everyone.

Here’s an example that highlights the need for all 3 of these components.  Within a manufacturing cell, there is a need for a partially complete unit to move to another cell for testing.  Not all units require this interim test though.  The process is that when required the manufacturing cell moves the unit to the test cell for testing or to await testing.  Sometimes, the test cell gets backed up, so the manufacturing cell leaves the untested units within their manufacturing cell to wait for test capacity.  There isn’t space allocated for the storage of these units within the manufacturing cell so the units are placed anywhere they can be placed.  You can see how the 5S in these two areas can quickly become out of control.  Why?

Not withstanding the inherent process flow issues, the 5S problem starts with the lack of standards.  Standards on how the test cell is scheduled, laid out, and configured to manage the expected work load.  Standards around min/max units waiting for test with designated locations and visual controls are missing.  There’s no escalation process for what the manufacturing cell should do when the test cell is full.  Who to contact, where to place the untested units, and nothing stopping the cell from producing units only to sit and wait for test, or for the test cell to increase capacity.  There is a lack of visual controls that clearly indicate there is a problem.  The situation would be visual in the production control system, but on the floor, the condition is not visual.  This could result in the test cell not having full awareness of the backlog, loss of FIFO by scattering the units anywhere would occur, the magnitude of the situation would be diffused by the units being squirreled away throughout the manufacturing and test cells, resulting in a missed opportunity for all involved to understand the magnitude and align on the needed priority to address.

Contact me:

 

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

Why 95% Of CI Initiatives Don’t Stick Long-term!

Glenn Sommerville

Wow!  Is it remotely possible that only 5% of companies are successful at creating a continuous improvement organization?  But, why?

According to a post by High Performance Solutions Inc., less than 5% of continuous improvement initiatives achieve long-term results and sustained improvement.  Through industry member problem solving they determined it was human factors and lack of management systems that lead to failures.  Actually, is this so surprising?  The question we need to ask ourselves though is, why?   After all, leaders want to improve the performance and efficiency of their organizations. 

From what I’ve seen and experienced, the main reasons seem to be one of, or in combination of the following:

  • Weak or missing vision
  • CI not integrated into the mission of the organization
  • Not enough focus or experience to deliberately create a CI culture
  • Impatience to invest long term, which is necessary to change and/or create culture
  • Disconnect between words/desires and leader actions
  • Management systems do not align or are disconnected from the desired CI culture
  • Leaders don’t walk the talk
  • Lack of or inconsistent leader standardized work at all levels
  • Misaligned outcomes or benefits between the organization and the employees
  • Poor or non-existent  “go & see” or gemba reviews by senior leaders to confirm the actual condition and gain engagement

Unfortunately, the list goes on….

Let’s learn collaboratively!  What has been your experience as to why organizations fail at creating long-term results and sustained improvement?  Leave a comment!  Let’s do this!

Contact me:

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

3 Crucial Steps For Creating Strong CI Culture!

Glenn Sommerville

Creating a strong CI team culture does not just happen on its own, unfortunately!  There are 3 crucial steps to create any culture and if any are weak, so will be the resulting culture.  One or all of these steps are often overlooked, leading to a weak or undesired culture.

I recently resumed “Open Office Hours” whereby I have time slots in my calendar reserved for impromptu drop-ins or phone calls from anyone within my organization.  During one of these conversations we discussed how to change a culture within an organization which prompted me to dig up a mental model I used years ago when creating the “Lexus Mindset” to launch the first Lexus plant outside of Japan.  Since then, I’ve used this same model to create Continuous Improvement cultures in other organizations.

Culture Mental Model

 

Values  – The first step is to determine and align the organization with the values that are most important, and desired or necessary to have in order to meet the mission of the team or organization.  These values need to be well defined and communicated to everyone within the team or organization.

Behaviours – Next is to identify the behaviours that each member of the team or organization should exhibit that demonstrates the values previously determined.  These behaviours maybe different at various levels and positions within the team or organization based on the role or responsibilities.

Consistency – Everyone on the team must consistently demonstrate the desired behaviours.  Organizations most successful with creating their desired and sustained cultures are those where the members actively correct and identify unwanted behaviours and show recognition and appreciation for the desired behaviours.

Only when the desired behaviours are consistently demonstrated, are the values re-enforced, which then creates the culture sought after.  When the demonstrated behaviours contradict or are inconsistent with the values of the organization, the resulting culture will not be what was intended.

When we used this mental model to create the Lexus Mindset, we invested a great deal of time and discussion to determine the values we felt were necessary to meet our mission.  Once these values were determined, we worked together as a team to establish the behaviours that all members of the team would need to have that would clearly demonstrate and reinforce our values.  We then developed methods that we could both correct undesirable behaviours or recognize the sought after behaviours.  We made it fun and engaging at all levels.  I remember my team pointing out to me a few times, with a big smile on their faces, “Does this behaviour support the Lexus Mindset?”.  It was actually powerful and was very effective in changing our behaviours towards the ultimate culture we wanted to have.  Not only did it correct poor behaviours, but it also resulted in open discussions that challenged our old way of reacting or dealing with situations which facilitated a faster shift in our thinking and ultimately our behaviours.  We won the prestigious JD Power Gold Plant Award that year for the highest initial vehicle quality within North and South America, which I don’t think would have happened had we not created the culture that we did!

Contact me:

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

4 Phases To Watch For With Continuous Improvement!

Glenn Sommerville

Typically when you first start improving a process or conduct a kaizen, there are four improvement cycles or phases that one goes through.  It’s helpful to know what they are so you can quickly address the issues that cause them, or even better, avoid them in the first place!

4 Phases of CI

Phase #1

The first step before any kaizen or continuous improvement (CI) is to ensure that standard work is being followed and that the process is within standards.  Often it is not, so the first thing that needs to be done is to either put them back in place, or if they didn’t exist, create and put them in.  The lack of standard work and standards is generally the cause of the high variation that is experienced in the process.  In this stage, if adherence to standard work has not been a priority, it is common to find that operators over time have created their own standard work with each one maybe doing it slightly or totally differently.  This is what often causes the high variation.  If you do not address this variation before CI, you will likely create higher levels of variation and your process will not provide a predictable result.  It can easily become complicated and frustrating trying to figure out why sometimes you achieve the desired results after the CI, but not always.  Once the standard work and standards are in place, you should see the variation in the results dramatically decrease and the process will become stable.  Even if the process is not delivering to the desired target, it is critical to make the process stable and therefore predictable.  Now you are ready to kaizen or CI the process.

Phase #2

Phase #2 comes after a kaizen when the process is now consistently achieving the desired target.  The process and the results are stable and predictable.  Everything is going well and the team starts to think about what’s next.  This is the happy phase when the team is feeling good about the results and their accomplishments.  Document the changes clearly, revise the standard work, make any new standards permanent (until the next kaizen), and provide the operators and the process time to operate and stabilize.  If you are aware of Phase #3, then phase #2 is a good time to implement mitigation so that you can avoid phase #3!

Phase #3

If you are experienced at CI, phase #3 can be prevented, but far too often there is a phase #3.  Phase #3 is a result of a weak or missing sustainment step or mechanism.  After the CI the operators and the leaders get comfortable.  They either stop or change the frequency of a key success attribute that was put in place during the original CI.  An example is training.  During the CI all the operators were trained on the new standard work and everyone does the process steps in the same order and same way.  However, if the training materials weren’t revised, or the trainers were not informed, the result can be below target conditions with higher rates of variation.  Or perhaps, the leaders didn’t add a key check or confirmation to their standard work and after a period of time missed a check here or there and perhaps eventually even stopped doing it.  Again, this can lead to high variation and below target results.  However, since all the CI changes and actions are fresh, typically you can recover from this situation very quickly and return to target and stability.  Lessons are learned and mechanisms put in place to maintain stable target results.  Until phase #4, that is!

Phase #4

After a period of stability, it is not uncommon for a sudden and unexpected short term unfavourable to target result.  This is the result of an abnormality in the process.  The abnormality may be one of the 4M’s – Man, Machine, Material, Method.  With the focus and controls put in place by this point in the CI, the abnormality is usually quickly identified and corrected almost immediately.  These abnormalities can also point you in the direction of your next kaizen or CI activity.

Cover Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

Contact me:

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