5 Ways to Accelerate Your Lean Roadmap

Many organizations have begun the journey to make their businesses lean. Some have reported early successes while others have struggled or fallen into the rut entitled "flavor of the month." As is usually the case with this kind of organization change, implementation precedes understanding. What follows are missteps, rework, confusion, organizational angst, and the aforementioned "flavor of the month" criticism.

As you continue your Lean Journey here are 5 ways to accelerate your roadmap:

Start With Lean Training for Everyone

The key to implementing any new idea or concept is training. It must be top down training so that everyone is on the same page. The more understanding of what lean manufacturing is all about, why you are implementing it and the expected benefits from it, the more likely you are to get buy-in.

It is very important that everyone in the company become committed to lean culture. In order to make the culture successful, managers and employees need to be aware of waste within the company and be prepared to attack and eliminate it. Making sure that the employees are empowered to do this, not just pushing the job off on someone else, is imperative in the proper function of lean culture.

Ensuring everyone is on the same page will help to avoid conflict. At the same time, it is important to ensure people have the space in which to think about what improvements they think need making.

Use Daily Management to Engage Employee in the Gemba

Lean organizations make use of Daily Management systems, a structured process to focus employee’s actions to continuously improve their day-to-day work. Daily Management empowers employees to identify potential process concerns, recommend potential solutions, and learn by implementing process changes. Daily Management, if done right, can be a critical tool in any organization’s toolbox to engage frontline staff in problem-solving and to deliver customer value.

Lean Daily Management includes three components: (1) alignment of goals and effort; (2) visual data management, daily huddles, and problem-solving; and (3) leader standard work.

Focus on Problem Solving

One of the most common mistakes that companies make when embarking on a Lean transformation is trying to do too much at once. These “boil-the-ocean” initiatives are long, costly and often end up stalling under the weight of their own ambition.

The PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is a simple and effective framework for lean problem-solving. It guides your employees through four steps: defining the problem and its scope, implementing a solution and testing its results, evaluating the outcome and identifying any gaps, and standardizing the solution and making further adjustments.

Empower Improvement with Kaizen

Kaizen events are a powerful improvement tool because people are empowered to come up with new ideas to help the business. Employees are isolated from their day-to-day responsibilities and allowed to concentrate all their creativity and time on problem-solving and improvement.

The purpose of kaizen is to involve everyone, everywhere, every day in making simple improvements. These small improvements add up overtime and result in an extraordinary and never-ending transformation of processes. Companies which use Kaizens have found they generate energy among those who work in the area being improved, and produce immediate gains in productivity and quality.

Seek Expert Help from Lean Sensei

A Lean coach or sensei provides the necessary guidance, support, and expertise to help organizations navigate their journey successfully. They guide teams in adapting to new ways of working and help them overcome any challenges encountered in the process based on their extensive experience and knowledge of Lean. They help organizations identify inefficiencies in their processes and implement effective solutions.

The challenge with lean is that, despite its attraction to many executives who want to cut costs and increase productivity, a lean process doesn’t happen overnight. There are plenty of obstacles to overcome.

2023 Northeast Lean Conference Re-cap

Last week I attended the Northeast Lean Conference in Worcester, MA. The Northeast Lean Conference was created by GBMP to provide information and inspiration to Lean practitioners - from those just starting out to seasoned Lean leaders from the manufacturing, healthcare, service and other vital industry sectors.

The theme, It’s About Time, has a double meaning:

• First, the correct use of Lean methods – from 5S to SMED to Standardized Work – absolutely reclaims and repurposes wasted time for the betterment of customers, employees, and the company.  Provide employees with these methods and watch the creativity surge.
• Second, there has never been a better time than today when so many organizations regardless of industry share a common motivation:  How to satisfy increased customer demand in the face of scarce resources?  Doesn’t that sound like Lean?  It’s about time for management to make a visible commitment to continuous improvement.

Andrew Koenig, CEO of City Furniture, kicked off the conference with message about Lean implementation with heart. Andrew’s lean journey started in college with a trip to Toyota in Japan. He implemented Lean throughout all departments in a retail company by creating a culture of mutual trust and respect, teamwork, and a deep sense of urgency to continuously improve. As a result, they have seen many major breakthroughs in turnover reduction, operational process improvement, customer experience, safety, associate satisfaction, strategic planning, and finance. We need to focus on people and teamwork – not just problem solving. “You need to have strong mutual respect among all the associates, so they feel no fear in offering ideas and highlighting problems,” Andrew explained. “Every day, we are pulling problems out of our associates, and leaders, working together to solve them.” For strategic planning purposes, Andrew has a catchphrase: Bottom Up, Top Down, Closed Loop. “We are trying to get everyone in the entire company to participate in our strategic planning processes, give us their ideas, and share that with the senior team, who then share that with me. What I learned from Toyota is that you need to get everyone engaged in improving the business."

Melinda Mante, GBMP Lean Consultant, showcased a set of practical habits you can immediately implement to inspire action from her experience at Intel. There are 3 leadership actions:

• Set direction – challenge the status quo
• Show the way – go first, learn, and demonstrate
• Support – enable, encourage, and care

There is approximately 4000 weeks to live on average. Every day matters. At work its’ much less. Set aside time on calendar for these leadership elements.

Tom Sullivan, Senior Vice President of Operations at Ruger, ended the first day share their journey to develop a Lean New Product Development process.

Highlights included:

• Dedicated formal project management is very important – Obeya Room co-located teams
• Simultaneous product & process development (Single Thought Flow) “Tatakidai” = chopping block, rapid prototyping
• Virtual Obeya Room – COVID pushed this idea but still very effective for dispersed teams
• Leaders Genba with Lean NPD Team – Servant Leadership
• Focus on Lean Thinking – PDCA, 8 wastes for NPD, Mura, Muri
• Standard Work – the one best way to do something

Billy Taylor, Founder and CEO of LinkedXL, got day 2 going by sharing three key principles: Deliberate Clarity, Deliberate Ownership, and Deliberate Practice to achieve success in any organization. Billy says “Winning is not everything, how you win is everything.” Most people don’t know if they are winning and many leaders only know at end of month. If you make people visible, hhey will make you valuable.

From his book “The Winning Link” Billy outlines how we win:

• Deliberate Clarity - You can not manage a secret, Define Winning
• 10ft and 10sec rule – ask people close to board what the board means to them
• What is your leadership standard – What you tolerate, you cannot change
• Walk by and not say anything and then that is new standard
• Deliberate Ownership
• Strategy + Execution = Results
• In the absence of ownership comes blame
• Celebrate the red so you can harvest the green
• Deliberate Practice – Daily Management Process, Let’s people know if we are winning or losing.
• Enables problem solving, drives ownership
• Physical Safety is needed
• Take action
• Be hard on the process so you can lead easy on the people
• Trust
• Earning the Right to Change
• Create a safe environment for change
• Behaviors are visible, Mindsets are hidden
• Critical to measure what matters…Everything that matters cannot be measured?

Allan Robinson, Professor at UMass Isenberg School of Management, discussed strategies for managing change. It is said that 70-80% of change initiatives fail because:

• Poor execution of the chosen change methodology
• Current methods require time, effort, and patience
• They require extremely strong leadership

Most methods (from the 1940s) don’t incorporate modern understanding in continuous improvement, innovation, and lean. The limitations of traditional approaches to management of change:

Perhaps our management approach makes a difference: How can we make our organizations more adaptable to change. A big part of the answer emerges from feedback loops and dependencies discovered more recently by the lean, continuous improvement, and innovation communities. Front-line driven important is a powerful way to make your organization is more adaptable.

80% of organization’s improvement potential is from front-line ideas

Frontline driven improvement is very sensitive to poor leadership and misalignment, so it forces managers and leaders to significantly change their behavior, and address misalignments that are normally ignored. It cannot happen without also getting high levels of trust and respect between management and the front lines. It cultivates a culture of constant improvement and problem-solving.

Helen Zak, Director of Research at The Shingo Institute, closed out the conference with tips, words of wisdom, and learning from 38 years as a change agent. Helen’s Top 5:

• It’s All About Time – the most valuable resource on the planet
• Psychological Safety – free from fear of acknowledging problems and comfortable tackling problems
• Team Sport – transformation requires alignment and teamwork
• Dissatisfaction with status quo – good enough is not enough
• People Development – lean leader’s job is to develop people

There were many other great presentations, but this is a brief highlight. Mark your calendars for next year’s conference Leveraging Lean to Thrive in Uncertain Times in Providence, RI November 7-8, 2024.

6 Strategies to Reduce Production Costs

For any business, waste strains profitability. Waste can come in the form of time, resources and labor; it shows up through poor process planning, inventory imbalance, or poor warehouse layout. Essentially, waste is any expense or effort that does not transform raw material into a finished product. By optimizing processes and eliminating waste, businesses can add value to each phase of production.

One way to improve profitability is to reduce production costs. Production costs are the costs incurred in manufacturing a product or providing a service. These can include expenses such as raw materials, labor, suppliers and general overhead.

Consider these six ways to reduce production costs:

1. Track your costs

To begin with you need to ensure you’re tracking your costs — you can’t change what you don’t measure. The first step is to identify all operating costs and understand which costs have increased. Decide the intervals for tracking key information to help you make informed decisions about manufacturing cost reduction.

2. Eliminate bottlenecks and redundancies

Analyze each stage of your production process: is each activity required? Does it add value? You should also consult the relevant employees to find out what steps in the process are not adding value, redundant, or interrupt their workflow. Drop non-value-adding activities to cut out unnecessary costs.

3. Tighten your inventory control

Optimal inventory control means you hold the right quantity of stock so you’re not stuck with excess inventory that costs money to store, insure and can go to waste; but neither are you caught short by stock-outs.

4. Improve employee engagement

Engaged employees means lower staff turnover, which in turn leads to reduced labor costs. Engaged staff are also more effective and productive. This means you should:

·        Hire the right people

·        Provide training

·        Offer appropriate incentives

·        Share clear production goals

5. Embrace automation

Review your process to see where you can use automation to boost efficiency. Simplify the manufacturing process with automation so you can save time, make the best use of resources, ensure consistent product quality and more. Before investing in an automated system, make sure that it will meet your business needs and has flexible integration capabilities.

6. Negotiate with suppliers

Another way you can save your manufacturing costs is to ask your suppliers to reduce their prices. The first step in this process is to build genuine relationships with your suppliers. Once you’ve built a rapport, negotiating money is less uncomfortable.

Already have a good relationship with your supplier? You’ll be better placed to negotiate for discounted prices. Consider:

·        Signing a long-term contract with your top suppliers

·        Offering cash payment in return for discounts

·        Asking for a turnover discount at the end of a financial year if you’ve contributed significantly to their business

Saving on operational costs is one of the biggest goals for manufacturing companies. Most manufacturers look to streamline systems, reduce production costs, and increase profitability without sacrificing product quality. Often, the quickest and easiest way to cut costs is by accepting minimum quality levels or reducing employees. This can lead to increased product returns, warranty claims, and loss of a loyal client base that will probably increase costs in the future.

Reducing manufacturing costs is important regardless of the company size or the type of products manufactured. Estimating the cost of production is essential to manage cash flow and eliminate unnecessary spending. Reducing production costs results in more available money to innovate, grow, or save for contingencies.

Businesses have the option to lower prices and pass on their production cost savings to customers. Lower prices can increase the demand for products, resulting in more sales. The company can also offer staff bonuses or an increase in pay to improve employee satisfaction levels.

Simple Engineering Solutions with Karakuri Kaizen

Manufacturers across the nation are looking for faster, more efficient ways to streamline processes and production. While automation seems to be top of mind for most, it’s also an expensive investment that some may not be ready to take on. Luckily, there are other solutions you can implement to improve your manufacturing facility’s efficiency.

Karakuri kaizen, or karakuri, provides low-cost, simple, hands-free solutions to support manufacturers’ needs. Karakuri literally means a type of doll that moves with simple mechanics. In manufacturing, karakuri refers to simplified engineering for kaizen that improve your system. Karakuri is the use of mechanic gadgetry rather than electric, pneumatic, or hydraulic devices.

Core principles and benefits to implementing Karakuri include:

Easier maintenance. The maintenance of Karakuri is often much easier than other types of devices. When something goes wrong, workers have an easier time seeing what the problem is and typically can fix the issue themselves, rather than calling a mechanic, electrician, or other professional. Waiting for devices to be fixed can cause a delay in production; Karakuri helps reduce lost time.

Improved safety. Implementing Karakuri allows a process to improve without risking the safety of employees. Mechanical devices don’t pose as many hazards as electrical or hydraulic machines, resulting in less lost work days due to injuries. Karakuri can also help reduce human error within the production process.

Cost-effective materials. Mechanical systems typically are much cheaper than computerized systems. They also require less time to develop, don’t take as much energy to operate, and are built using less expensive materials.

Easy improvement for the long term. Because Karakuri is easier to maintain, workers are often able to take care of problems and improve the process themselves. This makes room for small changes that lead in the long term to continuous improvement.

Karakuri is all about supporting the operator through simplicity, so their job is easier and safer. So while you consider the benefits related to development, installation, maintenance, and versatility, understand that human efficiency, ergonomics, and safety are at the heart of karakuri.

A Karakuri system is a way of stimulating creativeness and craftsmanship, figuring out solutions together as a team. Karakuri Kaizen utilizes the knowledge present on-site. Employees are key in this, with their amazing sense of adaptability and ingenuity. Only humans know how to improve their work, how to invent different ways of working and figuring out answers to problems. The result is smart people building smart equipment, that are high in creativity and that later become a benchmark for the others.

Keep in mind that bright ideas emerge from smart people, and smart people emerge from kaizen. It is actually one of the major benefits, because they empower production workers. This is made possible by encouraging the use of individuals’ creativity to build their own improvement solutions with other team members from process departments. Karakuri Kaizen promote on-going “kaizen” improvements by workers who want to make their work go faster, smoother and smarter. This supports the idea that there is always a better way, a truly motivational team experience. When you think about it, it’s a virtuous cycle.

Top 10 Ways To Become The Successful Leader After Lean Trainings

Lean thinking is one of the most effective techniques used across different industries. That’s exactly why so many business leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals dedicate a fair amount of time to master lean thinking and become better at what they do. But how can you apply what you learned in practice? Here are the top ten ways to become the successful leader after lean trainings.

#1 Understand What Lean Thinking Is

First and foremost, remind yourself about what lean thinking is. If you understand the essence of lean thinking, you can effectively apply this knowledge to your activities. Here are the main points about lean thinking that you need to understand:

·        Lean thinking is a business methodology that has its roots in Japanese manufacturing techniques – more specifically, it was developed by Toyota. Nowadays, lean thinking is applied in different industries all around the world.

·        The essence of lean thinking is in approaching work in a lean way. Customers are valued above all else. Lean thinking can help companies keep costs low, increase efficiency, and identify wasteful activities among other things.

·        To effectively implement lean thinking, you need to change your mindset as well as the way you approach different business processes.

#2 Work with the Two Pillars of Lean Thinking

Now that you have recalled what lean thinking is like, it’s worth taking some time to recognize the two main pillars of lean thinking which are:

·        Continuous Improvement: You and your team should be actively looking for ways to improve and develop your business. You need to be looking for and creating your own opportunities, initiatives, and innovative projects.

·        Respecting People: It goes without saying that respect within and without your company is essential, but lean thinking prioritizes respect for people like nothing else. You need to practice empathy, support your employees, and value your customers.

#3 Practice the Five Principles of Lean Thinking

In addition to the two main pillars of lean thinking, there are five principles associated with the mindset. They are:

·        Value: You need to understand what your customers value and then provide them with what they are looking for.

·        Value Stream: You need to determine how to achieve the value you identified through a specific process or value stream.

·        Flow: You need to remove any roadblocks standing in the way of your value stream which is why you need to establish the flow in your company through active changes.

·        Pull: You need to keep things going as the flow continues, but customers will already start “pulling” your products from you once they are ready, so they won’t pile up.

·        Perfection: You will reach perfection through implementing the principles of lean thinking in your company, but remember that it is a journey – not a destination.

#4 Train Your Employees in Lean Thinking

So, how exactly can you start introducing lean thinking into the business processes of your company? Well, the first thing you should do is train your employees in lean thinking. Though you are trained already, you can’t do all the work yourself – moreover, it will be ineffective in the long run if you are the only one applying lean thinking in practice.

To train your employees, it’s a good idea to hire a professional coach who specializes in lean thinking. However, you can do the training yourself if you feel confident in your knowledge. Alternatively, you can train your manager and appoint them to transfer this knowledge to the rest of your team through lectures, seminars, and workshops.

#5 Implement Kanban Boards in Your Company

Next, you need to implement Kanban boards in your company. Kanban boards can be incredibly useful when utilized throughout your entire company as they give you more insight into and control over your initiatives and projects. Besides, using Kanban boards can help the different departments in your company to collaborate closer.

In addition to that, Kanban boards provide an added level of transparency as well as accountability. Teams that use Kanban boards will identify both issues and opportunities faster and react to them appropriately. Teach your employees how to use Kanban boards and encourage them to utilize the boards frequently.

#6 Rethink Your Business Processes

Lean thinking is never about targeting people but rather targeting the processes these people are involved in. This is why you need to rethink your business processes and analyze your strategy to implement the necessary changes within your company.

Isaiah Martins, an expert from the top rated essay writing service site, explains, “When you start targeting people instead of actual issues within your company, you will start losing any kind of sense of direction that lean thinking is meant to provide you with. If there is something wrong with what an employee of yours does, you need to teach them how to make it right – not fire them just because they made a mistake.”

#7 Respect and Support Your People

As mentioned earlier, respect for people is one of the two main pillars of lean thinking. This is why you need to respect and support your people while also valuing your customers. In other words, you pretty much need to internalize respect for people and become a more empathetic and thoughtful person all-around.

Lean thinking is about changing your mindset which is why you need to reevaluate yourself as well. Ask yourself questions that will challenge your beliefs and arrive at conclusions that will help you become more respectful and attentive about the people around you.

#8 Share Your Knowledge with Others

While training your employees in lean thinking is definitely important, you should also go beyond that and share your knowledge with as many people as possible. Indeed, educating your own customers about lean thinking can be quite beneficial to you. This way, you will be more transparent with them about your business while also showing them how much you value your customers.

In addition to that, you might also want to partner with businesses similar to yours to help train employees in those companies in lean thinking as well. By continuing partnerships with these brands, you will be able to prevent malicious tactics from competitors while actually working with them to maximize success for everyone.

#9 Celebrate Victories Both Big and Small

Lean thinking definitely requires a lot of effort from you which is why it can be quite exhausting to implement in your company and sustain long-term. This is precisely why you should definitely celebrate all the victories you and your team have, both big and small.

#10 Keep Learning and Developing Yourself

Last but not least, never stop learning and developing yourself as well as your team and your company. Remember that lean thinking is about constant development and improvement, and its fifth principle of perfection is not a destination but rather a journey. This is exactly why you should always strive for better things.

Make new goals, accept new challenges, find new opportunities, and start new initiatives. Grow, expand, and develop your business. Upgrade your employees’ qualifications and continue learning yourself.

All in all, learning what lean thinking is will only be the first step for you. The next thing you should do is start applying your knowledge in practice and innovating your business and your team to achieve better performance than ever before.

About the Author: Anna likes writing from her university years. When she graduated from the Interpreters Department, she realized that translation was not so interesting, as writing was. She trains her skills now working as a freelance writer on different topics. Always she does her best in the posts and articles.

The Importance of Lean in a Post-Pandemic World

Since March 2020, every person on the planet has had their life shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic in some way. Every aspect of life has been impacted. Our everyday routines were brought to a stop, and any sense of normalcy was lost.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a light on supply chains. The spectacle of empty supermarket shelves during the early part of the pandemic served as a stark reminder of what can happen when inventory and service levels are out of sync.

It seems like every time there is an inventory problem, lean manufacturing or lean principles get the blame. Lean has gotten a bad rap during this pandemic. Let’s face it, the current COVID-19 pandemic is a pretty rare occurrence! If anything, crises like this one illuminate the continued lack of understanding of what Lean is. This is unfortunate.

Even though Lean has become foundational to supply chain management, it is still subject to misinterpretation. A common misconception is that this management philosophy is essentially about taking people out of business operations. While this can be an outcome, it is far from the primary purpose of Lean.

In essence, Lean maximizes value to the customer by eliminating waste from processes. Another interpretation is that the model strives to meet customer needs with as much precision — and hence as little inventory — as possible.

Excess inventory is a form of business waste that ties up capital and consumes organizational resources that are better deployed elsewhere. Over recent decades, companies have made considerable strides in reducing inventory volumes while maintaining high service levels.

However, COVID-19 delivered a shock to the system that gave companies pause about their ability to unerringly fulfill customer demand during surges when product stockpiles had been cut to the bone. The crisis has sparked much discussion about the need to revisit approaches to inventory management.

While these last 15 months have not been what most companies had hoped or planned for, it provided manufacturers with an opportunity to utilize lean manufacturing to address the shortages and problems caused by the pandemic. COVID-19 has drastically shifted the regularity of demand—with forecasts changing daily, sudden influxes of work, and order cancellations—which has emphasized the need for manufacturers to be flexible. Lean manufacturing encompasses many different aspects, and the pandemic has given manufacturers who embrace Lean an opportunity to analyze weaknesses and address them head-on.

This pandemic showed manufacturers perhaps more than ever before that Lean manufacturing is about being flexible. Flexibility in your machine capabilities, capacity to adjust production schedules, availability for quick changeover of techniques, and cross-training of employees will all help ensure your ability to be responsive and adapt when it becomes necessary to do so. A highly-responsive manufacturing operation will in turn allow you to create an agile customer service platform that will stand out to both your current and prospective customers.

Disruptive, stressful experiences (like COVID-19) are often opportunities for growth. Research has shown that crises can change the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra that pervades many organizations, creating new opportunities for people to voice their ideas on how to do things better.

There are two main mindsets that shape our lives (impacting not only our attitudes but learning as well) especially true in a challenging situation: fixed and growth.

• A fixed mindset – Learning is a waste of effort – even if it was useful there is no time or nothing to learn that would help right now; learning is impossible – even if there was, learning is too hard and asking too much; the only way to succeed is to play your cards right, always look smart, never look dumb.

• A growth mindset – Learning is useful – what we learn will make things better; learning is possible; we can learn what we don’t currently know; setbacks are learning experiences and obstacles will be overcome.

Adopting a growth mindset isn’t only important at an individual level. It is also vital for businesses at an organizational level. A growth mindset leads consistently to better results.

Practicing Lean Thinking means reinforcing our belief in better outcomes where achieving apparently impossible things we learn by doing. As we make things better we unlock solutions to problems that were never apparent first off (although they seem obvious in hindsight). It’s precisely when things feel hopeless that warm hearts and cool minds make a difference – and Lean Thinking is most relevant.

In varying ways, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every single business across the globe. It’s ample time for all manufacturers to reevaluate their strategies and make improvements. Companies that already suffered from low productivity, waste, and inefficiency before the pandemic will likely continue to struggle the most. More than anything, COVID-19 has shown how important it is to practice innovation and resilience. To ensure long-term survival, many businesses are focusing on their productivity and performance, reducing errors, and utilizing available resources as much as possible.

Even during times of crisis, efficiency is important. To survive, many businesses are pivoting the way they offer their products and services to adapt. Using Lean manufacturing techniques, you can identify what your customers need the most right now and consider new ways to efficiently match those needs. Whether your business is reopening or your employees continue to telework, the pandemic requires us all to innovate and adapt.

It is clear that Lean Manufacturing is more essential now than at any other time, giving companies a system for navigating a global landscape that has been forever altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing Lean can help businesses iterate, solve problems and adapt to keep up with the unprecedented pace of change. Use Lean to ensure long-term success.