Teaching With Simulations

One of the joys of being the Lean Guy in the office is I get to share my knowledge and experience with other people writing contract documentation, purchasing orders, engineering changes, software code, system specs, and all the other pieces of information floating around the office.  When we talk about Lean and the thing they are working on it is helpful to show an example of what right looks like.  This is helpful because their product is special, and no one else processes it like they do.  Special....right.

We will presume that I am not dealing with a TQM victim that is feeling frisky that day.

A tool that I keep handy is the paper flow simulation.  We use index cards as the "document", technical reviewers, value-adders transforming the document, and some metrics for quality, cycle time, and throughput.  This sim is cheap, easy, portable, gets the point across, and I'm not going to give away the ending, but all the team win.

Another great teaching aid is the 5S Numbers Game.  I'm not sure who developed this, but it is my favorite for teaching 5S in the information flow.  This link will take you to Lean Simulations' 5S Numbers Game page where you can download it and try it out for yourself.

My Favorite Sim in the Office!

There are other longer Lean System simulations, The Beer Game at The Lean Learning Center, and a  simulation used by the U.S. Military called FedSim.  These teach supply chain control, aligning tasks with requirements, and passing products through the enterprise.

Videos are great too!  Terry Tate, The Bridge of Death with the Old Man from Scene 24, Dinosaur Office, Building Planes in the Air, and others help to lighten the mood and show how far into the extreme a process could go.

When thinking about sims and videos, make sure the topic fits the organization.  Factory sims, stories, or videos will not work in the office.  First reason is because few of the people you are talking to have ever seen a factory, much less stepped in one.  Second is because factories are loaded with assets; equipment, inventory, tools, things being transformed into a product being sold to someone.  And our processes have computers, printers, fax machines that no one uses anymore, binders, paper cutters, IT Helpdesks; yeah, we're special.

What kind of sims do you use in the office flow?