Excellence Is Not Achieved By Bringing Everyone Else Down

Let's just get this out in the open; I am a free market conservative and one of the best tools in our arsenal to grow market share, innovate, and improve customer satisfaction is competition.  We compete with people, teams, companies, and economies.  We also have the innate ability to compete with ourselves.

As your organization travels your path you will have opportunities to grow and learn.  It is up to you to decide what to do with this new found knowledge; let it sit or implement it into your Standard Work instructions.  This new knowledge is not like wine that will get better with age.  Each day you do not implement is lost productivity and this loss is one of the barriers to growth.  You think, "we can't take on new work, we more than we can do right now", and you are right based on how you run the business today.

Excellence is a customer-based performance characteristic and you must compare your's to those you compete with.  I'm not suggesting that you try to get a tour of their facilities and steal the metrics hanging on the walls, but look at their service offerings on their website or talk to your customers that you know use your competitor's services.  You can also use your industry's benchmark.  But you have to look at that gap analysis as opportunity to improve.  Make sure you do not fall into the trap of rationalizing your poor performance by attributing your competition's success to luck or political alignments.




If you are not measuring your performance then you do not know what you do not know.  Also do not use the "I have not been yelled at by the Boss lately" metric to gauge your performance, this is a lie your brain uses to avoid potential conflict.  Using a Balanced Scorecard approach uses a series of questions and operational layers to determine what are the potential measures that would apply to your product or service, but is up to you to determine which to use.  You should use some of the measures that relate to Safety, Quality, Cost, Delivery, and Morale that will should aggregate performance, but not a single metric due to the risk of sub-optimizing the process to improve just one characteristic at the risk of negatively impact the others.

As you create your dashboard you will be tempted to use some high-end measurement system with all manners of bells and whistles.  I don't recommend this in the early phases of your measuring because you probably do not know what you need yet.  Spreadsheets or home-grown tools created in something like SharePoint will be just fine to start with.  As you develop your measures you must also determine how to respond.  What do you do when you see the measures going off the track?  Who is notified, how do you attack the problem, and how do you document the findings?

When you have your performance history documented and you see you are on your way to the top, think about comparing your current measures to past performance.  This would be the same as watching the futbol tapes after a game to see lost opportunities or turn-overs.  Where can the team improve performance by improving their skills?

What are you measuring in your office processes?

Bi-Polar Working Environment

Looking back on it, the highs were high and the lows were low.  Does work seem like an endless roller coaster?  Do you run from one fire to another, double-booked status meetings, or was that another failed review with the originator pulling out of the parking lot for the weekend?  You think you get off the ride at the end of the day when you leave the gate, or is that just the part of the ride that is not doing loops?

What is in your mind when hear "a steady flow of work"?  A gently flowing stream that pops with trout hitting the surface and the water is bubbling through the rocks?  No, that is supposed to be a vacation.  Did I just hear someone's cell phone buzz while we are fly-fishing?

How many of us walk in to the build and put on our fire fighting gear?  Go ahead and put your hands down, I'm not taking a survey.  Our never taking off the gear is an indication that we do not have a workflow control system.  Everything is hot and/or late.

Getting out this mode of operation requires everyone on the team, including the coach, is making a conscience decision to stop treating everything as a fire.  And we have to start learning from our mistakes.  The solutions that support the learning must also be appropriately applied.  Anchoring the entire organization because of ethical or technical issues does not help foster trust between management and employees.

Operational Excellence is about the journey, not the destination.  We learn and grow while building trust through relationships.  You may not see it at first, but when you realize the roller coaster is no longer running you can see organizations are made up of people, not systems and tasks.

What Are Belts and What Do I Do With Them??

Back in the late 90's, before Lean Guy and Money Girl were on the team, you may have worked in a factory with someone who said they were a Green Belt or Black Belt.  I'm sure you responded with some kind of Bruce Lee move or a Chuck Norris fact.  The Belt probably mentioned the F-Test, and you giggled, or talked about your misapplication of ANOVA because your data is obviously exhibiting a Weibull distribution.  You probably rolled your eyes and walked away shaking your head.

In today's environment the Belt is required to be more than a DOE expert.  The type of Belts you have should drive the activities being pursued.  The American Society for Quality may hold a standard for Green Belts and Black Belts, but many companies have developed their own standards for their own needs at the the amount of money they want to spend.

So what are these different Belts and what can they do for you and your operations?

Looking across the organization at external suppliers and customers are Master Black Belts or experienced Black Belts.  These people work with executive leadership and management to help identify and prioritize opportunities to improve flow, cycle time, quality, customer satisfaction, or other Voice of the Customer.  Their tool boxes may contain Learning to See Value Stream Maps, House of Quality or Lean Function Deployment, and have the ability to lead any team through any problem no matter where it exists in the organization.  Master Black Belts also develop training, and teach and mentor Black Belts.

Black Belts are equipped to solve problems across organizations in one site.  They can lead projects or 3P events that are larger in scope from a VSM, teach and mentor Green Belts, execute design of experiments, and design processes with less waste and variation.  Properly motivated Black Belts may be the best choice to fill Leadership positions since they are not afraid of metrics.

Green Belts can be thought of as people in the best position to learn about the operations.  They can handle small scope problems like quality defects or long cycle times on the operations.  Any of the statistical tests can be executed in a well-known spreadsheet and process flows can be analyzed on the wall.  High-powered statistical and simulation software is not required for Green Belts.

The Belts are simply people with the skills and knowledge to make good change.  The difference is in the scope and tools.  Think golf ball size scope & tools for Green Belts, beach ball size for Black Belts, and a row of beach balls for Master Black Belts.

Important message to Leadership!

Pulling the Belts into action requires Vision and Direction, two products Leaders need to have in their pockets at all times.  Unless you have some sick addiction to being the best fire-fighter, you should know where you are leading the organization.  This is a plan that can be monitored visually.  As problems are eliminated, record them on an A3 and reward good behavior.

These important skills and knowledge are being paid for and many Belts are standing by and ready to be put in the game.  Leadership's task is to have a well defined problem statement and SMART goals.

What has been your experience in getting pulled into the flow to make good change?

Just-In-Time for What?

What JIT is and what JIT is not...

Just-In-Time, three little words that strike fear in the hearts of American manufacturing.  Site Leaders, Production Control & Logistics Managers, Team Leads, Purchasing Directors, and the list goes on of people who thought JIT meant that we could close our warehouses and just order parts we need when we need them and not have to worry about anything else.

Sorry, but that is just not right.  We have seen the results; late parts that causes the lines to stop, creates new positions in the company called expeditors, generation of new reports on shortages with special color codes and plenty of columns of useless information.  People get fed up with this thinking and go rogue.  We "find" parts outside of the supply chain, usually in someone's "safety stock" in their desk.  But that will not sustain the system for long.

Now that the rant is over let's talk about what JIT really is.  Using Just-In-Time thinking requires alignment of all activities on the "thing" going through the process to the final (paying) customer.  JIT is a future state of thinking, a result of implementing the 5 steps of Lean Transformation.  Remember, Lean is not a program, but how we run the business.

As waste and variation are removed, you are left with a stable and predictable flow where the work can be loaded equally through the different value-added teams.  This gives you the chance to measure the material required to produce your product.  How much paper do you go through in a month?  What is the cost of office supplies?  How often do you need to archive data to keep your servers available?  Are your teams spread out randomly, only where you could find space, or are they strategically located near the customers?  What is the $$ value of your work in process?

Yes, those are a lot of questions!  Important questions, and you should be asking more, even snotty questions.  And don't forget to ask the team if there are any roadblocks that need to be knocked down.  The intent is to guide the improvement teams to think outside of their "safe" places.

But we are not harassing the team to implement your idea of how the process is supposed to operate in your head, but enable the teams to succeed.  These questions may push the team to create break-through process redesign.  In the end we are looking for processes that operate to customer needs at the lowest possible cost.

As your internal operations begin flowing predictably, it's time to look at your suppliers.  Do they really provide the items you need, when you need it, at the amount your need it, and the right quality?  More questions?  Yes!

Time to reliably replenish is the metric for suppliers.  It captures quality, on-time delivery, and order delivery levels.  Use this information to know if you need to work supplier development opportunities as they should pay off in the long-term.  And make sure you include your engineers, supply chain pros, and quality.

JIT is a great result to achieve.  Lower WIP costs (WIP = Labor + Material), and lower overhead because we are holding the right amount of stuff we need in stores to support our activities.  Don't just think of it as a factory target, but as one that pays back to the bottom line and increases shareholder value.

Book Review: A3 Problem Solving

Over the past week I had a chance to read "A3 Problem Solving" by Jamie Flinchbaugh.  This book is easy to read and Jamie does a great job connecting the dots at the high level down to how a team interacts with the information and knowledge gained using the form.  Leaders will gain understanding of transformation that sticks.

A3's are a one-page brief of the opportunity or project that reads through the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle.  I'm sure some of us have seen 125 slide briefings of Green Belt or Black Belt projects, but this brings it to a scope appropriate for easy and quick consumption.  I used the word "opportunity" because problems we have on our teams with performance are a chance for all of us to learn.

The profound part of the book is about measuring the success of Lean.  It's not about the number of people trained, but "the percentage of the leader's own work that has changed". You can see the change in the performance of the team, and the practices of the leader.

Whether you are new or old to Lean Office transformation, this book can provide further insight to the use of A3.  I highly recommend this book to all of my readers.

4P’s - People, Process, Product, Performance

Why should I focus on 4P’s?

I sometimes get the question from Leaders, “Why do I need to focus on the 4P’s?  We hire the best for the position and provide the fastest computers and software with all the bells and whistles.”  While this is all true and done with the best intentions, the “People” focus is only one piece of the puzzle that will only provide you with heroes.  Having a few of these on staff is good when the situation comes along that requires it, we don’t need this type of thinking all day and every day.  We have seen this often enough with our heroes, and we remember Dr. Eldon Tyrell saying, “the light that burns twice as bright burns for only half as long.” [Bladerunner, 1982]   And since hard workers are rewarded with more work, we could eventually find ourselves all out of heroes.

Keeping the other P’s in focus, Process, Product, and Performance, completes the picture of your operations.  Operational Awareness is about knowing how the internal organization is performing to meet ever-changing conditions in the market place, or how responsive we are to customer needs.  Process focus, or how we create our products, provides a picture of process predictability and stability.  Are there charts and metrics?  Yes and the team has the right skills uses this information to improve flow.  The only other options are intuition and customer feedback.  Unless you have a strong relationship with your customers you may only find out about poor customer satisfaction when the orders stop coming in.  Or worse you find your company's name on the web with a not very flattering writeup.

The measures will be based on inputs from suppliers, like quality, cost, and delivery, and our internal process results that also include quality, cost, and delivery along with safety and any other factors that may reflect your process.  These measures help to highlight the internal process “need helps” or abnormalities and when to intervene. Product focus draws our attention to the ability of the product, whether material or information, to meet customer demands and expectations.  These measures are based on the voice of the customer and will involve talking to them.  These customers may sit next to us or are on the same floor or product line, but these conversations help to clarify or define what they really want.

Performance measures describe on our ability to manage change.  This could be when to change, when to stop changing, or answer can we change before the opportunity disappears.  Our belief in our ability to make the right change can help carry us through times of stress when we know performance is not where it should be.  And having the right people in the right places can make that important impact to roadblocks, whether they are systems, processes or people.

Which of the P’s are most important?

At first glance it is easy to rationalize that all the P's are important.  While this is true you will need to think about it from your customer's perspective.  If they are happy with the price, but would like more (or less) features, then product may be most important.  If your business requires people to "connect the systems", then having well trained and highly motivated team members is most important.  If having a high quality product reaching your customers hands each and every time is part of your strategy, then process may be your main focus.

But if your market conditions are always changing, you should consider measuring all four P’s and keep them in a continuous improvement cycle.  There are many tools and methods to drive this philosophy; balanced scorecard, house of quality, learning to see value stream mapping, and lean function deployment just to name a few.

How to measure and improve the 4P’s?

You may be thinking, “Well that’s an interesting question and if I knew the answer then I would not need to hire consultants.”  This is not an answer that will be found like some lost scrolls in the desert when we accidentally happen upon them, but a journey with our customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders of our businesses.  Direct and real-time measurement is always best, and having the methods in place to respond immediately when abnormalities begin showing up.

These may be statistical control charts, survey results, andons, or other visual controls.  The key to keeping measures relevant is having the courage to review them and respond to abnormalities with your teams.  This is not a disciplinary action, but an honest look at team performance to customer or business needs and what are the root causes of problems.  

The 4P's are not a "quick fix", but a journey that helps us become a learning organization that is able to adapt to the ever-changing market conditions.

Operational Excellence

When we think about linking people with the processes, products, and performance, using a model helps us see at a high level.  This also helps to create a system framework that connects tools and thinking to standard practices we will use.  Operational Excellence is a concept of operations that focuses a team's outputs on consistently meeting customer's needs and improving supply chain relationships.  I will address Operational Excellence implementation, the integration of tools with Integrated Teams, and ways to monitor success that will help you retain your customer base and open doors to new customers.

Implementation is aligned to a team's continuous performance improvement level.  Teams that are actively using Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, or other improvement methodologies will implement faster than those that only know they have problems and are not sure how to permanently fix them.  It's the recognition that problems exist, or the journey is stalled, and that is where we begin by talking to the customer, asking what would be perfect about the delivery of the product, and measuring performance results to those attributes.  This may not be an easy conversation, but it provides insight to the level of satisfaction your customers are experiencing.  Using this information, Leadership needs to be armed with the questions that keep a project or team on track to reach that level of perfection.

Integration of tools with the Integrated Teams, focused on specific problems, will affect the measures being taken from the Voice of the Customer.  Whatever improvement tools or methodologies are being used, the desired impact is to improve flow.  This is made by using Lean to remove waste, Six Sigma to remove variation and improve quality, TOC to synchronize the supply chain with the bottle neck and then remove the constraint, or any combination of those with the plethora of other tools that exist.  Remember this, "Flow is King!".  If the product if not flowing, whether in the material value stream or information value stream, then it is sleeping (on the job!).

Monitoring the organization's or team's progress on the journey is enhanced with visual controls linked with the Voice of the Customer and the Voice of the Business.  We collected VOC earlier so it's just a matter of calculating the center and spread of the data, compare that to "what would be perfect", and decide the first step to take.  Voice of the Business is based on corporate or business unit goals, or goals used by the team.  These are usually related to cost, safety, inventory-turnover, and other measurements relating to cash flow.  Again, collect you current data, compare it to the goal, and decide the first step to take.  This resulting information needs to be shared with the team, stakeholders, customers, and possibly suppliers.

As you collect the data and begin asking questions as to why the team is experiencing defects, long cycle time, customer dis-satisfaction, or other problems, you will identify opportunities to make positive impacts to flow.  These opportunities will need to be vetted against the root causes to make sure they will affect the bottom line, not just "good stuff" types of ideas.  One way to know if an idea will impact the bottom line is if it resides on the critical path.  Newly trained improvement facilitators can execute these opportunities to become "certified".  Becoming certified is another measurement, the next important metric is average cycle time for the facilitators reach their fifth project.

So Operational Excellence is a concept of operations that focuses a team's outputs on consistently meeting customer's needs and improving supply chain relationships.  This type of thinking about your operations and your organization will help jump start the transformation and turn opportunities into the dollars that can be used to grow your business.

Welcome to The Lean Office

I hope that you find the topics interesting and helpful.  Don't be afraid to ask a question or email a subject where you have an interest.  I want this to be your first place to find Lean Six Sigma tools, techniques, and funny stories in the transactional environment.

The mission of The Lean Office blog is to provide a place to share Lean Six Sigma examples in the office, and share thoughts and ideas of implementation of Lean Six Sigma in the office or other places your journey may take you.  Below is short video about the model we use, Organization Optimization.  Enjoy!