Information Supply Chain Excellence

We all see the effects of good and bad quality.  Whether we are in the hardware product flow or the information product flow, the level of quality of the inputs to our part of the process can impact how effectively we can perform our value-added tasks.  Occasionally we see glimpses of good quality inputs and can go straight to performing the work to change the product closer to what the customer is paying for.  Other times we have to rebuild everything to get what we need, thus delaying delivery and leaving the customer with a desire to find another supplier.  This "rebuild" requires labor and material beyond what is calculated in the base price.  The more "rebuild" you perform, the more your variable costs increase (hint, hint... the faster you will go out of business).

Looks like one person knows what I'm talking about....

Work Flow & Cash Flow

Not Too Long Ago In An Office Not Too Far Away….

Lean Guy and Money Girl worked around each other, listened to each other and other team managers talk about their current statuses and issues in the Monday 8am meeting every week, but did not really connect the dots between the results they were both trying to achieve individually.  Sure, everyone has gone through the Intro to Continuous Improvement training, the site was 99% compliant to that target.  And the site completes their mandated “3 Kaizens per Year” target easily by the end of the second quarter every year; we are number 1 in the company!

Sound familiar?  While these goals and targets are not bad, do you know why they exist and the purpose they serve?  We spend a considerable amount of time talking about activities that are value-added in a process, but how does this translate into increasing the value of the site or company?

Quality and Acceptability of Solutions

In the past we have explored the difficulty of change.  One concept attributed to General Electric that we can wrap our heads around is Q x A = E.

Q = Quality Level (1-10) of the Solution to Solve the Problem

A = Acceptance Level (1-10) of the Solution in the Organization

E = Effectiveness (0-100) of Deployment of the Change

Accountability

Part Three of the Foundation Thinking Series

Accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies including the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences. If you are accountable for the performance of the team, then when things go right it's you who will receive the benefit, but when things go wrong it's you who will receive the blame. When you are accountable you own it, not the last guy.

Employee Buy-In to the Improvement Plan

As individuals we come up with really good ideas, changes to Products, Processes, and/or People in order to drive higher levels of Performance.  If we find a few people who think like us, the ideas and plans can become very elaborate.  We can hide in our offices or in the Innovation Stations and draw thought maps that would rival the great thinkers of Harvard and Yale.  But when we start implementing we fail to see the change we were looking for, our great ideas are stoned in the middle of the street, and we are ridiculed in front of our peers.

And that did not turn out how we thought it would.... once again.

Shaping the Vision

As we have explored before, change is hard.  It's harder when we don't include decision makers and smart people in the deployment of the vision.  The Captain of the ship points the way and we get to figure out how to get there.  "We" does not mean only the Directors and Senior Managers, it means all of us.  There are oodles of people out there, with skills and abilities that can help plan the change, execute the plan, transform the organization, and assess the results.

As the Captain's Executive Officer (XO), you get to figure out how to take the sometimes lofty statements by the boss and then translate them into what the future looks like for the organization and you are the point person for supporting the teams when the transformation begins.  More than likely you have something to start with, the Vision & Mission Statements, and the boss's lofty statements will typically track along in parallel.  Functionally this means something slightly different for each section of the organization based on how each connects to the main product or service that is provided.

The Correct Way To Draw An Org Chart

We have discussed creating the vision and specifying value in the past, but how do we take our thoughts and dreams on paper to those in the organization that will be going on this journey with us?  Spend some time talking with those teams to explore how they see themselves fitting into the Vision & Mission Statements and what do their metrics say about performance.  When they talk about the "things" they provide for the product or service, are they reflected on your VSM or Strategy Map?

Communicating the Vision

I'm going to presume that if you are in some sort (any sort) of Leadership position, that you have gotten over the fear of public speaking.  This will not be a one-time flash of the power point slide during an all-hands meeting and then you never speak of it again.  It will be discussed until everyone understands and are ready to start moving forward, and part of the conversation will be one where the vision is shaped.

You should discuss it everywhere you go.  Visit all the teams in their stand-up meetings, even if it's at 6am.  If you can put it on one piece of paper, hang the vision in the break rooms and the performance measurement screens on the walls.  Make it part of the company newsletters and create a video discussing the vision and how important it is to the organization.  When you are discussing it, do try to sound a little excited about the journey and the possibilities it will open for everyone.  And let the teams know they are part of this journey because they will be making adjustments to their 4P's also.

Share results with the organization while the transformation is ongoing.  What are the wins, what are the lessons learned, and what has been accomplished?  Reward some team members if you are having an all-hands meeting with the organization.  Instant awards like restaurant gift cards are cheap and easy.  Handwritten thank you notes provide a personal touch not seen today as often.  Award certifications if there are Green Belt or Black Belt certification projects tied to the change.

People want to know what you think about the transformation and if they are doing a good job.  Communication always comes up as a top issue for organizations and some of these ideas can help move you forward along your Lean Transformation.

Lean Roadmap

Roadmaps are handy little things, helping to point the direction while on a journey.  Sometimes they serve to identify markers on the road letting us know how far along we are, or telling us how far to go to the next marker.  The Lean Roadmap provides some general direction to keep our focus forward.  Many times we will not get the results that we want when we pick our favorite concept to launch into first. The steps in this map build upon each other to reach the smooth flow of the moving or pulse line.  Just like most other efforts we start by talking to our customers and finding out what they like, don't like, and what's important (what is value?).  We can make some presumptions about our customers, but we should go talk with them and confirm our beliefs.

Create the Vision

We all know that being able to describe the vision simply or on paper is one of the most important first steps in communicating the vision, and being able to imagine the potential in your organization's operations can put you on the road to good change.  Creating the vision may or may not be aligned with your organization's offerings, and the most important question to answer is "how are we creating value for the customer"?

When we measure Product of the 4P's (People, Process, Product, Performance) we are taking a look at the product performance and customer demand.  The measure of performance should be based on the requirements or the capabilities the product is sold upon.  Customers have expectations about the Product for how it performs today and future enhancements.  Does the vision need the Product to be enhanced?  This is one part of the Vision.  We must also evaluate how our Processes operate, do our People have the skills and abilities for new Products and Processes, and is the Performance good enough to provide the customer the experience that will keep them coming back for more?

Standardize the Flow From Improvements

Once we know where we are going (Future Vision) we need to know where we are starting (Current State) and where is the first marker (Future State).  These are high-level maps and metrics describing the Vision and different States.  These will be used to target improvements in the flows: product flows, work flows, and cash flows.  

Target and reduce the waste and variation.  This is the mantra, this is the drumbeat.  Everything follows a rhythm and this moves the organization to the next level of performance.  Learn from your processes and make changes that can be documented in your SOP's, Policy Statements, and other Work Documentation.  Deploy the new learning across the organization and manage the change reaching higher levels of performance.  Using a Kaizen approach will be faster, and small steps will be required.

Make the Supplies and Information Point-Of-Use

Improving the flows is not only the transformation steps in process, but creating efficient movement of inputs to the process.  Make the material and information inputs easy to find and fast to move.  Ensure this is documented in the new process and that everyone is emotionally and physically on board with the new way.  Implementing 5S concepts in your operations are focused on organizing and not housekeeping.  Organize your material and information in files and on your servers/clients.

Balance the Team

As you make improvement stay aware of bottlenecks in the system.  Comparing cycle time to takt time will assist in determining where the help is needed first.  Continue this analysis as customer demand changes.  Bottlenecks can (and will) move through your system.

Implement Visual Controls and Response

Visual Controls are the metrics, schedule, and constraints posted on the wall or on the displays that the team needs to be aware of.  While we may have the vision that says "no more fire-fighting", there should be some recognition that quick action is sometimes needed.  Having the signals in place that facilitates this planned response is much better than waiting for the boss to find out from an unhappy customer.  This type of system is the foundation of an Employee Empowered Workforce.

Connect Suppliers Using Pull System

Implementing a Pull System is much more difficult and will create much frustration if you have not started improving your flow.  Responding only when the order is received (start signal) should keep cash flow high by not spending those dollars on material and labor that will only increase Work-In-Process (WIP).  High levels of WIP in your system is just half-built product sitting around waiting to be damaged or made obsolete.

Move/Pulse the Line

We can all envision a Moving Line with Lucy and Ethel inspecting and packaging chocolates.  A Pulse Line is one with products that move to the takt time and they have longer cycle times or the cost to automate the transfer is too high.  In the places where our office products are created, we can use electronic workflow queuing to move products and to status completion.  The "Line" is really a collection of interdependent work teams operating to accomplish a series of tasks.  The results are fed back into the Visual Controls and then analyzed for new learning.  Using this method will help us to move to higher and more stable levels of performance.


I hope this encourages you to take another look at Lean Flow and how you may use the tools and techniques to improvement customer satisfaction and employee relationships.

The Power of Mentors

Do you have someone on the team that has been there longer than anyone else and knows the secret path to positive results? Whether we are talking about executive or operational teams, these members have the operational knowledge that the rest of the team needs to be successful. While we cannot connect to the Matrix and download everything they know, we can do something similar that will provide growth for everyone that chooses to participate.

The greatest benefit of using mentors is the transfer of knowledge from an experienced professional to an inexperienced protégé. There may be a basic understanding of what is going on, but it is the old guys who have already made the mistakes that know the nuances of their system. This transfer can only be successful if the receiver is ready for and open to the new information.

I feel some organizations may not have mentoring due to the innovative nature of their work, and how someone “did it” 10 years ago does not matter. That is until ideas began to be built on other ideas and now the organization is forced to document everything or keep someone around that knows the old system. At some point the innovation must move into the mainstream where it can be adapted and replicated.

When I began in my first formal process improvement role, I did not have a mentor and I had to feel my way around in the dark (while making lots of mistakes) until I started doing things right. When it was time to start the mass building of “belts”, I knew that to be successful, those new belts would need some help to get through the process faster. It was a workable system, but I wonder how much more those candidates would have learned if we were not holding their hands the entire time?

As you mentor others, are you directing down the path, or are you asking questions to make the protégé think about and consider the potential impact of decisions? Are they learning enough to walk the journey alone when you are no longer available? We have see the results of this condition when the charismatic leader leaves the organization and performance declines.

Each protégé is a little different and we cannot treat all of them the same. Would Anakin have turned to the dark side if Obi-Wan had not been as cryptic in his approach? Wisdom comes from practice, not from following an old man on some darn fool idealistic crusade. There should be discussion, a decision, execution, and then back to discussion. These conversations can follow a simple formula: what happened, what was supposed to happen, why did it happen, and then how do you respond to the results?

Idea Transformation

How to make an "idea" person into an "implementation" person?

Sometimes you are minding your own business watching the clouds float by, working on another marketing presentation, or on a date with that special person in your life, and then POW!!!  You are hit so hard that it gives you a shiner on your driver's license.  The Idea Fairy has shown up to occupy the brain space you were using to focus on what was in front of you.  If you know whats good for you, you will write the idea on a napkin so you can put your focus back where it belongs.  Even better if you have a bright idea notepad (handy-dandy notebook?) that you carry around.

"Life's tough when you're stupid"

If you have spent some time observing your behavior, you may have determined during the day when you are at your most creative state and when you are at your most productive state.  I am an early morning thinker and a rest of the day doer with a brief blast of creativity late in the day.  Find your thinking time and space and pull out the idea assault from the day before and think about what you want to accomplish.  This is a dreaming phase to help you characterize the idea; write as much as you can about the end state.

What does your idea look like??

WARNING!!  The next step is where our excited idea holders begin to fall off the rails on the way to Awesome Town.  As boring as this sounds, you need to plan the implementation of your great idea.  

• What stuff (material or data) do you need to start with
• What kind of people help do you need
• What do you need to learn
• Do you need some money to make the idea happen
• How are you going to market the idea
• How much time do you need (or can you take) to implement this great idea.  

Keep in mind that some ideas have a short time span when the market is right and there is alignment between your great idea's purpose and the need it is meant to serve.  The project plan is to lay out our path and assist in determining if an important task needs to be accomplished before another.

If you are in the middle of a kaizen event and someone is hit in the head by the Idea Fairy, you can use a simple form to capture the idea that can help with implementation like the one below.  She will show up at the most inopportune of times demanding respect and acknowledgement.  Capture the idea, stick it to the process map or fishbone diagram and move along until you are ready to evaluate the idea.

There is DOWNTIME from the 8-Wastes!!

During implementation of the great idea, stop and look at the plan for changes that may need to be made and talk with your team members or mentor about the progression.  Is it coming together like you dreamed about days or weeks ago?  If you suffer from Not-Invented-Here (NIH) Syndrome, I recommend that you get over yourself.  No, I'm not kidding.

While this is an over-simplified version of what project managers do, it will take some practice before you are doing it right.  Remember that each failure is a stepping stone to success.  Don't give up, and learn as you move through your Journey.

Also remember that great ideas can come from little brothers.  Thanks Jeremy!

Process Entitlement

We are all entitled to something, aren't we?  How about some peace and time to think before the fire-fighting begins?  Probably not.  That is unless we have thoughtfully designed our processes to perform at a specific level.  Short cycle time, high quality, just a few people touching the product, and we do not leave the day with a backlog larger than we can emotionally handle.  How often does this happen in your operations?

Profitable and Customer Satisfying processes do not happen accidentally or magically appear just because someone has the specials letters on their resume (MBA, MBB, SSBB, CQE, PMP, ETC).  These processes also do not "just work" because the right people are in the right place at the right time (Process Heroes).  It does not matter if we are using manufacturing or business processes, we should be able to receive predictable and profitable performance no matter which well trained and qualified person is sitting in that chair at that time.

Our Process Hero Saves the Day!

When you start measuring your processes you will probably find that the performance is not what you expected and you will have that sinking sensation.  Stop and breathe, this is normal to feel some level of anxiety once you have swallowed the red pill and it will pass as soon as you start to think about how to begin analyzing for root causes and implement solutions to address those root causes. So logically, if your process just happens because you throw a contract or database at the team then you will have the performance (good or bad) that just happens by chance.  If you have your Process Heroes in place you may have decent on time delivery or quality with rework and inspection, but performance will not be predictable.

Our Process Heroes can only go for so long, and remember what Dr. Tyrell told us, "The light that burns twice as bright can only burn for half as long" (Yes!  It's that important!).  When we burn out our Process Heroes we have to rely on people to inspect quality into our products, and Dr. Deming had something important to say about that too.

This change begins like most others, measure the results of the things going though your system.  This could be airplanes, circuit boards, decisions, grades, reports, or sales of widgets.  Are you receiving the results of your process that you are Entitled to receive?

New Learning With Costs

I have been away from the Lean blogosphere this semester and focusing on AC 626 - Cost Accounting for Managerial Decision Making.  While I have done this type of work as an Industrial Engineer, I think this class tied together some loose ends that I was not aware that were swinging in the breeze.  While I will try to not geek out on you I think this has enhanced how I look at the impact that reducing cycle time has on your operations and eventually your customer, no matter what method you choose to use.

I think in this case Work-in-Process absorbs so much time and energy (that you have to pay someone to worry about) and the fact that our complex systems are not helping us reduce the cost of operations, we "enhance" the links between our employees and our systems with further complex processes.  This has a direct effect on unit cost and, if not managed correctly, will make us run our operations into the ground.  I think we have seen this with the automobile industry.  Why do we reward poor performance with bail-outs and loans that will never be repaid?

While I do not aspire to do Lean with all the cost improvements that we can eat, the focus is still cycle time and unit cost is a reflection on doing the right things right and making the right decisions.  In future writings I will address these with deeper detail.

In the mean time let you mind be aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention!

Ditto.

Managing By Means

Here is a beautiful song destined for Top 10 eternity by Doug Hendren, Managing By Means.  This is a lovely song based on the Toyota Kata.

Data Visualization

Data should tell a story, and we want to tell that story through the PDCA, DMAIC, or DMADV models.  Below is a great way to think about making your data into a picture that is easy to comprehend presented by Matthias Shapiro.

When Is Enough, Enough?

A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away...   

I was teaching the Statistical Process Control & Capability module during a Lean six sigma Green Belt class and one of the students asked, and I'm going to paraphrase, "When is enough, enough?"  I think this would be a normal question to ask while learning how to Make Value Flow.  The question came from one of my Quality friends, and I'm sure he was thinking about all the different processes he supported that needed improvement and certainly not when he could put his feet in the air and his "you-know-what" in the chair.

If you have been measuring your performance, then you should have some amount of data collected around the problem you are experiencing.  If you are having quality problems, you may have Defects Per Unit (DPU), or Defects Per Million Opportunities (DPMO).  If you are having delivery problems, you may have Cycle Time or Number of Days Early/Late.  If you are having cost problems, you may have Cost Per Unit or Weekly Printing Costs.  Either way, you need some data that represents your process.

We can see the performance is in control and the stable, but is the process meeting the customer's needs?  This is always the right question!

When we use SPC we are looking for  indicators that signify when to start asking questions about the process.  There are four that are the easiest to use and remember; 1) Any points outside of the control limits, 2) Six points consecutively going up or down, 3) Nine point consecutively above or below the center, and 4) 14 points consecutively going up and down.  Having a process that performs within these four parameters means that our process is in control and stable, which indicates the flow is predictable.

Here is your SPC warning!  Do not let any of you Quality Engineers catch you putting specification lines on your SPC chart.

What it does not tell us is are we meeting customer expectations.  This is where we take our Voice of the Customer specifications and lay them on top of a histogram of the data.  From here we can see our performance compared to customer specs of no more than 21 days (USL, LSL).

Current State

And as we can see from the fine specimen above, when our cycle times are 22-25 days we are not meeting customer expectations.  Our process is in control, but not performing to the wants and desires of the customer.  In fact it may be possible that our favorite customer is looking for a new supplier of their information needs as we speak and I think that immediate action is required.

At this point you should be constructing a charter, assigning one of your belts to lead the project, and kick-off the team.  Work your best as a Project Sponsor, Smart Person or Supplier/Customer and document the results in an A3.  When you have enough data with the new process you can see how the center and spread fit within the specifications.

If you have identified the root causes and adequately implemented a new process that has improved flow, then you are done with that process for now.  The biggest indicator is the edge of the distribution is some amount away from the specification.  For you math nerds, below is the formula and you want to get as close to 1.5 as you can.

Improved Process #1

Based on our results we can see that are delivering everything on time, and if we finish early we can hold the deliverable until the customer is ready.  Be wary of producing too much too fast.  That would make our work-in-process increase, which means the window between "doing work" and "getting paid" increases and this is detrimental to cash flow.

At the end of the day we want our products to flow without stopping though our value-added operations to meet customer demand.  Deliver too late and the customer must wait (Wait Time), but if we deliver too early the customer has to over-handle (Excess Processing) the product until they are ready to use it and this is "Inventory" they have to hold until they are paid.  If you have paid any attention over the last 5 years, this over-capitalization is one of the causes of the downfall of the American automobile industry.  Leadership is the decision-maker, but the following histogram represents one possible best fit.

Improved Process #2

Improving performance is not something that will automatically happen, learning curves are not absolute.  Market forces fluctuate and your ability to adjust with them could be one of your long-term indicators of success.

How do you use your data for improving flow?

Incentivizing Improved Performance

Have a team that produced great results when their past performance was consistently less than stellar?  Was this a one-time bump or will there be long-lasting results?  Do you think the team will show high performing metrics next review?  You probably know the answer to this.

Companies and their internal organization should have plans to improve or innovate their products and services.  Those plans need to be developed with and approved by the Board, flowed down through the Leadership Team, and marketed to the employees.  These plans should be visual, achievable and relevant enough so that anyone we ask will understand what right looks like.  We are asking for everyone's support as if the future of the company depends on it, because it does.

We know this is a journey and we should be plotting our course, stop once in a while and take a look at the progress you have made.  Bring the team together and show them that working together to a common goal can make happen. Along the way, take pictures, shoot some video, interview people involved in the change, and use your project documentation to create storyboards to help show the transformation.  Remember this is not small step change on one little project, but transformation across an entire site.

Think about how to reward the teams for this amount of change.  A pay increase would be great, but we're talking about real employee appreciation not short-term impacts that are quickly accepted as the normal condition.  Employees today are looking to make a personal connection that can act as compound interest on their careers.  They also want to know that their contributions are making a difference.

Companies in the recent past paid some percentage of the savings.  This is nice too, but too often the savings are soft or cost avoidance types of savings.  While these opportunities need to be implemented also, they increase capacity of the team and have the affect of reducing over-time to achieve better balance between life and work.  We have seen this types of reward systems become abused and leaves a bitter taste with the Leadership team when reductions to bottom line costs are not realized.

This type of thinking can certainly be used to motivate employees to continue improving and innovating, and employees knowing their efforts are appreciated make huge steps in retaining them.  Green Belt or Black Belt shirts with company logos are nice, but mentoring from the boss and opportunities to move up the ladder reinforce the confidence in the actual people doing the actual work.

What type of actions have you used to show employee appreciation?

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?

Book Review: The Integrated Enterprise Excellence System

Forrest W. Breyfogle III, the author of "The Integrated Enterprise Excellence System", has written about a system of strategic tools and methods to see the alignment and performance of organizations.  His book lays out the different methods of metrics, management governance, goals, and strategic development.  He connects these and other concepts using an Enterprise DMAIC model.

In my opinion this book was written for Leaders and Managers of organizations, people who's work is at the system level of the organization.  These could be team leaders, supervisors, managers, and executives.

Mr. Breyfogle has been a proponent of the "wise use" of statistical techniques and this book does a great job of connecting those dots to transforming organizations into customer satisfying machines.  I recommend this book to all my readers.

Change Fundamentals

“Change makes me feel uncomfortable.”

“Change is hard.”

“We don’t need to change, everything is fine.”

I’m sure you have heard these before, maybe even said something like this.  But now you are in a position of Leadership or you are responsible for the activities of a team and you see that you’re not reaching the performance levels you need to get ahead.  Money Girl may be scheduling meetings with you twice a week to discuss your budget numbers.  You could be meeting twice a day and that is not going to solve your problems.

This model is used help align groups of people to specific results and keep them within the left and right boundaries of their tasks and responsibilities.  The Beliefs of the individuals on the teams will lead to the Behaviors which drive their Actions that produce Results.  This helps to show why people think “Change is hard” and you do not see the Results.  Turning the team around is not only your responsibility; it’s in your skills toolbox.

The first step is the hardest because the team’s lack of momentum has anchored them to the past.  Did they win a team performance or safety award ten years ago?  Does your team currently perform the best in the branch but their internal competitors should all be sent back to the farm team?  You may find the team is the “cream of the crap” and this is never a nice realization.

You need to find out what the team Believes.  Do they really know their performance or want to know?  Do they believe they have the ability or permission to make change?  Do the team members have the skills, knowledge, and ability to perform the work that is being asked of them?  And there are more questions you could ask based on your industry or location.

Beliefs are the hardest to change; many were shaped by past experiences.  You will be battling against previous good or bad managers, corporate cultures, left-wing professors, and perhaps an undesirable work ethic.  Some team members will be easy to shift and a small number, if any, will probably need to be released back to wild.  Jim Collins talked about having people in the right seats on the bus, assuming they are on the right bus to begin with.

Tools to help Leaders re-align the individual’s and team’s Behaviors are the Company’s Vision, Mission, Goals and Objectives.  Do your team members know how and where they fit in the Vision and Mission?  This may take some exploration with the team and your Leadership.  I have seen teams try to determine how they fit, review this with Leadership and are sent back being told to try again.  This is not a catastrophic event as long as you can show you are learning from the experience.

Goals and Objectives play a large part by providing a basis for measuring the team.  Remember that not every team will have Objectives for every Goal, and try not to overthink your importance to the site but be open to how everyone fits together.  Goals should link Objectives to the Vision and Mission.

Measuring the team’s current performance to the Goals and Objectives can be an enlightening event that will drive the team to Action.  Don’t just print the chart and stick it on the wall, share it with the team and ask questions that lead to sustained high performance.  Using A3 Thinking helps to document what the team is experiencing and how they can learn by evaluating the low and high performance times.  This learning is documented in the team’s standard work, SOP, or Desk Guide and is used for training new team members.

These Actions will create Results with increased performance, higher levels of predictability, and increased team moral.  We are not just robots moving paper from one pile to another pile; we are thinking creatures with drive and a desire to make customers happy with the products we provide.  The processes we work in will not improve on their own, they require the ingenuity and creativity we have in all of us to make change.  It is there, just waiting to flourish.

How have you seen or experienced a change in hearts and minds?

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?

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.