Adults with high stress levels performed 50% worse on declarative memory tests (things you can declare) and executive function tests (the type of thinking that involves problem solving). Both are skills needd to excel in school and business.
Source: Brain Rules by John Medina
Wiki Wednesday is where we have 1 topic and several thoughts on the topic from Lean practitioners.
“Is Lean different for small or medium business?”
Please leave your thoughts on the comments section. Here are some thoughts to get you started:
Lean is a very specific solution for business and I’ve implemented lean in many places with businesses of all sizes and really the only things you change are the way you implement. With small or medium businesses you may need to do more on the fly training and start with shorter Kaizen improvement events due to fewer people and having to possible be in front of the clients all the time (i.e. medical clinics, dental clinics, veterinary clinic, optometry clinics, etc.)
For more wikiing please contribute to
http://leanway.wikidot.com/
Does it work in business operations? Here is what I’ve found from my experiences. I was doing work at a manufacturing company and noticed that there was in issue of how they took some of their parts out of the box. These parts weighed anywhere from 6 lbs a unit to 55 lbs a unit and the process was 90% manual. This one portion of their assembly process was the main cause of OSHA injuries on the site. The company had implemented about 3 solutions over 5 years and each solution was heavily analyzed by several people but the company still was not seeing the results they wanted.
We did a Kaizen in the problem area. The event took 1 week and about 2 weeks of follow-up but there was some progress. The new process was better but still caused too much injury. Just 4 weeks after the first event we did another week long event to iterate a new design for the problem area. In this event we still had the results from the last meeting fresh in our minds. We changed and added a few features such as a tilt table for a more ergonomic positioning and rotating employees more frequently. The new design and run rules we implemented actually turned the area from the worst performing area in terms of safety to one of the best.
The company spent 5 years with the same results because they didn’t iterate very quickly. They waited for a perfect solution. The Kaizen team that we had took about 2 months to fix the problem area but iterating and trying out ideas quickly.
I’m sure there are situations were it makes sense to iterate slower but for most problems it seems that having a bias towards implantation and iterating changes seems to be a very effective strategy. Moral of the story – Change now and change often until you meet your goal.
Companies with an adaptive culture that is aligned to their business goals routinely outperform their competitors. Some studies report the difference at 200% or more.
source:http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/companyculture.htm
Why do you think the adaptive cultures are more profitable?
Thank you to those who responded to yesterday’s wiki. If you didn’t get a chance or want to expand on your thoughts please post them to the comments.
Yesterday’s wiki post:
“What are other wastes in any other industry besides TIM WOOD (Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Over processing, Over production, Defects)”
The wiki is a divergent wiki. A convergent wiki is looking for 1 “correct” response to a
question. A divergent wiki just asks give me all the answers you can think of for the question.
I’ve also launched a lean wiki site http://leanway.wikidot.com/ so please add articles and join in.
Responses:
1) From personal experience I would add lack of strategic alignment is also a waste.
From wikipedia: In services we add unclear communications and missed opportunity to build rapport with the customer.
2) The underutilisation of human potential is also a waste, when the development of people is left “for the better days” and know-how not transmitted to the future generations…
3) I’ll add:
Underutilized people (not exploiting their talents and knowledge as well as not engaging them at all either on accident or as a by product of management arrogance.)
Complexity. It seems to me – I’ve only done this for about 8 years in 3 organizations – that historically improvement has been done with engineering and capital — improvement by addition – this can lead to very complex machines and processes. The best problem solving is improvement by substraction. Find root cause and eliminate if possible not add something to correct a symptom.
I would suggest that from an academic standpoint my additions aren’t really wastes in the same sense as the TIM WOOD wastes. They are really common causes that end up in a lot of 5 whys.
I would add you lack of strategic alignement as well. It could be a special case of underutilized people in that people are engaged on fragmented unaligned activities. They are utilized on stuff that isn’t really important.
4)There is the waste of making the wrong product efficiently.
The waste of excessive information or communication – like emails.
The waste of time – like Covey’s 7 Principles of Highly Effective People, Urgent vs important tasks.
The waste of inappropriate systems – liek how much software is on your computer or network that you don’t use.
Wasted energy and water resources – think energy treasure hunt.
Wasted natural resources – Rocky Mountain institute estimates that 99% of original materials used in production in US becomes waste within 6 weeks of sale like paper.
Mura – the waste of variation
The waste of knowledge – simply letting knowledge disappear.
The waste of no follow through – like when yu save walking distance but don’t do anything with the time saved, then you didn’t really save anything.
Wiki Wednesday is where we have 1 topic and several thoughts on the topic from Lean practitioners.
“What are other wastes in any other industry besides TIM WOOD (Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Over processing, Over production, Defects)”
Please leave your thoughts on the comments section. Here are some thoughts to get you started:
From personal experience I would add lack of strategic alignment is also a waste.
From wikipedia: In services we add unclear communications and missed opportunity to build rapport with the customer.
For more wikiing please contribute to
http://leanway.wikidot.com/
Working with small businesses I explain the concept of single piece flow and most of the time they don’t they need it. So I show them this example:
If you wanted to write these sentences:
See Spot. See Spot run. Run Spot run.
If you were to do a batch and process you would type this way:
1) seespotseespotrunrunspotrun – Put all the letters together
2) seespot.seespotrun.runspotrun – Add punctuation
3) see spot. see spot run. run spot run. – Add spacing
4) See Spot. See Spot run. Run Spot run. – Add capitalization
How many of you write like that? But the reality is that we run businesses this way. In manufacturing we will assemble 1 piece on 100 units then we will assemble the 2nd piece then the 3rd. In a medical clinic we bring in enough patients to fill in all the rooms. The nurse will see all of the patients then the doctor will make his/her rounds.
Single piece flow is finishing as you go. Finish 1 unit completely before moving to the next. Make the patients and products flow where you are finishing as you go. In a doctor’s office would not bring in another patient until the doctor is almost done with the previous patient and the nurse can start.
For a small business try entering expenses into your account software as soon as it occurs instead of waiting till they pile up. This way you aren’t batching all of your record keeping and you have timely information about your spending.
How you use single piece flow in your lives or businesses?
Many people approach me and say that Lean works great in manufacturing but it won’t work in my industry. I simply reply do you want to serve your customer better and remove waste from your business while making your employees happier and more productive?
They usually answer yes but they don’t think Lean can help. Lean can help because it is not just a set of tools but a management style. I summarize by saying there are 4 points to lean:
1) Flow – add value and remove waste with respect to the customer
2) Remove Waste – reduce TIM WOOD (transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, over production, over processing, defects)
3) Respect for people (visual factory, standard work, bottom up problem solving, leadership styles, etc)
4) Continuous improvement (kaizen, strategic planning, etc)
In any business you can use these 4 principles to start lean.
Do you think there is an industry that this model won’t work? If so then why?
Inventory to sales ratio reached 13-year high Q1 2009
source: 2009 NAM/IndustryWeek Manufacturing Index Q2 2009
Do you think manufacturers have learned from this fact? Do you think they will continue to store excess inventory?
My friend Mark Graban is on Karl Waddensten’s “Lean Nation” radio show toay February 11th at 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST for a live show to talk about Lean in hospitals an talk about his book “Lean Hospitals”. Please call in to the show 401-437-5000 or 888-345-0790.
Thank you to those who responded to yesterday’s wiki. If you didn’t get a chance or want to expand on your thoughts please post them to the comments.
Yesterday’s wiki post:
“Is Toyota’s Recall A Byproduct Of Lean?”
The wiki is a divergent wiki. A convergent wiki is looking for 1 “correct” response to a
question. A divergent wiki just asks give me all the answers you can think of for the question.
I’ve also launched a lean wiki site http://leanway.wikidot.com/ so please add articles and join in.
Responses:
1)I realize the question isn’t framed the best but this is honestly the way it is viewed in many circles. I say that Toyota got away from it’s lean principles of being close to the customers. I would argue that the same brake pedals across different product lines is not lean for the same reason we see now. The defects are not on one product line but several.
2)I wouldn’t call it a byproduct…
Pulling an andon cord is normal way of acting in Toyota. They pulled it late, that is the main problem. They didn’t react as expected from someone who teaches managerial practices, principles and culture in the last 30 years or so.
I think they are coming back to ground right now and back to their basics. They probably considered themselves a little bit above the others in the last years, when they had become the n.1 and expanding all over the globe. And they’ve lived on their laurels thinking that nobody can beat them.
Now they have understood their mistakes and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them dig very deep into themselves and come out much stronger then before, with new, updated, operating system in place which will teach us and give us advice in the next decades…
3)I don’t think so.
On the contrary, I would suggest that one major premise of lean is to make abnormality obvious in real time. That certainly didn’t happen given the scale of this problem across models and time.
Some people have suggested that there are value added function in the product development activities that didn’t happen. That would seem to be a fair criticism given the facts as they have presented themselves.
Finally, I would suggest that no ‘ideal paradigm’ or model would produce the result that we have seen. Therefore, if this IS a ‘by product’ of lean then the model needs to change in a way that puts in place countermeasures against this happening again. So if it was a by product of lean then the system will be changed and it won’t be a by product tomorrow and therefore can’t be used an arguement against lean. Lean by definition improves as new stuff is learned.
4)I wouldn’t call it a byproduct…either. Maybe, we are too infatuated with heroes, i.e Tiger Woods.
I think we put Toyota on a pedestal and gave way to much credit for everything good that happened from Lean. Like every methodology or even golf swings, they are modeled from the best in the world at the time. We forget that they are just models. These models need to be adjusted and/molded to our culture or as in golf our physical stature.
There will always be mistakes that are found after products are put into use. Though we have decreased these odds, it still will happen. When you are #1 in the world these mistakes are magnified and all areas will be overly scrutinized.
I think Bruce sums it up very nicely in his last paragraph. It may be a year or two before we know but if the TPS aka Lean is an effective methodology it will become stronger as a result.
5)No Toyota’s situation is no a result of Lean. I think many of us would agree that Toyota lost is way in recent years while pursuing the #1 market position. I am not sure that really has bearing on this either.
Lean Thinking is not an absolution. No management system guarantees no problems. Lean Thinking is really a problem solving strategy by engaging the entire workforce. This approach as we have experienced greatly reduces weaknesses with organizations by attacking problems. It has a strong backbone in customer focus.
There are no guarantees in life or business. I believe Lean Thinking has been proving help organizatin be more effective in terms of safety, quality, delivery, and profitability.
Lean Thinking certaintly is not the cause of a defect. Whether in one product line or not is really a question of risk and exposure. To reduce risk you must out more effort to reduce exposure.
Lean Thinking also does not eliminate 100% of all problems because as you solve problems new ones can surface. The key to success is to constantly learn to solve problems in a timely effective mannner. I am sure Toyota will learn the most they can from this situation and be better off for it in the long run.
6)No, I agree with Tim. Toyota’s problems are not a by-product of Lean. I believe, and this is only opinion since I’m not in any way an expert on Toyota or Lean, that Toyota’s problem is that they stopped being Toyota.
What I mean by that is Toyota seems to have strayed from a core principle – respect for humanity. Toyota seems to have become what they (or really, we) said they were not – a Detroit automaker who wanted more and more market share at the expense of quality.
When did this begin? Hard to say, but problems with Toyota vehicles – serious problems in appreciable numbers – started in the late 90’s and continue today. Not coincidentally, again in my opinion, is the fact that a Toyoda family member was not running Toyota from 1995 until this past June.
Are Toyota’s problems a failure in leadership under the collective watches of Hiroshi Okuda, Fujio Cho, and Katsuaki Watanabe? Again, I don’t know, but would they have run the company differently if there names were Toyoda?
7)Did you ever see the movie,, “Collateral Damage”? Toyota cared about safety when they were making a name for themselves, but when it became about being #1… it became a game about numbers. Sadly, I bellieve that they weighed their options, and few people dying, and a few lawsuits was decided to be the more fiscally responsible thing to do 🙁
8)Toyota was forced to cutback on costs as part of its growing orientation towards stock market performance – maintaining net earning/net income/profit performance especially considering severe drop in consumer sales that 2008-09 automotive industry absorbed in general…
Keep in mind – avg. seasonally adjusted FY sales for automotive was at 8 million units in 2008 (earlier) and fell down to lows averaging around 5 mill. units thats 37-40% drop in auto industry as whole. In securities – Toyota (NYSE:TM) held around $90-$100/share, in first half of 2009 that value fell down to $60 pps (33%-40% devaluation correlated to sales decline).
Find data here at WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html?mod=mdc_h_econhl
http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:TM
If you look at 1yr graph of Toyota- read the series of news feed company made in national media (cutback in production/ halting India’s 2nd Factory launch/Repurchasing Stocks/Issuing massive amounts of CDO (collat. debt obligtns.) & bonds (all debt issuances) to raise funding. I would bet this is key turning point where Toyota made cutbacks in TQM (quality mgmt.) and loosened quality controls to suppliers such as CTS Corp. that made pedals for recalled models. Basically supporting Laura’s theory – their huge fixed overhead costs and cost of maintaining massive infrastructure of 17% market share company was tumbling with economy (stock market) that was cut basically in half in less than a year.
We’ll never know, but we will know how a Toyoda reacts to this crisis. Akio Toyoda has a long road to hoe.