Category Archives: Lean Manager

Become a Good Manager: Starting with an Empty Glass

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Only an empty Glass can be filled with something new. If your glass already full there is no place to learn new things. Thus you need to be able to free yourself from the pre-conceptions and ideas that clutter your mind. Only then you will be able to learn something new. If you want to be a good manager or learn any new problem solving or process improvement methodologies you need to be able to completely submit yourself to that philosophy. With preconceived notions it is impossible to fully understand a new idea.

The Noise

You are exposed to too much of information through TV, Internet and other means. We have a constant pressure to retain so much information in our daily life. Email passwords, grocery lists, remembering to pay your bills are just few things that keep our find full. As our lives get busier, we are under constant fear of forgetting something. With all this going on our mind, there is no time to think, reflect, analyze. We only react to things as they happen. A life like this is unsatisfying. If you want to be a better manager first you need to learn how to manage your own life.

How do we clear our mind?

There are many ways to do it. I generally classify them as methods involving Mind, Body actions and a combination of both. Let us explore some the methods.

Writing: I am not talking about writing as creative expression. You want to write to free up our mental space so that our deeper thoughts come to the surface. This helps us understand ourselves. To use writing for clearing your mind, all you need is a pen and paper. We start writing whatever that comes to our mind, to do list, things that bother us, things that make us happy, places to visit, etc. You write till you are run out of ideas to write. Don’t worry about grammar, form, style of writing. You should be writing freely what comes to your mind. Make it a daily practice to write 2 to 3 pages. Which is approximately 600-900 words, don’t worry about counting them. Some days you will write more and other days you will write less. Only rule is to use only pen and paper. This ensures that you are not reformatting, deleting or adding things in between. We don’t want these distractions in our process.

Meditation: Though some may think it is a difficult process it is a much easier process than what you can imagine. If you have never practiced meditation before you may want to try some guided meditation from here and here. There are many other resources online which help you on this topic. The purpose of this process is to slow down the mind and remove all the noise that clutters your thoughts. The result is a focused mind.

Walk/Run: Running or just walking also helps to clear your mind. Gets your thoughts aligned. It may be the fresh air or physical activity that freshens up the mind. It is one the feel good activity that I like to do whenever I get the time.

Slow down: This is one thing that we the people in modern world think is a luxury of the past. We don’t want to miss this or that, without realizing that we miss most of it. We try to do lot more than what we need, always running out of time at work and at home. Slowing down and focusing on what you are doing at present helps you focus and makes you more effective. This way you don’t miss out on details or jump to conclusions. This is very important skill for problem solving.

Take a break:  Everyone deserves a break. Every once a while you need to break away from the routine. It may be vacation or just a coffee break. When your mind reaches its saturation point there is no point straining yourself beyond that point. It is best to take a break and let the subconscious mind do the work and may be you will have a Eureka Moment.

Do Something Fun: Do anything that allows you relax your mind, maybe something creative like drawing, painting or playing music or physical activity like dancing or going to gym. Anything that you enjoy will work to help you refresh your mind.

 

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Practicing Behavior Patterns are More Important than Tools

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Many companies fail to reach the success similar to that of Toyota as they randomly apply tools and techniques of lean. The right way as proposed in “Toyota Kata” is practicing the behavior patterns in our daily routine. This thought is in alignment with the previous post about how the business should manage itself. Practicing behavior patterns forces us to focus on the means people use to run the business.

Why learning and practicing behavior  pattern is more important than learning the tools?

It is all about cultivating right habits. When you expect to change culture by teaching and applying tools and techniques it is only superficial.It does not guarantee the change in the thinking model of the people involved. Thus a cultural shift is unlikely.

On the other hand when you learn and practice behavior patterns it cultivates habits. Thus changing people at a different level than just learning new tools. There is a shift in thinking and perception. This is a likely condition under which an organisation may undergo a cultural shift.

Now the big question is : What are these right behavior patterns that patterns that we need to learn and practice on daily basis to continuously improve, adapt and prosper?

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Future of Lean Thinking: The Making of Lean Manager

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“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”  – Confucius

The Lean Manager is the lynchpin.  Without the right person and the right philosophy, the process from transformation to continuous improvement culture is purely a waste of time and efforts. From the leader of the organization to the leader on the gemba, these are the people who determine the course of the people and the company towards the lean thinking culture.

Over the years the lean practitioners around the world have gathered knowledge on use of various tools. Wisdom has led us to believe that a systems approach rather than just focusing on tools is essential for a long term results. We cannot succeed by imitating others; a cultural change is a must! So what is next? The next shift in thinking would be to understand the change at personal level. That is to understand the mind of lean manager and how one transforms into a person of scientific thinking.

Why should we be interested in the making of a lean manager? The answer lies outside the normal realm of management and business. Business goals and management tools are just merely tools and will not be effective if the people using them not fully understand the art and science of problem solving. Yes it is partly art because, how a manager selects the right tool to solve the problem depends mostly on his experience and intuition. The chaos in the everyday operation of any business will easily make an average manager stray away from the real purpose. Daily firefighting, running after vanity metrics, useless reporting are enough distractions to convert a manager into a mindless zombie. Then a feeling of unfulfillment, depression sets in. One does not think before we act, “There is no time to do it right, but always time to do it all over again”. A manager whose fundamental thinking is not conditioned and mental character is not strong will easily succumb to these pressures. How do we train ourselves to be strong mentally and with the values and conduct that act as our anchor to survive the storm of our daily work life? Personal development using the methods and philosophies such as zen may have a lot to teach us.

There is a need for an unconventional guide for a manager who wants to be a “Lean manager”. This may not be a guide for everyone; and may only be suitable for people who think of Lean as a religion and who are not afraid of changing themselves in the quest for understanding how to change others for good. We should also consider dealing with things outside the office world on how to create a right lifestyle to be a perfect lean thinker.

The failure of many companies to apply lean has shown us that just imitating the methods is not a good path to take. Learning from experience is an accepted by many but it is hard to create environment where failures are accepted as part learning process. Most of the time this important process is side stepped as everything needs to be done yesterday; there is no time for failure. Thus a foresight about the potential problems is necessary. This means learning by reflection and practicing failures ahead of time. We need to learn about how to prepare our mind to reflect and how to practice lean in our daily life. This will help us build a strong foundation of principles and values that any lean manager should embrace.

There are certain traits, intrinsic characteristics, or cultural background that will either help or prevent the transformation of a manager to a Lean Manager. So now the question is:

Are Lean Managers born? Or Are they made?

 

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Mission Statement: What is the mission of Manufacturing Operations?

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For sometime I have been trying to develop comprehensive mission statement which could be used for any manufacturing operations.

It all started with the most basic requirement  of any operation:

” Right the first on time”

This did not encompass other important aspects of business; People, Safety and business goals. So the statement was  modified the statement:

” Right the first time on time by engaging people towards business goals in safe environment”

What according to you is the mission of manufacturing operation?

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Gemba Walk: Mangement by Walking Around (MBWA)

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What is a Gemba Walk?

Gemba walk , in simple words is a form of “Management by Walking Around” (MBWA).  This is a very powerful tool as it is based on the fundamental principles of lean known as the ” 3G’s of lean ” as listed below. Gemba walk provides a first-hand unpolluted information about your Processes, Products and People.

3 G’s of Lean

Gemba – “The actual place”. This a place of actual work where the value is created

Gembutsu – “The thing”. Products or things which we are interested to improve.

Genjitsu – “The facts”. The real facts that are happening at the place of interest

I like to call Gemba walk as Management by walking around because it allows you to do just that. A 15 minutes Gemba walk has proved to be more effective in resolving flow interrupters for delivery than having hour long status meetings far away in the comfort of the office with unreliable data. When you are out there on the Gemba looking at the actual process, products and people responsible for them, there is no doubt about anything ,  no one can fabricate false information, you can interact with the process owner to resolve problems more quickly. This also helps all the Line Managers to align their priorities to solve problems for more efficient flow of the products through the value stream.

Few things to keep in mind to make this a successful tool:

- Have a clear theme and agenda for the walk

- prepare a list of questions to ask

- Setup a display board for each workstation which help process owner to answer question you will be asking

-  Have the top-most management do Gemba walk along with you at least during the initial phase, that way everyone know that we are serious about improvement

- Be disciplined never miss the gemba walk

- Make sure resources are made available to resolve issues discovered during the walk

- make sure the account abilities are clear and everyone responsible completes their task

Gemba walk  will be a good management tool as long as you use it properly. It can be used to serve various purposes. I will share more about my experiences in later posts. Till then if you have any questions or you need to know  anything  in particular about its implementation and application…. just leave a comment below.

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How do we Learn?- The process and tools of Learning

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Actually a post “Learning to Learn” by Evan Durant inspired me to write this. This topic has always intrigued me and have read my share blogs posts, books to satisfy my curiosity. I would like to share my experiences and experiments on this process and learn what others have done. I will briefly explain my philosophy and tools to slay this dragon!

The Philosophy of Learning:

Learning is not possible unless there is creative tension. Imagine a place where everyone agrees, they will never learn new things and grow. For this to be possible you need the right people and right environment. Right people are the one who questions the status quo and are not afraid constructive criticism. This is a tough team to have they will always keep you on your toes. The environment or conditions that will lead to learning  are explained more in detail in my post “The 8 Fold Path”. This is just my opinion but I believe most learning system will be composed of one or more similar building blocks.
The Tools:

Task Standard work & Leader Standard Work: We need to be able capture knowledge at process level and then link it to peoples tasks. The combination of task and leader standard work helps to achieve this. We had started to use this tools out of necessity for standardizing our tasks but learned it can be a effective learning tool when a new person joins a team or even for cross training. Task Standard work ensures all the tasks required to sustain a process are understood and captured thus providing reference point for future improvements. Leader Standard work ensures these tasks are performed by responsible individuals.In case of new person or cross training leader standard work helps the individual to do things religiously on daily basis till becomes a habit that helps him/her to do the job. The right habits helps develop right culture. Thus these tools if used properly can used to help people learn the culture of the organization. They are also good catch-ball mechanisms between the trainer and trainee.

More reading: “Leader Standard Work” , “Task Standard Work”

Gemba Walk: This is yet another catch-ball mechanism and very effective to get whole people on the team to align their thoughts and understanding. We cannot transfer what is there in our mind to somebody else’s  in an instant. We have to reinforce the idea again and again and how it implies in different scenarios till the other person understands its application and corrects any misunderstanding under the observation of the trainer. Every time the learner makes mistake the trainer is there to correct his path and realign their understanding. Several iterations of this during the gemba walks helps  everyone to learn  and align their ideas.

A3 Problem Solving: This is by far the most effective tool in teaching problem solving. It forces the learner to go through the PDCA cycle helping him to learn the systematic problem solving using scientific method. Second, the  catch-ball mechanism by which I mean every time the learner proposes a solution the trainer can send it back asking for  necessary fixes, and this cycle can go on till the best solution is reached.

Internal Training : We used to have weekly 30 min training for all the managers where anyone propose a training topic and present it. Mostly it would be one point lessons and sometimes games to show how one piece flow is better than batch. It was a fun way to learn and also a good opportunity for new managers to learn the skills of teaching in a safe environment.

Whatever you decide is your philosophy of learning or your tools, always remember to standardize the learning process so that any ineffective processes or steps can be improved or eliminated. We cannot learn the learning process without knowing what it is.

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Aligning Business – Processes – People

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This is a scene at most of the businesses where the Business goals very rarely affect the day to day processes that run the organisation or any changes in the process realign the goals to new scenario.  People are usually left on their own to figure their way out of this situation. Here Business planing is considered as an annual activity and once done is set in stone or worse just completely forgotten during the rest of the year only to review again at the end of the year. You know you are one of them if you look back at last year and blame each other or somebody or something  for not reaching your targets.

For a business to achieve its goals and be successful it needs to agile and continuously in sync with changing environments within and outside the organisation.

To achieve this agility we need to have a system which aligns our People to Processes, which in turn are aligned to our Business goals on Day to Day basis. It works both ways as everything works in sync like gears where change in one gears rotation or speed will proportionally change the others.

Visually this looks very simple but practically implementing this is a challenging but I believe is not impossible. Especially if you already have tools to standardize processes (Task Standard Work) and People ( Leader Standard Work ).

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Task Standard Work

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This is a simple tool that we used initially for the purpose of documenting sustaining the processes we had setup. It can also be used for aligning   processes to the top level strategy of the company.

Most organizations will have following basic processes:

  • Operations
  • Supply
  • Management
  • Customer Relation
  • Product Development

These are any processes which have to be done routinely to sustain the business.They may each have several tasks done by different people. For example :

Process : Operations

Tasks :

  • Shipping
  • Production Planing
  • Maintenance

The purpose of the Task Standard work is to standardize the various routine routine tasks required to sustain the processes which run the business

Here is an example showing the TASK STANDARD WORK of the SHIPPING Task:

These actions on the Task standard work will be transferred to each persons Leader Standard Work. Thus any changes made to sustain a task can be integrated each persons day to day work. This also provides the work content of each task and if you have total work content of all the processes recorded then it will help you identify minimum number people required to sustain the organisation.

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Leader Standard work – A bite a day keeps audit away!

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I was reading “Audit Vs. leader Standard Work” by Mark Rosenthal and I suddenly realized what potential we have created at our work place.

Over the course of the year we have grown very fond of the audits. Especially for 5S and we are developing audits  for maintaining other lean management systems put in place. So far they worked fine and actually helped us to stay on track and also creating in culture of continuous improvement. So you may be wondering why that is bad?

As Mark explains Audits are snapshot and often people will try to fool the system to be good for the audit but bad on other days when there is no audit. Now I wondered why it was not realized at our place?

The reason for this was simple , we had unknowingly incorporated that in our Gemba Walks. This ensured continuous followup of all the set systems on daily basis. This was an important move,  addressing to issues as we walk through the workstation was part of our Leader Standard Work (LSW). This kept the systems in check on day to day basis, for example an operator was informed about parts without any designated place immediately when it was seen rather then waiting to conduct the audit.

This has inspired me to think of new system where in we will no longer need audits as we will do bit of checking everyday by enabling it through LSW of responsible people.

Some things which helps to achieve this goal :

1. Try to break down big monthly tasks into smaller weekly  tasks , similarly weekly to daily tasks.

2. Use knowledge gained from issues of shop floor modify LSW to fit systems put in place to avoid these issue in future

3. Even if you have to use audits initially , make them stricter , raise the bar up as people start getting better

4. be disciplined to resolve issues  immediately rather than waiting for the next formal  audit

I am hoping to learn more by looking at audits and leader Standard work from this Perspective and ultimately be able to stay away from audits  by taking a bite a day using the Leader Standard work.

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5S- The Foundation of Lean Manufacturing

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5S is often misunderstood as just a mere housekeeping tool. Impact of having a successful 5S system is more profound than just keeping the place clean.

5S is the starting point of any lean transformation and forms a catalyst for culture of change. Due to the very visible results it makes the process of buy-in easy for both the shopfloor personnel and Management.

some of the key points why 5s forms the foundation of lean manufacturing is as follows:

  • Standardisation of process provide a stable base for incremental improvement
  • Visible results helps boost morale of the people who then take pride working in this area
  • Is an enabler of Continuous Improvement culture
  • Prepares the workplace and people for implementing other Lean tools like TPM, SMED etc.

5S implementation may sound easy but in reality it may be very complex and even more complex is how to sustain it. Not being able to sustain 5S is one of the biggest reason for failure any lean implementation project. Properly sustained 5s program helps continuously improve the workplace and shows managements commitment to the whole change process.  Leader Standard Work is one of the way to sustain 5S and new control measures developed by implementing 5S.

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