Ten Steps to Lean Six Sigma

Ten Steps to Lean Six Sigma

 

 

 

Summary

Business fundamentally exists to make money, either for shareholders or owners. Lean Six Sigma is a combination of methodologies to provide your organisation with greater speed, less variation and more bottom line impact than any other methodology.

Central to Lean Six Sigma is the fastest rate of improvement in customer satisfaction, cost, quality, speed and invested capital.

The fusion of lean and six sigma is necessary because:

o   Lean cannot bring a process under statistical control

o   Six-Sigma alone cannot dramatically improve process speed or reduce invested capital.

o   Variation is the enemy of all business; lean six-sigma removes more variation than any other process.

 

 

Ten Steps to Lean Six Sigma

Please note the Lean Six Sigma does not lend itself well to a ten steps programme, as it is in every way an ongoing process, which is continuously undertaken. The following ten-steps should therefore be thought more of an implementation summary.

1. You will initially require consultants to help you on this path, but they should easily pay for themselves over the long run. You can (should) however expect significant returns within the first year of application. Hence the first step is to go and get help.

2. Big Hairy Audacious Goals need to be set by the MD or CEO Management engagement into Lean Six Sigma occurs and is seen to occur in a big way. These goals are broadcast to the company during a ‘transformation event’, which is quite an accurate description.

3. Selection of the Practitioners. Selection of the black belt teams is an art form in itself and wants to be done carefully. The best people should be selected and represent the future business leaders of the company.

4. Training, training, training. The master black belt is ultimately responsible for the training of the black and green belts. Quite a lot of training is necessary and you should be prepared for this. At first you should hang onto your consultants for this purpose.

5. Kickoff – Company wide Vision. Its time to bring those audacious goals into action and make sure that everyone understands them and that you and the company are totally committed to lean six-sigma.

6. Project Selection and Implementation. First off, the “value streams” that show the most promise for growth are identified, which is quickly followed by projects that will most likely yield the greatest benefits in those value streams.

7. Monitoring Teams Performance. Since the Lean Six sigma is a financial improvement strategy, which talks the language of the

senior management, it is easy for them to monitor and ensure that the teams are producing the necessary improvements. Simple software tools can be used to roll up all those lovely cost savings.

8.  Improving Team Performance. Reviewing the structure of your teams and in particular the ability of your black belts to perform as team leaders is fundamental to success, team realignment and training in soft people skills is always required.

9.  Making it Stick. Ensuring that the improvements initially gained continue to roll in, can be difficult for many firms. Making sure your initial enthusiasm doesn’t wane is key to continued success.

10. Rolling out into the Supply Chain. After successful projects have delivered real benefits to the company, you will start to notice that more and more problems are surfacing due to external variations. Projects involving the supply chain will be more frequently suggested, remember here that it is supply chains that compete not companies.

 

 

Duration of Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma is a permanent way of doing business and is utilised as the primary methodology for business improvement through cost reduction, process speed and variation removal. This will also be the primary conduit along the career path for future managers of the business. Make no mistake Lean Six Sigma needs to be a primary focus of the MD or CEO.

 

So why use this rather than TQM, Lean or Six Sigma on their own or Hassle-Free Quality for example.

Lets take each of these in turn.

Total Quality Management (TQM) received a bit of a bum rap primarily because quality improvements were made regardless of the impact on the bottom line of the company. No improvements projects are undertaken under Lean Six Sigma without the numbers showing that definite improvements will be made to the bottom line. In fact the main practitioners of Lean Six Sigma, the black belts, will be given target cost savings to meet every year. The MD or CEO will monitor the savings being made on the improvement projects to ensure that the program is improving the bottom line.

Lean manufacturing cannot bring a process under statistical control, it can and does improve the quality of products but only in a limited fashion, the Six Sigma toolkit is powerful indeed in comparison.

Six Sigma on the other hand can’t really affect the time traps and process speed that Lean manufacturing does and in addition you’ll find that if you do Lean you’ll probably end up re-inventing Six Sigma and vice versa.

Crosby’s Hassle Free Quality makes the statement that quality is free and with many people, including ourselves, is a contentious statement. This really is for the MD or CEO to decide, however it can be easy, like TQM, for “quality improvements” and “pet projects” to be undertaken regardless. Although such improvements may actually reduce the hassle they may actually cost money, it can be very difficult to ascertain if ‘free’ is resultant.

Lean Six Sigma selects the right projects to get the best results that directly affect the bottom line. Hassle-Free will result as improvements are made, they have however been made in the certainty that the value of the company has increased.

 

Costs of Lean Six Sigma

The entire company is transformed by the implementation of Lean Six Sigma, worse still, the best people switch within their business units from their existing posts to Lean Six Sigma practitioners, with NO replacements.

A fundamental point of Lean Six-Sigma is the focus on financial results, and although a lot of time and money is invested up front in training and consultation, a good program will probably start to pay for itself within the first year.

Full commitment to Lean Six Sigma typically requires at least 1% of the company’s staff to be turned over full time to Lean Six sigma operations. Quality of the commitment from the entire management team is paramount, it should also be apparent that the career path of future leaders of the business lies within the Lean Six Sigma operations.

Lean speed

Slow processes are wasteful processes and the majority of products within any factory spend the majority of their time waiting (~95%), waiting for processing or waiting to be sold. Lean aims to eliminate this waiting and the company only produces exactly what the customer wants. This is termed

“pulling to customer order” and also requires that small batch sizes, or one piece flow be implemented along with a highly efficient maintenance program. Please see the ten-steps documents on Pull, SMED, and TPM respectively.

The immediate benefits of Lean are that cash becomes readily available, generally from stock having to be used up and from Work In Progress (WIP) being dramatically reduced. It is at this point you may want to determine

1. What cash can be recovered by a reduction in WIP by 50%-80%?

2. What competitive advantage can be levered from a similar 50%-80% reduction in lead-time.

 

Reductions in Costs from applying Lean

Reductions in costs do not occur simply from reduced scrap and rework from less WIP or just from less stock and WIP. Shorter lead times and smaller batch sizes and stock levels have wide ranging benefits

o   Shorter lead-time – which can increase revenue growth

o   Less handling

o   Less storage, stock control and planning

o   Fewer customer service activities With less WIP you also avoid

o   Shipping defects to customer

o   Shipping large quantities of products in one go, whilst paying for the equipment all the time.

o   Expeditors, overtime and supervisors

o   Creating defects by having parts lying around

o   A cluttered shop floor full of WIP.

o   Making to forecast or making too much to attain an economic batch size and then having to store the rest.

 

Cycle Efficiency

The measure of Lean, is process cycle efficiency and determines how fast or slow a process is by comparing the value added time to the total lead-time. 

Value Added Time

Process Cycle Efficiency =    __________________

Total Lead Time

According to M. George [1] a process can be considered Lean if the process cycle efficiency is greater than 25%.

Time Delays

80% of the delays in the total lead-time are caused by 20% of the workstations, finding the causes of the delays are done by hard work not guesswork.

                      ^{Batch Sizemin}

Delay Time =  _______________________

                                                                                            2 x Customer Demand Rate

The cause of any delay in a process is a time trap. Assuming time traps are where materials pile up is generally wrong and each workstation should have its delay injection calculated.  

 

As a corollary batch sizes must be calculated from the process values and the total parts produced. Economic Order Quantities that can be used to determine batch sizes do not consider the variation or flow to customer demand, this prevents any improvements in the lead time. Hence you should take from this that process flow, batch size and turnover times are all interconnected.

Process Velocity

The number of workstations a product moves through per hour determines the product velocity through the process.

                                                                       Number of Activities in Process

                      Process Velocity   =        _____________________________________

                                                                                Completions per hour

                                                                                       (Completions per hour)(Number of Activities)

                                                                                  =        _____________________________________

                                                                                                  Number of “Things” in Process

 

The term “things” can be used since it doesn’t matter what is happening in the process, be it widgets or forms. The velocity is inversely proportional to the number of things in process. Note however that it is an average and can’t be used for determining the time delays.

Value Stream Mapping

Here all the steps that go into creating a product or process, including rework and decision steps are mapped out. Value is assigned to each step and is termed value-added if you do something the customer wants and non-value added  otherwise. Non-value added activities can be split into necessary steps required to enable value adding activities and unnecessary steps. To aid in classifying value adding from non-value adding you can ask the following questions about each identifiable step and decision.

Value Adding

o   Does the step add form, function or feature to the product/service?

o   Does the task lever competitive advantage?

o   Is the customer willing to pay extra for this step, if they knew about it?

 

Non-Value Adding (but necessary)

o   Is this step required by regulation/law?

o   Does the task support company measurement or reporting requirements?

o   Does the task reduce risk, defect, financial etc?

o   Is the task necessary for a value adding step?

 

Non-Value Adding (not necessary)

o   Can the task be classified as either: counting, handling, inspection, transportation, storage, rework, expediting, sign off?

Six Sigma

Six-Sigma is ultimately a cultural change and not just a set of quality improvement tools.  The cultural change is to permanently commit at least 1% of the company’s best staff to the effort backed by full executive engagement. A typical infrastructure encompasses the following members who with care are selected and integrated into powerful teams.

Corporate Champions – Such members have direct and unfettered access to the MD and are charged with implementing the strategic goals of the MD such that they maximise shareholder value. Consultants will initially play a large role here.

Deployment Champions – These members translate the strategic goals into operational plans and identify which projects best meet these operational plans.

Master Black Belt – The master black belt may lead the most complicated projects but definitely acts as mentor to the other black belts and organises the training of black the green belts. They may also act as Deployment Champions and will likely have the ear of the MD. Training will initially be performed largely by consultants.

Black Belts – Such members identify projects for selection by the business unit champions, once selected they directly implement the lean six-sigma tool set to deliver the identified benefits. Black belts form the core of a six-sigma implementation

Green Belts – Can be thought of as part time black belts who work part time to deliver on specific projects, they receive less training than black belts

 

Six Sigma – Problem Solving Define:

Teams and champions identify the value streams that will yield the maximum benefits from improvement actions. The projects and the resources necessary to implement them are identified. Measure: With approved projects the team measures the relevant data on the project, service type processes benefit greatly from this since they generally have never been mapped or measured before. Analyse: The extent of the problems are characterised and understood by analysing the data gathered during measurement and is fundamental to Improve: The most appropriate tools are then employed by the team to quickly eliminate variation, defects and improve lead-time. Control: The team implements the improvement activities such that they stick and become normal operating procedure.

But there is another way

Define the project goals and customer (internal and external) deliverables

Measure and determine customer needs and specifications

Analyze the process options to meet the customer needs

Design (detailed) the process to meet the customer needs

Verify the design performance and ability to meet customer needs.

So what’s the difference?

The DMAIC methodology, instead of the DMADV methodology, should be used when a product or process is in existence at your company but is not meeting customer specification or is not performing adequately The DMADV methodology, instead of the DMAIC methodology, should be used when:

o   A product or process is not in existence at your company and one needs to be developed

o   The existing product or process exists and has been optimised (using either DMAIC or not) and still doesn't meet the level of customer specification or six sigma level

 

Six Sigma – Tool Set

The six-sigma tool set is vast and it’s important not to become bogged down in the semantics of the tools themselves, both George [1] and Bichenko [2] provide excellent information on the various tools. Of import however is that some standard procedure is adhered too.

Lean Six Sigma – Selecting People & Projects

The selection of the best people in the company for the team roles sends a message to everyone on how committed management is to lean six-sigma. Communication and team leadership skills are as important in this selection as the ability to master the technical tools and understand new concepts and ideas. George [1] recommends the following criteria and reminds us that such people are the future business leaders and their selection should not be rushed.

1.            1. Team leadership skills

2.            2. Project management experience

3.            3. Problem solving abilities

4.            4. Communication skills

5.            5. Interest in a process view beyond their unit

6.            6. Ability to learn financial analysis

7.            7. Computer and technical skills

 

Accurate project identification & selection is at the heart of lean six-sigma success. The trade off between delivered value and effort expanded is detailed in the project selection process. The selection process itself is an evolutionary one that goes from the “obvious” projects at the start to those determined via the value stream map once things are up and running. Whilst project selection is the responsibility of the champions, consultants will initially provide a lot of input here. Projects are identified from all areas of the company, from the MD to those on the shop floor but all must pass through various stages of analyses to ensure that the value streams with the largest scope for impact are chosen such that the projects with the biggest hits get worked on. You must insure however that all areas of the company are looked at and that all contribute to the “improvements box”. Concentrating on the manufacturing (back office) without also considering the services (front office), will cripple the improvements process greatly. Everyone will be watching at the start to determine if this is just another management project, i.e. have the best people been chosen and if the MDs or others “pet projects” have been chosen.

Making it Stick

Changing a company is never an easy process, please see the Ten-Steps guide to change, however making it stick is fundamental to getting those drastic improvements you require. Six-Sigma and the belts go a long way to making sure this happens, however making it stick starts and ends with the MD and his/her management team. If the key people drift away from Lean Six Sigma, then the company will (rightly) follow, lean six sigma will no longer be seen as the path to success, either for the company or individuals. Those leaders must consistently & clearly communicate the concepts and ideas of Lean Six-Sigma. If the company has a standard method of in house communications then Lean Six Sigma, the projects and those who achieve great improvements should be lauded within it, it is best not to make a separate communications. Then improvements can be shared across the business. Training in combination with Visual Management can also make an impact here. By posting the companies health and showing how profits, productivity and lead times are changing as well as providing all your staff with the knowledge to understand such information, makes the language part of the culture of the company. This can also make it easy for lean six-sigma to be extended out from a traditional manufacturing environment into service areas of the business.

 

The Supply Chain needs to come too

As improvements to your company get made, and variation, lead times and stock levels are reduced, you should notice that many of the problems that dominate stem from outside your company via the supply chain. As with the 80/20 rule for workstations, it should come as no surprise that enormous cost savings could be achieved from using these methods. Key in achieving this, are two methods amongst a variety of others

1. A reduction in the supplier base to manageable level, where face to face can occur on a very regular time interval.

2. Kanban (which is only Japanese for card) is used to pull products from downstream as and when they are required by customer order.

 

The point of this is to effectively control & reduce WIP. Without achieving this control & reduction little or no improvement in delivery time can be achieved. If your products are however particularly complex, then kanban cards can easily become impractical, fortunately an ERP system can be utilised easily to fill the kanbans role.

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Total Performance Safety - Real World Safety in the Real World

Total Performance Safety – Real World Safety in the Real World

 

 

Total Performance Safety – Real World Safety in the Real World

 

Introduction

The Behavior-based Safety process has made a tremendous impact on how safety is valued and perceived within the work environment.  As the concept developed, the process successfully adapted and acclimated to various corporate cultures and soon there were numerous theories of HOW behavior-based safety was implemented.  The original goal appeared to be injury reduction in the workplace by addressing individual behavior, not simply existing conditions.

It is this writer’s opinion, however, that as differing opinions emerged in how to do that, the process became more competitive and complicated, losing the “pure” concept of helping people make the right choices in job performance. The perception is that behavior-based safety can only work if following specific outlines and programs and which one is chosen is based on what comes the closest to fitting the company culture.  The frustration level builds, however, when what is chosen does not exactly fit and, therefore, does not produce the results expected.  Company managers become discouraged and, based on poor results, move on to yet another type of injury reduction process.  Often, this causes the “baby” to be thrown out with the bath water.

That is not to say the promoted methods do not work – if matched up exactly, a company can have outstanding results.  But what do companies do that don’t fit exactly into this format?

Performance Safety simply re-focuses the energy back to the fundamentals.  Getting back to the basics is enough to allow any company of any size and with any budget to improve safety.  It allows a company to take working principles and make direct applications for its needs within its culture without implementing detailed mechanics and steps.

There are fundamental principles within all the methods that are necessary and that do not change, regardless of HOW the process is followed, addressing individual performance.  With over five years of focusing on total performance, not strictly employee “behavior,” these principles have been proven to work with various management styles and different corporate cultures.

The purpose of this presentation is to identify those fundamental principles that help improve safety within any type culture and any production environment.

 

What is Performance Safety?

Performance Safety can be defined as an on-going review of processes, procedures, and practices through observation, workplace examinations, and task analysis.  It is a total and comprehensive review of all performance areas (machine, worker, environment) to ensure pro-active, continuous improvement in safe production at all levels.

I have always taken slight offense at suggesting to my people that the reason an injury occurred was a direct result of their “behavior.”  The phrase “behavior-based safety” conjures up in my mind a fault-driven process, even though it is not intended to be so.  Behavior alone cannot fully create or cause injuries. It is true that unsafe actions contribute to more than 85% of all injuries. I suggest the number is closer to 95% or higher.  But the choice(s) made by a worker is not always a reflection of his behavior. It includes the “behavior” of the manager and the safety expectations of the company. We continue to hear phrases such as, “practice what you preach” and “walk the talk” and other such expressions.  We all know lip service alone will not have much influence on choices made by employees.

Performance Safety includes a three-phase process:  practices (employee choices in how to perform assigned tasks); procedures (the overall established method to perform the task); processes (the overall end result in operations and production with equipment, end product, quality control, etc.).

Let me illustrate with two examples of Performance Safety in progress.

We identified an unsafe “condition” in the installation of new equipment at our site prior to start-up. We got engineering, the plant manager, a production foreman, a production crew member, the safety professional (that was me), and the construction foreman responsible for the installation at the site together (crossing and involving numerous processes). We voiced concerns and began to “brainstorm” solutions while standing there.  How would the task have to be performed (procedures)?  How would the task actually or most likely be performed by the employee (practices)?  How would the outcome of this task affect the overall product and tasks “downline” (process)?

The procedures would identify the hazard and provide a means of eliminating the hazard.  The employee would need to follow the procedures to ensure safe performance.  The procedures would have to be written in a manner that would encourage the employee to make the right choices and protect him from taking a “short­cut” (practices). We started the discussion with a $15,000 engineering fix to remove the hazard.  Then we identified what would happen if that engineering solution broke – it wouldn’t hold up within the work environment.  After a few more ideas, a light bulb came on. The hazard was corrected with a $200 part that is easily handled by one person performing the task and provides the employee with a way to follow the procedures without risk and without need to take a shortcut.  The procedure was developed with the newly-implemented part and the employee was able to easily follow the procedures logically and safely, ensuring he followed safe practices to perform the task.  Had we not taken the overall process with the key people in the process to address this issue, we would have most likely ended up with a $15,000 fix that wouldn’t work (if the hazard was corrected, at all).

In the second example, an employee was required to enter a tunnel with a sledge hammer to unclog material getting stuck at a transfer point on a conveyor line. I was asked what could be done to minimize the hazards the employee was exposed to when performing that task. Through questioning the overall process, I found that the material was getting stuck because it was too large for the engineered design of the transfer point. The material was to be “crushed” to a designated size before it reached this point. The material was too large for the transfer because the crushing process had been “opened up” to increase the amount of tonnage handled in a shorter time.  As a result, the down-line transfer was getting jammed.  Now, I could have addressed the specific hazard, but that would have treated the symptom, not the problem.  Once the adjustment was made back to the engineered design, the entire hazard and exposure was eliminated. When the material was at the “right” size, it passed through the transfer point. There was no employee exposure to noise, dust, tunnel hazards, and no continued beating and damage to the transfer box since the sledge was no longer needed, either.  It created the optimal performance of the entire process, thus correcting the need for a practice in an exposed environment.  Everyone understood that a change in the process created a whole set of other problems that, on the surface, could not be explained.  The transfer point was too far down the process to connect what seemed to me to be an obvious problem back up-line. The old saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees” certainly fit in this case.

Performance Safety helps keep the big picture in view while addressing specific issues. In the above example, it was not my job to tell an experienced manager how to do his job. But in the process of doing my job, we were able to identify a situation that ultimately helped the manager’s production numbers, as well.

Anyone with knowledge of conducting accident investigations knows to ask questions that help get to the “root cause” of the accident.  In the same way, getting to the root cause of hazards and unsafe behaviors will allow a manager to correct the problem rather than continuing to correct a symptom that never seems to go away.

 

Why Performance Safety?

The principles presented in this paper provide a recipe or prescription to follow to reach zero injuries and incidents.  It also provides personal and team involvement and accountability to pro-actively prevent injuries and eliminate or reduce exposures to hazards.

Performance Safety encourages positive recognition and feedback at all levels within the organization to promote positive change and optimal performance.

I have mentioned twice the concept of “optimal performance.”  It should be every individual’s goal to reach and maintain optimum performance rather than maximum performance.  As in my second example, maximum performance involved getting as

 

 

 

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GEMBA KAIZEN

GEMBA KAIZEN

 

 

GEMBA KAIZEN

THE MANAGEMENT APPROACH FOR COMPETITIVE SUCCESS WHILST PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT

KAIZEN

KAIZEN means continuous improvement. The word implies improvement that involves everyone—both managers and workers—and entails relatively little expense.  The kaizen philosophy assumes that our way of life—be it our working life, our social life, or our home life—should be the focus of constant improvement efforts.  This concept is so natural and obvious to many Japanese that they often do not even realize that they possess it! In my opinion, kaizen has contributed greatly to Japan’s competitive success.

Although kaizen improvements are small and incremental, the kaizen process brings about dramatic results over time. The kaizen concept explains why companies cannot remain static for long in Japan. Western management, meanwhile, worships innovation: major changes in the wake of technological breakthroughs; the latest management concepts or production techniques. Innovation is dramatic, a real attention-getter. Kaizen, on the other hand, is often undramatic and subtle. But innovation is one-shot kaizen ongoing.

Most “uniquely Japanese” management practices, such as TQC or company-wide quality control, quality circles, and our style of labor relations, can be reduced to one word: kaizen. Using the term kaizen in place of such buzzwords as productivity, TQC, ZD (zero defects), JIT (just-in-time), and the suggestion system paints a clearer picture of what has been going on in Japanese industry. Kaizen is an umbrella concept for all these practices. However, I hasten to add that these practices are not necessarily confined to Japanese management, but should rather be regarded as sound principles to be applied by managers everywhere. By following the right steps properly applied, any company, no matter what its nationality, can benefit from kaizen.

 

Gemba

Gemba is a Japanese word meaning 'real place,' where the real action takes place. In business, gemba is where the value-adding activities to satisfy the customer are carried out. In the manufacturing industry, there are three major activities directly related to earning money: developing, producing and selling products. Without these activities, the company cannot exist. Therefore, in a broad sense, gemba means the sites of these three major activities.

In a narrower context, however, gemba means the place where the products are made. In Japan, the word is usually used in this narrower context, since it is believed that production sites have been one of the business arenas most neglected by management. Managers seem to write production off as only a secondary means to earn money, and usually place far more emphasis on such sectors as financial management, marketing and sales, and product development. When gemba or production sites do become a focus of management attention, though, they can be turned into a utopia capable of making the company far more successful and profitable.

In the service sectors, gemba is where the customers come into contact with the services offered. In the hotel business, for instance, gemba is everywhere: the lobby, the dining room, guest rooms, the receptionist's desk, check-in counters, and the concierge station.

At banks, tellers are working in gemba, as are loan officers receiving applicants. The same goes for employee's working desks in offices and for telephone operators sitting in front of switchboards. Thus, gemba spans a multitude of offices and administrative functions."

The efforts to bring about cleaner production take place in gemba. Hence a few more lines on gemba will be in order. The problem with most managers is that they prefer their desk as their workplace, wish to distance themselves from the events taking place in gemba. Most managers come in contact with reality only through their daily, weekly or even monthly reports, or other meetings.

In the field of cleaner production, manager’s first priority should be to go to gemba and observe. Gemba is your teacher. When you go to gemba, what you see is the real data. The report from gemba you read sitting at your desk is merely a secondary information.

There is a golden rule of gemba management, called the 5-gemba principles, as follows:

1.  When a trouble (abnormality) happens, go to gemba first. This is the first, and most important principle. Many managers learn about the problems that happened in gemba from a report that reaches them several days or weeks after. The best solution is to go to gemba at once when you hear that a problem has happened.

2.  Check with gembutsu (machines, tools, rejects, and customer complaints.)

 

Gembutsu¸another Japanese, means some tangible things on which you can put your hands. If a machine is down, the machine itself is gembutsu. If a customer is complaining, the customer is gembutsu.

For instance, if the machine is down, go to gemba and have a good look at the machine. By looking at the machine, and asking the question “why” several times, you can probably find out the reason for the breakdown on the spot.

3.  Take temporary countermeasures on the spot. For instance, if the machine is down, you have to get it started because the show must go on. Sometimes you kick the machine to get it started. If a customer is angry, you will need to apologize, or even give some gift to appease. But these are only temporary measures and do not address the real issue, which leads to the next point.

4.  Find out the root cause.  By repeating the question “why” several times, you can find out the root cause of the problem.

5.  Standardize for prevention of recurrence.  Once you identify the root cause, and come up with a countermeasure, you should standardize such a countermeasure so that the same problem will not recur.

 

Gemba KAIZEN

In order to solve problems found in gemba, today’s managers often try to apply sophisticated tools and technologies to deal with problems that can be solved with a commonsense, low-cost approach.  They need to unlearn the habit of trying ever-more sophisticated technologies to solve everyday problems.

There are two approaches to problems solving. The first involves innovation – applying the latest high-cost technology, such as state-of-the art computers and other tools, and investing a great deal of money. The second uses commonsense tools, checklists, and techniques that do not cost much money. This approach is called kaizen. This article will show how kaizen can achieve significant improvement as an essential building block that prepares the company for truly rewarding accomplishments.

Housekeeping, Muda Elimination, and Standardization

Everyone in the company must work together to follow three ground rules for practicing kaizen in gemba:

1.  Housekeeping,

2.  Muda elimination.

3.  Standardization.

 

Housekeeping is an indispensable ingredient of good management. Through good housekeeping, employees acquire and practice self-discipline. Employees without self-disciplines make it difficult to provide products or services of good quality to the customer.

In Japanese, the word muda means waste.  Any activity that does not add value is muda. People in gemba either add value or do not add value. This is also true for other resources, such as machines and materials. Muda elimination can be the most cost-effective way to improve productivity and reduce operating costs. Kaizen emphasizes the elimination of muda in gemba rather than the increasing of investment.

The third ground rule of kaizen practices in gemba is standardization. Standards may be defined as the best way to do the job. Products of services are created as a result of a series of processes, certain standard must be maintained at each process in order to assure quality. Standards also can prevent recurrence of the same problem.

As a general rule of thumb, introducing good housekeeping in gemba reduces the failure rate by 50 percent, and standardization further reduces the failure rate by another 50 percent. Yet, many managers elect to introduce statistical process control and control charts in gemba without making efforts to clean house, eliminate muda, or standardize.

Management (especially Western management) must regain the power of common sense and start applying it in gemba.

In the following, various aspects of muda elimination will be explained.

Muda of over production – This is regarded as the worst type of muda. If you produce more than your customer needs, you have extra pieces that need to be taken care of, such as handling and keeping in stock.

Muda of inventory – This is the result of over production. If you process only Produces what the next process needs, you can eliminate muda of inventory altogether.

Muda of waiting – How often do you see operators just waiting for the material to arrive or the machine to start? No value is added when operators are waiting and looking.

Muda of motion – When the operator is moving around, looking for tools or going to get the work pieces, no value is added.

Muda of transportation – When materials are moving on the trucks, forklifts, or on the conveyer, no value is added.

Muda of producing rejects – Producing rejects leads to rework, or else rejects must be thrown away, a big muda.

Muda of processing – By rearranging the working sequence, often you can eliminate a particular process.

The concept of muda elimination is central to kaizen, since eliminating something we have been doing does not cost any money.

If muda of inventories had been practiced, the tragedy at Bopal, India, could have been avoided.  Likewise, we often hear of warehouse-full of appliances going into ashes by fire. Again, such a loss could have been avoided if only we were successful in building an ultimate of production system - Just-in-Time (lean) production system, which can be reached after eliminating all sorts of muda. The elimination of muda can be just as effective in service sectors.

There are two contrasting approaches to the problem-solving.  One is solving a problem after it has happened. Most of problems we encounter today are of this nature. After a problem has arisen, we make concerted efforts to identify the root cause, solve the problem, and standardize the new procedure for prevention of recurrence. The five gemba principles fall under this category. This approach is called analytical approach.  The other category is the one in which we anticipate problems and try to solve them in advance. This approach is called design approach, as it is often employed at the designing stage of a new product or project.

In dealing with such issues as environmental and social problems, the impact of the design approach will be far greater than the analytical approach.  The design approach means, in a nutshell, to improve the quality of planning.

If more careful and insightful considerations are given at the initial stage of planning, many problems can be anticipated and solved with a stroke of a pen. This is a most economical way to solve a problem. Various tools to be used for the designing approach, such as FTA (Failure –free Analysis) and FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) have been developed over the years.

As we enter the next millennium, we should be spending more efforts for anticipating and avoiding problems in advance, rather than being busy with fire-fighting in dealing with business-related problems as well as social, governmental, and environmental problems as well.

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Start 5S

To start 5S, it is first beneficial not to push on into SORT immediately especially if staff are sceptical of the latest management fad to be implemented are their expense:

•Using the 5S Current Action Board, shown in figure 1, ask each member of the group (1 Action Board per group/area) what they wasted their time doing over the last week.

•Ask the group for a solution to the problem, do not propose one yourself unless their really stuck

•Work the board assigning responsibility and deadlines for implementation

•Do this at least twice and make sure it doesn’t take too long, then push on into SORT & 5S properly

 

Sort: Items are removed from the work area into a “red tag” area, in the process each item is red tagged, detailing why it was removed, by who and when. This red-tag area has an agreed upon life time in which red-tag items are available and can be removed if required. Once the time has expired, sell what you can (ebay helps) and chuck the rest. Being relentless is advised since the workforce will be watching to see if this is the latest fad.

Set: With only the necessary equipment present in the work area, the concept is

•To pareto the equipment so that the most used items are the closest to where they are needed

•To signpost these positions, in a very obvious and over the top manner so that at a glance it is apparent that something is missing or out of place, the signage should be sufficient for someone new to the area to be able to work out where everything should go:

•Floor tape can be used to mark out floor positions; you may want to change your mind later;

•Shadow boards can be used for tooling etc

•A “map” detailing the layout of the area 

 

Shine: With everything in its optimum place and well signposted, its time to clean up the work environment, this step can have a dramatic visual impact

•Ensure the place is light, airy and well lit, this ensures that any problems are easily noticed, it’s pleasant to work in and nice to show to customers.

•Paint can be used to make an area brighter and different colours can be used to make different product variants obvious.

•“5 min” shine activities, prevents the build up dirt and maintains the orderliness of the area. Let the staff define their own 5 min shine routines, by challenging them to maintain the improved conditions. 5 min shine activities do not have to take 5 minutes and actual times will be dependent upon individual circumstances.

•Ownership of equipment by operators should be encouraged; the final goal of shine activities is to have operators doing their own preventative maintenance on their own machines and equipment, this is then integrated into the “5 min” daily activities.

 

•Automating the cleaning is a goal and staff should be encouraged to use their resourcefulness to automate any cleaning activities.

Standardise: Through maintaining the gains made in sort, set and shine the gains are effectively standardised and the bad old days are avoided. Drawing up a schedule of activities is effective in ensuring staff understand what needs to be done, when, where and how. Integration of 3S activities into daily work through standardisation will ensure that 3S conditions are maintained rather than re applied as 3S conditions are seen to be slipping. 5S patrols (see below) can be used to help staff gauge their own successfulness in improving the area and maintaining those improvements. Permanent sort set and shine leads to permanent standardisation.

Sustain: Making 5S an automatic habit is the goal of the sustain element however it differs from the previous S’s in that it is not directly measurable nor implemented through a “set” number of techniques. Rather by winning hearts and minds through the previous S’s we ensure that an improvement culture with a positive attitude prevails and improvements are sustained.

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Duration, When, Costs and Value of 5S

Duration of 5S

5S is not a project. It is a continuous activity to be performed across the business; however it is likely that with the first implementation a significant amount of time may be required, especially if you want some immediate gains; if much “stuff” needs to be cleared out or significant painting needs to be undertaken. This will soon pan out to a continuous level of repetitive 5 or 10 minute activities as well as repetitive maintenance type activities.

 

When to do 5S

Immediately! 5S is the corner stone of the visual workplace and forms a fundamental aspect of a Lean or Agile manufacturing environment. It may be tempting to go for SMED to get more direct and obvious gains but all Lean implementations succeed or fail upon their 5S building block.

 

Costs of 5S

The costs of 5S are difficult to quantify, however few resources outside the factory or office involved are utilised and no new equipment needs to be purchased. The most direct cost involved will be laminations and printing costs, which can be a lot. Indirect costs incurred by taking up staff time are minimal as it is preferred to utilise daily production meetings to progress 5S. Immediate gains may incur some overtime costs either for painting or good clear outs. Finally a non-cash prize may be beneficial, especially if it’s a team exercise. This can be anything from a barbecue day to some sort of extreme activity such as go-karting to paintballing, importantly let the teams decide, they might want refurbished toilets or a better canteen.

 

Value of 5S

Once you’ve done 5S you’ll wonder how you managed without it. Especially since it improves morale and ownership of the work place, encourages participation and continuous improvements. Productivity will increase as will quality, but this may be difficult to quantify and attribute unless a good measurement technique is in place. The value of 5S is to use the ingenuity of your staff not to spend money on new equipment, this links improvements and the elimination of problems back to your staffs ideas.

 

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Ten Steps to 5S

Plan

1.Plan a course of Action. Select a 5S champion who will drive the implementation through the business. Provide a resource center for necessary documentation and establish a schedule of roll out and expected progress.

2.Educate & inform those involved. Communicate to those involved what 5S is, what outcomes are expected. Try to ensure buy in and that none are left behind. Stress that blame will no longer be dished out to be replaced by root cause problem solving.

3.Choose, evaluate & record a starting area. Choose one area to roll out the 5S methods. Document & record this area thoroughly, with photographs and mappings for example. Be respectful of personal areas. Conduct a “base line” 5S appraisal. Establish the goals to be achieved with the team and post these in the resource centre.

 

Do

4.Sort. Items are categorised by use and unnecessary items removed from production

5.Set. Access is simplified and locations marked out for volumes and are clearly labelled.

6.Shine. Work teams establish 5 or 10 minute routines for cleaning up. Also visual sweeping to see if anything is wrong with Sort or Set.

7.Standardise. Reviewing the Sort, Set and Sweep activities to ensure best practice by all, particularly across shifts.

 

8.Sustain. Utilise the 5 whys and root cause problem solving to ensure 5S conditions are held. Assign responsibilities both .at the team and individual level

Check

9.Continuously Improve 5S. Progress the 5S by measuring and benchmarking the results achieved. Try to find a same sized local company that does 5S in a different sector.

Act

10. Make 5S a habit & deploy to other areas. Celebrate your successes and prepare to continue the 5S. Compare actual goals with the goal line sheet. Ensure 5S procedures established are adhered to.

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SOP - Standard Operation Procedures

The Best Person To Write a SOP Standard operating procedures have two lives. The first life starts with its writing by the original author. The second life starts when the people working with it put it into use and begin to improve it. The first author ought to be the current ‘expert’ on doing the job. If the job is presently being done and a SOP is to be written for it, then the person who does the job best should be the author. If the person can write well give them time to draft the SOP along the lines explained in this book. If the person cannot write well then select a suitable writer and have them interview the person who does the job best.

A more senior person with the relevant experience then checks the draft SOP to confirm and endorse the documented steps. If the SOP is critical to health or to the success of a business initiative it should be thoroughly reviewed and analysed by resident and invited experts. This may include having meetings where the SOP is analysed in great detail to establish the consequences of it being done wrongly.

If the consequence of an error when doing a work instruction is catastrophic it is necessary to include control points and third-party checks to keep full command of the situation. If the job has not been done before then it will need to first be designed and a SOP written for it. In this case the ‘designer’ of the job is the proper person to write the initial SOP. If the job is similar to existing jobs the SOP can be based on them with changes to suit the requirements of the new tasks.

Here again, if you have people experienced in similar work, they should either write the SOP or be interviewed for their suggestions. Where the job has never existed before, the SOP reflects the job designer’s expected tasks and methods. A SOP for a never previously done job will contain many less than ideal ways and methods.

But it is a starting point from which refinements and improvements will occur in its second life.
Where possible existing experience should be used to refine the draft SOP and improve the chance that it will work well from the start.

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