Howdy folks, here we are again on a Thursday sitting around the campfire to tell you about our week and what my team and I learned. Pull up a log and grab a cup of coffee for this weeks topic touches on what drives me and what drives my team.
This week we have seen some real changes, were they all good? For the most part yes. Were there some real challenges this we, you betcha there were some challenges this week. Being the ever vigilant and voracious reader of all things Lean, and on top of that an implementer of Lean, a champion of Lean in my organization if you will; my team and I began to look at open issues this week. What issues did you and your team of hard charging cowboys look at you are wondering, as I have drawn this intro out. Well, we were asking ourselves the question, "Why should we improve and why should we continue to drive improvements?" No we were not questioning our Lean journey, we were questioning our motives behind the actions that we take. The real fence mending portion of Lean. Before we put forth any action we were looking to see if that work we put into the improvement was worth the effort. Sure you can do this in a board room with all sorts of members of upper management there to discuss the ROI, manpower needed, raw materials and plan, etc. This is good for capital stuff, yet what we were doing at the ground level such as moving things, continuation of the ever present 6S, looking at layout, discussing how to optimize flow on a high volume mixed model line with enough sku's to feed a herd of cattle stretched from El Paso to Phoenix, and the ever present search for single piece flow with a continually evolving manufacturing line. Yeah these were actually discussions that are heartfelt and get at the true soul of what drives some people to greatness and what has others throwing their hands in the air and abandoning their journey.
Is everyone on my team a Lean zealot, of course not. We have some team members that don't care about Lean at all or the terms we use. Yes I use the Japanese terms, but also translate them to English so we get as much buy in as possible. With that being said, there are some members on my team who are early adopters. Early as in they were reading about Lean on their smartphones when we started this journey. These are the true buckaroo's who are just a joy to work with. Always driving continuous improvement ideas, their work areas are immaculate, their pride in craftsmanship and work ethic is unrivaled. The conversations with this handful of hard chargers this week really drove something back to me that Lean Leaders who have done this for 27 years constantly speak of. That is respect. These guys told me one of the reasons they follow and drive so hard is out of respect, not only for me, but for their work, their peers, the organization, and themselves. Interesting isn't it? Did I cultivate this, I'd like to think my hand was in the recipe. Though with these early adopters there is something inherently great about them. They are the force multipliers. What does that mean Cowboy? That means these guys "get it", they are students as I am a student, they help me and help the team thru driving a culture change. They are change agents in their own right. This is the group I've found that without them, things would be a lot more difficult.
The next group is the middle of the road guys, now does this mean they are average? NO WAY!!!! They just do not spend a lot of their free time reading about Lean, or "taking their work home with them". These are the work horses that come in everyday and do a great job and give their best and contribute to the cause. In speaking with these guys and gals, I found they embrace our journey yet are not driven by an undying force to be the best of the best. This is ok, you don't need a team of superstars to change a culture. Dr Deming would say, Cowboy you have "willing workers". Only with these willing workers we are a team and they know that. We either all win or we all loose. There isn't the finger pointing and "that's not my job" attitude with this crowd. These are the people that when catalyzed by your top performers and early adopters will rise to the top and perform. They are the members of a winning team and being part of a winning team gives them pride and satisfaction.
Do I have any individuals on my team that are burrs under my saddle? I have in the past yes, and thru Yoda and her superpowers, she has trained me with some quite effective skills in the art of coaching and mentoring. It helps that she is also an executive coach besides being mentioned as one of the top women in Lean today. Did these lone holdouts on the ranch decide to participate and join our transformation journey? Some did and actually one turned into a top performer and driver when it comes to ideas for continuous improvement. I am actually very proud of this guy as he is what every Lean Leader desires. He is a student the same as the teacher is a student.
In closing what did the team and I learn this week? We learned that all of us on this team have a desire to win, a desire to improve our organization, a desire to improve ourselves, a desire to be treated with respect, a desire to have a clean and safe working environment. Pretty simple isn't it. When we boil it all down it goes back to what Yoda tells me all the time, "Cowboy it is about people, processes and culture". She's right and in the true spirit of the student I too, am always trying to improve who I am and pull my people forward. That is what makes an organization tick, people, for without them you have a large vacant building with machines that sit idle, and a true static state. Without processes one has another disjointed state of chaos. Nothing falls in line, shop orders are lost, customer orders are lost, outside sourced parts never arrive. Then we touch the culture piece, the "what people do when nobody is watching" part of it. We are a learning culture, yes I'll say it again cowpokes, a Lean culture is a learning culture. We are always striving to make those improvements not only on the shop floor but with the design team as well, providing positive feedback about designing for manufacturability. This is what we learned. We are a team of guys and gals on a journey that is a marathon, not a sprint.
Thanks for stopping by my campfire folks, it was a pleasure having you here and if you have any comments don't be afraid to post them.
Cowboy
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Training, what training?
Howdy folks I'm back again with another posting about Lean from the front line. Grab a cup of coffee and take a seat around the campfire while we discuss training and the illusion of training programs. Yes that's right, the cowboy stated illusion of training and a lack of a true training doctrine my team is experiencing.
One may be reading this and asking, "If you are a Lean guy, what on earth are you doing allowing holes in the most basic of process controls, training your people?" I'll have to answer this upfront and personal and declare that we are not totally absent of training, our training process needs improvement. Yes the PDCA cycle once again rears its arms like a saguaro cactus on the way to the White Tank mountain range. Let's look at how my team and I discovered our training is lacking.
We have expanded our operations into a second shift to increase our capacity. Nothing wrong with that right? We had trained individuals train and sharpen the skill sets of semi-trained individuals bringing them up to speed. Nothing wrong with that right? Then it hit me like a mule kick to the chest. I brought in an individual who had no idea of our processes nor our product to work within a cell. Yes we have VWI's etc... yet there was something glaringly obvious that took two days for me to really pick up on. We threw this new individual into the mix to observe, things appeared on the surface to be going great then Yoda's voice in my mind kicked in and told me to engage this new member of our team and start asking questions to gain insight from an outsiders perspective as to what he saw.
The question posed was this, "What have you learned the past few days about your role in the team?" His answer blew me away, "I just follow these guys around and try to pick up things the best I can." Talk about wanting to go hide out in the Lost Dutchman mine. I failed to train my guys and give them the proper tools to train someone. Yes, boys and girls this was a failure moment in time. What do we get with failure, that's right a true chance to make improvement and learn from our mistakes. Better yet we get to improve our processes, then teach others in our organization where we were making the error so they do not fall into the same pitfall. Collective learning and effective communication of our efforts. Why you may ask? A Lean culture is a learning culture, plain and simple.
With this gap in our process, the team and I whipped out the A3 and went to town to help define and narrow a solution. Yes we even fishboned this problem to keep the teams skills up on that tool as well. Within about 2 hours of looking and asking questions to the trainers and the trainee we had came up with a starting point to bridge this gap. Within the week we had something documented and established as to protocol when we training individuals who are completely new to our organization. This protocol is now being tested in our fabrication area to prove it out and streamline it to the point where we will deploy this organization wide. Yes this is still a future state, and it is important that we recognized this gap in our processes that was causing undue hardship for a new individual.
Driving out waste and making change is a full time job as it is, when I as a leader failed to recognize I was inducing the trifecta of Muda, Mura, and Muri all at once due to a rudimentary oversight it was humbling. As an individual who has had careers where life and death happened based upon situational awareness and interpretation of data within seconds, I felt as if I let my team down. You'll notice the excessive use of "I" in this paragraph. The reason, I am the leader hence it is my fault. The good news is that we had the situational awareness to apply countermeasures and corrective action.
This was a real learning experience for me as well as the team. My guys are VERY good at what they do, some of the best in the industry. Yet as in a previous blog, the devil is truly in the details. Fortunately we recognized the problem and that is a win which will pay dividends at the bottom line and truly add value to our product. I'd personally like to thank my guys for the help with this issue the past week. Without you, we wouldn't have came as far as we have.
Well there you have it cowpokes, another post from the front line of implementation. Though we fancy ourselves as academics who read the books and listen to the podcasts, we are the ones who make the vision happen. If you don't believe me... go to Gemba. Thank you for stopping by my campfire and remember, just when you think you know it all, something simple comes along to inform you that you don't
Cowboy
One may be reading this and asking, "If you are a Lean guy, what on earth are you doing allowing holes in the most basic of process controls, training your people?" I'll have to answer this upfront and personal and declare that we are not totally absent of training, our training process needs improvement. Yes the PDCA cycle once again rears its arms like a saguaro cactus on the way to the White Tank mountain range. Let's look at how my team and I discovered our training is lacking.
We have expanded our operations into a second shift to increase our capacity. Nothing wrong with that right? We had trained individuals train and sharpen the skill sets of semi-trained individuals bringing them up to speed. Nothing wrong with that right? Then it hit me like a mule kick to the chest. I brought in an individual who had no idea of our processes nor our product to work within a cell. Yes we have VWI's etc... yet there was something glaringly obvious that took two days for me to really pick up on. We threw this new individual into the mix to observe, things appeared on the surface to be going great then Yoda's voice in my mind kicked in and told me to engage this new member of our team and start asking questions to gain insight from an outsiders perspective as to what he saw.
The question posed was this, "What have you learned the past few days about your role in the team?" His answer blew me away, "I just follow these guys around and try to pick up things the best I can." Talk about wanting to go hide out in the Lost Dutchman mine. I failed to train my guys and give them the proper tools to train someone. Yes, boys and girls this was a failure moment in time. What do we get with failure, that's right a true chance to make improvement and learn from our mistakes. Better yet we get to improve our processes, then teach others in our organization where we were making the error so they do not fall into the same pitfall. Collective learning and effective communication of our efforts. Why you may ask? A Lean culture is a learning culture, plain and simple.
With this gap in our process, the team and I whipped out the A3 and went to town to help define and narrow a solution. Yes we even fishboned this problem to keep the teams skills up on that tool as well. Within about 2 hours of looking and asking questions to the trainers and the trainee we had came up with a starting point to bridge this gap. Within the week we had something documented and established as to protocol when we training individuals who are completely new to our organization. This protocol is now being tested in our fabrication area to prove it out and streamline it to the point where we will deploy this organization wide. Yes this is still a future state, and it is important that we recognized this gap in our processes that was causing undue hardship for a new individual.
Driving out waste and making change is a full time job as it is, when I as a leader failed to recognize I was inducing the trifecta of Muda, Mura, and Muri all at once due to a rudimentary oversight it was humbling. As an individual who has had careers where life and death happened based upon situational awareness and interpretation of data within seconds, I felt as if I let my team down. You'll notice the excessive use of "I" in this paragraph. The reason, I am the leader hence it is my fault. The good news is that we had the situational awareness to apply countermeasures and corrective action.
This was a real learning experience for me as well as the team. My guys are VERY good at what they do, some of the best in the industry. Yet as in a previous blog, the devil is truly in the details. Fortunately we recognized the problem and that is a win which will pay dividends at the bottom line and truly add value to our product. I'd personally like to thank my guys for the help with this issue the past week. Without you, we wouldn't have came as far as we have.
Well there you have it cowpokes, another post from the front line of implementation. Though we fancy ourselves as academics who read the books and listen to the podcasts, we are the ones who make the vision happen. If you don't believe me... go to Gemba. Thank you for stopping by my campfire and remember, just when you think you know it all, something simple comes along to inform you that you don't
Cowboy
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