Breakdowns

Howdy folks and welcome back to another posting.  So grab some coffee and prop yourself up around the campfire while I discuss this weeks topic and what my team and I have learned on our Lean journey.

Anyone in manufacturing can tell you about breakdowns.  From the simplest screw not being in stock to get the half million dollar machine up and running, to sending your control head back to the OEM for a one month rebuild at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars.

Well my team and I have been suffering a rash of breakdowns.  What did we do? That is the question I'm sure everyone wants to know, right.  It is a multi part answer yet as the old saying goes, "Wait there's more."  Anytime I have a machine online my first instinct is what piece of equipment do I have to cover the load in case of a total breakdown or those pesky gremlins decide to show up and read havoc  on our operation.  We had that part covered.  Yes there is added labor in manufacturing parts outside of a dedicated area per se, but protecting the customer is worth it.

Now we can ask, "Cowboy don't you have a PM program and 1 terabyte worth of data to predict any and all breakdowns you may encounter?  Don't you have a PM cycle and know what are high wear parts?  Why don't you keep high wear parts on hand so in the event of a breakdown, there is an immediate swap out to minimize downtime and increase uptime?  Why haven't you involved your maintenance department in your findings?  What are you doing with your maintenance department to help them understand what a Lean journey is?  Why aren't you involving everyone?

Yes these are all valid questions that I know some of you have postulated in your mind as you read this.  Here is the kicker, a Lean journey is a marathon not a sprint.  When you move an organization forward it doesn't happen all at once.   Sure you may hire new people with ideas who proclaim on their LinkedIn page they know "true lean".  Heck you may even hire people that have a "belt certification".  All this doesn't matter if you don't involve people who do the work.

I still haven't answered the question now have I?  Here is the answer short and sweet.  The parts were ordered, and we were back up and running in an amount of time that would make the Pony Express cringe.  Did we loose anything?  Sure we did, yet here is the best part.  We as an organization learned.  My team learned.  We learned that we don't have alignment in all facets of our operation.  When problems arise there isn't a direct line of communication to get the help one needs to alleviate or better yet prevent problems before they occur.

Well folks thanks again for stopping by my campfire and remember this, if all your wagons in the wagon train don't know where you are going or where the spare parts are then chaos may ensue when you have a breakdown.  I could go on about uniformity and standardization of your wagons to help reduce inventory of parts, but I'll save that for another post.

Thank you for dropping by,

Cowboy

Life lessons in Lean

Howdy folks and once again welcome to my campfire.  Yes it has been a few weeks since the last post and much has transpired in the way of forward progress personally.  I have been very busy with work and play coupled with chores Yoda has me doing around the homestead.

What I'd like to talk about today is something I've never really touched on.  That being bringing Lean to your everyday life.  What is it that you do at work, and how do you bring that same methodology home?  As a young buckaroo my grandfather always talked about economy of motion, maximizing your work, keep things moving, don't allow bottle necks to happen, etc...  No he and I were not running a manufacturing facility, we were cleaning fish, cleaning game from hunting, loading ammo, tying flies, pretty much anything we did there was a lesson to learn.

Quality control when loading ammo, that is a HUGE thing one must understand. Precision measurements of powder, case length, bullet, primer etc.  Then how one arranges the loading area for flow, where the work happens, 6S is a MUST in this endeavor, and how to store finished goods.  These were exercises that groomed me for a manufacturing career later in life that I never knew I was going to pursue.

Tying flies is another example.  Raw materials of feathers, hooks, thread, beads, tools, etc are all laid out prior to starting.  We would have our patterns of flies that we were going to tie.  Pictures in the books for proper visualization of what we were doing.  Lists of materials under the picture and a specific sequence of events on how we would tie the specific patterns.  Our tying bench was meticulously clean and orderly.  Anything less meant we would be searching for items, and lost time searching for items that should be clearly visibly managed and in specific locations is time taken away from actually tying the flies.

Planting the garden is another thing that comes to mind.  The planning we would do before the ground was broken.  The sketches of what we were going to plant and where.  Would anything cross pollinate and give an undesired result.  Habaneros and Bell peppers will do this and one will wind up with hot bell peppers.  On a side note these are really wonderful if you enjoy spicy food such as myself, yet can pose an issue for those of us who do not like the heat this brings to the palate. The care given to the tools used in the garden, the equipment and the proper PM year round that was done to it.  I can still see the clip boards and hand drawn spreadsheets my grandfather had on PM and type of maintenance performed on everything from his vehicles to the chest freezers.

Yeah cowpokes this posting is quite different than what I've done in the past, and I felt obligated to tell you that though what I was doing as a youth wasn't explained to me as Lean, it was explained as economy of motion and "how things are supposed to be done".

Now some of wily and observant types may throw the flag of, "Where is the continuous improvement?"  Here is where I'll point out that I was always told to, "Think about what you are doing and how can you improve your work,  jot notes in a book and keep those ideas coming.  That is the way you get better at everything you do."

In conclusion cowpokes, my Lean journey though not called Lean all started when I was a youth back  in the early 80's.  My Grandfather was the one who helped me learn to see and how to slow down to speed up.  There have been some bumps in the trail along the way, I never stopped learning.  My wife is a well respected author/speaker/Lean Consultant.  And me,  well I'm a cowboy riding the range, a direct action guy always looking to improve and learn.  Leading teams of people from 12 to over 200 plus at times on a Lean journey.

Thank you for dropping by and sharing a few moments with me and I hope you found something you could use in your everyday life.  A Lean culture is a learning culture as I've stated, and remember inspiration comes from everywhere.