Flow

Welcome once again to one of my campfire chats about Lean implementation from the front lines.  Grab a cup of coffee and rest your bones while this cowboy talks today about flow.

What is flow really?  Flow is the seamless transition of work from one station to the next without any interuption.  From a flat piece of steel, to a stamping lasering process, to a forming process, to an assembly process, to a painting process, to a final assembly area and packing.  We view that as flow correct?  Well I'd like to say yes this is flow but there are many more components to it, such as the purchase individual who orders steel, the CSR who inputs the orders, the shop floor guys and gals whom I supervise that can improve the flow, the drivers who deliver the product etc....  This flow bussiness can and is extremely involved.

The aspect of flow I'll address today is on the shop floor.  When my turret guys need steel to punch for sequenced shop orders the material handler brings them the steel and stages it on roller flow track.  This had worked well for us in the past yet there were and are periods of downtime  This puzzled me and posed a problem.  What did we do to fix this?

The first thing I did was GO TO GEMBA.  Yes, that is right I left my desk and went to GEMBA.  You know the place on the shop floor where the work takes place?  Where you are able to ask the questions to the guys and gals doing the work who may have a better way.  The place where one can observe the bottleneck, safety hazard, improvement opportunity, etc.  Yes, GEMBA.  I'll fully admit that was a gig at suits who fail to goto the shop floor yet purport they understand Lean and Lean methodology while directing from a desk high in the sky.

When going to Gemba I found a few things.  There was an absence of visual management of the shop order.  I didn't have a vertical file, nor an andon *flag device denoting status of need with material handler*, guess who came up with the vertical file idea?  You've got that right buckaroos, the brilliant minds that work for me.  They are the ones who drove the solutions to our problem of proper flow.  It wasn't my divine insight or cowboy swagger.  It was and is the people who work for you that will more than likely drive improvement if you know how to ask the right questions and afford them time.
Do you see a pattern here in my blog postings, People/Process/Culture.  The key elements in securing a foundation for a Lean culture, as my team and I are doing.

After implementing the andon and vertical file, we decided that a better roller track system of flat stock steel that was better able to support the higher volume of through put we were getting.  With greater through one has a need to maximize capacity and reduce downtime.  That birthed more roller track that helped the material handler pick up processed parts and deliver them to the next operation.  Once again, a Lean culture is a learning culture and we are recognizing the benefits of Lean.

In closing this post of flow, I'd like to ask you the audience a few questions.  What are you doing to actively engage your workforce as I'm doing?  What are you doing with the answers your workforce is giving you, i.e. is there any action being taking on the ideas and improvements you people are giving you?  What results are you seeing on your Lean journey and are you recording them with photographs?  I hear all sorts of individuals talk from a consultant level about the theory of Lean and this is great, what my team and I are doing is actually IMPLEMENTING LEAN and making manufacturing a more efficient and hospitable place to learn and practice the art and science of continuous improvement.

I'd like to thank you all for stopping by and reading this post.  With the holidays quickly approaching I'll have some time off the day job and may be doing some more postings as Yoda and I have house projects that we are going to complete.

Happy Trails...
-Cowboy

Leadership Part #3

Howdy folks and I'm back for the 3rd installment of the Leadership from the front line.  I'd like to take the time to address the action component of what leadership entails as for some of us, the action component can be the make a win or alienate our team due to overzealous action.

This week has been filled with actionable and quantifiable win.  Just ask the hardy souls  I have out there on the front lines with me.  I've listened to my guys and gals, I've observed what the problems were with my eyes and ears and most importantly we are working together to accomplish the short range and mid range visions that I have outlined for my fabrication and assembly areas.

I am teaching my people what KPI's are all about, how to know when the trends are moving in the right direction, what to look for from an elevated position on the org chart and what the suits want to see happen.  Yeah buckaroos I'm starting to sound like I've left the ranch and become a high dollar engineer but I haven't.  What I am doing is pulling my workforce forward.  I set an achievable goal with my leaders within the team.  I then describe this goal and if we hit the goal or not.  Teaching the short and mid range vision tactic.  This is how I've been able to pull the team forward.

Here comes the real world component.  You knew it was coming right, as I am not an academic preaching from a desk.  We are living Lean everyday on the front line running the PDCA to constantly improve.  I sometimes forget that not all my people are zealots and dive into Lean as I do.  Yes having Yoda as my soul mate helps, but I personally have to interpret the education I'm receiving coupled with the long conversations she and I have on how to implement.  For if I just take things right from the texts and lectures, run to the floor with it half-cocked pulling the trigger without a proper vision.  Well, let's just say that I've learned the hard way.  More than once have I made mistakes taking what I thought was the right information and implementing based on "gut feel" only to realize that I didn't have all the facts.  Makes a guy feel sheepish to have to circle back to his cowhands and tell them "Yup, I was wrong again".  

What the admission of being wrong does though is this.  It demonstrates to your direct reports that you are not all knowing and will promptly admit mistakes.  The humble component of being a leader.  Look at some humble cowboys, Baxter Black the cowboy poet and Buck Taylor the actor.  These guys have always had time for me when I have spoken with them and didn't outwardly demonstrate the "I'm too busy for you" attitude some leaders have been known to do.  I'll openly admit to falling short of that from time to time.  Though I have gotten better at it with age.  Funny thing about age, with age wisdom doesn't always follow.  Time to plug Burke Miller and Sam House once again for the Wisdom Discipline Leadership course.  I'd suggest taking this course when available as you will learn about yourself as a Leader and as a coach.  As being a good Leader, at times requires us to be a coach as well.

Looking at the content of this installment I've rambled somewhat and painted some really broad strokes.  Hopefully you folks who are uber merchants out there on the Taylor Protocol CVI will be able to arc these points together.  To those of you who are like myself and are uber builders with banker coming in a strong second.  Look at this as a plan for direct action leveraging your innovator to lean how to ask the right question.

In closing I'd like to say this.  It takes more than barking orders to be a Leader.  It takes leading from the front and putting yourself on the line from time to time when doing the right thing isn't doing the right thing.  You have to believe in your people and be willing to take risks with them and not use them as pawns.  What it boils down to is the people component.  As Leaders, we lead people.  Without people we are just solitary individuals who roam the range.

Thanks for stopping by the campfire in this installment and I hope that you have taken something positive and useful away from a cowboys overview on his Lean journey right at the front line.  Until we meet up again at Gemba.  Happy Trails cowpokes...

Cowboy

Leadership Part #2

Howdy folks and thanks for stopping by.  Continuing on with our leadership series here out on the range.  I'd like to really look at what leading and cultivating a Lean culture is.  Leaders lead.  What is that exactly one may ask?  I'm here to tell you what leading is all about.  Leading is knowing when to keep your mouth closed and listen to your direct reports.  As we have seen in my past blog postings, at times as an uber Alpha, we have a hard time listening to our people.  Isn't that where it all starts, the respect for people component.  When we have a disconnect with the individuals doing the work, and those giving direction there is a problem.  There must be open channels of clear direction and communication both ways from your direct reports.  If you are the top performing cowboy on the ranch and your subordinates do not know where you are heading.  You are more than likely going to infuse variation within the work, and guess what?  Yes induce DOWNTIME.
     It may sound elementary to effectively communicate, yet I see this every day as a real disconnect between leaders and their direct reports.  Yes, that includes me. Now that we have identified a problem, let's look at some tools we can use to prevent these situations.
     Standard work, elementary right....  Well standard work needs to be standard, not a constantly fluid process.   Rather a continuously improving process that has set points in which we can check the results.  Yes, we are looking at communication in a PDCA format.
     Listening to our direct reports helps us as leaders in a few ways.  First it gives them a voice, and secondly we as the leader receive a first hand report of what is going on from our front line people.  I remind myself every day of how I need to listen.  Yes, even this cowboy has a tendency to develop selective hearing.  When that happens I am the cause of the breakdown, and we all have been part of that.  Most recently I failed to listen to one of my lead individuals, guess what?  A shop order that could have been prevented from going late went late due to my own arrogance for lack of a better term.  Yet it is during these moments we emerge, or as my ink pen states I-Emerge.
    I'd like to thank everyone for stopping by for part 2 and I hope that your Thanksgiving was filled with family and good spirits.  I'll be back in a few days with more words from the front line and the lessons I'm learning as a Lean leader.  Happy trails......

Cowboy

Leadership part 1

     Here we are once again out riding the range in the world of Lean Manufacturing, from a Cowboy's perspectivve.  This week I was not at work per se, but doing work.  I was in Broomfield, CO at the Wisdom Disciplines of Leadership workshop.   What on earth would I be doing at a coaching seminar?  Well pour a cup of your favorite coffee, and light the fire.  This is going to be rather interesting.
     Looking at what I've been trying to do with culture transformation by building a Lean Culture from the bottom up, Yoda instructed me that going to a coaching seminar, held by Burke Miller and Sam House, would be just the thing to inspire my "inner coach" and hone my soft skills needed to take good to great.  How could I refuse?  Yoda is not only a Lean guru, she is also a coach among many other things.
     The first day of the seminar was an overview of the class material coupled with a great dynamic between the instructors.  Not being the extrovert by nature, I at first was wondering what I was going to be taught that would allow me to increase thru-put and productivity.  As the seminar progressed on throughout the week, my eyes were opening.  I was learning that I too am a coach.  Teaching, mentoring, asking the right questions and learning new methods of how to bring others into alignment are what I am finding out.  Yes that is right folks, I'm learning how to coach.  A vital and necessary skill that we as change agents must use to get our clients or direct reports to see things in an alternative light.
     Courage and Integrity are two things I find most lacking in an organization desiring to change and travel the path of a Lean journey.  Everyone wants to become Lean, implement Lean, proclaim Lean, yet so many of us and that includes myself fall short.  My current rivers that I'm crossing are going to require Courage and Integrity as cornerstones in my Lean journey.  The courage to do the right thing when doing the right thing isn't right.  Support that with  demonstrating that my team and I have the integrity to follow through with our standard work, even when nobody is watching.
    I'm going to break this up into 3 parts.  The depth of this topic could span from Texas Hill Country all the way to Maricopa County in the great state of Arizona.  Being as this is a holiday week of Thanksgiving I'd like to wish all that read this blog a happy Thanksgiving, and to the brilliant minds who participated at the Wisdom Disciplines Leadership Course, a true and heartfelt thank you for helping me open up rivers of flow that I didn't know were accessible to me.  Then there is my personal Yoda, and without her this here slice of one cowboy's Lean journey would have never started.

Thanks for sittn' around the campfire for this post, until our wagon trains meet again out on the range of PDCA

Cowboy

Lean Life Lessons

Here is something that has been yanking at me today.  How many of us are actually Lean practioners?  Let's be honest with ourselves.  We may preach from the mountain top at work, teach the kata, bring down the rules on stone tablets from the book Lean for Dummies, yet do we as individuals actually implement a lifestyle kata of Lean?

Here is a story that is a testemant of how Lean thinking actually transforms our minds into a thought pattern of logical progression.  Picture this, you go out for you daily 6.2 mile run where you are thinking about the best John Wayne quotes to use and just how do you implement that into a morning meeting, you arrive home and BOOM!!! an ant invasion.  Where on earth did these rascals come from?  Why did they decide to come into our home?  Why are they doing a line dance into the kitchen that reminds me of ealy 90's country music videos?  Why are they moving is such an orderly fashion?  Where did they come from?

Yes folks these ants invaded the homestead and I wasn't going to stand idly by.  Unknowingly I did an Ohno circle taking mental notes and asking questions.  No by no means did I pull out an A3 and get out my purple pen of truth writing down 5 why's etc.... Yet this was a perfect chance to implement containment, activate countermeasures, GO TO GEMBA.

My significant other was right on time with proper containment measures, furiously searching what to throw down to prevent those onry varmits from coming in, *cinnamon*, eliminate the phermone trail, etc.  We were working as a Team, a driven cohesive unit implementing a standard work protocol that each of us has used in the past for house chores.  Yes standard work, works.  Yoda is a bright and beautiful person, I believe that is the reason the ants decided to descend upon our homestead.

When all was said and done, we eliminated the problem, found the source, implemented corrective actions, and restored a current state continuing towards our desired state.  What I'm getting at here cowpokes is this,  Lean thinking and proper execution afforded us the chance to actually reduce the time of the "invasion" and prevent a return to a non-desired state.  So the next time life throws you a curveball, STOP!!!! Yes, we must sometimes slow down to speed up.  Put forth some mindful thought and action before you take to the knee jerk reaction route.

That's about it for now buckaroos, I thought a true story from the front line of life was fitting for this week demonstrating to others that Lean just isn't for work.  Lean is a lifestyle that can be fufilling and rewarding.

Until next time Happy Trails and remember "slow is smooth and smooth is fast".  Thanks for stopping by and spending some time,

Cowboy

Mura Part #2

So yes ladies and gents it has been another spell since my last post.  My time has been spent with 60 hour work weeks, academic pursuits, professional development with Yoda and the leaders of the Lean world, coupled with extensive travel in my every other weekend off modicum of a work cycle that has been prevelant the past 6 months or so.

Let's get to the meaty part of Part #2.  Since my last post my team has effectively reigned in the late orders within a certain area of my operation.  Yes, the heijunka table worked.  Though it may not have been a heijunka in the true sense of the word, it suited the purpose of "manufacturing triage".  I took the triage scenario from prior careers and implemented it in manufacturing.   Do the best, for the greatest good.  Aligning steel to be cut/lasered/formed by standard blank sizes, minimized movement, maximized thru-put, reducing late shop orders, etc. worked with the modified heijunka.

Yoda will always ask me, "So... what did you learn?  What will you do different next time?  What results were repeatable?  What didn't work? Why didn't it work?  Were you driving out waste?  Why did you get in the state you were in to begin with?"  I believe I have answers to those questions.  Where do those answers lay you may ask.  In the results.  Life is a PDCA cycle, heck I'm learning life is an engineering problem that can be navigated with Lean thinking.  If what you are doing works, record your results and try to repeat with better results.  This is where engaging your team really comes into focus.  That is exactly how we drove down our late shop orders,  I engaged my team and challenged them and myself to do things better using Lean principals.  Yes, educating your team does go a LONG way.  Some of you manager "senior team" types need to take note.  Listening to the guys and gals on the floor will save you a ton of headaches.

I'd also like to credit my Ohno circles for allowing myself to ask the multitude of questions needed to goto the right people to actually have a starting point.  Without questions, we as leaders are left with nothing but giving orders and direction to individuals who may already have the answers, yet haven't been tapped.  This can be an issue with those of us who are Alpha's and our CVI is Builder/Banker using the Taylor protocol.

I'll leave you buckaroos with something I stated on twitter, I used to have all the answers to lifes problems, now I have questions and mindful action.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll be back to a weekly post as Yoda has tasked me to MAKE TIME

Happy Trails,
Cowboy

Part #1 Mura

     So yes it has been a couple weeks since I have picked up the proverbial scribe.  Yes Yoda has hounded me and asked the right questions to achieve the desired result.  That being pound out another  entry on the lean journey my team and I are on.
     The past week has been hectic and eventful.  The standard quotes of "We need it all now", "We want it yesterday", and my personal favorite "This is hot".  It started me thinking about standardization.  If parts are punched/stamped/laser cut from standard blank sizes wouldn't that facilitate less handling, increased thru-put, etc... The trick to this is the quick change over.  As we all know the devil resides in those pesky details where we pick up time and turn downtime, yes some of you know that acronym, into direct labor which is value added.  The win we had the past couple of weeks came with an experiment I am running with a table.  Could it be considered a Heijunka table, well that all depends on who you ask and how it is presented.  The jist of what we are trying to accomplish is run more product thru equipment on standard blank sizes while the scrap is increased, the time saved in extra labor and material handling well pays for itself.  Is it working, well buckaroos,  it is still in the works and the Mura, there I go using Japanese words to sound wise, has decreased in amplitude.  I am going to make this a 2 part blog.  As I don't see the current workload slowing down anytime soon my team and I will continue to work this problem PDCA style.  I will report the results in the next posting.

Happy Trails, thanks for stopping by

Cowboy