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"The best time to train workers is when an error is first detected. It also is the best time to solve a problem." - Dr. Ryuji Fukuda, VP of Production at Sumitomo Electric When do you train your personnel in problem solving? How do you train them in problem solving? Dr. Ryuji Fukuda, VP of Production at Sumitomo Electrics says "The best time to train workers is when an error is first detected. It also is the best time to solve a problem." He refers to this activity as On-Error-Training (OET). The following five rules are necessary to make OET work successfully in your shop.

How to cust training video cost for in-house training and onboarding potentially 80%! In this example, Lean Manufacturing videos are used. One can apply the training delivery approach to any topic.

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During one of my training opportunities a Toyota Sensei once told me that the highest form of "respect for people" was allowing people to solve their own problems.  This statement stuck with me and I have often used this during training/coaching sessions.  Apparently, this statement also stuck with my friend.  In the hallway last week he said after a year of gemba he finally understood his role as a leader and what I meant when I talked about "respect for people."   He said at first he loved the Lean approach, because he loved being in gemba, but after a while the follow-up became overwhelming to him and frustrating to the teams he worked with.  He said each time he went to gemba he felt guilty about the increasing number of problems he was not having the time to solve.

When I asked the president at Anvex how he trained his managers, he answered, "Every manager must work inside the manufacturing process for a period of time. It is important for them to understand how their decisions within their department will affect the rest of the organization, otherwise it is impossible for them to make assertive decisions. Every single manager knows perfectly well what happens in each process because their desks are in the middle of the operation. This way they know when something happens as it is happening and not hours afterward. We do not have offices, they are not considered necessary. Private issues or problems are handled in conference or training rooms."

This is completely true. You need to know and understand for 100% all the processes in your manufacturing process.

As part of our onboarding process every person needs to spend time in the Mfg areas. I think we could widen this and say they need to spend time in each operation area. When I worked at L&L this was a requirement before you could actually begin the job you were hired for.

"An organization relying only on audits with no quality training is like a teacher administering only surprise exams with no teaching; the result is poor quality." - Aly Basyouny, PGESCO

How do Lean organizations develop their employees if Lean considers expenditure of resources other than for creation of value to be wasteful? First, a true lean organization isn't obsessed with waste. If anything, they are obsessed with value.  Waste is anything more than the absolutely minimum required to add value to a product or service; waste is not just anything that doesn't create value. I can't imagine much value can be delivered without the right skills and capabilities in the organization. Therefore, I don't think there is any conflict between developing employees and waste elimination. Second, a lean organization thinks about the total system, and thinks long term. There is a constant pursuit of the knowledge between cause and effect. All of that means that there is a strong understanding of the performance impact (effect) of more talented and skilled people (cause). Third, people think too narrowly about how they develop their people that they think it all must cost dollars, because it is all about training. I'm not suggesting that you should stop training; I've rarely seen an organization that is over-trained. What I'm suggesting is that the increase in developing people come from coaching and experimentation. These two sources of development are very powerful when done consistently and for the long-term.

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Great article on Muda, Muri & Mura - 7 wastes, Unevenness & Overburdened. I'm going to add this to our CI Training.

Often, managers overwhelm their employees with massive amounts of information in a short period. The outcome is "information overload" and confusion. An analogy is the sponge. It will absorb only so much and will reach a saturation point where it will absorb no more. When this happens to employees, they learn only what is necessary to get by or just those subjects that come easily to them. The rest does not get soaked up and falls by the wayside. The solution is to break down training into bite-size pieces that can be readily digested, absorbed and put to work in the field.

The passage above is a cautionary tale for "New Employee Days".

When we start removing the 8th waste, stop ignoring people as idea generators, listen and put into practice their kaizen suggestions, we are engaging more of a person's potential. It is an quantitative improvement. Instead of only physical ability or trained-in job skills, we are making use capacity for creativity, problem solving and so forth.

Some good tips for Kaizen. We'll incorporate these into our Kaizen Facilitator training.

The following key points summarize Lean and Lean Metrics: 1) Make Lean so simple anyone can understand it. 2) Fix what bugs you and improve it everyday. 3) Every employee must make a 2 sec improvement everyday. 4) People fail sometimes and solutions may not valid but you learn from that. 5) Create a routine like: start day with Sweep, Sort, Standardize, then improvement time, then morning meeting. 6) Give people time everyday to experiment, train, and teach. 7) Simple metrics -            a) 1 improvement everyday            b) Orders out in 2 hours            c) Less than 1 mistake a week            d) Want customers to rave about us 8) Defects are something the customer sees. 9) Develop the skill and capacity to solve problems by everyone everyday.

Can we also put "Kaizen: FastCap Style" on the list.

Sure, just post it here, and tag it "film festival".

Good article on Toyota Business Practice.

How could we begin to train our Leaders (that means me, you & anybody who is responsible for people) to do this? I will place this on the Employee Development Agenda.

This is a concept that has always intrigued me, but I must confess that It is tough for me to see a clear path from here to implementation. I look forward to the conversation.

What do you get when you combine free and Lean?  Well, the FreeLeanSite.com. Jay Watson is the Lean thinker behind this site. It grew from a passion of implementing Lean on the shop floor at companies like Motorola, Honeywell, and General Electric. He started the site to make "lean thinking" concepts of continuous improvement highly accessible for practitioners in North America. Our primary focus is on accelerating the developmental process, sustaining the effort, and most importantly - driving for results. The majority of the training modules are absolutely free to download and modify as needed. A management improvement process focused on elements of Safety, Quality, and Speed of Execution provides a framework for action. The site has four major sections to aid in finding the right resource: Jay also provides some advice on implementing Lean by defining a Lean Roadmap.The roadmap consists of the following three phases: PHASE 1 (GET READY): PLANNING FOR IMPROVEMENT PHASE II (GET SET): CONDUCTING A PILOT PROGRAM PHASE III (GO!): TEAM PROBLEM SOLVING/ SKILLS DEVELOPMENT I have been truly amazed by the sheer amount of Lean related material that Jay has compiled.  This is a great resource for learning on your own or sharing with your team.

Four solid concepts - good video.

I re-watched it, and, while I still fundamentally disagree with the first two points (No more visionary speeches and No Couch Meetings), I did find value in his comments of instructing through results and not outsourcing your training. The idea that you cannot outsource your culture, which is a function of your training is powerful.

I was recently working with a customer who works as a supervisor in a distribution operation.  She's new to lean and is tasked with developing her team to work autonomously to meet customer needs and continuously improve processes.  She asked, "How do I teach my team?"  It's a simple question, with a not-so-simple answer.  So, here are some thoughts on teaching others.  Keep in mind, I'm not trained to be a teacher, although I've facilitated many workplace training events.

Think of these key points and the training that they drive as temporary countermeasures.  They are stop gaps you have in place until you can do something more robust.