Tweddle Continuous Improvement

"If we reduce batch sizes by half, we also reduce by half the time it will take to process a batch. That means we reduce queue and wait by half as well. Reduce those by half, and we reduce by about half the total time parts spend in the plant. Reduce the time parts spend in the plant and our total lead time condenses. And with faster turn-around on orders, customers get their orders faster." - Eliyahu M. Goldratt, The Goal

"Small improvements are believable and therefore are achievable." - Anthony Robbins

"An organization can only change so much, or so fast, usually. It's really going to be a long-term process. What you want to do is be focusing on how you build your influence over time. Long term thinking is a very powerful, and much under-practiced, strategy," says John.   Although there are other methods and tools, here are 4 ways how this can be done.

This seems insane. Why would you go through the pain of removing the (relatively) low cost buffer of some extra parts? The answer, it turns out, is that without a buffer, you've lowered the water level and you can see the rocks below. Without a buffer, every supplier had to dramatically up his game. Suddenly, the quality of parts went way up, which, of course, makes the assembly line go faster and every car ends up working better as well.

Reducing machine down time is the main goal of set-up reduction. However, reducing set-up times will boost your company's capacity, increase your manufacturing flexibility, and help increase overall output.

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".

Ideally, poka-yoke ensures that proper conditions exist before actually executing a process step, preventing defects from occurring in the first place. Where this is not possible, poka-yoke performs a detective function, eliminating defects in the process as early as possible. This can be achieved by following the 6 principles or methods of mistake proofing. These are listed in order of priority in fundamentally addressing mistakes:

The FMEA Tool (Failure, Modes, Effects, Analysis) is a powerful tool available to a Lean Six Sigma practitioner. The tool is extensively used where a safety critical environment exists, such as the aerospace or automotive industry. The tool allows a team the ability to design quality and safety into processes or products on the front end of the environment, eliminating potential problems before they occur.

The implementation of a certain tool may bring about on-time and on-budget performance, but the tool must also be used efficiently once it has been implemented. It is all very well to have nice tools; however, it is the behavior of leaders and employees that will determine the final results. An insight from the Shingo Model™ explains it beautifully: "Only via ideal behavior we can achieve ideal results." If we want to have a 100% safe environment, we want to see the staff talk to each other if they see unsafe behavior. Do you want to achieve a culture of continuous improvement? If you do, you should look for new items to constantly place on the improvement board, and you should see tips and tricks shared spontaneously. As leaders, we want to set a good example; and if a leader sees inefficient behavior among his/her employees, he/she must speak to them about this in the correct manner. But how do we get the ideal behavior that we want to see in our organization?

Could we use this game in our 5S class?

Great! Yes, that looks good to me.

In my experience there are 5 tools that can help with a Visual Workplace and 5S efforts:

I'm not always a fan of deadlines and goals, but it's good to be able to use whatever works best for you. If you're working great without deadlines and goals, then by all means, keep going. But if you're struggling to push a project forward (or a learning project like language lessons), then you might try a self-imposed deadline. Here are some things that work for me:

Kaizen as a methodology has the ability to speed up that change process and more importantly finalize the solutions into standardized processes expeditiously. This benefits the organization by not having "floating" processes in place and the end-user by making a seamless process easy to use. Kaizen does this by having a structured approach, with specific deliverables, and ownership of the changes after the Kaizen is completed.

Interesting approach to reading non-fiction books.

This is phenomenal! I am definitely experimenting with this!!!

A good manager is acutely aware of what they know and why they know it, as well as what they don't know. They understand the difference between opinions, hunches, and objective facts. A good manager knows that their job is to fill in these gaps in knowledge, not to defend them. Good managers don't ruin their credibility by over-stating their knowledge.

It is said that performance is related to housekeeping and workplace organization. It is a first step to improving operating results. The 5S Tool is a common sense approach to improve the visual control in the workplace. The decision-making process usually comes from a dialogue about standardization, which builds understanding among employees of how they should do the work. It can apply to both manufacturing and the service setting.

"The general answer to this question from today's webinar is that if people don't find a particular tool purposeful, they don't use it. More specifically for poka-yoke, there are seven reasons team members do not see the tool as purposeful:

I look forward to the day when our company implements Poka-yoke on our paper supplies. It works if you believe in it.