Doctors and Dynamite
I enjoy reading about how organizations began using Lean and Six Sigma (LSS) in their business. Often companies bring in consultants to plan and execute projects, train staff on LSS methodologies, or both. I find it more interesting to read how enterprises can find help from non-obvious sources. I recently read in the August issue of Quality Magazine about a teaching healthcare system that, with a little help from the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership, decided to think outside of the box on their LSS program. Ellis Medicine teamed up with a dynamite manufacturer in Cincinnati to have two of its staff members trained in LSS principles. These “Lean Leaders” then went back to Ellis Medicine looking for obvious projects (aka low-hanging fruit). Ellis’ first project focused on laboratory blood sample turnaround time (TAT). By reducing TAT, the team saved an estimated $600,000. Based on this success, Ellis established 6 team projects in various areas of the system. While each project had some savings, two in particular stand out. A critical shortage of IV pumps was resolved, resulting in savings of $500,000. Another team identified laboratory tests that could be performed in-house, providing savings of $1 million. As busy professionals we have a tendency to focus on what is happening within our own field. By exploring alternatives outside our main industry, we often find outside-the-box solutions and a greater appreciation for programs such as LSS. How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
Read MoreCreativity and Lean Six Sigma = Oil and Water?
There’s a misperception that Lean Six Sigma’s (LSS) structured approach to quality, with its focus on reducing errors and eliminating waste, stifles creativity for companies desperately seeking to nurture a culture of innovation. But this line of reasoning assumes that there’s only one kind of creativity that leads to innovation — disorderly chaos. Methodology is mutually exclusive in the processes that lead to those eureka moments of real discovery and innovation. To the contrary, Colorado-based Arrow Electronics, Inc. is just one example of an organization that has embraced LSS to strengthen its innovative culture. In fact, for the second year in a row, Arrow walked away with “Innovation of the Year” honors at the 2017 Lean & Six Sigma World Conference, one of the leading conferences on business process improvement. Arrow, a global provider of products, services and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and enterprise computing solutions, won for its Lean Sigma Drones project. This project combines drone technology, video technology and a rapid-improvement methodology to observe Arrow’s extensive warehouse operations from a birds-eye view and more effectively identify areas for continuous improvement. The project has already increased the efficiency of targeted processes by 82 percent and eliminated more than 6.5 million walking steps in warehouse processes since Arrow launched it in late 2016. Employee feedback spurred the innovative drone project. Arrow warehouse employees reported it was much easier to observe processes and identify areas for improvement from a higher vantage point. Using drones, they can now see more than they ever could before, and all in 4K resolution. To ensure operational excellence and nurture a culture of innovation, Arrow offers regular LSS training to its employees. Aside from training, Arrow also conducts regular audits in every distribution center, making sure the problems are always identified and innovative best practices are widely shared, to improve operational performance and achieve high ROIs. Arrow’s team has creatively tackled other projects, like modifying a race car to be safely driven at speeds over 100 mph using just the head movements and breath from a quadriplegic driver. Or a pheromone-based pest control system that uses an insect’s own natural communication methods to prevent damage to fruit crops. Or transforming cargo containers into fully-equipped classrooms and health clinics to be used across Africa. Or even engineering sensors that help dairy farmers better manage livestock health and optimize milk production. And, smart smoke detectors that are designed to be a more effective early warning system. To say that LSS, because of its emphasis on planning and measurement, is incompatible with innovation isn’t necessarily the case. What may be an even bigger mistake is to assume that providing no framework for idea-generation supports, rather than limits, the entrepreneurial spirit, and that boundaries are just buzzkill. This view doesn’t recognize that the problem-solving that is foundational to LSS is a creative process itself. Furthermore, the LSS emphasis on collaboration and team-building unleashes the power of ideas and their synergies when cross-functional team members connect to think about possibilities rather than problems – and those teams rely on the imagination of each individual member. Creativity and LSS are a winning combination for any organization desiring a better way to conduct business. What’s been your experience with building a culture of innovation at your organization? I’d love to hear your observations! How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
Read MoreShopping for Data at Your Local Grocery Store
With the vast amount of data now available to organizations, data science offers significant opportunities to complement a company’s continuous improvement efforts. Unfortunately, to quote business strategy and technology expert Geoffrey Moore, “Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the Web like deer on a freeway.” A 2017 American Society for Quality case study by Sivaram Pandravada and Thimmiah Gurunatha illustrates how data analysis helped a grocery chain reduce inefficiencies in its retail inventory and ordering process. The short shelf lives of fresh foods along with ever-changing consumer demand meant that the retail chain’s stores often had to hold clearance sales with zero or negative margins or write off inventory. Annually, the problem of shrinkage accounted for revenue losses of up to 20 percent. Although the ordering process was automated, it was better suited for longer shelf-life items. As a result, managers would often override the system and order manually. There were no defined limits in place. The organization needed an approach for monitoring and controlling this waste. Explorative data analysis and basic statistics helped the chain identify and reduce inefficiencies in its inventory and ordering process, minimizing the gap between quantities sold and quantities ordered. For example, to reduce excess ordering, the warehouse used color coding to monitor and track inventory. The colors of tags on the shelves helped ensure that department managers would see indications of stock levels during daily physical inspections. Red tags indicated Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) with high shrinkage. Blue tags signaled SKUs with high stock levels. Rainbow statistical process control (SPC) charts, a variation on traditional SPC, helped ensure ongoing monitoring of the stock-to-sales ratio and escalated corrective action in real time, bringing sustainable results within three months. Once the chain saw the difference that the data-based approach made in targeting waste and inefficiency in one store, it successfully replicated its process improvements to increase profitability throughout the organization. If you haven’t seen it, the case study is definitely worth the read. The project approach and lessons learned can also be applied in other retail settings. How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
Read MoreLean Improvements in the Greenhouse
I recently had lunch with a former work colleague. As we talked, she told me about her new home and the vegetable garden she had planted. She told me that she had already utilized all of the space that she had set aside in her yard and needed to become more creative in how to use the available space. Her story reminded me of a recent article I read in ISE magazine. Cassandra Johnson’s case study described the use of Lean methodologies in a family-owned greenhouse supplier in Michigan that faced a decline in its production capacity. After running the company the same way for more than 60 years, the company realized it needed to make a change. To assist the company in its continuous improvement (CI) efforts, management turned to the University of Michigan’s (UM) Tauber Institute for Global Operations team. Three graduate students from UM took a three-pronged approach to helping the company evaluate its distribution center. Each student evaluated a separate part of the operational process utilizing week-long kaizen events. The first kaizen focused on quality control in the production area. The team found that there were too many inspection points, many in the wrong location. The team reduced the number of inspection station and moved others upstream in the process, resulting in a 79 % reduction of the rework rate. The second team focused on processes in the shipping area. Errors in labeling, pallet positioning, and a general lack of standard processes led to rework and product delays. The team developed spaghetti maps for product flow and visual aids for pallet placement the team eliminated over-processing. The team estimated annual savings of $242,000. The third team focused on the inspection process. Most of the inspectors had not received formal training for their position, and thus quality standards were quite varied dependent upon the inspector. By establishing a standard training program and requiring all inspectors to go through the program, the company not only developed strong training standards, but also overhauled the company’s recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding. Over a 14-week period, the three teams were able to establish initial savings of $368,000 and more than 28,000 hours in time savings. Sometimes having a fresh set of eyes (or, in this case, three sets) can really pay off! How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive...
Read MoreTwo Super Hero Skills for Workplace Improvement
Last weekend several new movies were released. The most anticipated of these was “Wonder Woman.” The movie, based on comics published by DC Comics, tells the story of Diana, Princess of Themyscira, and the Amazonian people. While her Amazonian training helped her to develop a wide range of extraordinary (super hero) skills in tactics, hunting, and combat, in her day job she was working with Steve Trevor to help end the war. While few of us will ever have access to a magic lasso or an invisible airplane, we all have access to some skills that can make us a super hero at work. The most powerful of these is observation. By evaluating our surroundings as we go about our typical work day we see things that are ripe for change. Generally these are small things that can be taken care of with little effort, but can make a large impact and enhance our lives and those of our coworkers. Another super power we have is our ability to ask questions. How often do you ask, “Why do we do things the way that we do them?” The six most deadly words in business are “we’ve always done it that way.” Just as documents such as standard operating procedures (SOPs) are required to be evaluated on regular intervals, so should commonly used business processes. A method that worked well 3 or 4 years ago may be overdue for evaluation. Not all of us can help to save the world like Wonder Woman. We can, however, help ourselves and our colleagues to have a healthier and more productive work space. Are you ready to be a super hero for your company? How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me at michael@leadingchangeforgood.com! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive workplace....
Read MoreWant to Improve Your Workplace? Take a Walk!
Several years ago, my wife and I obtained a personal trainer. He’s a 40-pound terrier mix named Squirt (named by the previous owner). Squirt makes sure that we take a morning and an evening walk every day. While the exercise is probably good for our health, it can get rather monotonous. It seems like we have seen everything there is to see within our neighborhood. Although we have a “usual” course that we take most days, we occasionally make variations to the route. We may do this route in reverse, or add in a cul-de-sac that we don’t often include. This allows us to notice things that we might be missing on a day-to-day basis, such as an overgrown flowerbed, a broken fence, or a recently installed pergola. The same change-up in routine can be very useful in one’s daily trip to and from work, especially as one goes from the entrance to the office/work area. Managers and other leaders can benefit from regular walks through the various areas for which they are responsible. The Japanese term for this is “gemba”, which can be translated as “the real place.” In the context of process improvement, it means the place where work is done. By changing our travel routine in the office / manufacturing area in which we work, we are more apt to obtain a different perspective on how activities are being carried out. These insights can lead to a better understanding of current processes and reveal areas for process improvement. Have you noticed something new at work that you haven’t seen before? Take a gemba walk to see how well things are going around your area and identify areas that may need a little process improvement clean-up. How are you helping your employees to work smarter by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-productive activities and correcting errors? If your business processes need a “check-up,” please email me! I’d love to help you get back to a healthy, productive workplace. ...
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