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Since it is near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover what to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list- I’m breaking the topics up over several weeks.
Up to this point, we have covered 12 other Lean topics- Lean History, VA vs. NVA, the 8 wastes, 6S, Current state and future state VSM’s, waste walks, PICK chart, RIE’s, A3’s, setting up an LPO and developing a Master Plan and RIE report-outs.
If you cover these topics, I know you will have a very solid start in educating employees on Lean topics that will benefit your company immensely! It’s helpful to add workshops for many of these topics to keep people excited and engaged when we can all get into a training room again!
1. Flow tools & balanceOne of the most important elements of Lean is being able to flow products or processes. Think of a river. You don’t want a bunch of delays in the flow of product or information as items pass through your systems. Delays lead to increased lead time, which affects your customer and impacts cash-flow.
There are many flow tools to use in understanding how you build your product. The first high-level tool is value stream mapping. Then you can use process flow diagrams and product families to understand which parts belong in a family-based upon process commonality.
You can use resource calculations to calculate how many resources you will need to produce a certain volume of product. Once you understand how many resources are required, it’s important to lay out the resources in an efficient manner so your product can flow.
The closer you can come to the product process flow diagram, the better your flow will be, because the process flow diagram shows the most efficient way to build the product.
Spaghetti diagrams- where you follow a part through its current state, visually show the state of your current flow. It’s called a spaghetti diagram because, more than likely, your flow will resemble a bowl of spaghetti.
Now it’s time to develop a future state flow. You can try using cells- self-contained layouts where raw material enters and a complete part leaves the cell. These are great for supporting families of parts.
A key element for setting up a successful cell is balance. It’s important to set up a cell where each step in the operation has about the same amount of work content as the other ones. You want to produce a product from the cells based upon a Takt time- a German word for rhythm or beat. We base it upon customer demand and let you know how often you need to produce a product.
2. Pull Systems (Kanban)You try to flow your product as much as possible, but when you can’t flow it, you can pull it using a visual signal called Kanban. Kanban is a Japanese word that means signal. It can be a card, it can be an X on the table.
It signals your operators when to do work or when to stop doing work. The purpose is to signal you only when more items are needed. If you don’t have a signal to product items, you don’t build.
This is a powerful tool for controlling inventory and WIP and works well in freeing up inventory dollars.
3. Setup reduction/TPMYou might think that setup reduction is only applicable to a machine shop. It’s applicable anywhere you have a setup. Maybe you need to switch between computer software to do your job. That’s a setup.
Regardless, teach the steps of setup reduction. 1. Identify what setup to focus on. This might be a high-moving part. 2. Video the setup. Use two cameras and video the setup. One closer to the setup where you can see the operator and one farther away so you can see where he/she goes. 3. Review the video and write down the setup elements. Mark them as VA or NVA. 4. Either eliminate the NVA steps or do them externally to the setup. Operators might...
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Employee engagement is going to make or break you on your Lean transformation. For those that are interested in a successful Lean Transformation, I have a secret for you. Lean is about changing the culture of your organization. Ask yourself, how do I turn my employees into daily problem solvers? One success indicator of employee engagement is having them drive the transformation effort within your company, but how do you get there? Here are five ways to engage employees during your Lean transformation.
First, let’s talk about what the end state looks like. Ideally, you have developed a supportive culture that develops over years. You want a support system driven from the bottom up.
Most organizations are top-down driven. That looks like a typical triangle organization structure. The top leader speaks, and everyone works to carry out those directives.
To truly have culture change, you need to adopt a more supporting servant leadership style of managing. Each level provides support to the one above it, and employees are driving the transformation. It is the leader’s job to provide support and remove roadblocks. This servant-leader culture looks like an inverted triangle.
That’s great, you might say. I can see from the graphic how it is supposed to work, but how does my company get there? How do we drive daily problem solving into the organization and change the culture over time? How do we embed Lean thoughts and processes into our company’s DNA so that this isn’t some flavor of the month program?
Here are five opportunities that you can use during your Lean transformation to get employees engaged and excited about culture change.
1. Have a clear vision and present it to the workforceThis means you have developed a True North vision and your company’s Lean Management System. These two items share with employees which is important to the company. After these are in place, you can reinforce company values and goals during daily stand-up meetings with employees.
2. Have daily stand up meetingsIf you aren’t having daily 10 minute stand up meetings, begin having them. This is a perfect time to review 1. Safety issues 2. Quality issues and review elements of the Lean Management System. It will take time, but eventually, employees will open up and share opportunities for things to improve in these meetings.
3. Have all employees attend Lean trainingIt doesn’t have to be super intense but provide training that introduces employees to Lean terminology and a few key concepts like Value Stream Mapping and Rapid Improvement Events. The key is to have everyone in the company take part in the training. This lets everyone know that you are taking the Lean Transformation seriously and it will not become a book of the month program.
4. Ensure the workforce is involved in Lean activitiesInvite employees to develop Value Stream Maps, take part in 6S activities, and be in Rapid Improvement Events that occur within your organization. One of the eight wastes is Not Listening to People’s Ideas. You must include employees in these Lean activities. They are the ones on the front line every day. They know where the waste is in their processes. Engage them to make improvements within their areas.
5. Celebrate!Make sure that at the end of every 6S event, Rapid Improvement Event, or Value Stream Mapping event you have them report out to the leadership team. As leaders, make sure you support and celebrate their efforts. Thank them for participating. Recognize that they are nervous during the report out. Celebrate the fact that you have gotten 5-8 more people engaged in the process!
If you follow these simple steps, you will engage employees during your Lean transformation!
As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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What is the purpose of your business? Is it to make money as many people believe? I took finance during my MBA program and finance says your goal is to generate shareholder value. That doesn’t sound like a great rallying cry for employees. “We have to focus on increasing our shareholder value in 2021.” Yeah, no. How about you find better ways to focus on the customer in 2021?
Can you use that to engage and energize employees? I bet so, and if you make improvements in that area, I bet your revenue will increase.
1. Review your True NorthHopefully, your True North focuses upon the customer. If not, give it a review. Here is LinkedIn’s- “to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful”. Nike’s is to “Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world*”. The asterisk says if you have a body you are an athlete.
Take the time with your leadership team to review your True North and make sure it makes sense.
2. Instill it in the company cultureNow that you have a relevant customer supporting True North, how do you ensure your company walks the walk? Maybe you had outside help in developing your True North and hired a firm to make a nice graphic, posters, etc.
Now the heavy lifting begins. Instilling your True North into the company culture. Every employee has to understand their role in supporting the customer. Supporting the customer has to show up in their employee review language and employee plans.
Begin every meeting reviewing the True North until everyone has heard it 2,000 times and then you have a good start. Ensure your actions and the actions of those you lead to support the True North and the customer.
3. Map the Customer JourneyNow that your enterprise culture change is beginning, map the customer journey from the time they click on the website or pick up the phone until the product or service is delivered to their door. Where are there multiple points of contact required of the customer? What are your response times in your call center? What are your first call resolution statistics?
Use items like value stream mapping and customer journey mapping to “see” where you can make improvements. Make sure these events are cross-functional and have input from employees in every area of the business. Ensure that your IT group is part of the mapping as well, so they can understand there is a difference between pretty and functional. Or high-tech and meeting the needs of the customer.
4. Develop your 2021 improvement planAs a leadership team, develop your improvement plan. Where do you need to focus on improving the customer experience first? Second, etc.? Deploy the resources required to make the improvements.
Establish the correct metrics to measure your performance. Survey your customers. Then survey them again. Consider using the Net Promoter Score to compare yourself to others in your industry.
Ensure the improvement plan is moving forward as planned. Discuss it in leadership meetings. Make sure leaders involve employees across the business. This helps you cement your True North and drive employee engagement.
If you follow these steps and focus on the customer in 2021, you will have an incredible year!
As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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Organizations have dramatically sped up their digital transformation activities. The pandemic has made companies consider a digital transformation much sooner than before. Companies of all sizes realize they need to transform. To help guide you, here are the top roles for a successful digital transformation.
1. Solution ArchitectJust like it sounds, a solution architect develops the overall strategy for the digital transformation. Think of the solution architect as the techie that can explain software solutions to the leaders in the organization.
They explain how software and digital solutions solve business problems.
2. Data ArchitectNow that you have a system-wide view of your digital transformation, you will need a data architect. Their role is to develop the data management plan. How will your company collect, analyze, protect, and maintain data? These are questions that a data architect answers.
3. Chief Digital OfficerIt’s great that you want to undertake a digital transformation, but why? Because everyone else is doing it? The Chief Digital officer understands the revenue streams, Omni channels, new business opportunities, and customer services that will benefit from the digital transformation.
4. Database AdministratorDatabase administrators do what their title sounds like. They work closely with data architects and ensure data is stored and organized properly. Their primary goal is to ensure data is available when needed. This includes making sure you complete backups, data is seamlessly available from cloud providers, etc.
5. Cloud SpecialistsBecause you keep more and more data off-premise these days, i.e. in the cloud, cloud specialists are extremely important. They manage edge computing opportunities and manage business solution software that is kept in the cloud.
6. Data AnalystsThese are your go-to employees that can retrieve, gather, and access data. We are in a data-driven world, and these employees help us make sense of the massive amounts of data your company collects.
They help provide a data-driven approach to decision making. If you want to know the top color of your product that is sold in Aurora, Colorado data analysts can provide that answer.
7. User Interface (UX) designersRemember Blackberry? Everyone had a Blackberry phone. The slang name for them was crackberry because everyone used them all the time. Where are they now? The iPhone came out in June 2007 and it killed Blackberry phones. Why? Because the iPhone had a much better user interface.
You didn’t have to scroll using a little button in the middle of the phone. UX designers focus on developing a positive interface between the customer and the business. They are customer advocates and communicate customer needs to the team building the website, product, etc.
8. Systems IntegratorsThere is no out-of-the-box solution that will meet the needs of your digital transformation. You have many legacy systems that have to stay in place. Systems integrators ensure these systems communicate with each other.
If you embark on a digital transformation in 2021, these are the top roles for a successful digital transformation.
As always, it’s an honor to serve you, and I hope this helps you and your organization get a little better today.
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Since it’s near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover topics to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list- I’m breaking the topics up over several weeks.
If you cover these topics, I know you will have a very solid start in educating employees on Lean topics that will benefit your company immensely! It’s helpful to add workshops for many of these topics to keep people excited and engaged when we can all get into a training room again!
1. Rapid Improvement Events (Kaizen)Last week I mentioned the eight wastes and PICK charts. Pick charts are impact/effort matrices and the letters stand for Plan, Implement, Challenge, and Kill. As you develop countermeasures for the waste you identify on your Enterprise Value Stream Map (EVSM) run those ideas through a PICK chart to select the best ones to implement.
Focusing on the ideas in your Implement quadrant (low effort/high impact) it’s time to schedule Rapid Improvement Events to eliminate the waste. What’s an RIE? An RIE is the implementation method used by thousands of companies to make the change.
RIE’s are focused efforts 2-5 days long focused on a specific area of the business. The goal is to complete 90% of the work or change within the event. Having led over 400 RIE’s, I can tell you they can be company changing.
It’s also important that the RIE’s will make improvements to the overall business KPI’s. Don’t hold RIE’s just to have activity. You are working to make the company better and impact the bottom line. But, before you have an RIE you first need to develop a…
2. Project Charter/A3Every RIE should have a project charter, sometimes called an A3 developed for the event. If you don’t do this, you can suffer from scope creep and you won’t get everything completed in your timeframe.
The project charter makes sure you think about what we can accomplish in a 2-5 day timeframe and not try to boil the ocean.
3. Master Plan and LPONow that you have your RIE’s identified, it’s important to develop a three-month master plan of events. This provides your company with an implementation roadmap. If you can, give some thought about who to include in the RIE’s so they can get the event on their calendar.
Establish an LPO or Lean Promotion Office where you can display the three-month schedule among other items like the A3’s, and RIE report outs, value stream maps, etc.
4. Rapid Improvement Event Report OutsFinally, after each RIE, it is important to have the team members make a small presentation to leadership that tells the story of the event. Make sure as the event is happening you take pictures since you will want to include them in the report out.
It’s a chance for the team to share their hard work and for leadership to show their support. These are four more great topics to include in your lean training!
As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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Digital transformations are important in today’s world. Even if you are an “old-school” manufacturer- you make stuff- you still have to find customers. It could be there are ways to increase the digital aspects of your products. Regardless, this will require change, and the best way to approach it is to unleash your intrapreneurs. Here are five steps for supporting your digital intrapreneurs.
Step 1- Find a customerCompanies are spending millions on digital transformations. They believe if they install the latest software, they’ll have a digital company. It doesn’t work that way. The latest software might make you more efficient, but it won’t allow you to develop new products. Your internal entrepreneurs- intrapreneurs need to be in charge of that.
One of their first tasks should be to understand what the customer wants and needs. Do your customers want product extensions or increased digitalization of your current products? You digital intrapreneurs should find out from some of your best customers who are also different from each other. This way you hear from customers with different needs and use cases.
Step 2 – Find company sponsorsIf you don’t have an intrapreneurial culture today, leadership representatives will have to remove roadblocks so the digital intrapreneurs have a chance at seeing their offerings all the way through. Choose managers who will go out of their way to ensure the intrapreneurs get the support they require.
Step 3 – Knowledge of company digital technologiesMany employees today are digital natives. They have grown up with technology and use it daily- sometimes minute by minute. It’s not an issue of understanding how to use technology- it’s about learning and understanding what to do about digital opportunities.
The opposite is also true. It’s important the intrapreneurs you select understand how to identify digital threats. Make sure your digital intrapreneurs can work with the sponsors to develop entirely new digital use cases if required.
Step 4 – Let them follow-throughMotivating intrapreneurs isn’t hard. They have an entrepreneurial attitude. The worst thing you can do as an organization is to de-motivate your intrapreneurs by bringing in “professionals” at the end of a project to implement the digital solution.
Allowing them the chance to implement the digital transformation required to transform your products and services or they will bolt your organization. There is no shortage of companies willing to hire them.
Step 5–Develop an intrapreneurial cultureIt will take time, which you may not have. Work with business leaders to develop an open and creative culture so you can attract and maintain intrapreneurs. Have your middle managers keep an eye out for talent that asks a lot of “why” questions.
Like, why do we do it this way? Have you thought about this? Customer X is doing… These are potential intrapreneurs. Put these five steps for supporting your digital intrapreneurs in place so they become engaged and have a place where they can feel safe and be successful!
As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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Let’s talk about what 2020 taught leaders and the rest of us, but first a story.
The Voyager spacecraft was leaving our solar system in 1990 and NASA had it take one last picture since it was leaving our solar system. Voyager was 3.7 billion miles from the sun. What it captured has become known as the pale blue dot picture.
Its impact is more than a picture. It shows Earth from the perspective of the edge of our solar system and how insignificant Earth looked. You can barely see it in the picture below. If 2020 has taught us anything, it has taught us to:
Keep PerspectiveIf you are reading this or hearing my voice on the podcast, congratulations. You made it through 2020. Maybe you have had family or team members lose someone in their lives. I’m sure you’ve read about the many job losses and changes to people’s livelihood.
Hopefully, you have been spared that kind of impact on your life. It’s easy to complain about the changes you’ve endured as a leader this year. Keep perspective for great things you have had this year and…
Have a role model mindsetIt’s more important than ever to act as a role model for those you lead. Given the tremendous strain your employees have been under, it’s important you show them how to act and react when situations arise.
We can’t predict the future, but you can as a leader…
Remain ConfidentIt’s important to believe you will figure things out. Have the belief you make the absolute best decisions given the information you can gather. Have the confidence your team will follow your direction and do their best to carry out the company vision.
Has your company had to pivot? There are those that have done extremely well during the pandemic because they…
Don’t waitDid you grow or create when things changed? I hope we are all aware that fortune goes to those companies that take action. Don’t wait till the right time to take action because that time will never come.
Leaders show upYou show up because you want to be a servant leader. You understand it’s important to lead the employees who are lost or have questions. You may not become famous as the pilot Sullenberger when he showed up as a leader in a short time of crisis.
Do it because you want to make a difference in being a leader. Great leaders also aren’t afraid to…
Ask for helpAs we transition into 2021 don’t feel like you have to go it alone. Find mentors and others from whom you can learn. Go back and listen to the leadership episodes on my podcast. Hopefully, they have added value to your leadership journey and you can reflect upon what 2020 taught leaders.
As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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One of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. This week is a little different, I share the mic with James, a buyer at a Multi-National Fortune 100 company. He shares inside secrets on supplying a Fortune 100 company.
James is unique in that he worked with both a supplier to Fortune 100 companies and is now a buyer from the same supplier base. He has been on both sides of the equation. Some key points:
As a supplier, they grew from 3M to 16M and used their Lean journey as a sales tool. Their customers included Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Woodward, and other large Primes.These Primes were looking for systems and processes that would improve OTD, quality, and price. They were expecting improvements in operations as well as office processes like accounting.Primes are looking for suppliers that can handle terms of 60-120 days.They want suppliers that are flexible and can handle re-schedules in today's environment.They want suppliers that can communicate in a concise manner.Suppliers that can take on a large amount of work and separate themselves from others are key.
Key Tips:1. Have a website that is brief and includes your equipment, approvals, is current and correct! Supplying a Fortune 100 company means you need to constantly update your website.
2. Share your Lean journey. Include before and after pictures. Be vocal about the improvements that you have made!
3. As a company, your ROI will be greater if you bring in outside consultants to guide you on your journey. They will reduce your learning curve!
As always it is an honor to serve you and I hope you and your company are getting better every day!
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It seems like we are just learning about Industry 4.0 and the enablers that will impact that digital transformation. Now companies are discussing what Industry 5.0 looks like.
Earlier in the year, I talked about the use of cobots to support Industry 4.0. Industry 5.0 is based on humans and robots working together in close proximity. Given the advances in sensors, cobots no longer need to be kept in a cage away from humans.
Smart sensors deployed on a cobot allow the cobot to work directly on an assembly line alongside human counterparts. Some of the smaller cobots only weigh 30 pounds and can handle about 6 pounds of material. These cobots can complete tasks such as screwing screws or tightening bolts into place. Tasks typically completed by humans today.
Larger cobots can handle activities like machine tending, packaging, material handling and driving larger screws and tightening bolts. Given a large variety of grippers, they can handle many tasks.
How will this drive Industry 5.0?
1. They will be deployed to improve the customization of mass-produced productsImagine if Sony 3D printed the outer case of a PS5. Yes, the new Playstation due at any time from Sony. What if you were giving this as a Holiday gift and wanted to engrave a personal note on the outer case. A Cobot could handle engraving unit after unit with each note being unique.
No setup required. Customer units could be kicked off the production line and a cobot could add the customization and the unit could be added back to the production line to continue its journey into a box.
2. Product InspectionCobots can be used as the primary inspection tool for products and suspect units can be routed to an employee for further verification. They could be deployed alongside employees in a line and using vision sensors ensure that the employee completed the work required at their operation.
Product assembly errors are dramatically reduced when a cobot is part of a check, do, check scenario.
3. Deburring and CNC machine tendingWhat would happen in your machine shop if a cobot could unload machined parts from a CNC machine, deburr the parts and then neatly stack them for movement to the next machining operation?
Advances in deburring flat and rough surfaces are happening at a rapid pace. Having a cobot arm next to the machinist would allow the machinist to monitor and manage additional machines.
Reducing deburr operations means there is less “blending” of a surface that a talented deburr operator needs to accomplish. They can focus on completing more complicated deburr work that the cobot can’t complete.
In Industry 5.0 your co-worker might not want to go out after work for beers, but it will help you get more done and make your work a whole lot easier!
As always it is an honor to serve you and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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Since it’s near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover what to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list- I’m breaking the topics up over several weeks.
If you cover these topics, I know you will have a very solid start in educating employees on Lean topics that will benefit your company immensely! It’s helpful to add workshops for many of these topics to keep people excited and engaged when we can all get into a training room again!
1. Current State Value Stream MappingFrom an implementation perspective, value stream mapping should be one of the first activities you conduct. The purpose of a value stream map is to visually show where the waste is within your processes.
Value stream maps are icon-based and introducing students to the icons should be covered. There are different icons for the current state and future state maps. Cover process boxes, collecting information for the process boxes, putting process boxes in the correct order, and then adding more detail by adding additional icons.
Share what triangles mean in a value stream map- inventory or time and how to collect that information. Talk about taking the value stream map and walking it backward to catch any steps you might have missed.
Finally, share how to draw a timeline across the bottom of the value stream map to show the relationship between value-added and non-value-added work and the % of value-added work.
2. Future State Value Stream MappingOnce you identify where the waste is within your processes in your current state value stream map, it’s important to develop a future state value stream map. A future state value stream map uses different icons- icons that represent pull systems, FIFO lanes, supermarkets, and level loading.
The purpose of a future state map is to provide a road map for your improvement activities. Depending upon your organization, it may take several years to approach the future state that your map depicts.
Place the map in your Project Management Office (PMO) and continually work toward it.
3. Conducting a Waste WalkConducting a waste walk happens after you develop your current state value stream map. As you walk your map backward, take notes on the waste you see in the different processes. Have the team members take notepads with them and have them identify wastes that fall into the eight waste categories.
After walking your vsm backward and taking notes, teach the team to put the wastes they identified on your DOWNTIME chart. Remember, the eight wastes can form the word DOWNTIME. Have them take their best guess which category the waste falls under.
4. PICK Chart (Impact/Effort Matrix)Now it’s time to educate your team on brainstorming ideas to eliminate waste. It’s great to identify and classify the waste, it’s more important to eliminate it. Have the team brainstorm ideas for eliminating the wastes on the DOWNTIME chart.
Take those ideas and place them on an impact/effort matrix. Teach the team to focus on the ideas that end up in the Implement quadrant. The easy to do/large impact quadrant. The ideas from this quadrant, based upon the identified wastes within your value stream map, form the basis of kaizen events moving forward.
Schedule the kaizen events one quarter at a time and conduct them. This will help you head toward your future state design.
Next week I will cover more on what to include in your Lean training.
As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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For companies that are developing their Lean transformation, a key element for supporting the transformation is sharing information within the company, and engaging employees. Establishing a Core Team of representatives from different functional areas helps with that information sharing. You should also rely on your core team to support company culture.
There are several steps to establishing this infrastructure properly. Believe me, selecting the right employees to be representatives on the core team will help your business transformation immensely.
If you choose well, your transformation will excel and you can utilize these resources to have a positive impact on your company culture!
1. Establish your Governance TeamRegardless if you have been on your Lean journey for years or if you are just beginning, establishing a governance team is key to success. The Governance Team consists of leaders who affect the direction of the Lean transformation.
The Governance Team’s purpose is to establish the Lean Management System, develop the business KPI’s that will be tracked, support enterprise Value Stream Map development, and supply resources and support for the Lean and culture transformation.
2. Establish a Core TeamThe Core Team consists of representatives from the functional areas of the organization. All the areas need to be represented. A true Lean transformation affects every area of the business.
Core Team members share information with their functional areas. They generate excitement about the transformation. They represent their functional areas in joint meetings with the Governance Team. They drive any Lean training required. They act as subject matter experts for their areas in Value Stream Mapping events.
They work with their departments to identify and capture improvement opportunities. They mature processes by developing standard work and training. These important team members are your conduit to supporting your company culture.
3. Use the core team to support the cultureBecause the Core Team members have a huge influence on the success of the business transformation, they are the perfect resources to keep your company culture intact during these trying times.
Ask them to “take the temperature” of the group during monthly Core Team meetings. They can capture where employees are struggling. Since they already have established meeting times with their functional team members, ask them to be a communication conduit about what is happening inside the company.
During their Core Team meetings, establish a time to talk about company culture and capture improvement opportunities. Let them share small wins with their areas and capture small wins as well.
If you take these steps you can rely on your core team to support company culture!
As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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Leading employees is never easy. It is more complicated given the current restrictions as we all know. Regardless, here are six leadership traits for today you can rate yourself against. If you are looking for future leaders, these are prominent traits to consider.
Trait 1 – ApproachableSince you probably aren’t in a face-to-face situation, your employees must know they can approach you with problems/concerns as they arise. This doesn’t mean you have to be available 24-7 but are there “office hours” you can set up so employees know when they can approach you?
It’s important to let everyone know they you are available and approachable to help answer their concerns.
Trait 2 – CalmWhen employees approach you with problems, it’s important to remain calm. It’s okay if you don’t know the immediate answer to a problem, but approach situations with a sense of calm. So much is different for your employees right now, they need a calm presence in their lives.
Trait 3 - Have an open mindBusiness environments are constantly changing, especially now. There are always going to be new processes and ways of doing things. Make sure you keep an open mind to solutions your employees bring to the table.
I wish I had a dime every time I heard someone say that’s the way we have always done it here when I ask why they do what they do. Don’t have your employees park their brains at the door when they come to work. Continually ask them for better ways to do things and keep an open mind to their suggestions.
Trait 4 – AdaptableAlong with having an open mind, it’s important to be adaptable. Your first reaction to suggestions for change can’t be that will never work here. Think about how the suggestion could work and succeed. Work with your employees using a kaizen mindset to make change successful.
Trait 5 – ResponsibleYou own the success of your area of the business. Take full responsibility for the success or failure of your area. This means when things don’t go to plan, you don’t play the blame game. You look for course corrections and work with your team to implement the changes.
Your employees will model your behavior. When they see you taking responsibility for your actions, they will do the same. This increased accountability among everyone will develop a high-performance team.
Trait 6 – Assertive and respectfulThis doesn’t mean you are a yeller or treat people poorly. You won’t have a team if you don’t treat everyone with the utmost respect. It means that you can assert yourself in Zoom meetings that have gotten off track.
It means you assert yourself with your boss to support your team members. It means you assert yourself if you see situations that don’t support your culture. You can be assertive and respectful at the same time.
So, reflect and consider how you stack up against these six leadership traits for today!
As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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Industry 4.0 is being accelerated by what is happening during the pandemic. If you or any of your employees would like to learn about the growing need, learn about what MSSC has to offer! Upskill for industry 4.0.
CPT 4.0 is a nationally portable, industry-led program that prepares and certifies individuals for career pathways in advanced manufacturing. This online training program delivers the 21st Century, in-demand skills that today’s employers need for over 6 million frontline production jobs.
CPT 4.0 is delivered and customized locally through 1,500 MSSC Centers with a network of over 2,300 Authorized Instructors at colleges,
secondary schools, and other convenient locations.
Well-Established Technologies already included in MSSC Production Standards:
Computer numerically controlled (CNC), Statistical Process Control (SPC), Six Sigma, Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean, Robots,
Sensors, Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Human Machine Interface (HMI), Lasers, Mechatronics, Plan-Do-Check-Act, Root Cause Failure Analysis, Pareto Analysis, Barcodes, PC Ethernet, Variable Frequency Drives (VFD).
Newly Emerging “Industry 4.0”: 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Autonomous Robots, Additive (3D), Data Analytics, Industrial
Internet of Things (IIOT), Augmented Reality, Nanomanufacturing, Advanced Materials.
MSSC’s full Certified Production Technician 4.0 (CPT 4.0) certification consists of 5 stackable credentials: Safety &
Employability, Manufacturing Process & Production, Quality Practices & Measurement, Maintenance Awareness,
and Green Production.
The CPT Plus certification complements the full CPT credential by providing employees with
proof that an individual has the comprehensive technical knowledge and hands-on skills needed to be qualified
production technicians. Help your employees upskill for industry 4.0!
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As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us, companies can pivot quickly and produce entirely different products in a short period of time. The need for ventilators, n95 face masks, and other personal protective gear has made companies pivot quickly. Are you adopting Industry 4.0 quickly enough?
Even organizations as large as General Motors (GM) have pivoted. They won a $489MM award to build 30,000 ventilators for the US Government to stockpile. They will deliver all 30,000 by the end of August 2020 which is only five months since they began the process.
What does this prove? Manufacturers typically think in a linear fashion. We do x, then y, then z. Supply chains take years to develop, except when they don’t. Many companies have pivoted quickly to produce products to fight COVID-19.
Now with social distancing requirements that will probably be here for a while, companies of all sizes are facing pressure to increase the speed of Industry 4.0 adoption. Cobots, 5G networks, big data, additive manufacturing are all elements that need to be deployed quickly for increased worker safety.
Here are some suggestions that can help you adopt elements of Industry 4.0 quickly.
1. Develop a Smart Value Stream™We use a Smart Value Stream™ to develop what your Industry 4.0 opportunities look like quickly. This information provides you with a plan and time frame for adoption. It shouldn’t take months to develop what your future state can look like. It should take days.
2. Start small and inexpensivelyAs you can see above, there are many elements for a full Industry 4.0 digital transformation. Does that mean you have to implement all of these enablers at once? Of course not.
Start with a smart plug. Smart plugs can be attached to a sensor and provide them with more control functions. It can be programmed to act as a timer, counter, or a frequency monitor.
Regardless, there are inexpensive ways to learn how Industry 4.0 works in your business.
3. Get professional guidanceThis isn’t a DIY project. There are communication protocols, cyber-security, data storage and retrieval issues, hardware and software concerns. Too many moving parts to manage yourself.
Get referred to someone that you can trust that has done digital implementations before. Make sure they are partnered with a firm that understands manufacturing. There is nothing worse than setting tech people loose in your factory without a firm grasp of manufacturing.
I know that you can use these guidelines for adopting Industry 4.0 quickly.
As always, it’s an honor to serve you and I hope this helps you and your organization get a little bit better today.
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Since it’s near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training for next year, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover what to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list and I’m going to break this up over several weeks. I'll cover more topics through the end of the year. So stay tuned!
If you cover these topics, I know you will have a very solid start in educating employees on Lean topics that will benefit your company immensely! It’s helpful to add workshops for many of these topics to keep people excited and engaged when we can all get into a training room again!
1. Lean HistoryPeople need to know Lean isn’t something new. It wasn’t invented by Toyota. You can trace the roots of Lean to Frederick Taylor, who understood if you divide work evenly among multiple people, you can produce a product quicker than one person building the item can. This was in the late 1800s.
Henry Ford used that concept to build millions of cars and it revolutionized the auto industry. Today Lean is used in many industries, from hospitals and financial services to manufacturing. Don’t spend too much time on this, just provide some background.
2. Value-added and Non-value-added workSomething the customer will pay for is value-added work. Just about everything else is waste. The entire goal of Lean is to identify and eliminate waste from processes. Not eliminate people.
When companies say they don’t have time to work on eliminating waste, it’s because they spend too much time conducting nonvalue-added activities. Rework, building scrap, dispositioning scrap, looking for things, traveling, etc. When you eliminate the waste, you do less firefighting.
3. The Eight WastesNow that you’ve mentioned waste within processes, it’s time to introduce the eight wastes. Put these in this order so they spell the mnemonic DOWNTIME. Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Not Listening to People’s Ideas (N), Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Excess Processing.
Have employees identify wastes in their areas that fall into these categories. This gets them thinking. Write them down on a flip chart.
4. 6S6S is a cleaning and organizing method. Each step begins with the letter S. Sort, Shine, Set-in-place, Standardize, and Sustain. This is a key Lean method and where many companies begin their Lean journey.
The key to drive this home is to show pictures of areas that have gone through the 6S process. Share before and after pictures. Show pictures of what a mess the area was before and what it looks like after everything is in its place.
You can discuss if your company will conduct 6S audits or use a better method, which I will share in a later blog.
Next week I will cover more on what to include in your Lean training.
As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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I’m sure preparing for 2021 is on the minds of many organizations this time of year. Given the strange year it has been, I’m sure we all want to move on from 2020. To prepare these weekly blogs and podcasts, I do a lot of research. Like many things, the impact of working from home depends upon the company culture you already had in place. Here are three ways the pandemic is impacting your company culture.
A study by Qualtrics shared that 37% of 2100 employees who took part in the study felt that company culture had improved. 52% of those asked felt more purposeful in their work since the pandemic started. Another interesting stat is that 68% of the employees want to work remotely some or all of the time after the pandemic.
Some key company abilities affected by the pandemic include:
1. AgilityI’ve mentioned this before. The pandemic has pushed initiatives that were coming in a few years into this current time frame. Digital transformations, the ability for large numbers of the workforce to work from home, different business models. These are all being explored and implemented as quickly as possible.
Take the airline industry. They have seen demand for their services drop by as much as 70%. I just read that United Airlines is beginning the first transportation of the COVID-19 vaccine. They are taking advantage of a built-out delivery structure to deliver the vaccine to locations far and wide.
2. InnovationAlong with agility comes innovation. Can you think of new products that have come about because of the pandemic? A visit to Etsy will show you thousands of mask makers. What about masks being integrated into clothes? Athleta, Patagonia, and LL Bean are a few brands I’ve seen with these options. I’m sure eight months ago, they wouldn’t have been in that position.
3. Focus on the CustomerIf the demand for some goods and services is shrinking, you better focus on the customer. I think this is one positive that has come out of the pandemic. In the great times of the last 10 years, when you could ship anything you made to willing customers, companies have had it too easy.
Lean is a very customer-centric method and considers the voice of the customer. Hopefully, this small reset makes companies re-evaluate their customer journey and make adjustments where necessary.
I believe the companies that support the customer the best will come out on top as we move through these trying times. Customers will remember the companies that performed for them.
I hope you’ve enjoyed learning three ways the pandemic is impacting your company culture.
As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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Leading employees is never easy. It is more complicated and messy given the current restrictions as we all know. There are still ways that you can lead with courage. Take a minute to review these and ask yourself are you a courageous leader?
Since we have been recording history, there are many stories of leaders who acted courageously. Did they act courageously because they had to, or because that’s how they learned to lead? Personally, when I think of courageous leaders- George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, etc. They are people who led in circumstances of crisis.
A crisis is typically not a normal set of circumstances, nor is it expected. Sound familiar? When faced with a crisis as a leader, you can retreat or you can lead with courage. Here are some elements that courageous leaders share.
Tip 1 - Acknowledge people will struggle during the crisisSure, you can pretend that nothing is happening and everything will be business as usual. You can hold people to the same metrics and expectations as before the pandemic. You can pretend that employees will figure out how to work from home seamlessly with no interruptions to their daily work activities.
Or you can lead with empathy and courage and acknowledge that your employees might struggle during the work from home situation. You can support them as they transition to initially working from home and then hearing it might not be a temporary situation.
Tip 2 - Communicate often and communicate small winsIf your staff is remote, there is no such thing as overcommunication. Your employees are concerned about the future. Communicating small wins lets employees know that progress is being made, and the company is moving forward, although it might be at a slower pace.
Sharing a simple message repeatedly, such as, “We are moving forward, and here’s a win I’d like to share.” This type of courageous communication motivates and engages employees to keep pushing to make it through the crisis.
Tip 3 - Share lessons learnedA Lean technique of servant leadership is to ask for lessons learned after Rapid Improvement Events or Kaizen occurs. The purpose of this is to allow employees to reflect on what they learned. Reflection is a great attribute for a courageous leader.
There is no owner’s manual for leading in a pandemic. As a leader, you have to try your best, see how it works, and then share lessons learned upon reflection. The mark of a courageous leader is to share those lessons learned with your employees.
Sharing the fact you are learning along with them, helps them realize you are doing your best along with them and trying to lead with courage in a crisis.
As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!
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This week I get to interview David Goodreau the President of the Small Manufacturers Institute and he shares their mission and passion for helping small manufacturers.
David helps design and implement programs that make manufacturers more profitable and give people a career. His 40-year work history is as a machinist, manager, entrepreneur, and a builder/collaborator of non-profits that service industry and communities. The Small Manufacturers Institute (SMI) is his current focus, building an expandable workforce strategy that solves skilled labor problems through the management of a framework of local stakeholder networks.
A life of working within small manufacturing firms as an employee, owner, and partner shape an individual and provide a credible advocate for manufacturers in the public arena. His bio speaks to the experience of understanding the problems of manufacturers, and also, the confusing web of public and private support resources.
As we read about our nation's new commitment to America's Manufacturer, never have we been so weak to respond to this opportunity. Forty years of decline in the industrial arts; increasing global and supply chain competition/consolidation; crippling increases in regulations and customer requirements; steady declines in participation and membership in manufacturing associations, industrial unions, and trade societies outline the challenges our organizations seek to solve.
Together with the NTMA, we founded both the Small Manufacturers Association of CA (SMA) and Small Manufacturers Institute (SMI) to give our peers a voice. There is no greater challenge our country faces than to engage the manufacturing community in the process of leadership, education, and process improvement.
Both SMI and SMA stand tall in the marketplace by reaching beyond our own needs to better understand and develop strategies that will work at getting the manufacturers to participate. No government program, incentive, or motivational conference can turn this around. This perfect storm of industrial apathy must be solved organically, driven locally through self-interest and sustainable value that increases profits.
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