Ten Reasons Why One Piece Flow Will

Not Work
By Jon Miller - April 21, 2007 1:27 AM

Rather than insisting that one piece flow will work, we like to ask clients why one piece
flow will not work for them. Here are some of the most common reasons we hear, and
some ways we respond:

1. We can’t get needed materials in quantity, in quality or in time.

You are absolutely right. Fix this first. If you can’t seem to get this issue the attention it
needs, implement one piece flow anyway, watch the line stop, make the problem visible
so that you get the attention and resources needed to fix the problem.

2. We have unreliable equipment that may break down, causing downstream

processes to run out of parts. See 1 above.

3. Our people will resist this change. So what? That’s what education is for. If the
leaders don’t understand and believe in one piece flow enough to take the time to remove
resistance through education, don’t bother with one piece flow. This is a weak excuse.
Learn about motivation and address this issue as you would a speed bump in the road.

4. Our people are not cross trained to do more than one or two limited tasks. Shame
on you for limiting people’s potential to learn and develop to their fullest. Take “boring”
out of work by giving people variety, and watch morale soar. People are not motivated to
learn new things, you say? See 3 above.

5. Long changeover times prevent us from doing one piece flow. If you are really
trying to run one piece lot sizes through 1,000 ton stamping presses, bravo, and see 1
above. Flow one at a time wherever you can. In practice you will find that this is more
often than not. When changeovers do present a genuine barrier to one piece flow, reduce
the changeover time continuously, all the while reducing lot sizes to approach one piece
flow.

6. There is too much distance between processes to move one at a time. This is one I
usually let the students figure out for themselves.

7. The process produces defects that will stop the line too frequently if we have no
buffer. See 1 above.

8. Process cycle times are unstable or variable, creating imbalance between workers.
The first step is to examine your process cycle times through direct process observation,
break the work into smaller work elements, take out waste, and recombine them. If
chronic variation is still above the 5% to 10% range, see 1 above. If it’s predictable
variation, this is only really a problem if you are trying to maximize the utilization of the
man-hour, which may result in greater waste such as overproduction, inventory,
transportation, defects and processing which adds no value. Proceed with one piece flow
and kaizen.

9. Our machines are not designed for one piece flow. This is too true, even in our daily
lives. A washing machine is a good example. Need to wash one shirt? You have to wait
until you have close to a full load or you waste water and energy. So we batch our dirty
clothes. The washboard and basin was the Lean solution, it just needs some jidoka. The
same is true with a dryer. You don't dry one wet shirt in the machine, but you might hang
it up to dry if you don't need it dry right away. Disciplines like 3P (Production
Preparation Process) exist to create one piece flow equipment. If you cannot get
equipment planners and designers involved early enough to keep bringing in batch
equipment, see 3 above. Failing that, you can manage by using SWIP to “pulley & pail”
flow through batch processes.

10. We have occasional work that interrupts the process. There is something in TPS
called the Water Spider which acts as a line support function to handle relief work and
recurring-but-not-every-cycle tasks such as moving materials in, moving finished goods
out, building another cardboard box when the previous one has been packed full of
finished product. When it is not practical to have a Water Spider, you can have foremen
or team leaders help in these areas. Failing that, create Standard Work to reflect the
changing work sequence and work balance every so many pieces for these types of
recurring tasks.

Turn these ten reasons why one piece flow will not work by 45 degrees, and you get the
Ten Reasons for Poor Cash Flow. Turn them by 90 degrees and you have the Ten
Reasons for Long Lead Times. Whichever way you turn them, turn them into competitive
advantage by addressing each of them and successfully implementing one piece flow.

Intuition, Information and the Toyota

Production System
By Jon Miller - July 1, 2007 10:34 PM

There are quite a few things that are counterintuitive about the Lean management system
known as TPS. They are all fairly simple things, but hard to do since they feel wrong to
people who have not been swimming in the waters of TPS for years.

In fact, the whole TPS house is built out of counterintuitive (which is to say non-
traditional) behaviors. The sketch below is a quick approximation of the TPS house.
Pillar #1: Jidoka. Stopping to fix problems is faster, cheaper, better than keeping the
process running, to fix the defects later (or more often than not, keep running and not
fix). There is more to jidoka than meets the eye, from the stand-point of built in quality.
There is an emphasis on in-process quality checks (many of them) instead of end-of-line
checks. There is the whole mentality of zero defects that is needed, starting with a blame-
free culture that rewards rather than punishes exposing problems, as well as a system to
back it up. It is not so hard to understand why jidoka is counterintuitive when you
consider this.

Pillar #2: Just in time. One at a time is faster, cheaper, better than batch processing. And
yet we batch. Just the other day I witnessed someone making egg & cheese croissant
sandwiches at Phoenix airport, in a batch. About twenty croissants, one slice of cheese at
a a time, then the egg... My vantage point: a long queue waiting for coffee while others in
the line waited for their sandwiches. Why did he do this? Probably because the
information he was given was to "make twenty sandwiches" and not when the first one
was needed, or how often (takt time).

You wouldn't push a rope if you wanted to make it move, but this is exactly what most
systems force us to do. Why is it so counterintuitive to pull and comfortable to push?
Push requires so much less information, for one thing. You can push right now. Just do
some work, whether it is needed or not. That's push. Pull, on the other hand, requires you
to know who your customer is and to listen to them.

The cornerstone of kaizen, or continuous improvement, may seem intuitive at first

glance. The idea of PDCA and the scientific method, while not followed as closely as
they should be, are quite logical. Many if not most people believe in continuous
improvement of one sort or another.
But the focus of kaizen on true root cause countermeasures through the 5 why process, as
well as the insistence on ending each kaizen with a combination of celebration and
dissatisfaction is deeply counterintuitive to most who want to declare victory and move
on after corrective action has been taken at the superficial level. Here again, it is harder to
do kaizen because it takes more information to do it properly at the root cause level, and
with an understand of just how much better things can be (ideal).

Then there is the whole notion of educating, empowering and requiring everyone to solve
problems, rather than simply entrusting this to a small group of experts, which can strike
many as going against the grain. We have been taught to believe that heroes solve
problems, and that fire-fighting is noble.

Traditionally, management attention goes toward the solving of big problems, rather than
solving of small problems. At Toyota, leaders view problem solving at all levels as a key
activity both in terms of improving safety, quality, deliver, cost and morale as well as
developing people's skills.

The TPS views people as assets rather than liabilities. People increase in value as you
educate them, and as they gain experience and capability. Education is giving people
information, while training is giving people the opportunity to use this information to
build a skill. Everyone solving small problems every day in a standardize way is Lean
management.

The cornerstone of Standard Work can be difficult for people because we are so used to
standards being things that don't change. Things that don't change constrict us. In the
Toyota Production System standards exist to be changed. In fact Standard Work which
does not change is a sign that kaizen is not being done. Standards don't limit creativity,
but in fact unleash it. Standard Work is simply information, a measure against which we
can view a process in order to look for further improvements.

The strongest protest to this idea typically comes from knowledge workers or
professionals who need to be creative in their work of designing new things or solving
new problems. Design engineers are a classic example. But what if you standardized the
fasteners, and used your creativity instead for finding solutions to customer problems,
rather than being creative in selecting bolts from a catalog? Albert Einstein said, "Never
memorize something that you can look up." We might have also say, "Never recreate
something you can look up." You just need the information - knowing where to look.

Or in healthcare terms, what if evidence-based, scientifically proven treatments could be

used as a standard, so that the years of medical training and experience could be used to
better diagnose and treat those parts of the illness that are unique to the patient?
Standards allow you to make fewer decisions, and the fewer decisions you need to make
the easier it is for these decisions to be the really important ones.

Most people resist standards because of a perceived or actual unfairness with the system
that imposes the standard on people. The TPS standard is counterintuitive to the
experience of most in that it is not only fair but empowering. This is because the process
is observed and documented based on facts rather than imagined, calculated or
engineered standards. The information you gather about the process enables Standard
Work.

The foundation of heijunka or production smoothing aims to produce an average mix

and average volume of products rather than having the schedule swing up and down.
From a production standpoint this may seem rather obvious. A smoother schedule means
being able to set up and run the same thing for weeks rather than needing to constantly
change. But this is not heijunka. The idea of averaging mix and volume both requires
small lot production and very frequent changeovers. This requires knowing what you
need to deliver, in what quantity and sequence, as early as possible.

Of course it is much easier to just go ahead an take the order without complete
information. Why delay the sale? From a leadership standpoint it is too often
counterintuitive to instruct customers or star salesmen to change their behavior in ways
that help production deliver the products and services more smoothly, and therefore
provide it better, faster and cheaper. It is easier to say "yes" to almost any order and let
operations figure out how to handle it. Once again, it take discipline to get the
information you need before starting work.

If Lean management all made sense and was intuitive, we would all be doing TPS
already. There's something about the Lean management system, built out of
counterintuitive principles, that makes it hard for many people to adopt these behaviors.
Some say that learning TPS requires unlearning the traditional management system you
already know. I'm not so sure. Another way of thinking about this is that TPS requires
learning to seek more information about the work you are about to do and to deepen your
understanding of what needs to be done, for whom and when. We need to slow down and
get it right the first time.

The whole notion of "intuitive" is rather anti-Lean. It's not scientific. When something is
intuitive, a thought or understanding is obtained through instinct, impression, or sense
rather than explicit observation or reasoning. It is nearly the very opposite of the
scientific method. Yet intuition is a very valid way of knowing and understanding for
many non-complex systems. If intuition is knowing from within, we simply need more
information before we can intuit correctly and act upon a system as complex as Lean
management.

Give Me 60 Minutes and I'll Give You a

Lean Transformation
By Jon Miller - March 5, 2007 11:08 AM
That's 60 minutes from everyone in supervisory position and above, at least once every
three weeks, forever. If that's too much to ask, save yourself two minutes and stop
reading now.

There's something called "stand in the circle" and although it might be known by other
names, it is said to have started with Taiichi Ohno telling managers "Draw a circle and
stand in it!" in order to teach them to see waste.

You'll need a piece of paper with 30 or more lines on it. You'll need something to write
with. You might need something to put the paper on and write against. This exercise
starts with picking a spot in your gemba and standing in that one place for 30 minutes.

Find 30 things to improve in 30 minutes. Write them down.

Take the next 30 minutes and make at least one of the improvements you wrote down.
The other improvements you can spend the next three weeks working on bit by bit,
delegating to the appropriate people, or asking people "why" until you find the actionable
root cause.

You've got 58 minutes left. Go stand in the circle.

The Best Visual Control in the World

By Jon Miller - April 17, 2007 12:58 PM

Day two of kaizen instruction on the shop floor, I came across the best visual control in
the world. All of these years it's been right in front of me. It's the change in the human
face known as the smile.

The people that I am working with this week all have different facial expressions. When a
person's expression is reserved, it's hard to tell if they understand, are agreeing or
disagreeing, would rather be someplace else, or are really excited about what we are
doing. But then they smile, or even laugh! Now there's a visual control that feels good.
You know you have accomplished something when this happens.
(This image is a cropped screen shot from the Skype software program, a property of
Ebay)

Some people are calibrated differently, and may smile less or have a "normal" or
"normal-happy" expression that is not the smiley one above. This is OK. Sometimes
"good" looks different for visual controls in different processes. The key as an instructor
is to actively seek out this visual control and understand what is "normal" but kaizen even
that towards a smile.

Those of us with a strong technical mind tend to focus on solving the problem or reveling
in the data, forgetting the people. Use the best visual control in the world and you will get
more done.

Five reasons why the smile is the best visual control in the world:

1. It's easy to do
2. It's genetically coded into us
3. It's a global standard
4. It's has health benefits
5. It doesn't cost you anything

The lack of smiles during kaizen activity or kaizen instruction is an abnormality, in visual
management terms. Even for people who do not smile easily, or in cultures where stoic
facial expression is the norm, this is true. No smiles during kaizen is an abnormality
because kaizen is fun, creative and empowering to people. If people are not smiling, you
are doing something wrong. It's unpleasant change.

Kaizen is not all about the results or dramatic changes to the workplace, it's about people.
Smiles are a good indicator of the sustainability of your kaizen results and your entire
Lean effort. So during your next kaizen, look for the best visual control in the world.

10 Common Misconceptions About Lean

Manufacturing
By Jon Miller - June 24, 2007 10:33 PM

1. Lean production = volume production. In Taiichi Ohno's Workplace Management

he suggested that the Toyota system was ideally suited for low volume production, and
not as well suited for the higher volume production that Toyota was shifting towards. In
chapter 20 after describing the successful efforts at Toyota do Brasil to reduce lot sizes
through changeover reduction, Ohno states:

Back when we started with the Toyota Production System, we would have demand for
3,000 to 5,000 vehicles per month, and a lot of variety. It was not so-called high mix low
volume, perhaps it was medium volume, though there were some low volume items. So
the Toyota System is a system that works very well when applied to mid-sized companies.
What I mean by this is that the Toyota Production System was born in the days of 2,000
to 3,000 vehicles per month, so when production volumes are as high as they are today at
Toyota, you do not really need to use this system to reduce cost.

The subtitle to Taiichi Ohno's book Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale
Production in Japanese is 脱規模の経営をめざして and would be better translated as
"Aiming for Non-Scale Management" or "An Escape from Scale-based Management" or
"Towards Management Not Based on Scale". Ohno was clearly saying the Toyota
Production System is a way out of scale or volume-based production.

2. Japanese companies are Lean. There is nothing inherently Japanese about Lean
manufacturing, nor are Japanese people naturally better at Lean than any other people.
Just like Americans aren't naturally better at heart surgery, even though the world looks
to the U.S. for world class heart surgery. Both are historical accidents. Japanese
companies tend to think long-term, and the system of lifetime employment does tend to
support people development, so it is true to say that many Japanese companies have
better groundwork to support Lean, but not true to say that most or even many companies
are Lean in the sense that they are actively building and improving an operational model
based on the Toyota house.

3. Lean manufacturing is a set of tools. Lean certainly possesses a powerful set of tools
for problem identification, root cause analysis, and problem solving. However, Toyota
Production System = Lean manufacturing, and the last word of the three in TPS is the
most important.

4. You can do Lean manufacturing just for cost reduction. People will only do kaizen
for a higher reason, beyond what is good for the company to what is good for their
families, society and the environment. In the short term people may ask "What's in it for
me?" but this question is also the long-term question. Cost reduction, as a rallying cry,
gets old. Lean manufacturing is about making the work easier and less frustrating so that
time at work can be spent on what matters, serving customers and growing as people.
Cost reductions will follow.
5. Assembly lines, work cells, work teams = Lean manufacturing. This is a variant of
3 above. The main difference is the perception that a certain arrangement of people,
material and equipment represents what is Lean manufacturing. Creating cells and
working in teams may be Lean, but the thinking behind why this is a good idea is the
important thing, not the physical or organizational configuration. This is most often
encountered at organizations where Lean has already been "done" but it is not working so
well after a few months or years, leading to the "It must be because we're different"
illusion and stumbling block to Lean.

6. Lean = identify value by product, map value streams, flow, pull, pursue
perfection. Popularized by Lean Enterprise Institute, this definition is not wrong, but is
dangerously simplistic, leaving out quite a lot. The emphasis on value streams, flow and
pull are somewhat redundant in that they are all dealing with the idea of overall
optimization, which is important but is only one pillar (JIT) while leaving out the build-in
quality pillar of the Toyota house. Perfection is not only unimaginable by definition to
non-divine beings, but undesirable since it suggests an end point to kaizen. Can anything
exist beyond perfection? There can be an "ideal" because by definition this is the best that
we as humans can imagine, and a higher ideal can exist, to be re-imagined as we learn
more.

7. Lean is the latest management fad. This may only be half of a misconception. It is
certainly a management fad, and as fads go the popularity of Lean is bound to wane or at
least take on a new and improved definition. As the term "Lean" is sure to be replaced
with something more appropriate as people better understand what it is that makes
companies like Toyota great. But Lean is no more the "latest" anything than the scientific
method and a desire for social harmony are things invented in the last half century.

8. Lean is the elimination of waste. Much of Lean is about getting rid of waste (muda).
There is also the elimination of variation (mura) and overburden (muri). Variation can
result in overburden, resulting in waste. The elimination of waste is good shorthand for
getting rid of the root causes, which include overburden (forcing a system to do
something it is not designed to) due to variation (in customer demand, people's ability,
material quality, etc.), in order to build a stronger system. For most of us it is safe to stay
focused on the elimination of waste for the early years on the Lean journey, with an eye
on system-level causes of waste.

9. Lean dislikes computers and IT solutions. Lean does not discriminate against any
technology that respects people and helps get rid of waste. A core Lean value is what is
called genchi genbutsu in Japanese (actual place, actual product) which is often called
"go see" in English. Management, and problem solving in particular, should be done on a
"go see" basis to get the facts, live. Software solutions make it too easy to keep smart
people from going to where the theory meets reality (products meet customers). Huge
LCD screens for visual management may be gee-whiz for visitors to the factory, but
white boards will actually get used by the team members to write down real problems
that happened five minutes ago.
10. Lean + Your Favorite Buzzword Here = Great Idea! This is so-not-so and I think
only the largest and most optimistic of consulting firms and manufacturing software
solutions providers are still doing this, but there's the occasional surprise like Lean
Outsourcing or whatever to make one wonder. Maybe there is a huge Lean + YFBH
consulting market, and TPS purists like us are missing out.

Ouch! Change Hurts

By Jon Miller - August 30, 2006 1:55 AM

There's an interesting article titled The Neuroscience of Leadership in Strategy+Business

magazine. Thanks to Kathleen Fasanella for spotting and writing about it on her Fashion
Incubator blog.

The article has a tempting tagline Breakthroughs in brain research explain how to make
organizational transformation succeed. Surprisingly, no exclamation marks. What
follows is very informative but borders on psychobabble at times and on reductionism at
others. The authors work to answer the question of Mike, multinational Pharmaceutical
CEO, “Why do people resist change so stubbornly, even when it’s in their own interest?”
It makes me wonder when their best-selling business book is coming out.

Granted, I've found many of the observed behaviors mentioned in the article to be true.
For instance, when teaching people, it is important to let them come to the insight on their
own rather than telling them. The article says:

For insights to be useful, they need to be generated from within, not given to individuals
as conclusions. This is true for several reasons. First, people will experience the
adrenaline-like rush of insight only if they go through the process of making connections
themselves.

More than once I've seen the best intentions result in tension during Lean
implementations. The tension is between managers who want results right now, Lean
specialist who "know" the solution and want to change things right now, consultants who
need to prove their worth and want to change things right now, and the workers
themselves (ouch! change hurts) who haven't completely bought in or "got it" yet.

If you want a true lasting culture change, understand that Lean transformation is not
something that takes weeks or months but is a never-ending management of the pain that
is change. This doesn't mean Lean manufacturing won't get you big results in days or
weeks. It will. The problem is those results will walk out the door with you when you
find another job, if the culture hasn't changed. Culture change requires the light bulb
glowing above everyone's head, and this is the "adrenaline rush of insight" people have
when making the connection or solving the problem themselves. Some call it thinking.
Here's another insight from the article: follow up coaching and practice after initial
training improves performance.

A 1997 study of 31 public-sector managers by Baruch College researchers Gerald

Olivero, K. Denise Bane, and Richard E. Kopelman found that a training program alone
increased productivity 28 percent, but the addition of follow-up coaching to the training
increased productivity 88 percent.

More than anything it blows my mind that research funds were spent on proving this.

The article is worth reading if you are interested in both change management and
neuroscience. If it's been a while since you've seen the words basal ganglia, amygdala
and quantitative electroencephalography used correctly in a sentence, dive into these
5,300 words. If not, allow me summarize the main points in 15 words:

Change hurts. People change when ready. Ask don't tell. Pay attention. Expect good
things. Practice.

I suppose if you didn't learn these lessons between your kindergarten teacher and your
high school football coach (or equivalent) then the neuroscience explanation might still
help you.

One of the true geniuses of the Toyota Production System is their insistence on asking
people to think about their work and to come up with improvement ideas. Called the
Creative Idea Suggestion System, this approach generates about one implemented
improvement idea per person per month, year after year. This has the effect of giving
people the jolt of satisfaction at solving a problem (the authors' point about mental
models and self-generated insight) while expecting change to happen around them
(expectation shapes reality), as well as getting people to pay attention to their work. Not
bad for a product of 1950s motivational theory.

It's safe to say that complacency is the enemy of kaizen. Dr. Deming said it another way:
"It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”

Complacency is a fact of human neuroscience. If you believe this, it will be true.

The Top 5 Reasons for Using Production

Preparation Process (3P)
By Jon Miller - May 1, 2006 5:40 PM

Last week we had the opportunity to give an online presentation to an automobile

manufacturer on the Production Preparation Process (3P) and the top 5 reasons for using
it. We discussed the impact Production Preparation Process can have on cutting total cost
out of the supply chain. There is also a supplier development benefit since 3P workshops
are hands-on processes to review both the process and product designs. It builds
awareness of Lean manufacturing and builds buy in since formerly "off limits" design
issues can be addressed.

Before we get to the top 5 reasons for using Production Preparation Process I'll share a
quick overview of 3P for those of you to whom it may be new.

Production Preparation Process (3P) is one part of an overall Lean design approach that
includes QFD, design reviews, and post-start up monitoring by a cross functional team to
kaizen any bugs in the new system. The benefits of Production Preparation Process are a
cross-functional team approach, rapid testing of ideas and the embedding of Lean
manufacturing principles into process and product design.

In 3P designers work within a team to think through various alternative designs and
process options and eliminate the inferior ones. Of course this requires knowledge of
certain Lean manufacturing parameters of design based on TPS principles which are
summarized as 16 Catch Phrases.

A pen and paper mapping of alternatives called Process At A Glance is used to consider
alternative methods, rather than selecting equipment and process solutions out of a
catalog. The top alternative process method is then mocked up in 3D using available
materials such as wood, cardboard, and duct tape to try it out right away.

The chosen alternative is designed for Lean manufacturing because questions are asked
along the way to make sure that Lean concepts are not being violated. Based on this
preparations are made for equipment is design and build as well as Standard Work
documentation.

This Production Preparation Process is in contrast to the traditional approach of selecting

a single design early and "throwing it over the wall" to manufacturing. The result of the
traditional design approach is that process capability fails to meet requirements, promised
production volumes are not achieved at start up, cells may be designed but material
handling process may not be considered, work instructions may be incomplete, target
costs are not met after start up, etc.

Most people do 3P to solve one or more of these pains with new product start up. Some
do it to minimize equipment cost or to design processes to enable one-piece flow. If you
have these pains, you can make a rule to use Production Preparation Process whenever
you see one of the top 5 reasons:

1. New product development. Educate designers in Lean as early as possible.

2. Capital expenditure approval. Don't sign a Cap Ex without doing 3P first. Period.
3. Product design changes. Approve no changes without a 3P review.
4. Significant changes in volume. You didn't design the process Lean, but here's your
second chance.
5. Relocation of processes. If you're going to pick it up and move it anyway, you might
as well Lean it out first.

There's time for a bonus question from the audience: What types of parts or products are
most suited for Production Preparation Process (3P)?

The answer to this is nearly identical to "what types of parts or products are most suited
for Lean?" Anything that has a lot of complexity in it is a good candidate. The more
components, materials, processes, transactions, etc. that are required to produce and
deliver a part, the more opportunity there is to make drastic improvements through 3P by
reconsidering alternative methods to do it the Lean way.

Another way to put this is that the closer you are to "basic science" or a simple process
such as injection molding, the less opportunity you have to consider new methods. A
stamped, machined, painted and welded assembly on the other hand offers more
opportunity to consider alternative process options and cut out waste. Last but not least,
the best product or process to apply 3P is where there is a high running cost. Kaizen must
make money.

S Your Desk: And Other Tips for Office

Productivity
By Jon Miller - March 21, 2006 8:31 PM

"I know where everything is." How many times have you heard (or given) this rejoinder
to "please 5S your desk"? It's hard to argue the logic of "cluttered desk, cluttered mind"
when a desk is an emotionally charged personal space, too often nearly a shrine adorned
with family photos, sports team paraphernalia, and toy mythical creatures.

"Being in control of your office space saves time" says this article and offers some
interesting statistics to back it up.

A 2005 study commissioned by DYMO of Connecticut (a maker of office labeling

systems and not exactly a disinterested and objective third party) identified that:

- More than half of managers in America consider desk cleanliness when conducting
salary reviews
- 51% of those surveyed identified a link between desk tidiness and productivity
- Each lost document costs the company $120

The same study found the following spread in the degree of desk tidiness:

- 49% are "professional but relaxed" with a few small, neat stacks
- 31% are "organized chaos"
- 13% are "creative type" or very messy
- 7% are "prim and proper"

So only 7% of the desk in American offices have anything resembling proper 5S... that
explais a lot of things. Since 5S makes waste and abnormality visible, there's a lot of
hidden waste waiting to be uncovered and eliminated by office kaizen activity at 93% of
American offices (assuming the spread above is evenly distributed across companies).

In the same article professional office organizer Janet Nusbaum identifies e-mail as a
source of disorganization and wasted time. Essentially she recommends not letting e-mail
set the agenda for your day, and preparing at the end of the day for the next day's
priorities. The Lean parallels would be one-piece flow of office work and not allowing
interruptions (e-mails) to create WIP (half-finished tasks) while you answer e-mails, and
also the idea of external preparation from SMED to know in advance what you need to
start your next day. We've seen again and again that when you keep the work flowing one
at a time you minimize clutter and make 5S upkeep much easier.

Citing the 80/20 rule (Pareto principle) that only 20% of what comes across your desk
you will really need, another professional office organizer Julie Mahan espouses "when it
doubt, throw it out" just as in Sorting with 5S. She is quoted:

The physics of clutter is that it will come into your office without your assistance but will
not go away without your assistance.

This is true. The second law of thermodynamics states that if no energy enters or leaves
the system then the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial
state in all energy exchanges, and entropy (the degree of disorder in the system)
increases. You do work (organize) to increase the potential energy again. But when you
transfer energy by doing work some energy is lost as heat and this increases the entropy
of the overall system.

For example when you wind a clock the energy it take to wind it is transferred to the
wound clock spring as potential energy, and some energy is lost as heat and entropy
increases. When the spring unwinds and turns into kinetic energy heat is lost again and
entropy increases.

Do you ever wonder why things always get cluttered again after you've cleaned and
organized? It's a law of the universe, and you can't break it. If you do nothing, you've
already lost. Clutter prevails. You can't win against entropy. You can only fight it. You
can't even break even. Entropy will always increase. You need to keep adding energy into
the system (organizing). The flow of energy maintains order. By adding energy into a
system you create organization. That's what 5S is.

Fight entropy. 5S your desk. It might affect your raise

You've Gotta Go to Gemba More Often
Than That!
By Jon Miller - March 28, 2006 10:03 PM

True story. Not too long ago I was with another one of our consultants teaching Just in
Time principles to a group of newly minted Lean facilitators at one of our client's
factories.

During one of the breaks one of the engineers motions me over. "Hey, do you wanna see
one piece flow? I'll show you one piece flow. Come on. It'll just take 5 minutes."

So we quickly put on the PPE and walked out to the factory. I had been in this factory
before and I was curious to see where he was going to take me, but I kept quiet. We
stopped in front of a packing line.

"They aren’t doing it right! I helped design this. There was one piece flow here before."
Walking back to the training room he said, almost as an excuse, "I haven’t been to this
factory in 2 years." He was angry at first, then embarrassed, then humbled. I didn't have
to say anything. It was a good experience for him.

This engineer is now a Lean leader for this company, visiting their factories around the
world and promoting a common and standardized understanding of what Lean
manufacturing means to their company.

Genchi gembutsu. These two Japanese words are the quickest way to say "get out to the
place where the real work happens and see what's really happening with your product and
processes today".

The lesson is, if you’re going to take a Gemba guy to the gemba to show him one-piece
flow, make sure you’ve been there recently.

Words of Taiichi Ohno Sensei, Part 4: It's

a Race to Get People to Think
By Jon Miller - January 10, 2007 1:47 PM

I came across a new quote from Taiichi Ohno recently. It was in Japanese, and may not
be new to the world, but I can't recall seeing it in English before. I think it nicely captures
the idea of kaizen and respect for people, which are at the heart of the Toyota Production
System.
"In a company when there is no race to get each person to add their good ideas to the
work they do, I think this ruins people. Your improvements make the job easier for you,
and give you time to make further improvements. Unlike in the [Charlie] Chaplin movie
where people are treated as parts of a machine, the ability to 'add your creative ideas
and changes to your own work' is what makes it possible to do work that is worthy of
humans."

This is from the book ズバリ現場のムダどり事典 ― トヨタ生産方式の実践哲学

(Encyclopedia of Shop Floor Waste Elimination - The Practical Philosophy of the Toyota
Production System) by Hitoshi Yamada, a former journalist who knew Taiichi Ohno.
Yamada now is an author with a successful consulting practice mimicking the message
and demanding style of his teacher. For what it's worth, here is the original Japanese:

企業内でも同様であって，一人ひとりの仕事に，いかに知恵をつけさせるかの競
争がないと，その人自身をダメにしてしまうのではないか．工夫の中か ら，自
分で仕事に余裕を持つ，そして，また工夫する．人間を，機械の一部のようにと
らえた，あのチャップリンの映画と異なって，「自分で，自分の仕事に創 意と
工夫を加える」，そこに人間らしい仕事ができるのです．

The race or competition to get each person to add their good ideas (いかに知恵をつけ
させるかの競争) is not a race between workers for good kaizen suggestions, it is a race
with the managers and their workers on one side and the competitive forces in the world
on the other side. It is a competition about how quickly you can get each person to use
their minds creatively to improve their work. It's a race to get people to think.

Ohno is making a powerful statement here that if you do not challenge people to use their
minds and improve their work, you are dehumanizing them. No wonder he was famous
for yelling at managers who were slow to change.

Putting the Zen Back in Kaizen

By Jon Miller - June 8, 2007 6:13 PM
The "zen" in the word "kaizen" has nothing to do with Zen Buddhism. This is a mistake
we often see in books or presentations.

Kaizen means continuous improvement, or literally "to change and make good" (改善と
は改めて善くすること) but we can recognize a lot of Zen in kaizen, by examining the
Four Noble Truths.

1. Existence is suffering (dissatisfaction)

Zen Buddhists (as all branches of Buddhism) believe that suffering (a stronger form of
dissatisfaction) comes from our egos and desires because we perceive that we are distinct
and separate from the rest of reality (our customers and suppliers).

In the world of Lean, work is waste. When a process is separate and distinct from the
entire end-to-end order to delivery process, there appears to be optimization but this in
fact is an illusion (sub-optimization) that creates waste and causes suffering.

When we do kaizen and make what we think are improvements based on our own ideas
and egos, but not based on the rest of reality (observable facts and statistics), we suffer.

First Zen of kaizen: Focus on your customers, because your customers are everyone
but you.

2. Suffering (dissatisfaction) is due to desire (pull)

We suffer, or are dissatisfied because we live in a world of imperfect processes. As

customers we want perfect safety, quality, deliver and cost yet this is never achieved.
Dissatisfaction occurs when there is a pull (desire) that is not fulfilled.

Zen is concerned with seeing deeply into the true nature of things through direct
experience. Lean is concerned with seeing deeply into the true nature of things through
direct observation.
Just as Zen encourages meditation, Lean requires deep reflection the problems in order to
understand their true natures (root causes).

We suffer because we think we know. We do not, yet we act as if we do.

Second Zen of kaizen: Focus on observation and learning.

3. Ending attachment can end suffering

Instead of focusing on the process, and improving every day, we focus on results because
we desire rewards and recognition. We are attached to these things and this distorts our
measurements and rewards wasteful behavior. The failure of prevailing accounting
practices to accurately reflect the benefits of Lean, and financial markets that reward
short term stock performance at the expense of the long-term health of enterprises and
communities are just two such examples.

The heroic efforts that people make to achieve results in spite of broken processes, rather
than stopping to directly observe and fix the processes, causes further suffering.

Third Zen of kaizen: Focus on the process and the results will follow.

4. How to end suffering (follow the path)

Buddhism teaches that detachment and the end to suffering comes from correct mindsets
and behaviors that lead to moderation, known as the Eightfold Path. These eight consist
of right thought (recognizing the condition of badness), right speech (speaking the truth),
right actions (follow the rules), right livelihood (making a profit based on the previous
three), right understanding (wisdom), right effort (perseverance), right mindfulness
(awareness of current condition), and right concentration (focus and long-term thinking).

Zen is about attaining wisdom through action. Zen Buddhists believe that daily life and
daily work teaches you more than sacred texts, theory or certifications. This is learning
by doing, in kaizen terms.

Just as in kaizen, Zen encourages practitioners to learn from sensei (teachers) as well as
from other practitioners, through direct experience as much as possible.

Fourth Zen of kaizen: Focus on doing the right thing.

How can we put the Zen back in kaizen? Meditate on it.

A Kaizen Team's Secret Ingredient:

Negative People
By Jon Miller - July 22, 2007 10:13 PM

Ron Pereira at the Lean Six Sigma Academy is blogging all week about kaizen. Hooray.
He started early, advising us in his July 19th post to "snap out of it" whenever we have a
negative mindset that make us say "the problem with that is..." during kaizen.

For many years Toyota people have said

"No problem" is a problem (困らない事は困った事だ）

so these negative people are a gift, are they not?

In fact, you could say that a kaizen team's secret ingredient is negative people. You need
more than just a group of can-do people, or like-minded individuals who are all gung-ho.
There is something called "group think" which famously ended one incident rather badly
at the Bay of Pigs. Negative people will look for flaws in your plan and point out the
areas needing kaizen before you move forward too quickly.
There is a great book called Six Thinking Hats by Edward De Bono. The book
encourages you to recognize that we all have different modes of thinking available to us,
and although one mode may be dominant, we need all of these and that there is a proper
way to use each of them. This book is a must read for kaizen facilitators or anyone
interested in bringing about good change.

Introducing the Six Thinking Hats approach, and communicating openly with kaizen
teams upfront that "there will be a time for black hat thinking" or negative and critical
thinking, frees up the so-called negative people to do what comes natural to them. You
can also encourage them to try on the other hats, yellow for positive, green for creative,
white for factual, red for emotional / instinctive and blue for controlling / organizing.

It works really well if you have colored pens or objects of these colors during a meeting
or a heated kaizen discussion, and ask people "which color of hat are you using?" so that
we can positively acknowledge when we are being rational, emotional, negative or
otherwise.

Here's one more secret: there are no negative people in this world. There are only
negative frames of mind. We can change our minds, attitudes, and beliefs, from the
inside. This is personal kaizen.

Top 5 Things I've Never Heard from a

Kaizen Team Member
By Jon Miller - February 28, 2007 1:09 PM

#5. "I'm surprised at how little we got done in four and a half days."

#4. "I have no concerns about these results being sustained."

#3. "Everything went as planned."

#2. "There's no more room for improvement."

#1. "I wish we could have spent more time in the conference room this week."