Gemba Panta Rei

In the second chapter Taiichi Ohno continues to gently lecture senior managers. He begins by answering the question of based on his earlier assumption "Why are we wrong half of the time?" by saying that our thinking is wrong. The word he uses to explain this is "misperception", "delusion" or "illusion" as in "optical illusion". Essentially, we are wrong when we believe in something that is wrong.

Here Ohno uses the example of two lines of equal length. Place horizontally and in parallel (as in the = sign) these lines are cleary the same length. Placed perpendicular (like the letter T upside-down) one line looks clearly longer.

Try it! It's a great demonstration of how we can believe in something that is wrong (misperception).

So how can you tell by just looking when two are the same length and when one is longer? You can't. Sometimes in this world it's better to just try it. Take the line and move it and you will see. Take two matches and demonstrate this to your kaizen team and it will drive home the importance of the 'just do it' mentality.

Ohno says that these illusions or misconceptions are very common. When they are our ideas or beliefs rather than measurable lengths of match sticks, it is harder to work it out by explanation. You just have to try it and you will often find that the opposite of your belief is true, and that you are wrong.

If you give your troops ten commands and half of them are 'misconceptions' or wrong, then you have to do as Confucius says and 'mend your ways'. Admit it. Give new orders. Save your troops. Win the war.

Ohno makes the point that the best way for workers on the Gemba to see that the current way of working is wrong (not as Lean as it could be) is to have them try many things hands on.

The following paragraph contains an important thought that is too often missing from kaizen efforts today. When you give the order for people to try something different, follow up. Go to Gemba and see if you were right or wrong. If it is not working, apologize and admit that you are wrong. That way, your workers will find it easier to admit that they are wrong. By seeing that their leaders are willing to correct their mistaken beliefs based on observed evidence, others will be more willing to try things and change their beliefs.

Ohno places the key to being able to persuade people to change on the freedom to admit that you are wrong half of the time. By being able to say "See, I was wrong. Now try something else" it actually encourages people to cooperate with you and help you. This is contrast to the traditional following of orders, right or wrong, which eventually erodes confidence and willingness to blindly follow.

Without misperceptions or wrong beliefs there would be no need for persuasion. Ohno observes that the more that someone is an intellectual, the more misperceptions he or she is likely to have. Although Ohno does not explain this belief, I would venture that it is because people who have amassed great amounts of knowledge have probably had less chance to go to Gemba and "try it out" to see if what they believe is actually true.

If you fancy yourself a Lean thinker go ahead and test your beliefs the next time you think you are right. If you are wrong, admit it. Make Mr. Ohno proud.

Posted by Jon Miller at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On a recent trip to Brazil, I had the opportunity to visit a 270-employee automotive components manufacturer that is doing Lean. I was very impressed by the openness to change and the energy I felt among both the management and workforce.

There was a visual appeal to the factory. There were visual boards with plant metrics as soon as you walked in the door. There was good 5S in the factory and the floor was spotless (this is a machining plant). There was about 1,400 square feet of space opened up due to recent layout changes and kaizen activity. Their machines (many of them old) had been recently been repainted.

In the office area there were no partitions or walls between desks (open room or "obeya" concept). The Current State and Future State Value Stream Map of production was posted on the wall.

Machining was done in tight u-shaped one-piece flow cells with no WIP inside the cells. They had begun using hour-by-hour production tracking boards in one of the cells. In several places they were tracking MTBF, MTTR, OEE, and availability of machines in the cell. Standard Work was documented and posted on a display board at the head of the cell.

They were preparing to change the entire layout over the weekend to connect two cells and eliminate buffer stocks. They were planning to work on SMED next for their lathes.

In terms of attitude and drive to improve I would rank this company in Brazil among the best small sites I have seen. This made me reflect upon the fact that I have been seeing some very dynamic kaizen activity in developing countries lately. American and European countries have more resources, more knowledge, and more local examples of Lean success, yet seem to be less eager to do kaizen. Al

American companies too often still do no possess and act with a "sense of urgency", one of the necessary behaviors of a Lean Enterprise. Some time ago I observed that none of the 15 countries I have visited use the expression "We're number one!" to anywhere near the degree that we do in the U.S.A. As a motivational tool at sporting events this is fine. As a management philosophy, it is deadly. It is a fact that today we are the world's largest economy. By many other measures, we are not number one as a society and as an economy. Just as in doing kaizen, we can not be afraid to admit that there is opportunity for improvement.

I propose as a nation and as business leaders we adopt the line from the theme song to the film Smokey and the Bandit, "We gonna do what they say can't be done. We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there."

Posted by Jon Miller at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter by saying that he doesn't believe it's easy to influence people on the Gemba to change. In order to get people to do kaizen, you need to convince them and help them understand. How are people convinced? There has to be some sort of reasoning behind what you are saying, and you have to confident that what you are saying is right.

How can you be confident that you are right? There is an expression that says "even a thief speaks truth a third of the time." So you can assume that you (an average person) is right half of the time.

Ohno reflects on his days in junior high school studying the classics, such as the Analects of Confucious. He quotes two of Confucious sayings "A Wise man mends his ways" (literally, the wise change their spots like a leopard) and "Wise man, do not hesitate to reform yourself".

If a thief is right a third of the time and an average person perhaps half of the time, a wise man is right perhaps only 70% of the time. If you insist that you are right without being reasoning it through, you will not be able to convince people.

Another saying is "Give orders in the morning, change them by evening". This is usually given as an example of bad leadership, one who changes his mind. Ohno says that as a manager you in fact should change orders given in the morning, by evening time. After all, even the wise men mend their ways.

Ohno goes on to say that you shouldn't give half-baked orders and then change your mind on a whim. Rather, give direction and go see if was effective. If it was not effective, admit by evening that you were wrong and change tactics.

Some countries treat long-standing laws as unchangeable, even if they don't stand up to the logic or the needs of today because of respect to tradition or authority. Ohno says that you mustn't operate your factory in this way, saying "it's law" and certain things can not be changed because they have always been that way.

Ohno goes on to make the point that engineers have a reputation for being stubborn or hard-headed. Engineers would be well advised to pretend their are "the wise" and "change their spots like leopards" and reform their ways when they are wrong.

Ohno links the ability to convince and influence others to the ability to be frank and humble, to admit to those who work for you (or to the people on the Gemba) that you were mistaken. If you fear admitting you are wrong then this feeds a vicious cycle where it becomes harder and harder to admit your mistake, and in the end you lose credibility and are unable take back the bad orders you gave your troops this morning.

In order to convince people to change, and to do kaizen, you must first accept that we are all human and wrong half of the time. As a manager leading change, you are wrong half of the time, and the people who work for you are wrong half of the time, but also have something worth listening to half of the time. If this is not done, people will not respect you and listen to you.

Humility, in Ohno's opinion, is an important factor in being able to convince people to do kaizen. The way people are persuaded to do kaizen is if you first humble yourself. When you are wrong, be willing to admit it, and others will be more willing to accept your ideas. Try it, and if it doesn't work, try something else. Approach the act of teaching with humility and be quick to admit when you are wrong and others will learn from you.

Posted by Jon Miller at 6:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of the things that I notice when I go to offices in the US is walls everywhere and a computer screen at each desk. I recently lead a group of clients to Japan to visit a Toyota group company office that had taken the principles of Lean and applied it their sales / management operations.

The things that struck me were:

1) The management of the business was done by magnetic boards and other charts posted around the office, and

2) There were no walls in the office at all.

A lot of the businesses that I go to consult are run by computers. Everything that happens in the business cycle goes into the computer. Do we have a sales prospect? In the computer! What options do they want? In the computer! Were they not happy with what they got? In the computer! By working this way, a manager has no choice but to be stuck to his 17-inch computer screen going through data to manage the business.

In kaizen we talk about Visual Management. I have often come across a claim that the eyes absorb 83% of information that is out there (compared to very little information that is absorbed by the sense of taste).

When you consider the vast bandwidth that each person has with their eyes, it really is a misuse of the tool to relegate them to staring at a 17-inch screen. It is where the process itself is wasteful which is one of the 7 wastes.

Just going through a quick estimate of the amount of time spent figuring out what is going on, trying to recover from missed opportunities (dropped balls), and status meetings, it sure makes sense to take away the walls that stifle visual communication and manage the business via boards and charts all along a wall than it does a computer screen. Let the computer do what it does best - crunch numbers, and let people do what they do best - view the surrounding scenery and make decisions about how to take out waste find kaizen opportunities.

Posted by Jon Miller at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

During a recent kaizen event we reviewed the TPM program for one of our clients. The Operations Manager raised a good question regarding TPM metrics and how to show savings through TPM. During a plant budget meeting, the Controller had questions about the increased expenses and hours spent for maintenance as a result of TPM. These were costs to support TPM, including cleaning supplies for 5S and materials for equipment kaizen. The controller wanted to know how they were saving the company money.

The Operations Manager knew that there had been less downtime, and that repair costs had been lower, but just telling stories was not good enough for the financial Controller. We reviewed the TPM metrics, what the goal of each one was, and how the benefits can be stated in terms of financial imput. The following is a summary of our meeting:

The first metric for TPM is MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures). This is measured by machine, and for this metric, the larger number the better. This means that breakdowns are less frequent. This means that repair costs are lower. That can be measured as a direct cost savings when compared on an annual or quarterly basis. Indirectly, less downtime could mean more production output.

The second metric is Percent Reactive Maintenance (% Reactive). The smaller the better for this number. World class is 20% or less reactive and 80% preventive, improvement, or scheduled maintenance. The best way to show direct cost savings for this metric is when repairs that were previously outsourced can be done in-house because of less reactive activity, and because of time spent improving maintenance technicians' skills. Indirect benefits include using the same maintenance hours to speed up machines or improve quality.

Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) is the third metric. For this metric, the smaller the better. As TPM progresses, repairs are less serious and are quicker. Tracking repair hours and showing an overall reduction is a direct cost savings. Another cost savings is in avoiding expedite charged and added downtime by creating a spare parts list and identify sources of critical components.

The fourth metric is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). This is measured by machine or by process. The higher the better for this number. World class is 80% or better. Direct financial impact can be shown as machines run faster with better quality more reliably. To improve OEE, you need to use SMED to reduce set up time, reduce scrap and improve yield, and eliminate minor stops and brining machines up to their optimal speeds. By achieving higher outputs of good product in fewer hours, cost savings can be realized.

If you manage to avoid getting lost in the alphabet soup of acronyms (MTBF, % Reactive, MTTR, OEE) then you will be able to effectively link numbers that are meaningful to both the factory and the financial managers.

Posted by Jon Miller at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

We received an odd call today at Gemba. Our Office Manager transferred the call to one of our senior consultants, saying "The person on the line wants to know about Heijunka." The caller whom we'll call Jay to protect his identity was from a U.S. based fortune 500 industrial conglomerate who has been engaged company-wide in a Lean initiative for the last 2 years. We've had some dealing with this company in the past through consulting and training. Their VP of Lean comes from a prominent U.S. automotive supplier recognized for their Lean efforts, and we hold her in high regard.

What made the call strange was the anxious tone of the caller. "What is kanban?" he continued. Typically our callers are either customers looking for help or Lean folks looking for advice. This person gave us very little information about himself. He just wanted information, and fast. After a couple of questions, our consultant learned why. "They're calling Lean Managers at (our company) asking us 20 questions. The call could come at any time. I need to be ready."

While I have a lot of respect for how this corporation has gone about organizing their Lean initiative, the random and fear-inspring nature of this type of knowledge assessment of Lean Managers seemed a bit odd. The questions continued "What is OEE?" and "What are the 4 behaviors of a Lean Enterprise?"

If, as an appointed Lean Manger, you don't know these things, isn't it the responsibility of the corporation to provide the training? If the goal of the '20 questions calls' is to find out who needs more training, send out a questionnaire instead and spare the fear. If the goal is to cull out the weak, ask first which factories in which business groups need to know each Lean principle and tool, rather than putting everyone through the same filter.

If you are a Lean Manager from this company, and you would like us to answer these 20 questions about Lean, send us an e-mail. We'll be happy to post the answers on our website. Our goals is to teach as many people as possible to think Lean and do kaizen the Toyota way. We'll share all we know.

Posted by Jon Miller at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Taiichi Ohno is one of the founders of TPS along with Shigeo Shingo and members of the Toyoda family.

Three of Mr. Ohno's major works on the Toyota Production System and kaizen have been translated into English. They are 'The Toyota Production System', 'Just In Time for Today and Tomorrow', and 'Workplace Management' (Gemba Keiei in Japanese). The first is still in print and available and on the reading list of many Lean Managers.

On our last kaizen study mission to Japan I was fortunate enough to pick up a recently reissued copy of Gemba Keiei from JMAM, the publishing arm of JMA. It is an excellent book for anyone interested in kaizen, Toyota Production System, and the original Lean thinking of Mr. Ohno.

This book and Taiichi Ohno's thoughts on kaizen and TPS have previously been capably translated by Andrew Dillon and published by Productivity Press. Unfortunately Gemba Keiei has been out of print for many years and is exceedingly difficult to obtain today. The following series of blog entries on Taiichi Ohno's book Gemba Keiei is not an authorized translation. As I re-read this book in the original Japanese, I will summarize the nuggets of wisdom from each chapter in Mr. Ohno's book.

A few words about the title of the book. Gemba means "actual place" or "workplace" and in Ohno's case this is the factory. The second part "Keiei" (pronounced K-A) means 'managing' as in 'managing a business' or 'running a business'. As opposed to the word 'kanri' which is used for managing or controlling people or processes. So the word 'keiei' means to manage or run a business or an enterprise. A person who does "keiei" is a business owner or a senior executive, while a person who does "kanri" is a manager or supervisor. It is an important distinction' that I feel is lost in the English title "Workplace Management". I believe that this book was written not only for the Lean Manager or Kaizen facilitator but for the business owner, the person who does "keiei" of their business.

Ohno comments in the foreword that he was asked to write about "gemba no keiei" or "running a manufacturing company" as I understand it. Mr. Ohno's experience is based on manufacturing, but his insights on kaizen and effective management practices at the gemba transcend the factory floor. 'Gemba Keiei' is Ohno's essential philosophy on how to run a business through focusing on kaizen in the workplace.

Gemba Keiei is written in a very disarming style, in the original Japanese it is almost conversational. Mr. Ohno does not use the formal or 'polite' language that would be the norm, but rather writes as he speaks firmly and directly, as if he is speaking to the reader as one of his students.

My goal is to summarize one chapter per week and post it in this weblog. There are 37 short chapters in this book so I hope to share as much of Ohno's wisdom on TPS and kaizen as I am able to receive from this book in the next 37 weeks, and complete this project before the September 2005.

Posted by Jon Miller at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Bear McLaughlin, Operations Consultant
October, 2004

During my journeys of training Office and Manufacturing Lean tools and techniques, I致e come across the same key in any business environment, OWNERSHIP, no ownership, means no success.

How do you generate ownership and what does that even mean? It is much more than just having a champion or the leaders telling you they believe in Lean, Six Sigma, or the Toyota Production System (TPS). True ownership is instilled at every level of employee, which then transforms itself into continuous process improvement, the Kaizen culture.

The dictionary definition of ownership (1.The state of being an owner; the right to own; exclusive right of possession; legal or just claim or title; proprietorship.) changes in the reality of the workplace. We have been trained that ownership is only within the Chain of Command (our managers and leaders), but this isn't true. Every successful kaizen team is proof of this.

Creating ownership may seem like an almost overwhelming and complex task, in reality it just takes a few simple steps to promote. Involvement! Yes, involvement, when you step back and take the role of coach, mentor, or trainer and let the real experts (participants) apply their knowledge, you have started on the path to ownership and cultural change. When you ask a Kaizen event participant to write an idea on a post-it, easel board, or to talk about their process, 7 Wastes in the area, frustrations, and ideas, the path to ownership is being forged. When we talk or write about our areas and processes it becomes personal, we have control or knowledge, and these things are ownership.

Watch what happens in an environment where you are the only one talking versus where you are sharing with the Lean participants. Watch again what happens when you do your Gemba Walk (walking the factory floor or office looking for waste) and point out all the wastes, or, you let the experts once again find the 7 Wastes, watch once again what happens when you do the VSM, CS, and FS maps (Value Stream Map, Current Stream, and Future State) or you stand back again and guide as the people do the maps, ask questions, and look to their future. When people participate, and their energy, ideas, inspiration, and beliefs are put into practice it gives them a powerful feeling that this was their idea to change, to kaizen, or create a working plan. If you, as the Lean Champion or kaizen facilitator do it all, it will become a flavor of the month and is already heading out the door to failure.

Involvement creates ownership, and that leads to success in a Lean enterprise transformation.

1. Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, ｩ 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc

Posted by Jon Miller at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Where Does Lean Apply in Hospitals?

Friday afternoon is a great time to call up the customers and find out what's on their minds. At Gemba we continue to benchmark with hospitals that are doing kaizen and pioneering Lean Healthcare. So last Friday I put on the headset and rang up an Administrative Director we met at a conference earlier this year. This guy heads up all the Lean efforts throughout their many locations.

I asked "If you could open up a Kaizen course catalog and find any class you wanted, what would it be?"

"Any Lean class I want? I'd want Value Stream Mapping for Healthcare." In his world, there's a big difference in the amount of care each patient requires. Some of them are deathly ill, some are ambulatory. It's critically important to be able to manage resources at hospitals according to the types of patients and the types of care they are receiving according to the healthcare Value Streams. Value Stream alignment and managing by Value Streams means organizing a cross-functional team and the required equipment and medical devices around a line of care of a particular set of patients.

The next thing he'd like to see is "Making Takt Time Meaningful in Healthcare." They continue to push for takt times in all areas, with mixed results. "When the physicians and their assistants discover that the takt time is 4.8 minutes per patient, they go ballistic. Truth is, they usually spend less time than that with patients anyway, and they just don't like to see it written down."

"How about Supply Chain issues?" I asked. He thought for a moment, and then replied, "I want to get a good kanban system in place. We have so many things that are expiration sensitive. Every time we do a 5S event, we end up throwing out lots of expired supplies, stuff that was simply used out of order. It really looks bad."

Another issue is the amount and mix of instrument sets used by surgeons. "Let's say you've got 10 surgeons doing 10 gall bladders - each surgeon will order up a different set of instruments, ranging in cost from $250 to $1800," he said, "Central Services gets a lot of those instruments back, unused." Getting surgeons to agree on a standard set of tools is not easy, but with strong leadership from the clinical side of the hospital, they have had some successes.

"Final thoughts?" I asked.

"We're looking for setup reduction in all areas. Clinical, Lab, Patient Visit Prep, everywhere. For us it's all about being ready and there's really not much in the way of Standard Work published in these areas."

So in the course of half hour conversation, we get some great ideas for classes to offer at the Lean Learning Lab. We're developing the curriculum now, and we hope to schedule several Lean Healthcare sessions early next year. Stay tuned.

Posted by at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whenever we visit Toyota in Japan there is always at least one member of our study group who makes a comment about the pace at which the assemblers at the engine line and body assembly line work. At Takt Times of around a minute, workers attach parts steadily, never missing a beat.

How do they keep that up all day long? The answer is that they don't. At Toyota workers are rotated every 2 hours to another job. They use different muscles by performing a different set of motions. They keep their minds aware by paying attention to a different set of quality requirements.

Not only does this keep the workers minds nimble and bodies loose, reducing fatigue and boredom, there are several definite benefits for productivity and quality.

First, this 2 hour rotation teaches people different skills. It enhances cross training which in turn helps keep Toyota more flexible as a company. As customer demand changes or work content shifts, trained people can be moved to where they are needed.

There is also a benefit to the worker, since the cross trained worker is more valuable to employer and also more employable should they seek work elsewhere.

Second, it makes people think. "We want everyone to think" is the answer we often get to the question of why Toyota rotates people every 2 hours. Thinking about the work they are doing is necessary because you may be doing something you are not as familiar with as the job you started doing at the beginning of the shift.

People are asked to think "How can I prevent errors?" and "How can I make this job safer and easier?" This is a key part of the kaizen effort at Toyota, in the form of their Creative Idea Suggestion System where all workers find and implement improvement ideas each month.

Toyota places a high value on thinking, to the point where I have heard TPS called "Thinking Production System".

Third, by moving to another process the worker sees how the work they were doing 2 hours ago upstream affects work downstream. They can see the importance of the quality they are building in once they are in the shoes of the downstream customer. This keeps people thinking about the customer and makes a Value Stream-focused workplace possible.

Citing a variety of reasons, too few companies outside of the Toyota group (our best clients included) practice job rotation within the day. The 2 hour job rotation should be considered a core part of TPS and a kaizen tool on part with others used by companies on the Lean journey.

Posted by Jon Miller at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the October 11, 2004 issue of BusinessWeek (The Innovation Economy issue, page 176) there was an interesting article providing an example of Lean thinking applied to healthcare.

India has a high number of well-educated engineers and scientists. India is becoming a providers of services such as call centers and software development, and leading the way in innovation, and perhaps in designing Lean processes.

The Aravind Eye-care Centre is able to provide cataract surgeries, assembly line style, for $50 to $300 per operation compared to $2,000 in the United States. This low cost is in part due to the lower-cost locally manufactured lenses, but certainly also due to the superior design of work flow and patient flow.

The large volume of surgeries and the efficient systems the doctors have developed help make this process Lean and lower cost. At this hospital, 80 doctors perform 50 surgeries per day. Four doctors work on patients in one operating room, side by side. The next day the patients return home and are visited by paramedics who complete postoperative care. The quality is excellent according to well-known ophthalmologists.

This is more of an example of Kaikaku (transformation, radical improvement) than mere kaizen. This innovative thinking by Indian doctors and engineers has resulted in a radically improved process. It is a combination of this type of radical redesign of processes and many small and incremental kaizens that makes an enterprise Lean. This is Lean thinking at its finest, enabling the larger number of poor people to benefit from high quality healthcare.

Posted by Jon Miller at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)