Gemba Panta Rei

The YouTube video titled Lean in Japan is a bit bizarre. It's probably strange enough to most people as a window into modern Japan, but overlaid with Lean lingo it's just weird.

It's not clear if this video is tongue-in-cheek or serious but off the mark. The LEI version of the Lean definition with the five points of 1) let the customer define value, 2) map value streams, 3) flow, 4) pull and 5) pursue perfection are illustrated (or are they?) through video of life in some of Japan's big cities.

The video ends with a "tune in next week" trailer hinting at more about the Toyota Production System, but where is the next video? This one was posted in February 2007.

Can you spot the batch & queue, push and imperfections?

Posted by Jon Miller at 6:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

They say time is the only resource you can't get any more of. Wouldn't it be great if you could get your time back? All of that time that was lost, wasted or simply misplaced - if we could only get it back, we would promise spend it more wisely this time...

How to get your time back? The conventional wisdom is that trapped in our four dimensional universe, we can't. But I'm of a different mind. Without getting into a lot of details at the quantum level, probability, and causality, we can confidently say that all of us are wasting time, and will continue to waste time to the end of our days. But we can get back much of this time that the universe is designed to help us lose. Get your time back... from the future!

How? Dan Markowitz over at Time Back Management shares with us better ways to work. Among these ideas are standard work as the flywheel of society, building on ideas of psychologist William James. He points out that making tasks routine frees up the individual to think, to be creative, a point we can't stress enough to those who claim standards inhibit creativity.

Some people add the 8th waste to the 7 types of waste, calling it waste of human creativity. The absence of standards causes variation (mura) which leads to workarounds and overburden (muri) and ultimately waste (muda) of time and effort. Creativity in the absence of standards is muda, perhaps an "overproduction of ideas", if you will. Since thought consumes time and energy, it is not free, despite what some have claim. So creativity should be based on standards. This is one way to get your time back.

One type of standard for the workplace and the materials, equipment and data within it is something called 5S. Dan Markowitz illustrates office 5S mind as well as how 5S applies to data and the time wasted retrieving cluttered data. It is simple yet staggering how much of our time is wasted searching, sorting, arranging. Do 5S and get your time back!

Other than death and taxes, about the only thing certain is that we will waste (lose) time. Observe your work and time it. Take away the wasted steps and define the best of the current method as standard work. Then organize all aspects of your workplace and data environment to support this through 5S. Then unleash your creativity to improve continuously, refining this standard.

How to get your time back? Apply Lean principles such as standard work and 5S to your work. Think of it as reaching into the future and getting back the time that you would otherwise lose.

Posted by Jon Miller at 6:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Improving OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) by eliminating the six big losses is the focus of TPM (Total Productive Maintenance). Just as most industrial machinery is only 13% to 40% effective prior to TPM implementation, the same is true for personal computers running Microsoft Windows.

The six big losses of TPM are, with some examples:

1) Unplanned breakdowns = overheating, crashes, electrical failures, etc.
2) Machine set up, changeover = tool changes between models
3) Idling and minor stops = jammed conveyor belts
4) Reduced speed = deterioration, or willful reduction of speed to be "safe"
5) Defects and scrap = damage
6) Start up and yield losses = "warming up" machines or getting settings just right

The first two are categorized as downtime losses, the second two as speed losses, and the third two as quality losses. These fit perfectly to the reduced OEE of personal computers.

1) Unplanned breakdowns = crashing applications
2) Machine set up = time it takes to run or switch between applications
3) Idling and minor stops = Windows Update reminder
4) Reduced speed = fragmented files
5) Defects = blue screen of death
6) Start up and yield loss = waiting while the machine boots up

Taking the example of 3 in bold, above, I lost some work on Friday thanks to Microsoft Windows' kind reminder to restart after it had installed some updates. The reminder looks like this:

The best advice is to comply immediately, save your work and restart. I didn't and kept putting off the reminder, finishing things up on a busy day. A question took me away from my laptop for five minutes, and I returned to find a start up screen welcoming me.

Well, no more. Life Hacker teaches how to Get rid of Windows Update restart nag.

And good riddance.

This reminds me that there was a question posted some time ago on Autonomous Maintenance for the office. We'll get to that one soon.

Posted by Jon Miller at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Neuroplasticitiy is the ability of the human brain to rearrange its synaptic networks based on experience. This primarily affects the hippocampus, the region of the brain playing a key role in memory. In turn, memory affects behavior. Human behavior affects the majority of things that concern us on a day to day basis, and is also an important topic to anyone wishing to make lasting change.

This concept of neuroplasticity, or experience-driven alteration of synaptic structure and function, is interesting in that it begins to give us an understanding of how we learn. The Nobel laureate Eric Kandel described how this works through the neuroscience research he did with a type of sea slug called the Aplysia in his book In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind. I recommend this book very highly to anyone with an interest in the topic of memory.

This neuroplasticity can be observed in the brain during what is known in classical conditioning as habituation and sensitization. Habituation is the progressive reduction of behavioral response through repetition of a stimulus. In simple terms, you learn to ignore it. Sensitization is the strengthening of a response through progressive increase in a stimulus, or in some cases a single very strong stimulus.

When we have been habituated, we learn to ignore. When we have been sensitized, even a small signal causes us to respond. It is important to understand this because we need to constantly sensitize ourselves to the conditions around us that are burdensome, bothersome, dangerous, or wasteful. When we become habituated, we learn to ignore waste. When we are sensitized, we see it and learn to respond.

Reading through Japanese books about and speaking with people who had the honor of being yelled at by Taiichi Ohno, the experience is described variously as a torrent, a serious scolding, and some even call it a terrifying experience. Part of the genius of Taiichi Ohno may have been that he was literally changing the minds of the people he yelled at through neuroplasticity and sensitization.

There is also the "chalk of terror" that Taiichi Ohno is said to have used to draw circles around managers who were oblivious (habituated) to waste. There may still be some old-timer Toyota managers out there who shudder when they see a stick of chalk.

The stand in the circle exercise is a great way to sensitize busy leaders to the problems in their organizations. It only takes one hour. Beg, steal or borrow an hour of your leaders' time and stand them in the the circle to sensitize them. Stick of chalk optional.

Posted by Jon Miller at 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

How does Lean thinking apply to strategy? This was a good question that made me think. One way of answering this question might refer to hoshin kanri (policy deployment) but in fact this is more about policy than strategy. If hoshin kanri is about what and how, strategy is about what and why.

Toyota's strategy or the "why" they do things as they do, is guided by something called in Japanese "founding intent" which might be the equivalent of "mission, vision, values". Sakichi Toyoda's ideas of harmony with society, creativity and craft still seem to guide long-term strategy at Toyota today. The founder of Toyota was an inventor who valued making things, and doing well by doing good for society.

The essence of all strategy, with Lean thinking applied, is to answer the questions:

What is good for society?

Society is a broader definition of "customer". The conventional wisdom is that businesses that focus on a tight target market succeed and those who pursue the entire available market fail. That's one way to look at it, but the ideal is to develop technologies in the long term to solve problems of all society. Why have sub-optimization as a strategy?

What is a problem we can solve with our core skills?

If you have the wrong core skills, you may provide a service that does not address the root cause of the problem. Many businesses make money solving problems, but may not be good for society, and that would not be Lean strategy.

How can we make money doing this?

How can we profit by making things better for everyone? You may say that "everyone" can't win, but if you don't aim for this ideal, you will be back to asking the first question over and over, as history shows.

How will we answer these questions 10, 20, 50 and 100 years from now?

The longer-term you think, the better ideas you will have. And the shorter-term you make your actions, the better results you will have.

Separately, these questions are not so tough. Taken together, they are very tough.

Posted by Jon Miller at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Medicare may stop paying for hospital errors in 2008, according to a May 22, 2007 article from IndyStar.com titled Hospital-borne ailments face Medicare budget ax.
According to the article:

Medical mistakes are deadly and expensive. Infections acquired in hospitals account for about 90,000 deaths and $4.5 billion in extra spending each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are thirteen conditions acquired after the patient is admitted to the hospital that the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS) is considering no longer paying hospitals for:

1. Catheter-associated urinary tract infections.
2. Bed sores.
3. Objects left in after surgery.
4. Air embolism, or bubbles, in bloodstream from injection.
5. Patients given incompatible blood type.
6. Bloodstream staph infection.
7. Ventilator-associated pneumonia.
8. Vascular-catheter-associated infection.
9. Clostridium difficile-associated disease (gastrointestinal infections).
10. Drug-resistant staph infection.
11. Surgical site infections.
12. Wrong surgery.
13. Falls.

Source: Medicare

Ouch. The customer (CMMS) is saying "we will no longer pay for defects and rework". How many of us have customers who still pay for our mistakes?

"There's not a doctor or nurse who comes to work in the morning and wants to make a mistake," said Carmela Coyle, the AHA's senior vice president of policy. "I don't see nonpayment as an incentive to try to do better."

While I have sympathy for anyone who faces sudden non-payment for work that was good enough just yesterday, reading Ms. Coyle's words reminds me of the immortal words of the jedi master Yoda: No. Do, or do not. There is no try.

What are hospitals and the well-intentioned professionals who work there to do? Hopefully they will turn to lean healthcare, responsible for successful and ongoing transformations at Virginia Mason Medical Center, Group Health Cooperative, Pittsburgh Regional Medical Center, ThedaCare, The Mayo Clinic and an increasing number of hospitals around the world.

Healthcare leaders can start with education in Lean healthcare fundamentals, then proceed to identifying and mapping the processes within their major service lines (value streams) to see the wasted resources and understand the potential for improvement. For quick wins, 5S can be applied to the healthcare workplace to improve safety, quality and productivity. Practical problem solving training will enable shorter cycles of improvement, where the work is actually done everyday (the gemba). These Lean principles can be applied simultaneously to healthcare administration processes, freeing up resources and improving information flow.

Next headline: U.S. Taxpayers to Stop Paying for Errors by Politicians and Public Servants ...if only.

Posted by Jon Miller at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Not two days after imploring everyone to do kaizen like Toyota, we're reminded that no matter how good you are at lean manufacturing, kaizen, and continuous improvement, if you focus too much on eliminating muda (waste) while ignoring muri (unreasonableness, overburden) you can fail as a business.

A snippet of a Japanese TV program uploaded to YouTube asks "Is Toyota also number one in the world in recalls?" (世界のトヨタ　リコールも世界一？)

This image is fairly self-explanatory. The X axis is years, Y axis is recalls in units of 10,000. Toyota has 1,880,000 recalls in 2005. The chart compares Toyota with the recalls from the other two major Japanese automobile manufacturers.

This image explains that the recalls are due to the rapid expansion overseas and the pressure to reduce cost resulting in a supply chain that is overburdened and lacking in personnel. Toyota has been adding production capacity of 500,000 vehicles each year. This is the equivalent of one Fuji Heavy Industries per year (Subaru).

The growth of Toyota has been supported by the vast pyramid of suppliers beneath them, and the development of "building in quality" has not sufficiently extended to the supply base. Quality has decreased as a result.

The response from the Toyota PR department explains the background of the increase in recalls as a "increased structural complexity in our products due to the lengthening span of ownership of the automobile, an increased awareness of quality by the consumer, and advances in new technology and environmental technologies." Toyota is blaming technology innovation and THEIR CUSTOMERS. If this is Toyota's true and honest grasp of the current situation, rather than just PR spin and dodge, their problems aren't going away any time soon.

The PR department goes on to explain that President Watanabe is heading up a "build in quality" effort involving the suppliers, so they area clearly tackling the problem from the highest levels.

What does the future hold? The automotive industry will shift focus in the future from the U.S. and EU to BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China). The slide says "if Toyota can clear the quality hurdle, they will continue to grow globally."

Toyota may be its own worst enemy. At Toyota they say "beat Toyota" meaning they should not be complacent even when no other automotive company can beat them. It would be ironic if Toyota beat Toyota, and lost...

Posted by Jon Miller at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

How do we do kaizen like Toyota? Just the fact that we're hearing this question more often is a good sign that either a) there is a growing awareness about there being a right way to do kaizen, or b) Toyota's PR machine is in full swing. We choose to believe the former.

There are many ways to answer this, and typically we ask a few clarifying questions before we do, but here are five of the most common bits of advice we give:

1. Quality follows quantity. Aim for quantity over quality when asking for kaizen ideas. There are so many things that need to be improved in any give process, but for everyone to see them it requires a "revolution of awareness" to use Taiichi Ohno's words. When the focus is on quantity, this will stimulate thinking, raise awareness, and by necessity people will find more small problems than big problems. Solving these small problems (taking root cause corrective action) prevents larger problems.

2. Standardize how you solve problems. The best kaizen ideas are the small ones that make you feel silly because they are so simple and obvious. Many quick improvements will be "just do it" items that (seem to) require no formal process. There will be many of these in the early going and it can be tempting to believe that you are getting good at kaizen, until you hit the more challenging issues, or when the obvious quick fix doesn't stick. This is where following a standardized approach to problem solving based on the scientific method can help keep your kaizen efforts on track. Not to be prescriptive, but the PDCA wheel is hard to beat.

3. Do kaizen in teams. Coming up with and taking action on kaizen ideas should be a small group activity. A team of 4 to 8 people with one team leader will make much progress on these small ideas. One person may try to find one big idea, or find one but get stuck in problem solving and make no progress. Seek the wisdom of many rather than the knowledge of the few.

4. Dig deeper. The warusa kagen, or condition of badness, is like sand on the beach. Sometimes the problem seems to go away when you scratch at the surface (sand) or when the waves roll in and out (variation in the 4M conditions, or in customer demand). Dig deep enough through "5 why" and other means until the true root cause is found so that countermeasures are effective.

5. Celebrate, then move on. Feel good about being liberators of space, working capital, people, capacity, or customer happiness through your process improvement efforts. Share this feeling with others through a variety of visual and electronic means of communication. Then do hansei for a moment (hang you head in shame) at the massive amount of remaining waste, look up and smile at the next small problem waiting to be found and removed.

Posted by Jon Miller at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Thank you Konrad, Ron, Robert, Nancy, Chris, Eric, Jason, Rajdeep and Dee for your thoughtful answers to the question "which of the 5S is hardest and why?"

There was a lot of emphasis in on keeping it going, the 5th S known as sustain, shitsuke, self-discipline or stick-to-it. A number of people also commented on the difficulty of getting started, particulary doing the 1st S properly, sorting or seiri. The difficulty of standardizing 5S between individuals and shifts was also pointed out.

Each of these answers is correct and collectively they add great insight on how to succeed with 5S from the personal experiences of practitioners.

Personally, the 2nd S is the most challenging, because it is deceptively simple. Called set in order, straighten, or seiton, the goal of the 2nd S is to make everything that is left after the 1st (getting rid of items not needed) readily available at the point of use. Many times a shadow board is as far as companies go with seiton. Yet they struggle to sustain. Why?

In Taiichi Ohno's Workplace Management the 2nd S is explained as arranging items for swift retrieval. He used the Japanese characters for seiton to explain that "ton" is the same word used for "tonpuku" or fast-acting medicine. True 2nd S makes items immediate accessible, rather than simply lining them up or arranging them neatly and putting labels and location markers around them.

If 2nd S was done properly, the items would be truly and exactly where people wanted them, making work easier. People would take ownership and defend the location of these items because seiton was a real improvement for them. When "fake" seiton is done it does not sustain because items migrate back to where they are really used or needed.

There is also the problem of gravity. The opposite of swift retrieval is swift return. If it is easier to drop the item or lay it flat on a table than to put it in the "correct point of use storage location" identified by the 5S team, you can bet that gravity will win. People will do what takes least effort. So we need to think harder about how to not fight gravity and how to make it easy to sustain what you set in order.

And last but not least, here is a video announcing the 5S challenge winners! If your name was picked out of the bag, please e-mail us at info@gemba.com and tell us where to send your prize, the 5S in A Bag teaching aid.

Posted by Jon Miller at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Lean manufacturing by the numbers:

Zero inventory
Zero defects
Zero accidents
1 piece flow
1 point lesson
2 bin system
2 point control (AB control, full work control)
3D (dirty, dangerous, difficult)
3 don’ts of assembly
3 don’ts of quality
3 elements of standard work (takt, work sequence, SWIP)
3 elements of JIT (takt, flow, pull)
3 gen (genchi, genbutsu, genjitsu)
3P (Production Preparation Process)
3 tei (set location, set quantity, set timing)
4M (man, material, machine, method)
5L (loose, lacking, 'lectrical, leaks, looks)
5S
5 why
6 big losses
7 new tools
7 steps of autonomous maintenance
7 wastes
7 ways (7 alternatives)
7 QC tools
8D problem solving
10 commandments
10 steps to jidoka
12 steps to TPM
16 catch phrases
30-30-30 (stand in the circle)
50 second rule of takt time
80/20 rule (Pareto Principle)

What did I miss?

Posted by Jon Miller at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBacks (0)

Introduction to Gemba Panta Rei
Gemba Panta Rei is the corporate blog of Gemba Research, a kaizen consulting firm. In this blog we will share our thoughts on Lean manufacturing, kaizen, Lean healthcare, Lean governemnt, Lean transaction and better ways to make things better. The views and opinions on this blog are mostly reflect those of the writer of the blog, but are a fair reflection of the values of our company as a whole.

Goal and Purpose
The goal and purpose of this blog is to accelerate the reduction of waste of all types everywhere by offering perspectives, insights and practical advice on kaizen and Lean manufacturing. We aim to share our lessons learned, wins and losses as we work to spread the knowledge of how to do kaizen as widely as we can through this blog.

What is Gemba?
Gemba is a Japanese word that means "actual place" and is used to mean workplace where value is added. In manufacturing Gemba is the shop floor but it can by anywhere that you add value. Gemba Kaizen is a philosophy that improvement should be on-site, roll-up-your-sleeves, and quick. It is a key enabler for Lean manufacturing, Lean healthcare, Lean transaction and general bottom-line improvement activities.

Who Writes for this Blog?
Jon Miller is the CEO and co-founder of Gemba Research.

What is Panta Rei?
A Greek philosopher named Heraclites left a fragmented but important body of work. Many of his sayings relate to change and the changing nature of existence. The expression "panta rei" is ancient Greek for "everything changes" or "everything flows". It is part of our philosophy of that change is always happening around us and that kaizen is a way we can add human creativity to make positive change to our lives.

Join the Conversation
We invite you to join in with your comments or experiences. At the end of each blog entry there is a space for you to enter your comments. You can comment on the articles, comment on other people's comments, or simply share ideas and experiences you have about kaizen.

Copyright Notice
We are glad to share our knowledge, experience, and insights with you. However the material on this blog is copyrighted and is the property of Gemba Research LLC. Please note that no reproduction is permitted without prior written permission.

Posted by Jon Miller at 2:33 PM | Permalink

Taiichi Ohno taught us that even when we think "there is no waste here" you can find at least 7 types of waste. He was known to carry a piece of chalk around and draw circles around managers who could not see these wastes. Woe be to the manager who stepped out of the circle before Mr. Ohno came back to check.

Chihiro Nakao, an Ohno disciple, founder of Shingijutsu Co. Ltd. and the sensei responsible for coining the term "3P" for Production Preparation Process, taught us that even when you think "no way" there are at least 7 ways. The exercise in production preparation to brainstorm, evaluate and simulate 7 process alternatives for every step is the centerpiece of 3P, and very tough to do when you already know where to look in the machine tool catalog to find a ready solution.

Last week Mike Wroblewski taught us that there are at least 7 more ways you can achieve a healing workplace. What an amazing list (rocking chairs! puzzles! name tags!) full of great ideas. I can already feel our office manager cringing...

But seriously, there is a pattern here. Whenever we feel like we have exhausted all of our options, or we can't think of any more improvement ideas, or when the list seems complete, we should remember that zero equals seven in the kaizen mind. Your wits don't work until you feel the squeeze, but when you do, you can squeeze out another seven ideas.

Posted by Jon Miller at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Here is a bit of heresy that has been rolling around my brain lately: having a KPO / Six Sigma Competency Center / Office of Operational Excellence / Continuous Improvement Office hurts rather than helps a Lean effort.

Best case, these Kaizen Promotion Offices can rapidly do the in-depth study that is needed to begin implementing Lean, where it may be impractical to educate everyone and run the business at the same time. These Offices can evangelize other people, collect resources and find external resources for education and implementation, and take on rapid improvement projects. These Offices can also make connections between different parts of the organization that may be pursuing independent or uncoordinated improvement activities.

Worst case, these organizations are points for knowledge transfer by consultants, scheduling of event-driven Lean implementation projects, and excuses so senior managers don't have to get their hands dirty. The KPO is often charged with getting results as well as doing the hard work of changing people's minds, which should be the leader's role through actively learning and teaching TPS.

At worst, by establishing a KPO, Lean becomes just another functional silo and it is "their job" rather than something that is a way of life and part of how people are taught to work.

Management must lead kaizen and Lean transformation by example and by becoming teachers. These managers need coaches to help them do this so when a Kaizen Promotion Office is led by people who can mentor management, it fulfills an important function.

If the company culture, or the business situation values results more than culture, these KPO people will spend their time doing kaizen, rather than teaching people how to do kaizen. As a result, and when Lean implementations do not go well, these Lean departments become training grounds for future consultants, rather than a gateway for training future managers who will stay on the lead ongoing improvement.

Toyota used their OMCD to bring up great leaders like Chairman Fujio Cho. The OMCD was not there not only to advance the Toyota Production System but to train managers, not so managers could shirk the duty of leading change by passing it onto so-called professional Lean implementers.

Toyota spun off TSSC as a non-profit rather than have it serve as the driving force for bringing kaizen culture into their supply chain. I don't know their reasons, but perhaps it was due to a belief that in the long haul, supplier development should be the job of sourcing and purchasing people after they have been well-heeled in TPS and kaizen, not the work of in-house Lean experts or consultants.

Practically speaking, can large organizations get started with Lean effectively without an KPO? It takes some vision and leadership by demonstration, rather than leadership by funding an KPO, but I believe it can. To recognize the need to have kaizen competency and a way to educate people in Lean principles is good, but to make it a separate project or organization can be a way for managers to shirk the responsibility of personally learning how to do and teach these things.

Danaher, for example, seems to successfully make kaizen, hoshin kanri and all aspects of Lean manufacturing a part of how managers get their job done, in the form of their DBS.

Many of our colleagues are former KPO officers, and we have many points of contact within our clients who do important work in this role. Working in a KPO role can be great fun, since kaizen is your full time job. At the same time, most of the frustration with Lean comes from that level and the lack of management support being one of the most often stated reasons for failure.

The natural state of a mature Lean enterprise is not to have kaizen promotion as a separate function but as part of how all functions are performed. This is a chasm that many organization have yet to cross.

Lingo check:

DBS = Danaher Business System
KPO = Kaizen Promotion Office
LPO = Lean Promotion Office
OMCD = Operations Management Consulting Division
TSSC = Toyota Supplier Support Center

Posted by Jon Miller at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

"Which of the 5S is most difficult?" I received this question during a class I was teaching recently. I've never been asked this before. People often say "self-discipline is the most difficult" or "sustaining is the most difficult" but this answer never really satisfied me, so after a pause I gave my answer to the students.

In my view it's one of the other 4S that is the most difficult. I won't say what answer I gave, or why, quite yet. Let's make this a 5S Challenge.

What do you think? Which of the 5S is most difficult? Post your comment below on which of the 5S is most difficult, and why. Bonus points if you can illustrate it with a story or example.

We will select at random three comments and give away three 5S In A Bag simulation kit from Kaizen Products.

Comments entered by noon PST on Friday May 18, 2007 are eligible for 5S Challenge prize.

Posted by Jon Miller at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

Tetsuo Hoshino is the Chairman of Gifu Auto Body Industry, a Toyota Group company. He was a student of Taiichi Ohno. Since 1990 he has taught the Toyota Production System to 20,000 senior officials in large Korean companies. Hoshino recently received a medal from the Korean government.

On May 9, 2007 the Korean daily Don-A Ilbo interviewed Hoshino. He didn't pull any punches:

"Korea’s manufacturing industry is like an amateur and can be likened to a golfer with a course handicap of 20”

“Samsung and LG can make money only because their rivals and their customers are ‘people with a course handicap of 25.’ Therefore, Korean companies should make strenuous efforts to advance.”

"Korean mobile phone manufacturers are wasting enormous sums of money on purchasing unnecessary and expensive equipment because they do not have an eye for effective facilities.”

“Korean companies embrace almost all of the world’s renowned management theories, but continuity does matter.”

Hoshino says the biggest problem of Korean companies is a lack of awareness that they are makers. He said there are only a few business leaders in Korea who are aware of what is going on at plants, while many focus on research and development, planning and finance.

A "maker" is a Japanese-English for "manufacturer". Hoshino is saying that Korean management don't go to gemba. They do strategy, innovation, and finance but not gemba. Where have I heard that before?

This is in contrast to the low profile Toyota executives in Japan and the US are keeping, and how they are downplaying the performance of Toyota as they overtake GM. Where a U.S. company becomes number one they might brag or taunt their rival, but Toyota is not at all challenging the sloppy management at their rival US and European car manufacturers. Toyota doesn't dare say the things Hoshino said, because it would hurt their sales, or cause a political backlash. But this is bad for America.

Toyota's success is no doubt in part due to Japan's market being closed to U.S. car companies, and that Japanese companies have less of a legacy healthcare cost burden due to socialized medicine. These are not excuses for poor processes, high costs and poor quality.

What American management needs is a an old sensei from Toyota who isn't afraid to tell them how bad their processes are. Will the real TPS sensei please stand up?

The Koreans swallowed their pride, took their medicine, and they will get better because of it. Hopefully America doesn't keep closing its ears to gurus giving practical advice, or like Deming to Japan, the Toyota executives will help the next struggling small economy that listens.

There's a sentence that runs through my head whenever we're faced with defensive managers during a gemba walk or when an assessment reveals some unpleasant truths about the current condition. This is a paraphrase of a line from the Bruce Lee character in the kung-fu B-movie (Game of Death II (a.k.a. Tower of Death):

"Remember, kaizen is the art of continuous improvement. I'm not interested in excuses. I just want to prove how bad your processes are."

Posted by Jon Miller at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The entry last week on Standards, Abnormality and the Ideal seems to have struck a chord with folks. I've been thinking further about the idea of negative accidents or negative safety incidents and it is quite sound in theory and practice. Beyond a zero accident workplace, a healing workplace is achievable.

I realize we're not making any friends with Big Pharma by doing this, but here are seven ideas towards achieving a healing workplace:

Work out while you work. Design the standard work sequence to include moderate aerobic or strength-building motions. Whether in a hospital, factory or office setting, this is really not that hard.

Cause smiles. I've heard this improves your health.

Pipe in bright sunshine for 10 to 15 minutes per day. An April 28, 2007 article in the Globe and Mail suggests that vitamin D (taken from sun exposure) plays a greater role in our good health than previously thought.

Encourage naps. Provide a place for people to take a 10 to 20 minute nap during the workday.

Allow pets in the workplace. Studies have shown that owning a pet can reduce stress levels and blood pressure, as well as boost the immune system.

Replace coffee with strong green tea. Replace foods that make you sick with foods that make you well. Fruit instead of donuts.

Make people laugh. It is the best medicine, and there are only good side effects.

Just like 5S should be done not at the end of the shift but as a natural course of your daily work, just as quality should be built in and checked at every process rather than inspected in at the end, Lean healthcare should not be provided in hospitals but should come as a byproduct of a healing workplace.

Posted by Jon Miller at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Five small things this European hotel chain is doing to reduce energy waste:

1. The lights, television, etc. turn off when you take key card and leave the room
2. The lights in the elevator turn on only when the doors open and you walk in
3. There is an old-fashioned thermometer on the wall, powered by room temperature (love it!)
4. Sauna is open in shifts (ladies first), to avoid duplicating a low-utilization high-energy use amenity
5. There is no clock radio in the room (I expected to find a wind-up clock)

At least three of these ideas we could all copy fairly easily.

Posted by Jon Miller at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

A May 4, 2007 USA Today article titled Toyota's success pleases proponents of 'lean' looks at the story of Toyota surpassing GM by volume of cars sold and from the angle that the Lean consulting industry benefits.

The publicity about Toyota becoming No. 1 will create another burst of energy to lean, even though a survey by management consulting firm Bain shows that just 19% of companies that have tried it are happy with the results

So the failure rate for Lean so far is 19%. The success rate is something smaller than that, I'm sure. Doesn't add up to 100%? That's because 100% dissatisfaction is our goal.

The ideas of lean probably date to Eli Whitney in 1800, but it has its modern roots in the Toyota Production System of the 1950s and 1960s, when Toyota was preparing the groundwork for its assault that culminated last week when it sold 2.35 million vehicles in the first three months of 2007 vs. GM's 2.26 million, the first time Toyota won a quarterly volume title.

The most revealing word in this paragraph is "culminated". Definitions of the word include "to end", "to reach a final stage", "bring to the highest point". The Toyota Production System is so-not-about beating GM at the quarterly volume game that it's not funny.

Bain's head of performance improvement speaks:

Gottfredson says that if four in five companies remain dissatisfied, LSS may fall from favor and go down as the latest fad. But something much the same will replace it. It will just have a new moniker, Gottfredson says.

I disagree. Only when five out of five companies are dissatisfied with their condition of badness, whether they call it Lean or LSS or other, will we have success since 100% dissatisfaction is our goal.

This article warmed my heart because as long as large, influential institutions such as Bain and USA Today are getting it so wrong about TPS and Lean manufacturing, this member of the "industry of experts and consultants who sell the no-waste business regimen" will have TPS teaching work that needs doing, or redoing, for some time.

Posted by Jon Miller at 9:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The topic of warusa kagen led to some interesting further thought. The following statements are all true:

1. When work is performed in the absence of a standard, this is an abnormality
2. When standards exist but are not being followed, this is an abnormality
3. When standards exist and are being followed, this is an abnormality

Most would agree with the first two statements, but not the third.

The first statement is true because standards exist a priori for a given process. The management simply have not recognized them or made them visible. There is a correct or appropriate amount of inventory to keep the process in the current condition running on time, for example. So the fact that this standard is not established is an abnormality.

The second statement is true because when a standard is established, we are saying "this is the normal method", so not following it is by definition an abnormality.

Let's take the example of inventory:

The third statement is true because even if a standard is being followed, this is merely adherence to a standard, the standard is flawed when compared against what is desirable.

The Toyota notion that standards are temporary things and not absolutes is at work here. There is always higher goal, referred to as "the ideal". Kaizen challenges people to go to gemba to directly observe the current condition, understand the warusa kagen, imagine the ideal condition and improve towards it.

So this understanding gives us the following diagram:

So a more user-friendly way of expressing this may be to say that there is abnormality versus the standard and abnormality versus the ideal. For the sake of simplicity let's say there are standards, abnormality and the ideal.

You may ask "Once you achieve zero inventory, aren't you done?" It might appear that you have achieved "the ideal" process with respect to inventory. However, even this condition is abnormal. When you question deeply why inventory is a waste, it comes down to inventory turns and cash flow. So now if zero inventory is abnormal, what is the target condition? Less than zero inventory must be negative inventory.

Is the notion of negative inventory ridiculous? Not really. It is not uncommon these days for large OEMs such as Toyota, Dell or Boeing to get their money upfront from their customers, buy components from suppliers on net 30 or net 60 terms. This means that in real cash terms they have something called negative inventory turns. Less than zero inventory.

Could we extend the idea from zero inventory to negative inventory to other areas? How about from zero defects to negative defects? Or zero accidents? How about negative accidents? A workplace that actually heals the sick and makes healthy people healthier, because it is closer to the ideal process. Now that's something that makes doing kaizen for the rest of our lives worthwhile.

Posted by Jon Miller at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

There is a Japanese term that I like but is sadly not used as often as others in the Lean community, and may be indicative of a lack of focus in this key area of awareness. It is warusa kagen (悪さかげん) and means "condition of badness" or "how bad things are" in the current condition. This is often expresses as the small abnormalities that are all around but unnoticed because they have not yet turned into larger problems.

There is the old rhyme:

"For the want of a nail the shoe was lost; For the want of a shoe the horse was lost; For the want of a horse the battle was lost; For the failure of battle the kingdom was lost; And all for the want of a horseshoe nail."

Warusa kagen is an important notion not only when understanding the current condition and how bad it is and where the problems are prior to kaizen activity, but as a fundamental management mindset. Even when things appear to be running very smoothly, we need a critical eye for warusa kagen. Performing daily, weekly and monthly checks of various standards and procedures is one behavior that help to reinforce this mindset.

The awareness of warusa kagen reinforces the notion in kaizen that "now things are the worst ever" and that no matter how much improvement you have made, the condition of badness is severe. I think warusa kagen requires a revolution of awareness, to borrow a phrase from Taiichi Ohno. It requires a keen sense of an ideal process or condition, and how far removed from that condition the current condition really is.

Part of this revolution of awareness is learning to be very picky and demanding about cleanliness, organization, visual controls, smiles, adherence to standards in safety and work method. In the absence of these standards and visuals it can be very difficult to notice the many small things that contribute to "how bad things are" so problems are seen as big problem, and countermeasures become big, expensive, expert-driven ones.

Part of the value of 5S when used as an effective visual management tool is that it is an early warning sign of warusa kagen.

In most workplaces, it very easy to select a process at random and find 30 small problems in 30 minutes that require attention. Part of the aim of this stand in a circle exercise is to make people more aware and able to see the warusa kagen all around them.

Without the awareness of warusa kagen, there is the danger that we become accustomed to the ever so small increases in badness of the current condition. We relax when things have improved to a point, and let things slide, or look for "bigger fish to fry" because we are rewarded for fish fried, rather than problems prevented.

I don't know if it's true but they say that if you put a live frog in a pot of water and heat up the water slowly, it won't jump out and you can cook it. The condition of badness is like the water. Don't be the frog.

Posted by Jon Miller at 9:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)