Evolving Excellence

A Lean Look at Task Management

How effective are you at juggling multiple tasks?  What is the effect of irrelevant tasks on value-added activities?    A hat tip to Management Craft and The Coyote Within for finding this study in the journal Nature on the human ability to manage tasks.

The study describes how a typical human can only manage three or four "objects" at a time... the "extreme limitation."  How many of us have desks cluttered with a myriad of projects, and how many of us have tried many methods of managing tasks... from writing in a day planner to advanced computer systems?  I personally use a very simple system of writing tasks on Post-It notes, which I organize every couple of days.  This presents some problems as I work out of three separate offices, but I have never had the fortitude to keep a mobile electronic task list.

Management, especially in a manufacturing environment, requires the processing of a large number of inputs to create outputs.  At any one time we're watching production metrics, battling quality problems, managing customer situations, providing input to other functional silos, answering to bosses... all while trying to drive lean initiatives.  As the lean initiatives begin to take hold we start to see a simplification, but perhaps we can still do better. 

As lean leaders we all know the sometimes counterintuitive power of one piece flow.  Can the same be applied to personal task management?  What would happen if we only focus on two or at most three tasks at a time, and drive them to completion?  True effective output would probably improve.

Another perspective from the study's conclusion:

"A study of brain activity in subjects performing a task in which they were asked to 'hold in mind' some of the objects and ignore other objects has revealed significant variation between individuals in their ability to keep the irrelevant items out of awareness.  This shows that our awareness is not determined only by what we can 'keep in mind' but also by how good we are at keeping irrelevant things 'out of mind'.  This also implies that an individuals effective memory capacity may not simply reflect storage space, as it does with a hard disk.  It may also reflect how efficiently irrelevant information is excluded from using up vital storage capacity."

Those of us in our 40's and beyond are already very much aware of the "storage capacity" dilemma.  But the study's conclusion is also very relevant to our managers and employees.  As managers we have to be able to distinguish valuable data and activities from the irrelevant, and not waste time on the irrelevant.  It is especially critical to our production operators, particularly those in a lean environment, that they are freed from having to work on or even think about irrelevant (ie non value added) activities.  These types of activities add inherent waste, but as the study points out they can also decrease effectiveness even when working on the value-added side of things.

Excellence through simplicity.

Carnival of Lean Leadership #4

Welcome to the fourth Carnival of Lean Leadership.  There's a lot of material to cover this time, so we'll get right to it...

The highlight of the past week has been the "blogfest" on project kaizen by "The Gang of Seven", which includes our own Bill Waddell.  Over 30 blog posts on the subject, and therefore a lot of reading... and re-reading and re-reading to truly capture all the great ideas.  Special thanks to Hal Macomber at Reforming Project Management for organizing this activity.  The posts from The Gang of Seven:

• Bill Waddell at EvolvingExcellence: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4
• Hal Macomber at Reforming Project Management: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5, post 6
• Chuck Frey at Innovation Tools: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5
• Joe Ely at Learning About Lean: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5, post 6
• Jon Miller at Gemba Panta Rei: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4
• Mark Graban at Lean Manufacturing Blog: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4
• Norm Bodek at Kaikaku: post 1, post 2

Along the way they found a couple honorary members of the Gang of Seven:

• Kathleen Fasanella at Fashion-Incubator: post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5
• Eric at Grim Reader: post 1, post 2

Hal is apparently creating a summary of the posts, so keep an eye on his blog, Reforming Project Management.

Now on to some notable posts at other lean-oriented blogs:

• At Evolving Excellence we've discussed the six revolutions that will affect the future of business, and we've continued to push the point that the decline in the U.S. auto industry is a result of poor leadership, not market conditions.
• Fashion-Incubator is a blog we've just come across, with a fascinating perspective on a type of manufacturing many of us aren't often exposed to.  Kathleen talks about several garment industry issues that pertain to lean, such as direction cards and pattern numbers.
• Gemba Panta Rei has a hilarious article on the "Kaizen Cops in Kenya".
• Got Boondoggle has great posts on extending genchi gembutsu beyond the plant walls and putting creativity before capital. 
• The Lean Manufacturing Blog talks about lean consumption and transportation and asks where's the innovation in closing plants.
• Learning About Lean has an article on how to make a plant hum.
• iSixSigma blogs about six sigma at Amazon and also at Target.

Some notable posts in management excellence blogs include:

• Project, Process, and Business Improvement tells us why it's cheaper to train people.
• Make It Great talks about genius.
• NAM's Manufacturer's Blog has a post on the Innovation Summit.
• Management Craft has a great article on how not to let benchmarking influence creativity.
• Slow Leadership tell us about the importance of benign neglect.
• High Performance Business tells us about the pitfalls we'll run into when creating high performing businesses.
• Curious Cat has a couple of good blogs on innovate or avoid risk and data-based decision-making.
• Business Pundit analyzes Google's ten golden rules for business success.
• Business2 has a post on the virtual economy, where Chinese gamers are being paid to play video games.
• Business & Technology Reinvention has a list of 20 bright business ideas.
• The Common Sense Guy has some great tips on how to manage email.
• And last but definitely not least (sorry... went in reverse order this week!), Be Excellent describes the differences between customer and business excellence.

That's it for this edition.  Let me know if I'm missing any important blogs!

Tales from a Lean Benchmarking Trip to Japan

Yesterday we did a summary of Mark Graban's tour of NUMMI, which is a six-part series on his Lean Manufacturing Blog.  Today we have a similar summary, this time of Eric Sander's lean manufacturing benchmarking trip to Japan, which is a three-part series on the Gemba Panta Rei blog. 

Part #1: This first post describes a visit to a bolt-maker, where he describes how lean can be applied to traditionally batch manufacturing processes.  Later he visited a company that designs and builds custom manufactured homes... using lean methods.  Considerable effort is put into removing waste to reduce the cycle time.

Part #2: Eric describes his visit to Toyota's Tsutsumi Plant.  The most impressive aspect appears to be the orchestration of parts... small lots of parts continually moving to the point of use.  Also the extensive use of andon lights and other visual controls.

Part #3: This final post describes his visit to Omron Taiyo, which manufactures electronic parts.  This company really focuses on maximizing team member efficiency and involvement by using simple supportive automation, tools, and processes.  They do not believe that a physical handicap is an excuse for not performing, and therefore they put considerable resources into engineering the workstations.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, visits to other manufacturing operations can provide a wealth of improvement ideas for your own operation.  Several organizations sponsor formal tours of plants; for example the Association for Manufacturing Excellence puts on a well-known "Western Region Lean Tour", which visits several manufacturing operations in southern California.

Carnival of Lean Leadership #3

We'll try a slightly different format for this third installment of our biweekly Carnival.  To read the first two Carnivals, click here and here.  Here are some of our favorite posts over the last couple weeks from our favorite blogs.  If I've missed anyone, please let me know.

Starting off with the Lean-oriented blogs:

• A big welcome to Norman Bodek, who has started his own blog, Kaikaku.  Norman is well known for his Shingo Prize winning books.  His first post is on Kaikaku and Kaizen as the "twin sisters" that can drive world class competitiveness.
• Gemba Panta Rei has a great post on "genchi gembutsu", which means making decisions "on site with the actual things."  Basically going to the gemba to make the decision on the spot instead of taking the time (muda) to create reports that can't show the entire story.  They also chime in on the "are awards like Shingo muda?" discussion started by Bill Waddell at Evolving Excellence, buy asking if there should be an Ohno Prize.
• Mark Wroblewski's Got Boondoggle blog continues its ongoing series on standard work instructions by discussing the implications of file size.  And he also adds to the "are awards muda" discussion at Gemba and Evolving Excellence by discussing the dangers of lean manufacturing awards.
• Luke Van Dongen at the Lean Manufacturing Blog has a post asking if the value of a process can be defined by its output.  An interesting question when you stop to think about it, especially from the perspective of a customer.  Mark Graban also writes about how the Air Force is trying to go Lean.  There have been several Lean initiatives within the military, but to my knowledge this is the first force-wide commitment.
• Six Sigma Blog adds to the holiday cheer with a post on "Thanksgiving Design of Experiments"... what is the most effective way to pop your popcorn?  On a more serious note they also have an excellent discussion on six sigma and the sales process.
• In Evolving Excellence Bill Waddell discusses the GM layoff announcement and issues associated with middle management in "Missing a Few Rungs on the Corporate Ladder."  Evolving Excellence also turned one year old this month, which gave me an opportunity for some reflection.

On to more generic business improvement topics:

• The Be Excellent blog has a good post on how to get the most out of your organization's future leaders, with the top required characteristic being "visioning".
• Bud Bilanich's Common Sense Guy blog continues an excellent series on mentoring, with parts nine and ten discussing the power of personal stories of triumph and failure.
• David Daniels' Business & Technology Reinvention blog asks "are you renting customers" by focusing on price and not on creating lasting customer loyalty.
• Jon Strande at Business Evolutionist discusses the four major components of good product design.
• The Business 2.0 blog has a poll going on the "smartest company of the year."
• Business Pundit discusses a recent research report comparing different manufacturing strategies that favor competing on price or competing on innovation.  The answer: innovation wins hands down.
• IdeaFlow also discusses the same report.
• Curious Cat has a similarly themed post on productivity improvement from R&D and innovation.
• Focused Performance has a short post on three bad habits that some people are positive attributes... like multi-tasking.
• High Performance Business has a post on the importance of attitude and being a positive force.
• Management Craft has a survey on best management conferences, and you know that our favorites are the ones on the left... the Association for Manufacturing Excellence annual conference and the Lean Accounting Summit.  The blog also has a good post on "de-hassling", which ties right into the waste reduction activities of Lean.
• Managing Product Development has a post on project complexity and project risk.
• The NAM blog has a three part (and counting) series on manufacturers and Thanksgiving here, here, and here where they focus on manufacturers that help make the holiday happen.
• Phil Gerbyshak's Make It Great blog has a post on the lost art of interpersonal communication... something a lot of us could be better at.
• Random Thoughts from a CTO has a post on "delivering on your promises"... some great tips on creating win-win situations with your customers.
• Slacker Manager has a post on "the Drucker paradox"... why are his ideas so widely read but so rarely practiced?

I think that's a wrap for this Carnival!

Tales from a Tour of NUMMI

Over the past few weeks Mark Graban at the Lean Manufacturing Blog has posted several articles describing his visit to the NUMMI plant.  NUMMI is a joint venture between GM and Toyota, located in Fremont, California, and currently has 5,500 team members making a variety of vehicles for both companies.  With a heritage from Toyota, they have a strong foundation in Lean.  Mark's posts are an excellent read, and are summarized below:

Post #1: Mark discusses an escalator that isn't operable, but the practical and frugal side of TPS made NUMMI decide to intentionally not repair it as it wasn't needed.  His closing question: how often do you spend money because you "should" rather than really questioning the spending?

Post #2: A specific instance of continuous improvement is described, where the time to clean recycled metal carrier racks was reduced from four hours to one through a simple use of aluminum foil.  Clever, but as Mark correctly asks, what is the true root cause for why they needed to be cleaned in the first place?

Post #3: Many companies use the "5 Why's" method to identify root cause, but how many actually explain why?  Mark describes an example of why "explaining why", particularly from the perspective of the customer, is important. 

Post #4: A "pull gift shop".

Post #5: Even a good Lean plant can have problems.  In this post Mark describes how the NUMMI plan had backslid on some work practices, and was having to recalibrate and move forward again (at the insistance of a GM manager no less).  The point is that they recognized they had a problem, and did not try to cover it up.

Post #6: Standard work and 5S aren't one-time events.  They must be continually monitored, audited, and updated.  NUMMI has a visual process for monitoring their standard work activities.

I always enjoy touring manufacturing plants, especially ones that have pockets of excellence.  I come away with notebooks full of ideas to digest, and sometimes even over-enthusiasm to try some of them without thinking them through.  It sounds like Mark had a similar experience, and I'd like to thank him for posting some of his observations.

Fix What's Broken

One of my favorite weblogs lately is Mark Hurst's This Is Broken.  Almost every day he posts photos of "broken" signs, processes, designs, and service.  Most are not directly related to manufacturing, but they are situations that often occur in our operations.

For example, how many of us deal with counterintuitive process instructions?  Mike Woblewski's Got Boondoggle blog has had an excellent series on creating good work instructions, and organizing instructions in a logical format is critical.  A recent post on This Is Broken has an example of another document that is not entirely intuitive.

How often do we just put up confusing explanatory (or apologetic) signs instead of simply fixing the problem?  Here's an example.  Be sure to read some of the comments in response to that post... these are non-manufacturing (presumably) people who are thinking like us!  And we all have run into problems with product design similar to this.  And how about a problem with too much customer service... or at least driven by the wrong incentives... as this post describes.  Again, read the comments.

We've all stood in lines at the bank, McDonald's, or the DMV where the lean manufacturer genie in us began dreaming up (often during impatient fits of frustration and anger) process improvements.  How many of us have considered writing a booklet on "5S for the Home" to give to our spouse... and then decided better of it? 

The potential for waste reduction and process improvement exists everywhere... not just in manufacturing.

Carnival of Lean Leadership #2

This is post number 100 for the Evolving Excellence blog, and it is therefore appropriate that we celebrate blogs themselves by creating the second Carnival of Lean Leadership.  Here's a link to the first one.  By no means do we want to claim the CoLL as ours alone, therefore we welcome other like-minded blogs to help us create future versions.  Just contact us so we can help coordinate timing so we don't duplicate efforts.  On we go....

Got Boondoggle, a practical shop floor oriented blog, goes into good detail with three posts on how to implement "standard work".  An earlier post talks about one of our favorite subjects, the importance of going to the gemba.  The Gemba Panta Rei blog finds a unique application of lean government in Indonesia, where government officials are actually going to the tsunami devastated fishing villages to ask the villagers what they need.  There are also some notes from a benchmarking trip to Japan, where Eric Sander visited lean companies in a variety of industries.

Learning About Lean has two good posts on coaching.  Mark Graban at the Lean Manufacturing Blog has a two part interview (part 1, part 2) with Jim Womack, author of Lean Solutions.  Jim Womack was also the keynote speaker at the AME Conference last week, and received a rousing reception as detailed at Evolving Excellence. 

But this was also the week that Jim Womack took quite a bit of flack for his widely-distributed email missive, where he discussed Delphi's supposed Lean successes in light of their recent bankruptcy filing.  Bill Waddell at Evolving Excellence looks at some facts and concludes that Delphi may have some Lean plants, but as a company it really isn't... with management really being the culprit.  The Lean Manufacturing Blog comes to the same conclusion with a follow-on comment about Delphi's "fake lean" that questions the quality metrics that helped some Delphi plants win Shingo Prizes, as does a very hard-hitting post at Gemba Panta Rei. 

My co-author at Evolving Excellence, Bill Waddell, unrelentingly took Delphi to task with a few more posts, all centered around "Looking vs Being Lean", and ending up with an excellent explanation of the problems of the Sloan/DuPont ROI financial model vs the Toyota/Ford (back in the Henry Ford days!) cash model.  Delphi wasn't the only auto company taking some hits... Ford made the news with its crackdown on bathroom breaks, with commentary from the Lean Manufacturing Blog here and Evolving Excellence here.

Breaking away from the manufacturing side of things and moving into leadership, Agile Management has an interesting post on why project estimating is muda, and suggests a method of "agile estimating".  iSixSigma has a lengthy discussion on finding the right change agent.  The National Association of Manufacturers blog has an amusing, well maybe it's really not, post on China's double standard when it comes to intellectual property protection... maybe we should all adopt their Olympic logo?  And they continue their assault on trial lawyers.

The Be Excellent blog has a post on the 10 steps to effective strategy execution, which is critical as we approach the new year.  Business Innovation has an intriguing interview with the CEO of FedEx, where he describes their philosophy of innovation and business excellence.  The Business & Technology Reinvention blog has a post on value creation principles, which are a little different than what those of us in the Lean world may come up with.

Hal Macomber's Reforming Project Management has a post on the fallacies of the pareto principle.  BusinessPundit has a brief discussion of an HBS article on job design.  The Common Sense Guy has a 7 part (and counting!) series on mentoring future leaders... some ideas and suggestions on how to improve the mentoring process.  Curious Cat has a good article on lean information technology... that's one facet of lean that is sometimes ignored.

Clark Ching's blog has a very interesting post on using TOC principles in the hospital surgical setting.  Focused Performance also links to that post, and has another post on how Bayer Diagnostics is using TOC.  IdeaFlow has two articles on learning from failure and creating a culture of business experimentation.  Management Craft has a good article on listening versus talking... something many of us have a problem with.

Most of us have been preaching the virtues of speed... faster faster faster... so here's a different take: there is a blog called Slow Leadership, with a recent post on "Over-worked and Under-concerned."  Something to think about. 

That's a wrap for tonight.  If I've missed any good blogs, be sure to let me know!

Carnival of Lean Leadership

Those of you who are regular blog readers know that a "blog carnival" is a post that links to recent posts at many other blogs that revolve around a central topic.  The concept was originally popularized by politically-oriented blogs, with topics such as "carnival of the capitalists" and "carnival of liberty", but has also extended to more mainstream topics like "carnival of the recipes" and "carnival of the cats."  So... here we go with an attempt at a "carnival of lean leadership"...

Lean government has been a topic in several blogs, including our own Evolving Excellence, especially in light of the budgetary issues surrounding the hurricane Katrina relief effort.  The Gemba Panta Rei blog also discusses how Iowa's governor is using kaizen and other tools to create a lean state government.  Curious Cat has a couple of recent posts on the same topic, beginning with a reference to the Gemba blog and some additional detail on "leaning" the child welfare system.  A later post then describes various winners of the first Public Sector Shingo Prize, such as Robins Air Force Base, Letterkenny Army Depot, and others.  Business & Technology Reinvention also discusses government... from a leadership standpoint.

Decision-making is a recent focus of the Learning About Lean blog, with a discussion on the wisdom of Peter Drucker.  The Be Excellent blog, one of our favorites, has a great article on the characteristics of a good leader.

Losing and winning are topics in two of our favorites.  The Common Sense Guy shows how leadership lessons from a baseball team can transform a culture of losing by creating a plan, communicating the plan, and executing the plan.  The Lean Manufacturing Blog discusses the same Wall Street Journal article from a factory perspective.

Quality is the focus of one of the newest blogs, Mike Wroblewski's Got Boondoggle.  This particular post compares Catholic sins to defects... an interesting and thought-provoking perspective.  Mike's blog has several other top-notch articles on root cause and other topics.  iSixSigma has a very active blog focusing on... six sigma.  Many of the posts describe six sigma successes at various companies, but others discuss issues such as the impact of six sigma on innovation.

SuccessFactors is a good place to start to explore the people side of lean leadership.  A recent post talked about how to improve the performance management process.  The High Performance Business blog has a detailed article on teambuilding.  Strategize discusses customer-centric management and the always-favorite Fast Company has a good article how to "listen to the whisper" when working on your organization's vision and mission.  Management Craft really wants you to get your staff to start thinking outside of the box.

For the more political side of manufacturing, take a look at the blog of the National Association of Manufacturers.  Their posts discuss the manufacturing side of issues such as the supreme court, taxation, unions, and even the Kyoto Accord.

That's it for this carnival.  We'll try to do this again every few weeks.  If you have a favorite lean leadership blog, please let us know.  Keeping up with blogs can be time-consuming... so we suggest using the free Bloglines to automatically keep you updated on new posts from your entire list of blogs... including Evolving Excellence from Superfactory.

Six Sigma Blog - Charting the Successes of Lean and Six Sigma

iSixSigma, the well-known Six Sigma resource site, has an interesting blog, SixSigmaCompanies.  Many of the posts detail the Six Sigma activities at well-known companies, such as Whirlpool, CIGNA, American Standard, and Maytag.  Others are interviews with people such as Craig Gygi, co-author of Six Sigma for Dummies.

The Lean world has been meshing with Six Sigma for several years, and many consultants are now touting the concept of "Lean Sigma".  There are obviously benefits, drawbacks, and optimum applications of each concept.  As the blog notes in the post on Whirlpool,

"Just like clothes need a washer and dryer to get clean, Whirlpool has been using Six Sigma and Lean to scrub away inefficiencies.  The latest savings report totaled $175 million in the first three years.  Operational Excellence at Whirlpool does more than just cut costs, it has also been know to shorten cycle times while increasing quality and productivity."

Just one more example of the success of Six Sigma and Lean.  Take a look at the SixSigmaCompanies to keep an eye on the Six Sigma world.

NASCAR - A Model for Lean?

A post on the Lean Manufacturing Blog (excellent reading, by the way!) reminded us again of the lessons that NASCAR can give the lean world.

Watch the finely-honed processes (standard work) as the cars pull into the pit stop.  Tires are changed, the car is gassed up, windshield cleaned... in around 15 seconds.  Now there's a quick changeover for you!

Even some of the activities behind the scenes... the pit crew watches video of each pit stop to identify... and proceduralize... improvements.

Next time you're laboring through a four hour press changeover, just think NASCAR.