Andon – Putting Quality at the Forefront

By Al Norval (bio)

In a couple of recent blogs we’ve talked about Jidoka or Built in Quality at the Source. While it sounds easy, putting it into practice is very difficult. One of the primary reasons for this is it requires a fundamental change in our thinking or as we say a change in our Mental Models.

Let’s start by asking what is Jidoka?

It’s one of the pillars of the Lean Production System and can be defined as:

Providing machines and operators the ability to detect abnormalities and immediately stop work, then call for help and problem solve. At Toyota, it is also known as "autonomation with a human touch". Jidoka allows us to build quality into each process and to free up people from the need to “watch” machines work.

By following this, Jidoka allows machines to do what they do best, which is to detect abnormalities & stop the process and for humans to do what they do best which is to solve problems.

The key connection between the two is Andon which can be defined as:

A signal that notifies operators, supervisors, and maintenance of problems that are occurring at different places throughout the organization or facility. Typically a worker pulls a cord that lights up a signal board when he or she detects a defect. The best Andons will dictate real-time action.

A call for help has gone out. How the organization responds to this depends upon the Mental Models of the organization. If they respond quickly and swarm all over the problem correcting the defect before re-starting the line, they are experiencing the Mental Models of:

• Problems are gold, treasure them!
• Don’t pass junk down the line

If on the other hand, they either don’t respond or come out and play the blame game, they are demonstrating the traditional (non-Lean) Mental Models of:

• Problems are garbage, bury them
• Make the numbers or else

I encourage organizations who are thinking about putting in an Andon system, to work on their human response system first. Ensure you have the capability to respond quickly and problem solve quickly before attempting to go to line stop.

To succeed Andon, Jidoka and in fact all the Lean Tools require a change in our thinking which is only accomplished when we change in our mental models. Where is your organization’s thinking? Where is your organizations mental models? I’d love to hear from you.

For more on Mental Models, please see Lean Pathways.

Cheers

Al


In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Lean Outside the Factory - Reverse Magic!
The Beauty of Making Things
What is Breakthrough?, Part 2
What Does Breakthrough Mean? - Part 1

Andon – Putting Quality at the Forefront

Al Norval

In a couple of recent blogs we’ve talked about Jidoka or Built in Quality at the Source. While it sounds easy, putting it into practice is very difficult. One of the primary reasons for this is it requires a fundamental change in our thinking or as we say a change in our Mental Models.

Let’s start by asking what is Jidoka?

It’s one of the pillars of the Lean Production System and can be defined as:

Providing machines and operators the ability to detect abnormalities and immediately stop work, then call for help and problem solve. At Toyota, it is also known as "autonomation with a human touch". Jidoka allows us to build quality into each process and to free up people from the need to “watch” machines work.

By following this, Jidoka allows machines to do what they do best, which is to detect abnormalities & stop the process and for humans to do what they do best which is to solve problems.

The key connection between the two is Andon which can be defined as:

A signal that notifies operators, supervisors, and maintenance of problems that are occurring at different places throughout the organization or facility. Typically a worker pulls a cord that lights up a signal board when he or she detects a defect. The best Andons will dictate real-time action.

A call for help has gone out. How the organization responds to this depends upon the Mental Models of the organization. If they respond quickly and swarm all over the problem correcting the defect before re-starting the line, they are experiencing the Mental Models of:

• Problems are gold, treasure them!
• Don’t pass junk down the line

If on the other hand, they either don’t respond or come out and play the blame game, they are demonstrating the traditional (non-Lean) Mental Models of:

• Problems are garbage, bury them
• Make the numbers or else

I encourage organizations who are thinking about putting in an Andon system, to work on their human response system first. Ensure you have the capability to respond quickly and problem solve quickly before attempting to go to line stop.

To succeed Andon, Jidoka and in fact all the Lean Tools require a change in our thinking which is only accomplished when we change in our mental models. Where is your organization’s thinking? Where is your organizations mental models? I’d love to hear from you.

For more on Mental Models, please see Lean Pathways.

Cheers

How Standard is Standard Work?

By Al Norval

Are standards like straightjackets? There to limit our movement and our creativity? Many people think so.

In fact, standards are there to help put order into things and thereby reduce the waste and variation in how we work. The key is understanding that Standard Work is the current best way of performing a task. That doesn’t mean it’s the ultimate best way of doing the work. It means it’s the best way we know how right now. As we learn more, we’ll figure out more ways to reduce waste in the work and a new standard will be created. That standard will then become the new least waste way to do the work but again as we identify and remove waste through kaizen, the standard work will change.

Most people can understand the linkage between standard work and the elimination of waste but get confused when it comes to standards and creativity.



I like to think of standard work, like sheet music for musicians. The standards provide the base melody. As people are learning to play an instrument, they need to follow the standards closely but as they obtain mastery of the instrument, they begin to riff on the music and create new standards.

In the words of Taiicho Ohno;

“Without standards there can be no kaizen.”

Standards are the foundation for improvement. They form a stable platform upon which we can experiment and set a hypothesis for improvement using the scientific method. Without a stable base built on standards, we’re just building improvement upon a variable base. Our improvement becomes like a house of cards. One slight deviation and the whole thing comes tumbling down.

Sometimes we can’t follow the standard work due to interruptions and disruptions that occur during the execution of the work. When this occurs, there are two choices;

1. Ignore the cause of the variation and find a workaround
   


2. Signal for help and indicate a problem has occurred
   

Unfortunately most organizations do the former and the workarounds eventually become locked in as the new standard work and the cause of the disruption never gets addressed.

What should happen is that a signal for help goes up. Often this is called an Andon. Help arrives quickly and the standard work is completed and a temporary countermeasure is put in place. The team then goes into problem solving mode and works to eliminate the cause of the disruption so that it doesn’t occur again.

Organizations that understand this know that standards are there to tell us when we can’t meet the standard so that we surface problems. The problems are there anyway, we just need a formal way of surfacing and addressing them or they will become the way we do the work via workarounds.

The key is to make the disruption visible and engage the team in problem solving the root cause.

So, how standard is standard work? It’s standard in the short term but should be constantly changing over time. A rule of thumb I use is that if the standard work hasn’t changed in six months, something is wrong.

Cheers