Poka-Yoke – Preventing Inadvertent Errors

By Al Norval (bio)

We talk a lot about the House of Lean with its foundation of Standards & Stability and the two pillars of Just In Time and Jidoka supporting a roof of Customer and Strategic Direction which together encompass engaged Team Members continually solving problems.

All of this makes sense but what is this Japanese word – Jidoka?

It’s built in quality at the source. Rather than try to inspect and test quality in by looking for defects on finished product, a losing cause at best, lean organizations build in quality at the actual value added operation. That way defects can be caught early and they don’t have to reply as heavily on final inspection testing.

The big advantage to Jidoka is that by catching defects early in the process, they are closer to the actual process conditions that caused the defect and therefore closer to root cause. They can launch problem solving faster with a higher chance of getting to root cause since the process conditions wouldn’t have changed as much.

Jidoka has four parts:

• Detecting defects
• Alerting or signaling a problem
• Immediate response - temporary countermeasures to get running again
• Root cause problem solving and countermeasures to prevent the occurrence of the defect.

This is where Poka-Yoke comes in. It’s about the final step in Jidoka of preventing the re-occurrence of the defect. Lean organizations realize that errors are inevitable. Human beings make errors that cause defects. By eliminating the possibility of the error being made, defects could be eliminated. Poka-Yoke is used to prevent these errors being made. Translated it means “Preventing inadvertent mistakes” since it’s believed people don’t make mistakes on purpose. This is consistent with the lean principle of “Respect for People”

The best Poka-Yoke devices are physical devices that eliminate the possibility of an error occurring. Weaker Poka-Yoke countermeasures would be signs and warning systems but these could be overridden and the error could still occur.

Organizations are always looking for ways to get employees involved and having teams develop Poka-Yoke devices that prevent errors from being made is a great way to do this. It’s a win-win. Employees are engaged in problem solving, quality gets better for customers.

For more on Poka-Yoke, download the free Lean Pathways “LEAN MANIFESTO”

Cheers

Al


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

Making the Invisible Visible in Design Projects
Two Pillars of the Lean Business System
Why Do We Learn More from What Did Not Work?
Failure is a Requirement for Innovation

Lean Hotels

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Lean in the service industries is a frequent topic in this blog.

The great hotel chains -- Ritz, Hyatt, Marriott, Westin, Disney and others -- are superb Lean companies.

Marriott's Twelve Guiding Principles of Leadership and Customer Service, for example, reads like a Lean manifesto:

1. Continually challenge your team to do better.
   


2. Take good care of your employees, and they’ll take good care of your customers, and the customers will come back.
   


3. Celebrate your people’s success, not your own.
   


4. Know what you’re good at and mine those competencies for all you’re worth.
   


5. Do it and do it now. Err on the side of taking action.
   


6. Communicate. Listen to your customers, associates and competitors.
   


7. See and be seen. Get out of your office, walk around, make yourself visible and accessible.
   


8. Success is in the details.
   


9. It’s more important to hire people with the right qualities than with specific experience.
   


10. Customer needs may vary, but their bias for quality never does.
    


11. Eliminate the cause of a mistake. Don’t just clean it up.
    


12. View every problem as an opportunity to grow.
    

Marriott's standard - our principles will be in the nightstand drawer of every Marriott room.

A few years ago, I was staying at the Sharm al Shaikh Marriott, at the bottom of the Sinai peninsula.

Being a natural pain, I decided to check Marriott's adherence to its standards, in this relatively remote hotel.

Sure enough, I found the principles were there were supposed to be.

The hotel manager smiled when I told him, and described Marriott's training & development processes.

Ritz, Hyatt, Westin, Disney & the rest all have corresponding principles & practices. Well done - and please continue!

Are there any other industries that could learn from Lean hotels?

Oh, I don't know, perhaps Health Care...?

Best regards,

Pascal

Poke Yoke – Preventing Inadvertent Errors

By Al Norval

We talk a lot about the House of Lean with its foundation of Standards & Stability and the two pillars of Just In Time and Jidoka supporting a roof of Customer and Strategic Direction which together encompass engaged Team Members continually solving problems.

All of this makes sense but what is this Japanese word – Jidoka?

It’s built in quality at the source. Rather than try to inspect and test quality in by looking for defects on finished product, a losing cause at best, lean organizations build in quality at the actual value added operation. That way defects can be caught early and they don’t have to reply as heavily on final inspection testing.

The big advantage to Jidoka is that by catching defects early in the process, they are closer to the actual process conditions that caused the defect and therefore closer to root cause. They can launch problem solving faster with a higher chance of getting to root cause since the process conditions wouldn’t have changed as much.

Jidoka has four parts:

• Detecting defects
• Alerting or signaling a problem
• Immediate response - temporary countermeasures to get running again
• Root cause problem solving and countermeasures to prevent the occurrence of the defect.

This is where Poka Yoke comes in. It’s about the final step in Jidoka of preventing the re-occurrence of the defect. Lean organizations realize that errors are inevitable. Human beings make errors that cause defects. By eliminating the possibility of the error being made, defects could be eliminated. Poka Yoke is used to prevent these errors being made. Translated it means “Preventing inadvertent mistakes” since it’s believed people don’t make mistakes on purpose. This is consistent with the lean principle of “Respect for People”

The best Poka Yoke devices are physical devices that eliminate the possibility of an error occurring. Weaker Poka Yoke countermeasures would be signs and warning systems but these could be overridden and the error could still occur.

Organizations are always looking for ways to get employees involved and having teams develop Poka Yoke devices that prevent errors from being made is a great way to do this. It’s a win-win. Employees are engaged in problem solving, quality gets better for customers.

For more on Poke Yoke, see The Lean Pathways “LEAN MANIFESTO”

Cheers

Lean Hotels

By Pascal Dennis

Lean in the service industries is a frequent topic in this blog.

The great hotel chains -- Ritz, Hyatt, Marriott, Westin, Disney and others -- are superb Lean companies.

Marriott's Twelve Guiding Principles of Leadership and Customer Service, for example, reads like a Lean manifesto:

1. Continually challenge your team to do better.
   


2. Take good care of your employees, and they’ll take good care of your customers, and the customers will come back.
   


3. Celebrate your people’s success, not your own.
   


4. Know what you’re good at and mine those competencies for all you’re worth.
   


5. Do it and do it now. Err on the side of taking action.
   


6. Communicate. Listen to your customers, associates and competitors.
   


7. See and be seen. Get out of your office, walk around, make yourself visible and accessible.
   


8. Success is in the details.
   


9. It’s more important to hire people with the right qualities than with specific experience.
   


10. Customer needs may vary, but their bias for quality never does.
    


11. Eliminate the cause of a mistake. Don’t just clean it up.
    


12. View every problem as an opportunity to grow.
    

Marriott's standard - our principles will be in the nightstand drawer of every Marriott room.

A few years ago, I was staying at the Sharm al Shaikh Marriott, at the bottom of the Sinai peninsula.

Being a natural pain, I decided to check Marriott's adherence to its standards, in this relatively remote hotel.

Sure enough, I found the principles were there were supposed to be.

The hotel manager smiled when I told him, and described Marriott's training & development processes.

Ritz, Hyatt, Westin, Disney & the rest all have corresponding principles & practices. Well done - and please continue!

Are there any other industries that could learn from Lean hotels?

Oh, I don't know, perhaps Health Care...?

Back to Basics

By Al Norval

The dog days of summer have passed, fall is here, the air is crisp and winter is just around the corner. It’s one of my favorite times of year which means it’s football season. As I write this, training camps have broken and the regular season is well under way. It’s mid-season so every team is still in the race.

What do football and Lean have in common? Many things, the most important being how they pay attention to the basics. The basics of football are blocking and tackling. The basics of Lean are making problems visible and problem solving.

Football training camps that began several weeks ago, opened with the basics of blocking & tackling. Why do they start with the basics? In football, the teams have to block and tackle on every play. If they can’t get those right, there is no way they can get the more advanced plays right. The basics of blocking and tackling are a foundation for everything else. They need to be good at the foundational basics so they can build upon them. If not, it’s like building a house of cards and we all know teams like that.

The basics of Lean are found in the foundation of the House of Lean. Like football, Lean needs a solid foundation of Standard & Stable processes to build upon. Lean uses 5S and Visual Management to make waste and problems visible and a simple problem solving process to engage team members in solving problems. The outcome of problem solving often is standards and/ or standardized work by which the improvements are locked in. By solving problems and strengthening the underlying processes, we build a solid foundation upon which to move into JIT and Jidoka.

So, standards and standardized work lock in improvements. Sounds like football again where each play is standardized work and where more advanced options build upon the foundational standard plays.

For more on basics and Lean, see the Lean Manifesto at www.leansystems.org.