Building Quality into the Process

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Jidoka is lovely Japanese word with multiple meanings:

• Automation with a human touch,
• Humanized or intelligent automation

Essentially, Jidoka entails giving processes, automated and otherwise, sufficient ‘awareness’ so they can:

• Detect process malfunctions or product defects
• Stop, and
• Alert the operator

Perhaps the simplest definition is ‘to build quality into process using embedded, binary tests’.

Here is a charming example: when our son Matthew was younger, and shooting up like a bean sprout, there were frequent checks on the ‘clothing situation’.

As far as I can tell, the process steps include:

1. Put questionable trousers, shirts and sweaters on top of Matthew’s bed,
2. Matthew tries on each piece, and
3. We keep or discard said piece based on a series of tests.

Here are the tests my wife & Matthew have devised for shirts and sweaters:

1. Can Matthew get it over his noggin?
2. Do the sleeves come up above the wrist?
3. When he raises his arms, can you see his belly button?

These are applied in sequence, of course. You’ll notice they are binary and therefore, self-diagnostic.

The process is very effective – I’d estimate the first time through (FTT) is 100%. It also generates big laughs for the whole family.

Especially ridiculous fits trigger a droll Matthew parade. “Hey everyone, look at this one!”

Best regards,

Pascal


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

Standardized Work for Knowledge Workers
Difference between Hansei and a Post-mortem
TPS and Agile
Beware INITIATIVES

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

One for the Docs

By Pascal Dennis

Doctors are taking a lot of heat these days. Medical mishaps are front page news. A demanding & vocal public no longer accepts substandard patient safety & quality results.

The profession and industry are being held to the same demanding standards as industries like automotive, aerospace and consumer goods. Moreover, physicians are frequently portrayed as the bad guys, the ones holding the organization back.

Much of my personal practice entails coaching senior healthcare leaders, many of them physicians.

The profession is in the midst of great change. Used to be, most docs worked for themselves. Now most docs work for large organizations, and the trend will only accelerate.

Are physicians used to working in teams in complex value streams in large organizations? Do they learn the principles of production physics and system dynamics that govern such value streams?

Does medical school include instruction in the Toyota Production System or in management systems at all, the countermeasures to the daunting Safety, Quality, Delivery and Cost problems hospitals face?

The healing arts entail a demanding apprenticeship. My late father-in-law, the great Dr Robert Guselle, ran Ontario’s biggest clinic. Bob was an intuitive Lean thinker, and early on grasped the promise Toyota methods entailed for healthcare.

But he was a realist too. “I spent ten years in the hermetically sealed tube called medical school. I learned to be imperious and infallible. Changing that mindset is difficult…”

And yet, that’s what we’re beginning to see in a growing number of major hospitals – physician-leaders changing and deepening their mental models and management style, and opening up to learning and proven methods from very different industries.

So here’s a deep bow to the physician-leaders who are spear-heading heart-felt transformation in major hospitals around the world.

You all don`t have to do this. It`s heavy lifting, it’s humbling and sometimes hurts. (You could go to the golf course, cottage, fishing hole…)

I`m lucky enough to work with some of you.

In my mind you walk through porticoes of honor.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Quality in the Hospital Laboratory Process?

By Pascal Dennis

“We’re sorry…” CEO Toronto Hospital for Sick Children

Terrible story, folks, out of the Hospital for Sick Children. Sick Kids apologizes for drug-test failings.

Flaws in the Motherisk laboratory’s hair-strand drug and alcohol testing process might have caused some parents to lose custody of their children. Other parents might face unjust criminal convictions.

Children’s Aid Societies use the results of such tests to make decisions on custody and so on. After months of denial and deflection, the hospital has finally accepted responsibility and apologized.

Cold comfort to the victims, though. How many lives have been damaged?

As always, there are learning points. What are possible causes of this laboratory disasters?

Layout?

• Poor overall layouts result in chaotic work pathways, which increase contamination risk
• Work Area Layout – are all the items technicians needs to do their work within easy reach, or do they have hunt and peck?

5S & Visual Management

• Are reagents, equipment, slides and the rest easy to find? Is it easy to tell, ‘what is it?’, ‘where is it?’ and ‘how many?’

All of these increase contamination risk.

Standardized Work?

• Are there simple, visual standards for the lab’s core ‘recipes’?
• Are standards checked and updated regularly, and ‘owned’ by team members?

Team Member Training Process?

• Are lab team members trained in core standards using robust methods (e.g. TWI)?
• Are team members cross-trained to build capability and ensure requisite skills are in abundance

Daily Accountability?

• Does the hospital’s management system include daily stand up meetings in front of team boards wherein team members are encouraged to make problems visible?

Team Member Involvement and Problem Solving?

• Are team members trained in fundamentals like standardized work, visual management, and problem solving?
• Do leaders at all levels actively support total involvement and daily problem solving?
• Does the Human Resources system support and promote such leaders?

Hard questions, all.

My heart goes out to the victims.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Building Quality into the Process

By Pascal Dennis

Jidoka is lovely Japanese word with multiple meanings:

• Automation with a human touch,
• Humanized or intelligent automation

Essentially, Jidoka entails giving processes, automated and otherwise, sufficient ‘awareness’ so they can:

• Detect process malfunctions or product defects
• Stop, and
• Alert the operator

Perhaps the simplest definition is ‘to build quality into process using embedded, binary tests’.

We had a charming example in our home this week. Our nine-year-old, Matthew, is shooting up like a bean sprout which means frequent checks on the ‘clothing situation’.

As far as I can tell, the process steps include:

1. Put questionable trousers, shirts and sweaters on top of Matthew’s bed,
2. Matthew tries on each piece, and
3. We keep or discard said piece based on a series of tests.

Here are the tests my wife & Matthew have devised for shirts and sweaters:

1. Can Matthew get it over his noggin?
2. Do the sleeves come up above the wrist?
3. When he raises his arms, can you see his belly button?

These are applied in sequence, of course. You’ll notice they are binary and therefore, self-diagnostic.

The process is very effective – I’d estimate the first time through (FTT) is 100%. It also generates big laughs for the whole family.

Especially ridiculous fits trigger a droll Matthew parade. “Hey everyone, look at this one!”

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

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 to Measure Lean?

By Al Norval

One question I get asked by most organizations I deal with is – How do you measure a Lean Implementation?

The background usually goes like this; management is funding a Lean Transformation and wants to ensure they get a return on their investment. They know how much the cost side of the equation is and so management wants to know how much they are saving. They can then decide whether to continue or not based on the numbers they get.

It’s interesting since there are several mental models at work here. The first one is:

I can manage the business by the numbers so give me some numbers.

and

A Lean Transformation can be reduced to a set of financial results.

The next step usually involves setting up elaborate systems to track savings, both bottom line savings and avoided costs or soft savings. This leads to the ensuing arguments of Inventory savings vs. expense savings and Capital vs. partial head count avoided all of which lead to huge savings but as one frustrated company President I talked to said “At the end of the year my pockets are still empty, nothing is hitting the bottom line”.

What people forget is that Lean fundamentally is a growth strategy that goes like this. If we take waste out of the process and provide more value to our customers, we will sell more and be able to use the additional volume to fill in the unused capacity we have generated through the waste reductions. It’s a benevolent cycle based on providing more value to Customers. If we are only measuring savings, we only see part of the equation.

As organizations realize this, they typically move onto measuring the lean implementation as an in-process measure. Usually, the measure is some form of radar chart with the radar representing various tools, often up to 30 different tools, on a 1-5 scale. This forces operational units to implement tools based on the scoring system whether they need to or not. The problem with this approach is tools are easy to measure but they don’t measure thinking and Lean is based on thinking according to the scientific method.

So, what’s the best way to measure lean?

For an in-process measure I like to use the Lead time of a process, the sum of all the value added and non-value added steps in a process. Taking waste out reduces the lead time. Lead time then becomes a good proxy for how lean a process is. For an end of pipe measure I don’t use any special measures. I look at Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and if the organization is meeting its targets and is meeting them by using Lean in the execution of their plans, then they’re doing fine. Of course, this is confirmed by Going to Gemba and checking.

My bottom line - use Lean to close a gap in a business need by engaging people to reduce waste and provide more value to Customers. Measure the value proposition; you can’t go wrong starting with the Customer.

Cheers

Crossing the Chasm

By Pascal Dennis

The past twenty years Lean has gone from strength to strength.

Lean thinking started in automotive, spread across manufacturing, into construction, financial services and health care.

Each of these industries have exemplar organizations that are redefining what's possible in terms of Safety, Quality, Delivery and Cost.

What lies ahead?

I believe we're about to "cross the chasm".

The organizations described above have largely been run by men and women for whom Lean thinking is entirely natural.

"Of course," they say, "this is just common sense and good business!"

They are the innovators and visionaries, the so-called early adopters, who usually lead any profound change -- and they comprise 10 to 15% of organizations.

To cross the chasm and enter the "majority" we'll have to adjust our approach.

Later adopters tend to be very pragmatic. They favour references, structure, standards (and even certificates).

"Show me -- prove it works" is their attitude.

Here at Lean Pathways, we've responded with

1. Brain Booster Pocket Cards and apps,
   
2. Webinars and Images,
   
3. Training materials, and
   
4. Pascal's books
   

We connect newer clients with existing clients, often visionaries who've achieved and sustained breakthrough.

The trick is to sustain the soul of Lean -- that profound merging of East & West -- as we cross the chasm.

The Wizard of Oz gave the Scarecrow a diploma.

We can give people a Lean certificate, but can we give them a brain?

Of course no -- but we can and must help them learn to think, which is what Lean is all about.

Cheers,

Pascal

Jidoka – The Forgotten Pillar

By Al Norval

As we look at the House of Lean, we tend to concentrate on the Foundation and JIT pillar. I’d like to write today about the other pillar – Jidoka for without it, our House of Lean would tilt and the roof would surely come crashing down.

Jidoka or autonomation as it is often translated to, really refers to “Built in Quality at the Source” or even more simply – Don’t pass defects on. Many people forget that high quality and Just In Time go hand in hand. There’s no sense reducing lead times just to move defects faster through the value stream.

I like to think of Jidoka as three things:

1. Don’t accept defects
   
2. Don’t make defects
   
3. Don’t pass defects on
   

The origins of Jidoka go back to the original Toyoda (correct spelling of the family name) family Weaving Loom business. Before they became famous for making automobiles, the family was in the business of making weaving looms that had a reputation for making cloth of very high quality levels.

In the late nineteenth century, people used to sit and watch the weaving machines make cloth waiting for any broken threads which would lead to defects in the cloth. When they saw a broken thread they would stop the machine, repair the thread and restart the machine. Imagine a job like this, watching a machine do the work and reacting only when there was a problem. What a waste.

Toyoda saw this and invented a method whereby the weaving loom would self-detect a break in the thread, stop and alert the operators. The operators could then repair the thread and restart the weaving loom. Now one person could operate many looms and the looms would produce only cloth of the highest quality.

This is where the term Jidoka came from. Autonomation – automation or machines but with a human touch. Ones that can self-detect errors, stop and alert the operator. Now machines can do what they do best which is detecting defects and humans can do what they do best which is problems solving.

By implementing Jidoka, we implement a system that prevents defects from being sent to the next person or operation in the value stream. Now we can begin to introduce JIT and cash in the benefits of reduced inventory and lead time.

Jidoka and JIT – we need both pillars to be working hand in hand to truly provide value to our Customers.

Cheers