Hansei After Kaizen Event - From the GEMBAPANTEI internet site

www.gembapantei.com

 

For better or worse, the 5-day kaizen event is a generally accepted and standard approach for rapid process improvement as part of a Lean implementation. There are both pros and cons to the 5-day kaizen event, of which more later. The more people learn about the broader definition of kaizen and other ways of doing kaizen as part of daily work and daily management, the more the limits of the 5-day kaizen become evident.

However, in the spirit of improvement we can kaizen those parts of the kaizen event that ought to function better. Just as kaizen experts will walk a process backwards, from end to beginning, shipping to receiving, or customer to supplier, let's start at the end of a kaizen event and how to make it better.

Half or more of the fifth or last day of a kaizen event can be largely wasted if you are not careful. The top three ways this last day of a kaizen event is wasted are:

1) Scheduling the wrap up time to accommodate the flight schedule of the visiting consultant (there are flights departing after 2PM on Friday)

2) Scheduling the wrap up time to accommodate the arrival time of the visiting senior manager (allowable for those managers with the genchi genbutsu habit)

3) Scheduling the wrap up so that you will finish by lunch (and be gorged on celebratory pizza and too sleepy for little more than throwing away pizza boxes in the afternoon)

Go easy on the pizza and spend some time before the end of the last day of the kaizen event coming down from the celebratory high by doing hansei. Hansei is Japanese for "reflection" or the critical "face the facts" session on what didn't work so well and needs improvement. Here are ten topics for hansei after your kaizen event:

1. How well did we select and scope this kaizen event?
What was the purpose of this kaizen event? Which customer-focused, financial and human development aims did it achieve? The aim is to answer the question "What should be a kaizen event?" versus what improvement themes should be tackled through other ways of doing kaizen, such as part of daily work.

2. How thoroughly did we grasp the current condition?
The answer to this is inversely proportional to the amount that you learned (also known as "surprises") about the process or problem during the kaizen event itself. There is always more you can learn, but the better prepared you are for the kaizen event, the more you can move from P to DCA and back through the PDCA cycle again rapidly, as opposed to getting stuck in P due to surprises.

3. How accurately did we define the problem?
If the grasp of the current condition was weak, your initial problem definition may have shifted during the kaizen event. Even if it was strong, you may have addressed one or more root cause versus the true cause. This is a question you can only answer in hindsight, and only if you were able to measure the effectiveness of the actions you took.

4. What processes did we use to identify countermeasures?
Regardless of whether you defined the problem well or poorly, everyone should understand and be able to replicate or improve upon the process of identifying countermeasures to the problem. Again, in hindsight your team members may say "We needed a better grasp of how to apply a particular Lean tool to this problem" or "We could have done more brain storming" or "The ideas we copied from the benchmarking trip were effective". Whatever works, do more of it and whatever did not work, plan to improve it.

5. How well did we implement?
Even the best ideas to fix a problem accurately defined based on a firm grasp of the current condition are nothing without execution. How did we do and how could we do better next time?

6. What were the specific results of actions?
This should already be documented in a summary presentation or as the new standard work. However it is useful to review this as a group (kaizen team, management, steering committee, etc.) so that there is consensus on what was actually achieved and how it is measured. Language can be ambiguous and storytelling can fool us. Use data, photos, and genchi genbutsu to confirm what was measurably and actually improved.

7. What actions remain?
I have yet to experience a kaizen project during which we ran out of improvement ideas to test and implement. Not having implemented enough ideas to get the results needed is a possible hansei finding from 5 and 6 above, in which case remaining actions may include further activities to generate countermeasures. The other possibility is that many more ideas were generated than expected, and this is a very positive thing. One could argue that the duration of the kaizen event could be extended, or that the scope could be narrowed, but the goal is not 100% implementation of all ideas. The two goals of kaizen are measurable progress towards SQDC improvement and better thinking. Many ideas is a sign of thinking.

8. How did we feel about this kaizen event overall?
Here you shift from objective to subjective and allow each person to say what they feel, good or bad. If everyone is satisfied and happy, you may have just experienced a successful kaizen event. Or you low problem awareness. Most likely the pace will have been too slow for some, too fast for others; the results were beyond expectations for some or below expectations of others; some felt their opinions were heard while others may have felt they had very little to contribute.

9. Why?
Break into small groups of 2 to 4 people and go through the five why process on for topics identified in 1 though 8 above. You may wish to group them first using affinity diagrams if this will effectively limit the number of items. Strive for a better subjective experience for all team members, and better objective process and results in the next kaizen event by identifying what needs changing.

10. How will we have a better kaizen event next time?
Based on 9 above, make a prioritized action list of improvements to how you will kaizen the kaizen event. Give yourself bonus points if your action list includes looking for alternatives to the standard five-day kaizen event.

Done properly, this hansei session can totally replace the typical Power Point display of kaizen event results by team members to the management that is standard fare for kaizen event day five. Hansei can be a tough process until people get used to facing the facts and talking about problems openly. Even then the hansei process isn't always a lot of fun. The results are certainly worth it.

8 Wastes in The office

Being able to identify the waste present in a process is a key to any improvement effort. Below is the traditional definition of the 7 wastes (8 actually if you include the wasted talent).

 

•D-efects

•O-verproduction

•W-aiting

•N-on used People

•T-ransportation

•I-nventory

•M-otion

•E-xcess processing

 

 

But what are some examples of this in the office environment. Let's take a closer look to this:

 

- Defects

•Incomplete information, business cases without the proper supporting information, etc.

•

 

- Overproduction

Reports ( same info on Multiple reports, reports not read, excess data entry, PowerPoint presentations.

•

 

 

- Waiting

Signatures, returned phone calls, on-time arrivals (meetings).

•

 

- Non Used People

People working on the same thing, people used as machines, no improvements.

•

 

- Transportation

Documents going from desk to desk, from system to system

•

 

- Inventory

Too many supplies, to many orders, POs, emails

 

- Motion

•Walking to the printer, fax, searching for paper, people of information, sorting papers, orders, invoices, etc

•

 

- Excess Processing

Signature collection, emails bouncing around, interruptions, electronic copies and hardcopies, re-reading emails, Multiple log-ins, passwords.

 

 

It is difficult of being able to see this waste in office processes, because in the offices most of the times we are dealing with information, rather than with physical products.

 

The nature of the processes that we have in an office environment makes also very difficult that we can easily identify what activities are waste (or Non-value added activities).

In the office the processes are either CREATIVE processes or TRANSACTIONAL and in order to see the waste within these type of processes you have to be in a different set of mind, away from the traditional thinking of physical processes.

 

 

is Lean a nightmare?

Yes,

lean is a nightmare in many ways: It is a nightmare for all the people that think that the way to implement lean is by copying over from Toyota and putting it in the same way in their companies. This is a big mistake.

When that happens, you will find people saying thinks like this:

"Lean, which introduced new working practices, has caused work-to-rules in some tax offices. The Public and Commercial Services Union said the terms were examples of Lean's 'excesses and ludicrous nature'.

And Labour MP John McDonnell said: 'The whole system has been a nightmare from start to finish. It treats people like serfs and has brought a once professional operation to a near standstill." (This is an extract from an article. To read the entire article please click here


But why people would say such a thing?

Imagine that you are told today that you have to clean your desk because that is what the company wants.... what would be your response? most likely "screw you, mind your business, @#$k, etc..

That is exactly what happends when people are told what to do. Humans like to feel important and like to discover things on their own. So if you want to implement lean, or whatever other thing in your company or in your family or with your friends, the first behavior that you have to avoid is the behavior of telling what to do.

When implementing radical changes, like implementing lean, you will have to work very hard and for a long period of time in the culture of your company. The culture of your company will be the results of years and years good and bad management, years of frustrations or successes and years of years of doing the same things over and over. Understand what people needs are, understand how people are rewarded, understand how departments are rewarded, understand what type of managers you have (doers, firefighters, leaders, etc). Once you understand this, then you can start thinking how can you adapt a lean implementation for your company.

Always ask first and try to understand, then explain what is what you want to accomplish and explain how that would benefit the others (employees, managers and excecutives).

If you try to start implementing without understanding first you are sure set to failure.

Lean Video on Setting up a JIT assembly line

This is a great video that can be used to teach the principles of lean.

The video is a simulation of an assembly line that initiali is producing in batches and gradualy goes to one piece flow.

The video is 37 minutes long and again it is great for showing the benefits of applying JIT and lean principles

Update on Northwest Shingo Prize Annual Conference (Good things for Lean Office)

This past September the Northwest Shingo Conference took place in Seattle. The event was in general terms "good". The participants had the opportunity to be exposed to the activities that some companies are doing specially in the area of implementation of lean in the office.

The was also some good examples of implementation of lean in the manufacturing sphere, but in my opinion the examples of lean in the office were better, since currently there are not that many companies implementing lean in the office.

I was a little bit disappointed with the presentations of Boeing as well as with the tour that was given to their facilities. The Boeing facility that was visited is far away of being a true lean company. In all fairness to them, they are just starting the journey.
I just thing this was not a good choice for doing a lean tour.

The best company of the conference, was by far Virgina Mason Health care. This company has undergone a transformation. They have implemented Lean in their offices and in their healthcare centers.

The company presented excellent examples of how to use all the lean tools in an office environment. This company is an eye opener for companies that want to make the leap from implementing lean in the production processes to implementing lean in the offices.

Overall I would recommend to all the people interested in lean to participate in such conferences. It is a good way to create a network of people interested in Lean, as well as a good way to get new ideas about how to boost the implementation of lean in your own companies.