Why Not Dream Big? As I was driving the other day, a license plate frame caught my eye. It said something like “I’m driving my silver dream.” The car was nice – a Japanese import that probably ran about $20K new, but has been out of production now for several years. As I sat behind this car at a red light, I realized that there were two ways to interpret the ’silver dream.’ The first Read more…
Conventional wisdom supports the belief that people with formal Lean and Six Sigma training are the ones that are best at making process improvements. While having skills from the Lean ‘toolbox’ is certainly a big plus, it is not the only thing that matters. Often, the personality traits of an individual play a much bigger role in improving operations in the office or on the shop floor. So what are the characteristics of someone who is Read more…
So today I went to the bank to put something in my safe deposit box. While I was there, I was given a refresher course on how to value the customer. Unfortunately, my lesson came from observing a poor example. In the past, I needed to show ID and sign in on a form. The whole process is slow, and needed a healthy dose of kaizen to speed it up. And that’s exactly what they tried Read more…
Continuous improvement often requires us to step outside what we believe to be true and look at the world in a new, different way. Children do this on a regular basis. Why is the sky blue? How do birds fly? What would happen if you were driving at the speed of light and you turned on your headlights? This type of curiosity without fear is the hallmark of the 10-year-old mindset. Children thirst for knowledge Read more…
I had a rather random thought this morning. It would not be much fun to work with a superhero, especially one with super-speed. Imagine the conversation with your boss. “Jeff, you’ve been doing OK, but you just can’t seem to keep up with the day shift. Superman and the Flash always seem to get more work done than you do…” (For those of you who never read a comic book, they both get around pretty Read more…
A Lean implementation is the initial period of time when a company or organization is putting Lean in place. While most people look at it as a discrete event, in truth, there is often a long period where different parts of an organization are rolling out Lean. So, different departments within the company may be at different stages in their Lean implementation. Often, a rollout starts with a pilot area. This lets the leadership team Read more…
Credibility is trustworthiness. Credibility comes from a track record of getting things right. Lean, despite its global success, has to earn its credibility within a company. It is not enough for a leader to talk about the virtues of Lean, or to point to external examples. Employees have to see a record of success on their home turf for them to start seeing Lean as a viable solution. When Lean gets that history of successes Read more…
The people actually doing a process a new way are at the frontline of change. They are the ones who must enforce new processes with internal customers, manage changes with suppliers, or work with customers to educate them about the new and improved methods. Working at the frontline of change can be physically challenging, as it often demands long hours during the adjustment period, but it can also be emotionally draining. One of the most Read more…
Growth is the driver of stock appreciation. The basic way investors determine what to pay for a stock is to look at the value of its assets, minus its liabilities, and then factor in expected future earnings. With growth, those expected earnings get bigger, and the company’s stock prices go up. The reverse is also true. Once growth is factored into the stock prices, falling short of those targets will make the stock drop, even Read more…
Optimization is the act of making a system as effective as possible by adjusting the controllable variables. In a nutshell, optimization means figuring out where to set all the controls to make the company, system, process, or other aspect of your life do what you want it to do. “Effective” in this definition is defined by whoever is developing the system. Optimization can be maximization (profit), minimization (costs), or targeting some specific numbers (temperature and Read more…
Lean Six Sigma is the combination of Lean and Six Sigma into a single business philosophy. Lean is commonly thought of as a way to improve process speed. Six Sigma is primarily considered a quality tool. In truth, though, the two both share a lot of the same tools, and both focus heavily on problem solving. Combining the two into Lean Six Sigma was a logical step to leverage the strengths of both. In fact, Read more…
A spaghetti chart is a visual depiction of the flow of a person through their workstation. The spaghetti chart may also be used to depict the flow of information and materials as well. Typically, the chart is done on a Standard Work Sheet, mostly out of convenience. The sheet may already be available with the work area’s layout drawn in, and it has a grid on it to make drawing the spaghetti chart easier. It Read more…