Great Post – The Silly Cycle

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]Just came across a great post here by Christian Paulsen at the Lean Leadership Blog.  He compares the PDCA cycle that Deming preached to the “Silly Cycle” that replaces the PCA with Do, Do, Do.  This post really hit home with the way we run around “doing” things rather than thinking them through.

As a leader do you encourage any action to be done regardless of root cause analysis?  Do you punish those who are thinking a problem through and not just out there “doing” something?  It’s an easy trap to fall into.  Have you ever felt you had to have something to tell the corporate office on a problem?  The more countermeasures thrown at the problem the better right????  Wrong!!!!

Take the time to reinforce with your teams the value of the PDCA cycle.  Reward them for thinking a problem through.  Ask the tough questions around causal explanation and experimentation.  Ensure you create time from all the “doing” for your teams to work on the Act portion, implementing systems!

The PCDA cycle will not only fix your problems, but more importantly, develop problem solvers that can fix even more problems!

Bryan

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Goalpost Quality – Taguchi Losses and SPC

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]Delighting customers with a high quality product that performs to expectations is one of the best ways to secure and grow a business. This results in long term security for each player in the extended value stream.  Today I’d like to discuss a couple of perspectives on manufacturing quality products and how it affects customers.  One of those perspectives eventually relates to football, so hang in there with me!

Insanity Metrics

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]Remember the saying “don’t put off until tomorrow that which you can do today?”  I developed a new variance of this old saying based on some recent events.  “Don’t put off until tomorrow that which you can do today, unless is clashes with a concrete head metric!”

The addition stems around the postponing of a kaizen event until a later date.  Regardless of your opinion on the success of a kaizen blitz for long term success, this particular event was important, as it centered on a QCO on the bottleneck of a sold out value stream.  It would generate immediate improvement to the business bottom line.

Let people make mistakes? Tough Love of Leadership!

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]While leading an event this week, I came across a common situation that I have faced over the years.  The group, very new to pull, wanted to implement a particular piece of the pull system in an exact same way that I have failed in a past life.  Despite my best efforts through education and description of the past shortcomings, I couldn’t convince them to set it up any other way.  As an event leader what do you do next?    Impose your will on the group or let them make the mistake and learn the hard way?

Remember – We Want to See Problems

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]Ok, you’ve followed your formula for your lean transformation.  Maybe you value stream mapped, put in some standard work, developed some pull systems, improved your critical changeover times, trained all your teammates, and ran a few simulations.  Now the big moment comes and you flip the switch on the system.  You are now running to the new principles and methods.  What happens next?

Roundtable 6 – Are kaizen events ‘good’?

Staatsrat by jonas k under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]The ‘posters’ of the Lean Is Good blog have grown to four in number. Each of us brings a different background and set of experiences around Deming, lean, and learning. How could we leverage this diversity of thought and voice for the benefit of our readers? We ‘planned’ and came up with an idea that we could each briefly answer a question once a week.  We will post a poll so that readers can interact when it is reasonable for the question asked. The order that the answers appear in will be randomized each time. Please join us by adding your comments. We would like to hear from you.

The question:

Are kaizen ‘events’ good? Do they fit in a healthy implementation? When? For what?

Rountable 4 – Would you rather have 3 good improvement activities or 1 great one?

Staatsrat by jonas k under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Share Alike

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]The ‘posters’ of the Lean Is Good blog have grown to four in number. Each of us brings a different background and set of experiences around Deming, lean, and learning. How could we leverage this diversity of thought and voice for the benefit of our readers? We ‘planned’ and came up with an idea that we could each briefly answer a question once a week. Today we ‘do’ it, and we will ‘check’ it after a couple weeks looking for a high rate of comments.   This is the fourth edition of the ’roundtable.’   The first three are here, here and here.   We will post a poll so that readers can interact when it is reasonable for the question asked. The order that the answers appear in will be randomized each time. Please join us by adding your comments. We would like to hear from you.

The question:

All else equal – would you get three quick improvement activities (70 % solutions) or 1 really great activity (95% solution)?

Maintenance and TPM and Continuous Improvement

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One of the bigger questions your maintenance staff will be asking about TPM is what’s in it for me? I get to train operators in doing portions of my job; operators get to do PM type inspections. What this means to me is my job is leaving and the operator is going to be doing it and I just showed him how. Why would I as a craftsman show any one how do what has taken me years to learn? What is in for me?