When introducing the subject of "lean manufacturing," it can be difficult to know where to begin. But I can't think of a better place to start than with the topic of waste. Waste is the mortal enemy of lean. Lean experts often differ when it comes to the specific ways to implement and use lean, but all agree that the ultimate purpose and objective of lean is the avoidance or elimination of waste in all business operations.
In the lean world, waste is any activity or condition that consumes resources but creates no value for customers. So, what activities create or add value? For a product, an activity creates value if it is directly involved in physically transforming raw materials into the finished product and getting the finished product to the customer. For a service, an activity creates value if it is directly involved in actually rendering the service. All other activities add no value and therefore create waste. Some of these non-value-adding activities are essential. They may be required by law or be unavoidable given the limitations of current technologies. But, most non-value-adding activities can be eliminated or at least reduced.
When thinking about waste and value, it's important to remember that value must be defined from the customer's perspective. An activity may have value for you, but create no value for your customer. One important litmus test for an activity is this: If you tried to charge your customer specifically for performing the activity, would he or she be willing to pay for it?
So, think about the activities that you perform every day and ask which of those activities actually create value for your customers. If you're already using lean in your business, please share with the forum how you've approached the task of identifying and then reducing or eliminating non-value-adding activities and the waste they create.
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G. David Dodd
Point Balance, LLC
We are approximately 3 months into our lean transformation process. 5S has moved to sustain phase in many production areas, TPM meetings are underway, several Kaizen events have been completed (with moderate success), etc. However, the biggest problem we have is buy-in and team building. Is there any resource (or wisedom) you can share to assist us with this crucial aspect of our lean efforts. Negative attitudes have successfully blunted many initiatives due to extreme resistance to change. Thanks in advance...
I faced a similar challenge, and I believe it is in part to the name "lean manufacturing". The immediate perception is that we are cutting out all of their overs to set up the machine, and we wanted it done faster. Once we spent more time educating the crews that it is really a "continuous improvement" effort, and once they got past the 5S, they then started with more buy in. After all, what operator would be opposed to always having their tools right where they should be, and having a clean and tidy work center.
I would encourage you to be diligent, and don't be discouraged by the "background noise" of the nay sayers. They will probably come around eventually once they see the benefits, and honestly, if they don't, I am not sure you want them on the team.
Good Luck
The problems we have had revolve around the people that have been around for awhile. We come to work to produce product not to go to hour long meetings for every team you are on. I am leader of 1 team and am on 2 green belt project teams and 1 black belt project team. We've been doing this for 2 years or so and it's still hard to justify the time we spend in meetings not producing. Yes, the projects we work on are necessary, and will ultimately make the company stronger. There is just the feeling that the company will go under before the payoff.
We are approximately 3 months into our lean transformation process. 5S has moved to sustain phase in many production areas, TPM meetings are underway, several Kaizen events have been completed (with moderate success), etc. However, the biggest problem we have is buy-in and team building. Is there any resource (or wisedom) you can share to assist us with this crucial aspect of our lean efforts. Negative attitudes have successfully blunted many initiatives due to extreme resistance to change. Thanks in advance...
Douglas,
Thank you for your participation in the forum. You mentioned that your company has 5S and TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) programs underway and that you have held several Kaizen (continuous improvement) events. Forum members could benefit greatly from hearing more about your experiences. Would you mind describing your efforts in a little more detail? What are your objectives for your 5S and TPM programs? Where did you start with these programs. What areas or processes did you target for your Kaizen events? Why were those areas or processes chosen? What are the results so far?
With respect to your question about achieving buy-in, I would start by saying that change management is a topic unto itself. However, it's clear that there are at least two prerequisites for a successful lean transformation. First, senior company leaders must actively support the lean effort and make it a high company priority. And second, those senior leaders must articulate a compelling reason for making the lean transformation that everyone in the company can understand. It's also important to emphasize with employees that lean is not a codeword for reducing headcount. Few employees will be interested in making improvements that will result in job loss.
Thank you again for your participation in the forum.
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G. David Dodd
Point Balance, LLC
I would think that workflow automation could go a long way to reducing waste, since it would lower the possibility of human error. I know there are a few products out there that claim to automate workflow, but I've heard that some don't live up to their claims. What experience has anyone had with automation software?
I work for a company called Objective Advantage that writes automation software. In addition to the significant capability of our product, Symbio, to reduce errors and therefore waste, we try to get printshops to think differently about the jobs that they do. The strategy involves finding similarities in the jobs that you do and working towards using standardized templates rather than treating each job as a unique custom job. It may mean focusing on certain types of jobs that you already do often or particularly well. With Symbio sending instructions to jdf enabled devices based on these standard templates that are pre-created, we can take orders from a web to print system and have the imposed sheets printed, finished and ready to ship in a matter of minutes with little or no wasted time or wasted paper. We have one client with just 2 Canon C7000 presses producing around 500 jobs per day (running 3 shifts). Some clients have made better use of it than others simply because they understand the concept and use what they have to it's potential, whereas others have the resources to do well, yet they continue to struggle to acheive profitability because they haven't shifted their thinking. They still try to do everything the old way despite all of the new tools that are available to them.
Even ignoring the automation software for the moment, I would say that is a big factor for many print shops. They do not learn enough about the software or equipment they already have to take full advantage of the benefits that can be gained.
We are a commercial sheetfed printer with approximately 55 employees. Our 5S effort began in our mailing department as it was deemed the least organized functional area (a good "island of excellence" opportunity). It is currently sustaining quite well and we believe cycle times and error rates have been reduced (although more time spanned data must be gathered to quantify this accurately)[See attached images]. The pressroom is currently nearing completion. Finishing/Bindery will follow, pending purchase of some new equipment, and a complete redesign of the material flow will transpire concurrently.
Our TPM meetings and implementation focuses upon a renewed effort to schedule maintenance per shift, day, week, etc. and document these activities. Our expected outcome is improved reliability and throughput as measured by OEE data we are currently collecting. We are beginning a SMED/Quick Changeover Kaizen next week using a Spaghetti Mapping exercise (we expect to learn and establish benchmarks rather than significantly improve MR times - this is our first quick changeover effort).
Our Kaizen events to date include a Sales/CSR initiative which resulted in the redefinition of the roles to a more pre-sale/post-sale purity and the physical relocation of the CSRs (now called Customer Assitance Team [CAT]) to a more prepress/production centric co-location. We are in the process of applying a cellular manufacturing approach to our preproduction group by concatenating Preflight, Planning, Prepress and Data Processing (now called P3D team) to allow for concurrent processing in pursuit of reduced cycle time to value (Proof) outcomes. We are currently conducting a Kaizen event to Poke Yoke our job ticket with internal customers (production users) defining the desired process information presentation on the ticket. We have introduced a series of process improvement, quality alert, maintenance request, etc. forms with a weekly Continuous Improvement meeting as the reviewing body. We are beginning an additional weekly meeting involving influencial production associates representing each production functional area to review management's response to the above, assist in team building and provide positive information flow. We currently distribute a monthly newsletter we call "Lean Times" to inform all regarding projects and current progress.
Our ideal state involves a pull-based kanban production system with finishing process step defined product categories being flowed into a FIFO supermarket. Pull signals as product lines are depleted by finishing would determine the press scheduling. All current efforts have some relationship to this ultimate ideal state outcome. One of the problems we have is that as much training on the topic as we conduct, few comprehend the goal.
OK, that isn't close to everything, but should provide a good overview of our efforts.
Thanks so much for describing your 5S, TPM, and kaizen efforts. I hope that we will get many posts such as yours.
Since we may have some readers who are not familiar with lean terminology, I'm going to define a couple of the terms that Douglas used in his post. Those of you who are experienced with lean - feel free to ignore the balance of this post.
OEE stands for Overall Equipment Effectiveness (sometimes called Operational Equipment Effectiveness). The formula for calculating OEE for a particular piece of equipment is Availability x Performance Efficiency x Quality. Each of these elements is a percentage. Availability = (Total Time - Downtime) / Total Time. Performance Efficiency = Actual Running Speed / Rated or Target Running Speed. Quality = (Total Quantity Manufactured - Number Rejected) / Total Quantity Manufactured. So, let's assume that Availability is 92%, Performance Efficiency is 85%, and Quality is 95% for a press. On these facts, the OEE for the press would be 74% (92% x 85% x 95%).
Poka Yoke is the Japanese term for mistake proofing. It is a methodology for preventing errors or defects by putting limits on how an operation or an activity can be performed. These limits essentially force the operation or activity to be performed correctly, at least in some respects. An example of Poka Yoke would be a "stop" on a drill press that prevents the operator from drilling too deeply, or a jig that will only hold materials if they are placed in the correct orientation.
Douglas, thanks again for your post.
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G. David Dodd
Point Balance, LLC
The War on Waste
Linear Mode
