Lean (Toyota) Problem Solving

[David Dodd]

Last week over in the Prepress and Workflow forum, someone asked a question about how to prevent, reduce, or eliminate production mistakes. Another forum member responded by saying that the answer to this question begins with lean manufacturing and that Standard Work is an amazing tool. I introduced Standard Work a few days ago in another thread, and I won't repeat that information here except to say that Standard Work can be a powerful tool for reducing errors and defects.

What often goes unappreciated is that Standard Work and the other "techniques" of lean are simply tools for solving problems. Real success with lean comes not from using tools for tools' sake, but from using tools to solve problems that are inhibiting better business performance.

Note that the objective here is "solving problems" not simply "correcting errors/mistakes." Under the pressures of daily work, there is a strong tendency to simply "fix the errors" and get on with production. The downside of that approach is that, if you don't identify the root cause of the problem and eliminate the cause or deal with it in some other way, you'll find yourself "correcting" the same mistakes over and over.

Lean organizations (particularly Toyota) are relentless in attacking the root causes of problems. In fact, Toyota has developed a problem-solving tool that its employees use extensively. The tool is usually called the "A3 Process." The term A3 refers to the size of the sheet of paper that was originally used to document the process. The story goes that Taiichi Ohno, one of the principal architects of Toyota's lean production system, would not read reports that were more than one page long.

The A3 Process has be described in various ways by lean practitioners, but it always contains some version of the following eight steps:

Identify the problem or need
Conduct research to understand the current situation
Conduct root cause analysis
Devise solutions (countermeasures) to address root causes
Develop a target state
Create an implementation plan
Develop a follow-up plan with predicted outcomes
Implement the plan

There are also several versions of the A3 Process Report used in the lean community, and I've attached a PDF of one that illustrates the process pretty well.

The A3 Process is a structured approach to problem solving, and it requires a certain degree of discipline to use it effectively. But the alternative is to spend a significant amount of time "correcting errors" without ever "solving problems."

 

[mattf]

David:

I like the whole idea of problem solving. It helps to prevent certain mistakes, as you said, from happening over and over again by looking at the root problem. Trying to implement that within different sections of a company is in my mind almost impossible. I'll try to show an example.

Lets say there is a problem within Pre-press about trying to get proofs out faster to customers. Of course our pre-press team has to receive the files, analyze the files, make a proof and send it off to the customer. We could say that the said company has a policy for the files to be organized a certain way in order for pre-press to handle a lot of different jobs at once. This is done because there is a limited number of pre-press technicians, say two or three. Our pre-press team does not have the time to search all over the files to find a specific font, image link etc. The policy is in place to save time of course.

Now if we had the problem that pre-press was receiving the package of files different everytime, we could say that this is a problem that needs to be solved. If this can be solved the pre-press team could work faster to get proofs out, reducing time jobs get approved and sent off to press. However in this scenario, which happens a lot; especially within the company I work for, pre-press is maxed out to what they can handle because of issues like what I have described. They are being pressured by Customer Reps and Sales Reps to get them proofs as fast as they can. With this pressure, they do not have the time to draw up the issues that are happening in order to solve the problem.

My question is, within an organization that is limited with resources and manpower, how can problems get solved with this system when there is pressure all around to think primarily about the bottom line instead of the big picture?

Edit: Cause Analysis of the diagram I liked a lot because of the reference to the 5Why concept. Its a good system and it can work, just wanted to know what steps a small company can make with limited resources.

2nd Edit: I guess I shouldn't have said ANY company, just within my own experience in my company.

 

[David Dodd]

David:

I like the whole idea of problem solving. It helps to prevent certain mistakes, as you said, from happening over and over again by looking at the root problem. Trying to implement that within different sections of a company is in my mind almost impossible.

My question is, within an organization that is limited with resources and manpower, how can problems get solved with this system when there is pressure all around to think primarily about the bottom line instead of the big picture?

Matt,

I'm not sure this helps, but let me assure you that you are not alone in facing this problem. I participate in three other online lean discussion forums, and people from all kinds and sizes of companies talk about the same problem.

The first point I would make is that this problem makes clear why you need to have strong management support when you're implementing lean. If your prepress team is engaged in solving a significant problem, and that means you are not producing proofs for some period of time, you need to have the leaders of your company support that problem solving work. I don't mean to suggest that you can or should devote all day every Friday to problem solving, but your management team needs to back you up when you devote the time necessary to solve problems rather than repeatedly "correct mistakes." There are at least a couple of approaches that have worked in other companies. I've seen some companies have their "continuous improvement" teams schedule a reasonable amount of time each week to devote to improvement (problem solving) projects. Other companies have asked their improvement teams to meet after normal work hours (at least early in the lean effort) and paid overtime for attending these meetings.

If you don't have management support, then your first job is to convince managers that the big picture and the bottom line are, in fact, the same. All of the time and effort that you spend dealing with problems that you could have already eliminated is pure waste. Those wasteful activities increase the company's costs, and those increased costs reduce company profits or increase company losses. And the costs of dealing with problems repeatedly are almost always much higher than the costs of solving the problem when it first appears. The old saying is true: "If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got."

 

[mattf]

Thanks for the tip David, it does help a bit within what issues are occurring. A big thing within trying to solve these issues are that they never happen again, but the biggest issue that ALWAYS happens again is the breakdown of communication. Of course I am speaking with our trusty paper job ticket! A change happens and only 1 person knows of it. Eventually the information gets trickled down to the rest of the company working on the job, but thats the basic jist of it. Again, I am working on a electronic job ticket that everyone in the company can view a job up to the minute at their computers. Converting individuals who have used "keypads" to using computers to input their specific time on a job is arduous task, but it has to get done. I believe with that PDF you showed in your first post is one of the better ways to deal with issues like this. Thanks again for your input!