Stop doing two things for every one you add.

 

Key to any lean effort is removing waste, or more accurately, removing wasteful activities.  As we identify what’s wasteful, we can focus more on what adds value.  Sometimes a “waste walk” will introduce people to waste, as they walk through an area looking for various forms of waste.  Even more illustrative is a "process walk," when those that work and manage a process actually walk the entire length of it -- noting wastes, counting steps, timing activities, and deciding what adds value and what doesn’t.  Of course, process mapping and value-stream mapping can document waste and value visually, helping organizational members see where work stalls, costs mount, and customers wait or suppliers search as a complicated process stretches out longer than it should.

Following Aaron Preston’s post this week wishing there was more A3 thinking on healthcare policy, I thought we could apply the analysis of value-added and non-value-added activity to the healthcare process.  And we could do it from the point of view of healthcare’s customer -- the patient.  If we walk, or map, the flow of a patient during a visit for a routine physical exam, we know that that not every activity adds value.  Clearly the visit with one’s doctor is the anticipated value of a physical -- that and any useful tests that analyze one’s physical health.  

Earlier this year I had a follow-up to a physical exam with my physician, but it really occurred in four stages.  First, I visited an independent laboratory to have blood drawn for lab tests, especially a cholesterol test.  Second, I visited my doctor to discuss my general health and the results from the labs.  Third, I obtained a CT scan that she scheduled for me to follow up on an earlier one.  Fourth and finally, my doctor called me after the CT scan to explain the findings.  [What happened?  My cholesterol is low, the CT scan found nothing, and I am taking more vitamin D.]  

My wife and I had to pay fees to check our bags on a recent flight to see family in New England. No doubt you have had to as well. I don't see what value we got from this fee compared to airlines that are happy to transport a reasonable amount of luggage as part of the fare. The airline we flew didn't treat our bags any better. It didn't hand deliver the bags to us after deplaning. It certainly did not help us carry the bags to our car. It seems to me that these fees are charged by such airlines not to deliver a service but to sustain non- value added operations. The explanations I have read for such fees in this industry have ranged from, "Other airlines are doing it" to "We need to do this to be profitable". There's no mention of providing a value-added service.

Think critically of the services you purchase to hone your ability to recognize value and waste. It will benefit your team's ability to deliver only that which is valuable to your customer.

I’ll admit it. I’m a complete coffee addict. I never really saw much harm in drinking 6-9 cups of coffee a day…or maybe I chose to be ignorant about any harm it may cause. Until recently when my doctor informed me that 2 cups a day was fine, but 4 or more definitely was not! Faced with this conversation, I could no longer choose to be ignorant on the issue, and I had to change my ways.

To avoid cutting back so significantly, I made all kinds of excuses to myself. What was I going to do? Nobody else in my house drinks coffee, just me. The thought of making half a pot of coffee just doesn’t seem right. And what about when I want to have one cup in the morning, and my second in the afternoon? With me, the last cup in the pot is always cold. And I certainly didn’t want to make a whole pot, only to pour half of it down the drain. The batch size is just too big. How wasteful!

Thankfully, the wonderful coffee maker companies of the world have been improving the coffee making experience for their customers. Over the past couple of years, the single-serving coffee makers have become quite mainstream. My family, knowing of my plight, kindly bought me one for Christmas. This machine is great – it takes about 60 seconds to brew a fresh cup of coffee.

Now I can brew just one single cup of coffee, as I need it. I have the option of using the pre-filled disposable containers, or I can fill my own little filter with enough ground beans to make just one cup. No coffee goes to waste, and my cup is always fresh and hot! With all of my excuses gone, I have no reason not to cut back to 2 cups each day. Now I can meet the doctor's request, have my coffee just the way I like it, and not have any to waste!

Talk about a change for the better!

One of the keys of a good Quick ‘n Easy Kaizen ( QnEK) program is that we want QnEK to become a habit within the organization. We want our employees to continuously be thinking and acting on ways to make things better. This is a critical step that we can take to reduce the waste of "Unused Employee Creativity." It’s also a great skill that will keep our people taking ownership in their jobs and keep them from becoming complacent.

So, should we pay people extra for these improvement ideas?

There is a lot of debate as to whether or not financial rewards or incentives should be used to “motivate” workers to do QnEK. I’m a firm believer that we don’t need to financially incent people to do QnEK for a few different reasons. I mean sure, it’s fun to give out a prize or two, and it’s always necessary to show appreciation. A sincere “Thank you, we’re going to share that improvement with other projects!” should more than suffice. But I’m talking about more significant incentives than those.

•    Should the fact that someone is making their own job safer, easier or more interesting be incentive enough to keep coming up with improvements?
•    This program helps people take ownership in their work. Does financially rewarding them extra to take the ownership contradict the whole idea of ownership?
•    What I’ve seen happen all too many times, in many different environments, is that when you start offering financial incentives to people for something that is supposed to be part of their job, the second you stop offering the rewards, they stop doing that part of the job! This is counterproductive to building a habit within the organization.

I would love to hear some additional thoughts on this – I know they are out there!

You know that when you begin looking at everything during the course of your day as a kaizen opportunity that you are well on your way on the lean journey.

I was washing dishes by hand last night due to a mechanical issue with the dishwasher. During the course of the activity I started to think about the cycle of using and cleaning dishes. The dishwasher is a batch process. Dishes are used then placed in the dishwasher. Chances are the dishes sit there waiting for the drawers to become full of dirty dishes and then the dishwasher is run. This requires a certain amount of clean dishes, pots, pans, silverware and cooking utensils in inventory so that you can eat multiple meals while operating the machine efficiently. All this stuff takes up a lot of kitchen space!

As I was scrubbing I thought how washing dishes by hand, essentially utilizing a small batch process, would be lean and what the possible impact would be. If the dishes were washed every meal, I would really only need two settings (for my wife and I) plus some versatile pots and pans and one of each of the most commonly used cooking utensils. However, I would need an inventory buffer sized to accommodate extraordinary events like parties. Still, the amount of dishes required would be greatly reduced moving to a small batch process.

So, a couple of months back I was reviewing Quick n’ Easy Kaizens with a small group of three accountants. Something pretty cool happened. The situation started with one of the accountants sharing her QnEK of posting the 5 most commonly used expense codes right on her cubicle wall. People were constantly coming up to her to ask her for them – interrupting her work or causing them to wait if she was on the phone or away from her desk. Now when they came to her desk, regardless of what she was doing, they could see the 5 codes right there in front of them.

The interesting thing to me is that it wasn’t till she shared her improvement with the others that they even realized this situation had any opportunity for improvement. It was something that neither of the others had ever given any thought to. The group talked about her improvement and discussed other improvements they could make to the situation. One of the others suggested emailing those 5 common codes around to everyone that used them. They talked about that idea for a while and continued building off of each other. After a few minutes of discussion, the third person in the group very excitedly shared that they could put those codes right on the expense reports. This would completely eliminate the need for anyone to look up the codes because they are right there, where the work happens.

This situation represents one of the hidden beauties of a good QnEK program. When people get in the mood of improving together, their ideas bounce off each other and grow from each other. They actually inspire and drive each other to continue stretching their minds for even better improvements. If these three people didn’t communicate about the situation and the improvements, minimal improvements would have been made. Through collaboration, this team found a way to reduce the defects in the incorrect processing in these reports for themselves, and they also found ways to eliminate unnecessary movement and reduce waiting for many others.

  My peripatetic colleague directed my attention to another web posting this week,

http://zenhabits.net/2009/03/the-biggest-waste-of-time/ .  I didn't immediately see what the connection was between Zen habits and lean, other than they are both Japanese traditions, but I thought I would check it out.

The author, Mara Rogers, claims that the time spent between receiving a request and saying "yes" or "no" is wasted time, saying "to make a decision quickly and not vacillate or second guess oneself is a critical life-skill."  Her primary concern is that people will agonize over saying  "yes" when they don't mean it, putting other people's concerns ahead of their own well-being and thereby fostering resentment.

Saying "yes" and saying "no" are actions we take by speaking.  We all act in order to take care of our concerns.  Every time we receive a request, we must fit it in to our pre-existing network of commitments.  This effort requires that we consider our concerns and those of the requestor.  They may be at odds, they may be aligned, they may be somewhere in between.  I don't think that taking some time to consider and think this through is necessarily time wasted.  I may need time to check my calendar, investigate the implications of my choice, or develop a counter-offer.  I may need time to go and see.  Moreover, my own concerns may not always be aligned with one another.  I need to decide what my current priorities are.  This may require some listening to my inner conversation and paying attention to my mood - possibly a meditation, not a waste of time, and maybe even Zen.

As I walk around the grocery store without a shopping list, I begin to see the waste in my trip. A little bit more planning and I would not be buying whatever looks good. I could have a plan, then next week make it better. So, I begin to wonder, what else is causing waste in my week. My wife does not like it when I bring work home, so I had better keep this to myself...

My schedule is pretty normal in the next few days. Exercise, work, errands, more shopping and some commitments with friends. Then on Wednesday I have to get the kids because my wife is out, I have a doctor appointment and the cable guy is coming over. I had better plan carefully. This is like something I have heard from Greg Howell... Go Slow to Go Fast. I guess this is what he means.

Of course the cable guy doesn't come until the end of his window, so I have to change plans at the last minute and skip doing a few things... High Reliability Increases Productivity... another lesson from work. What else am I going to find this week?

My son takes out his new legos and dumps them in a pile. There are about 20 little baggies with a new box of legos; now there is one pile. What would have happened if my little son had kept the pile separate and staged the material where he was going to use it next. Less time looking for parts I bet. 

Hmmmm, it would seem that there are a lot of things about lean that I can use at home... my wife doesn't need to know about them. The game will be to get her to begin thinking about these things without her knowing it! 

Where do you use lean at home?