Year End 2020

5:30

You’ve made an enormous investment in your ERP system. It holds all of your company data in one nice software suite. You have your part masters, BOM’s, routings, set-up times, part numbers, suppliers, customers, and accounting information all set up in nice SQL tables. Now you’re concerned because like the great consultant scam that was Y2K you are hearing about Industry 4.0, Big data, etc. and you are concerned about your ERP system- which most likely you purchased because of Y2K. Maybe you are suffering from FOMO. Let’s discuss the ways your ERP system can support Industry 4.0. Updated ERP systems already have the infrastructure built into them to support Industry 4.0. They can collect and handle data from many inputs. They use data to provide information, which is the reason for collecting the data. Here are several more benefits: Benefit #1- Eliminating human inputs Because your ERP will collect inputs from different areas, the data collection will be automatic, cleaner, and real-time. The data quality will improve. Eliminating the human element from the data collection loop frees employees to be more productive. I am working with a machine shop in Santa Ana, California who is implementing a new ERP system. We are using tablets on the floor to clock into jobs, scan routers, and enter production and scrap quantities. This information is live as activities occur. We are using real-time information to bring in the material on a JIT basis- freeing up space and cash. Both of these are important considerations for a small company. Benefit # 2- Dashboard and alerts Realtime data collection from a machining center offers all kinds of dashboard opportunities and alerts. If you want to measure coolant levels and trigger an alert if they drop below a certain level, you can. You can set up an alert after a certain number of cutting cycles for a tool. If you have tool break detection on a machine and a tool breaks, it could trigger the vending machine to dispense another tool. Performance dashboards can share company performance in real-time. I know a company that sends texts when any scrap occurs within their processes. Information-sharing opportunities are endless. Benefit # 3 Level Playing Field Because many of the new ERP systems are cloud-based and cloud cost is based upon usage, smaller entities can have the same level of performance information that large companies have. Data storage solutions such as AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft) are the two largest. In the example of capturing the machine coolant level, how often do you need to collect that information? My guess is once an hour is often enough. Understanding how often to collect information and upload it to the cloud is a key element to mitigating cost. Understanding how to use Big data with your ERP system will enable you to perform like a billion-dollar company! As always, it’s an honor to serve you, and I hope this helps you and your organization get a little better today. Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies

1
How to Hold a Successful Kaizen Event 7:32

5 years тому7:32

7:32

Last week I shared the importance of developing and A3 or project charter for your kaizen events. This week I want to share my kaizen event sequence of events. I have led over 450 kaizen events in my career and I have a good sequence of events. Here is how to hold a successful kaizen event! Day 1- Review A3, event calendar, VSM, waste walk, and brainstorm Because I didn't include and ice breaker or introductions, I am assuming everyone in the event knows each other. If not, then do introductions. Since you'll be spending several days together, you'll know each other well, soon enough. Gather them together with social distance guidelines and take a team picture. Review the A3 and event calendar with the team. Make sure that everyone can participate in the event the entire time. Let everyone know that the kaizen report out has been scheduled for the final day of the event. Make sure everyone knows when lunch is, etc. Review the Value Stream Map of the process(es). It is helpful for everyone to have a copy of the value stream map they can refer to. Talk about the objectives from the A3 and how they impact the value stream. Using your Value Stream Map, take a waste walk. Have everyone take notepads with them. As a group, walk the Value Stream Map backward. Make note of areas where you see the eight wastes- defects, overproduction, waiting, not listening to people's ideas, transportation, inventory, motion, and excess processing. Ask questions about how long it takes to do things, how many systems are used, and why there is WIP laying around. Make notes on the pads that the team is using. When you return to the room where you are having your kaizen event, have everyone place the wastes they noticed on sticky notes and place them on a DOWNTIME chart. It's ok if people identify the same wastes, just aggregate them. The key is to get people up and involved. Finally, after all of the wastes have been identified, brainstorm solutions to eliminate the waste. In the example below, those ideas are identified in green. Now that you have brainstormed ideas to eliminate the waste, choose the best options to implement. I like to use an impact/effort matrix to narrow down options. This is also referred to as a P.I.C.K. chart. The initials are Plan, Implement, Challenge and Kill. If you are able to get this far on the first day of the kaizen event, you are doing incredible! Day 2-4 Decide what to implement and make changes Focus on opportunities in the implement box on the PICK chart. These should be easy to do, high impact opportunities. Sometimes the event dictates what will be implemented. For example, if the event is to develop a manufacturing cell, your waste walk and PICK charts opportunities will be less. Regardless, by the second day, your kaizen team should know what they want to implement and begin taking action. Go to the floor and move the equipment. Split up office processes and assign elements of change to different team members. Develop new processes and evaluate them with others already operating within the process. After you have made the changes you want, trial the new process to see if you get the results you were expecting. Look for bottlenecks, delays, WIP, etc. These are indicators of delay or uncertainty. Gather feedback from everyone within the process about the changes. Ask if they can identify any opportunities for further improvement. Realize they will have to live with the changes day-to-day. Day 5 Team report out and action item list On the last day of the kaizen event, you need to report out the results to the leadership team. I develop small PowerPoint presentations and assing 1-3 slides to each member of the team to present. I've seen companies have the team members sit in chairs without a presentation and talk about what occurred. There is no right or wrong way to do a report out and I'll cover more in-depth next week on how I conduct the ones I lead. The important take-away is that a report out is a must for any kaizen event that you conduct. It helps the employees meet the leadership team, they get to to share what went on and it increases employee engagement. Along with a report out, it's important to develop an action item list. These are the activities within the kaizen that you didn't have time to get to or were good ideas and need to be implemented in the future. Training the entire department on the new process often falls into this category. Developing standard work often does as well. There might be items that were ordered and haven't arrived on-site. Anything that didn't get competed in the kaizen event needs to go on the action item list. Assign action items to individuals with dues dates. I suggest printing out the action item list and placing it in the area where the event occurred. Employees will help remind the action item owners that they need to get their items closed. I see it happen every time. I know that if you follow this framework you will have successful kaizen events! It is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…

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1
How to Maintain Company Culture from Home 4:17

5 years тому4:17

4:17

Let’s face it, these are unprecedented times. My guess is many of your employees are working from home full time or at least part of the time. Twitter told their entire staff they can work from home forever! Many tech companies have told their employees they can work from home until the end of the year. How can you maintain company culture from home? Here are some tips that will help. Tip 1 - Manage check-ins It’s tempting to schedule daily check-ins with your staff. Did you do this before the pandemic? If not, it sends the message that you don’t trust your employees. Unless you are leading a daily scrum meeting, which provides a daily 15-minute check-in, I suggest you consider the frequency of employee check-ins. Be aware of the message a daily status update sends. Use the same cadence you used before everyone worked from home. Tip 2 - Eliminate Non-Value added meetings After you have a meeting, ask for employees to rate the meeting. Was it helpful? Was the meeting value-added? Gather rating information from the attendees. If it didn’t score well take their input and work to improve it or and consider eliminating the meeting. If your employees ask to give their feedback anonymously, that is a signal you have other cultural problems. Tip 3 - Introduce time blocks In the business book The One Thing, the authors introduce the concept of time blocks. Uninterrupted blocks of time where employees focus on their one thing. Until their one thing is done, they don’t get the right to work on other activities. I worked with a company where the over-worked engineering department had a time block from 11 to 2 three days a week. Meetings couldn’t be scheduled, phones went to voice mail. This was a self-imposed time block for the department. I can tell you, their on-time delivery of projects sky-rocketed. Think about the incredible culture you build when you allow time blocks for your employees. Tip 4 - Make time to connect Everyone feels alone when working from home. You don’t have the random discussions that come up when passing people in the hall or meeting in the lunchroom. Depending upon the size of the team spend 15 to 30 minutes and use the time to connect. Hold show and tell as we did in elementary school. Allow employees to share their hobbies. Ask what new things they have learned while working from home. Find out if anyone has any new book suggestions. The time spent getting to know each other better isn’t wasted, it's how you will maintain company culture from home! As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies

1
How to be More Influential 4:08

5 years тому4:08

4:08

I get asked by potential leaders, “How can I be more influential?” They want to increase their influence, become the go-to person so they can learn the skills for increased leadership roles. To move to the next level, you must think and act differently. Here are four tips on how to be more influential in the workplace. Tip 1 . Ask better questions Asking better questions will allow you to understand things better. When you are working within a group, understand what the goals are of the meeting. Is it to make a decision? Is it to gather information? Ask questions that increase your knowledge based upon the goal of the activity. We are meeting weary. Most people just show up to another meeting. If you can ask specific questions based upon the purpose of the meeting, you will be light years ahead of everyone else that is auditing the meeting. Hopefully, you have a meeting agenda, and you take the lead on asking questions that progress through the agenda and increase everyone’s knowledge of the key elements. Taking the lead will increase your influence within that sphere of employees. Tip 2 . Understand your customers Who are you trying to impact? What are the stakeholder's expectations? Who are your clients? What are they challenged with and how can you develop a solution that will meet their needs? Focus on the solutions that your customers will embrace and always keep their needs front and center. Many companies focus on their internal needs. Instead, ask if we did this… how does that impact our customers. Always put yourself in the shoes of the customer- either the internal or external customer. Ask what you can do to make your customer's lives easier. Tip 3 . How are you going to measure success? It’s great to brainstorm and come up with all kinds of new ideas that will improve the customer experience. The next step in how to be more influential is to ask how can measure success on this idea, product? Ideas are cheap. They are free. If you don’t implement ideas, then you have accomplished nothing at all. You must implement and measure the success of an idea or project, etc. Always ask how your company will measure success. Tip 4 . Be the connector It’s difficult to be the one who connects the key employees in a project or initiative. Especially for people who view themselves as introverts. Focus on the result and work to become the go-to person who understands who needs to be involved for project success. Work to connect the right resources so that the project is a success. Sell the benefits of being on the team to everyone before the project begins. Market the project so you create a “pull” with employees to discuss with their managers. If you follow these four tips your influence will soar! As always, it is an honor to serve you and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…

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1
Replay of the First Episode and Why You should listen! 7:34

5 years тому7:34

7:34

It's August 28th. It's the day I was born. So I thought I would do a throwback episode and a take a day off from new content. Think back to 1986, if you can. What were you doing? Were you in College like I was at the University of Cincinnati? Were you riding a Huffy bicycle as a young woman or man? From 1986 to 1989 I was lucky enough to be an Industrial Engineering student and I had a co-op job at Huffy bicycles. Huffy had brought in a consulting firm whose initials at the time we AA. After spending many months on-site collecting data, they made a final presentation to our management team using acetate slides on an overhead projector- powerpoint was many years away. They suggested that we embrace something called “Lean” manufacturing to make improvements within the factory and to help us combat the many Asian competitors that were bringing bikes to America. Here is a picture of the best selling bike at the time, a 1987 BMX Sigma. [caption id="attachment_482" align="aligncenter" width="501"] bmxmuseum.com[/caption] I can remember the Industrial Engineering manager being livid in the fact that they used a “canned” presentation. “We spent $100,000 dollars on them, and they gave us a canned presentation that they probably give to everyone!” Regardless, the information in the presentation was heard and we decided that we were going to deploy Lean concepts on our own. This was a few years before James Womack would publish the Machine that Changed the World . At the time there wasn’t much information readily available. We learned and implemented some key concepts like pull systems and welding cells. We partnered with the Steel Workers Union to collapse job classifications (we didn’t realize at the time that lean is mostly about engaging employees and culture change). We tried things, looked at the results, and often tried things again following the Plan, Do, Check, Act- Deming wheel. At the end of the day, it was an unbelievable place to learn as a college student and generate excitement to complete your Industrial Engineering degree. After college, I spent six years in the paper industry and implemented as many Lean principles as were practical. We used pull systems for raw materials like dyes and chemicals. We used FIFO lanes for rolls of paper in front of some of the downstream processes. But I always wanted to be a consultant. After working in the paper industry for five years, I began a consulting career with a Manufacturing Extension Center (MEC) in Cincinnati. The purpose of the MEC was to consult with local companies of all sizes and help them increase their competitiveness through the adoption of Lean principles. Clients ranged from Morton Salt and Ford to family-owned businesses. In 1998 our family relocated to Denver Colorado. I can remember hoping that I could get a job with JCIT- John Costanza Institute of Technology. John had packaged many lean methodologies into something called Demand Flow Technology or DFT. Working there for several years, I implemented DFT within all sorts of Fortune 100 companies. I can remember working with Carrier corporation a high-volume producer of HVAC equipment. We also consulted with Trinity Industries who made railcars and barges. Rail cars and barges are large, low-volume items. Demand Flow Technology was applicable across all of these industries. Since leaving JCIT in 2000 and working on my own, I have had the opportunity and pleasure to work with many companies across the US and in Mexico. Curtiss Wright, Proctor & Gamble, Lockheed Martin, United Technology Corporation, Stryker medical, to name a few of the larger ones. I have also been fortunate enough to work with many private, family-owned companies as well as covering every industry from the medical device industry to auto body shops. Every company has their own dynamic, their own unique needs but they all wanted to get better which is what matters. Because of these tremendous opportunities, I have been able to road-test various frameworks for supporting successful Lean Transformations. What I have learned is that a four-step framework works well and is easily understood by everyone from leadership to the team members on the floor. I use a sports framework because in America we are highly driven by sports culture. It is called the Lean Game Plan and it works well for organizations of all sizes and industries. The four steps for success are: Define your Vision - Create the strategic goals, establish a Lean Management System, Value Stream map key processes and set-up a scoreboard where everyone can see how the business is performing. Employee training camps - train the leaders and employees on basic Lean concepts. Execute the Lean Game Plan - Develop a quarterly game plan of Rapid Improvement Events. Stabilize and improve your key processes with coaches and coordinators. Develop standard work for your key processes and conduct the identified Rapid Improvement Events to make improvements. Half time adjustments- Measure the results and adjust as necessary. Use sustain tools to keep the improvement gains. Establish process metrics that mean something to the employees, so they remain engaged in making improvements. As we move through the year, I will cover these topics and more in greater depth in the hopes of adding value to your company’s Lean Transformation. Until tomorrow I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies

1
Robot Wars- Cobots Vs. Robots 5:28

5 years тому5:28

5:28

Given the desire to keep employees physically distanced, companies are investigating robots and cobots. So much so, the market is expected to grow from $981M to $8B by 2026. For those of you keeping score at home, that is 42% growth every year. Which one should you consider? Let’s look at cobots vs. robots. Robots Industrial robots have been in consistent use since the seventies. Typically, they are large heavy-duty equipment that can handle heavy loads and move quickly. I’m sure everyone has seen a picture or video of a car moving down the assembly line, a robot welding something on the car with sparks flying everywhere. I can remember Huffy bicycle- my first job while in college- using robots to pick up pieces of tubing from the cutoff saw and place them in another piece of equipment that would bend them into handlebars. Then another robot arm putting the handlebars into a container where we would spend the next hour untangling them. This was in the late eighties. I don’t remember the robot being cordoned off- maybe we were smart enough to stay out of the way. Because of the speed that industrial robots move, we keep them behind light curtains or in a separate room entirely. When I graduated from college, I had an interview at the Ford plant in Cleveland, Ohio. One of the plant tour stops was the new paint room Ford installed. A car would come into the room, an operator would choose a color and robotic arms would paint the car. Ford spent millions on the system which mimicked the paint motion of their best painters. All robots are useless without end of arm attachments. These are the grippers, tools, welding attachments, etc. at the end of the robot arm. Most industrial robots are single, tooled, and not flexible. They’re designed to complete one task. Cobots Cobots are the opposite of industrial robots. Given the huge technology leaps in the past 30 years, cobots are smaller, smarter, and more flexible than industrial robots. They’re designed to be used next to humans. Many have incredible sensors and vision systems that can sense human presence. Programming is quick and easy. They can be programmed by simply grabbing the arm and showing the cobot the motion you want it to take. Because of their flexibility they can be deployed in low volume- high mix environments. Cobots vs. robots? Which is best for you? It depends upon the application. Here is a quick guide for you to consider. As always, it’s an honor to serve you, and I hope this helps you and your organization get a little better today. Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies

1
How to Complete an A3 Project Charter 5:14

5 years тому5:14