Gemba Tales

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Posts Tagged daily accountability process

How to Audit a Lean Management System

Jun 15

Posted by markrhamel in Lean Management System | 5 Comments

The lean management system (LMS) is an integral part of an effective lean business system. It’s critical to the development of a lean culture and the sustainability of hard-earned improvements. In simple terms, it is really hard to live SDCA (standardize-do-check-act) without it.

So, how can you quickly tell whether or not an organization’s LMS  (not to mention its lean effort) is the real deal or not? Well, no surprise – you audit it!

A well-developed LMS is, by its very nature, easily audited. And lean leaders should make it a point to do this on a routine basis. Here’s some quick and simple ways:

  • Leader standard work. Review samples of recently completed leader standard work. Check them for completeness, recurring issues and problems, and evidence of good lean thinking in determining countermeasures. And, oh by the way, if there aren’t any (or many) abnormal conditions identified, look at that with some professional skepticism. As the saying goes, “no problem is a big problem.”
  • Gemba walk. Walk the gemba with leader standard work in hand to determine its sufficiency and to observe, firsthand, the state of the gemba. When a senior leader conducts a gemba walk with his team, tag along. Observe whether they follow gemba walk standard work relative to attendees, timing, path, audit points and criteria, rotating “deep dives,” conclusion/reflection and countermeasures. Assess the thinking, understanding, participation, sense of urgency, evidence of improvement(s), coaching, chastising, questions, answers, etc.
  • Daily accountability meetings. Attend tiered meetings to determine the sufficiency of and adherence to the standard meeting agenda, while also assessing the level of the leader and the team’s engagement, understanding, lean thinking and real countermeasures, both immediate and planned.
  • Tiered meeting boards. Review the various supporting visual boards to assess the actionability, relevancy, timeliness of the performance measures and their trends. Also, check the type and status of the assigned countermeasures and employee suggestion activity, among other things.

A solid lean management system is “well-wired.” A lean leader should be able to quickly audit and discern whether the team, plant, division, office, etc. is practicing fake lean or is really and genuinely leaning forward.

Related posts: “So What?” – A Powerful Lean Question, Leader Standard Work – Chock that PDCA Wheel, Leader Standard Work Should Be…Work!

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“So What?” – A Powerful Lean Question

May 13

Posted by markrhamel in Lean Management System | 4 Comments

It’s not quite on par with the 5 whys (heck, that’s five questions, more or less), but “so what?” isn’t far behind. It’s a question that begs closure, as in, “what are we going to do about that?”

Lean can be summarized partly as: 1) find a problem, 2) fix a problem, 3) keep it from coming back, 4) repeat. How can you fix a problem if you don’t deal with it or don’t understand the situation well enough to even know if there is a problem? “So what?” should be generously applied whenever we assess the current reality.

An Example “So What?” Forum

The daily accountability process, part of a robust lean management system, includes daily tiered meetings. Those brief stand-up meetings typically require, among other things, the review of a handful of key performance metrics as well as issues and barriers that have surfaced over the last 24 hours.

The “so what?” litmus test can be applied to tiered meetings, beginning with the effort to establish the very performance metrics that serve as a critical backdrop for the daily accountability process. We can start the questioning around metric relevancy and move on from there…as in what does it mean to the stakeholders, what is the linkage to the business’ strategic imperatives, what does that performance metric graph mean, how do we interpret it, is it actionable, what do those trends mean, are we getting better, getting worse, or staying the same, how are we doing relative to the target…in fact, where is the target!? In other words, “so what?” Implicitly, this is followed by, “now what?” Often, we need to reassess the utility of the performance metrics and retool them so that they drive the right lean thinking and behaviors.

Same goes with the narrative around tiered meetings once they become part of the fabric of daily operation. When an issue is identified, for example, “that’s the third time this week that machine X has experienced unplanned downtime,” or “the call abandon rate has exceeded the target every Monday for the last three weeks,” we can’t ignore it. So frequently, we end up reporting the news, collectively agree it’s a bad thing, offer some weak commentary, then move onto the next subject. Guess what? That problem is going to come back again unless we drive to the, “so what?”…and then do something about it.

Leadership is a shared responsibility, but if no one else asks, “so what?” the lean leader of the tiered meeting has got to ask it. Unrelentingly…until it comes to a head, until a countermeasure has been identified, with a due date and an accountable person assigned. This is where the daily task accountability board, another part of the daily accountability process,  get’s its use. The board captures the actionable answers to the “so what?” question and serves as a visual for assigned countermeasures and their status.

“So what?” is not the same sassy question that we threw around in grade school. Rather, it’s a thoughtful question that’s founded in a bias for action. So, “so what?”

Related post: Plan Vs. Actual – The Swiss Army Knife of Charts, The Truth Will Set You Free!

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Plan Vs. Actual – The Swiss Army Knife of Charts

Mar 13

Posted by markrhamel in Lean Management System, Scientific thought - PDCA/SDCA | 8 Comments

swiss army knifeImagine that you were only allowed one chart (or board) at the gemba. What would you pick? What is the Swiss Army knife (I’m more of a Leatherman Multitool fan myself) of charts that gives you insight into process adherence and process performance?

For me, it’s the plan vs. actual chart – also known as the production analysis board (or chart), day-by-the-hour chart, etc. It is typically a paper chart (my preference) or dry erase board that is positioned at the pacemaker process. It’s refreshingly low-tech and reflects, at a minimum, the line, cell or team name, output requirements (number of picks, assemblies, invoices, etc.) for the day or shift, the related takt time, the planned hourly (or smaller time increment) and cumulative outputs for the day or shift, the actual hourly and cumulative outputs (or in some practices the cumulative deficit or surplus) and fields to record the problem or reason for any hourly plan vs. actual deltas as well as a sign-off by lean leader(s) as proof of review.

So, why is the plan vs. actual so powerful? Here’s 5 reasons.

  1. Communicates customer requirements. The chart reflects the demand, by type or product, quantity, and timing and sequence. It reflects a takt image.
  2. Forces the matching of cycle time to takt time. Standard work should dictate the requisite staffing (and related cycle time, work sequence and standard WIP) to satisfy the customer requirements.
  3. Engages the employee and drives problem-solving. Like any visual control worth its salt, the plan vs. actual is worker-managed in a relatively real-time way. It highlights abnormal conditions (hourly and/or cumulative shortfalls or overproduction) and drives self-correction or at least notification/escalation and containment. The plan vs. actual also spurs PDCA in that the worker is required to identify the root cause of the abnormal condition and ultimately points the worker, team and leadership to effective countermeasures.
  4. Focuses lean leaders within the context of leader standard work. A good plan vs. actual will have fields for team leader/supervisor sign-offs on the hour and managers twice daily. This is essentially proof of the execution of leader standard work in which the leader should ensure that the plan vs. actual is maintained real-time, is complete (i.e., no unexplained abnormalities), and that countermeasures are being employed in order to effectively satisfy customer requirements.
  5. Focuses associates and lean leaders within the context of the daily accountability process. The prior day’s plan vs. actual and trended performance (including pitch logs) should be reviewed within daily tiered meetings. These meetings help drive the identification of improvement opportunities and countermeasures at the individual, team and value stream level.

So, what’s your Swiss Army Knife chart and why?

Related posts: Leader Standard Work Should Be…Work!, Leader Standard Work – You can pay me now, or you can pay me later

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