Gemba Tales » visual control

Cutting Edge Visual (and Sensory) Control

markrhamel — Wed, 25 May 2011 12:30:59 +0000

This past weekend I made a quick visit to see my parents. It was my mom’s birthday and a great opportunity to share some time with my ailing father. And there was a glimpse of some domestic lean…

I was grilling steak and grabbed a knife to check the center. Yes, I know real cooks don’t do that. I am not a real cook.

Anyway, as I picked up the knife by the handle, there was something poking my hand. It was a twist tie!

I gave my mother an incredulous look. She explained.

Seems my father tends to put the wood handled knives in the dishwasher. High temp water bath and wood – not a good combination. So, my mother slapped a twist tie on the knife to remind him that it is not a candidate for the dishwasher (unless he’s the dishwasher).

Now, I usually prefer a more self-explaining control, but the gemba-based population within my folks’ house is pretty small. Overall, inventive and a little bizarre.

Visual and tactile control – zero dollars. Time with my folks – priceless.

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Effective Visual Controls Are Self-Explaining

markrhamel — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 03:34:49 +0000

I’ve driven past the building pictured below well over a dozen times. It appears commercial in nature, but with the lack of descriptive visual controls, I had no idea, until now, what it is.

Commercial signage typically provides folks with more insight into the name and type of business. The lack of ABC information was driving me a bit crazy…which of course made me think about the self-explaining attribute of effective visual controls.

Among other things, gemba-based observers should be able to understand, unassisted, what a given object, process or system is. If relevant, a visual control should also share the subject’s purpose, and related operating rules, including a definition of the normal condition (and often, what to do in response to an abnormal condition).

…Back to ABC. Turns out it’s a liquor store (a.k.a. “package store”). Seems that in North Carolina, the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Commission controls the sale of alcoholic beverages in the state. There’s a bunch of ABC stores throughout the state.

It certainly was not self-explaining.

How many mysterious ABC’s do you have in your plant, office, lab or hospital?

Airline Carrier’s Visual Management – Branding and LOL

markrhamel — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:36:01 +0000

Visual management is typically applied for the purpose of indicating process and system performance so that everyone can tell, at glance, whether the situation is normal or abnormal. Abnormalities should prompt an appropriate response.

Well, the low-cost South African airline Kulula, has taken a whimsical approach to visual controls. Actually, it’s a branding strategy with really nothing to do with lean thinking. But, it is pretty funny. Enjoy the pictures, below.

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How to Audit a Lean Management System

markrhamel — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:16:35 +0000

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.

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Ineffective Visual Controls – 9 Root Causes

markrhamel — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:42:51 +0000

I just had an experience that prompted me to think about the effectiveness, or sometimes lack thereof, of visual controls. Yesterday I was at a client site. No kaizen, just training. I was sporting a vistor’s badge (see picture), when one of the class participants said something like, “Hey, you’re expired!” I came back with an intelligent, “Huh?”

It seems that the badge uses a time sensitive sticker that is white when the badge is first given to the visitor. After 24 hours or so it displays a red tiger stripe to indicate that it’s expired – meaning you need to show your ID and sign in again. Presumably, it’s a visual control to better identify the normal versus abnormal (unapproved) visitor.

Didn’t know that. I was walking around the facility for three days with my expired badge. I routinely walked right by the security folks and everyone else. No one said a word until the fourth day! Why didn’t the visually controlled badge “work?” Why do visual controls fail consistently or intermittently?

Here’s my incomplete list of the root causes of ineffective visual controls (in no particular order):

Introduced without training. Oftentimes new visual controls are deployed with nary a word to those who are supposed to manage them or respond to them. Stealth deployment is not successful.
Not worker-managed. Visual controls are supposed to be worker managed. It’s silly to expect someone else (a supervisor or manager) who is not there real-time to reliably trigger a visual…in a timely manner. And it takes the worker out of the equation. So much for engagement and ownership.
Not self-explaining. If a visual control cannot be immediately deciphered as to its purpose, operating rules and status, it ends up being a guessing game. No one has time for that and no one has a gemba decoder ring.
Not visual/visible. Visual? What visual? Some visual controls just are not very visual due to diminutive size, lack of color, poor location, etc.
Too hard or complicated to use. Visual controls are designed to quickly, effectively and universally identify abnormal conditions so that those conditions can be addressed. They shouldn’t be adding muda. Visuals that are physically and/or intellectually a pain to maintain or trigger just won’t be reliably used.
Obsolete. Sometimes the underlying system or process is changed and the visual control is no longer used. Leaving it around is visual pollution and is confusing.
Lack of discipline. It takes a level of discipline to maintain visual controls. Lean leaders must constantly reinforce their use and they should be an audit item within their leader standard work.
Love of covert operations. Visual controls make things, well…visual. They promote an environment in which there are no secrets. For many reasons, some employees are not a big fan and purposely do not use the visual controls. Here, lean leaders need to hold folks accountable.
Lack of faith. Oftentimes employees reliably maintain their visual controls and then give up when they determine that no one reliably responds to the abnormal conditions. Why the heck use a visual when no one seems to care?! Apathy for abnormalities drive apathy for visual controls.

I’m guessing that I have missed some other root causes of ineffective visual controls. Any thoughts?

Plan Vs. Actual – The Swiss Army Knife of Charts

markrhamel — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:54:01 +0000

Imagine 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.

Communicates customer requirements. The chart reflects the demand, by type or product, quantity, and timing and sequence. It reflects a takt image.
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.
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.
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.
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?

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