This is an excerpt from the book "Five Minute Lean", by David McLachlan - a wonderful book that blends teaching of the tools, culture and philosophy of traditional Lean with a modern-day Lean parable. You can get the whole book on Amazon here and enjoy your own copy.
Work Towards One-Piece-Flow (and Reducing Silos or Batching)
One Piece Flow is where, instead of many different departments or processes creating large amounts of material or work, it is done in as close to the one place and at the same time as possible.
It also means that our product moves from step to step continuously, one piece at a time and with no build-up of work in between. In our Line Balancing example (3.4) there would always be one piece (and only one piece) working for each step, and those steps would be balanced to customer demand (Takt time).
One of the main ideas behind this is that by only working on one piece at a time until completion, if anything stops or holds up the process it becomes very clear, as the process simply cannot continue. It reveals problems, which is good as they are opportunities for us to improve, and we can then look at these problems as they arise instead of pushing them aside for later.
Performing the work in the same place and time, whether it is a physical space or using a single computer program, significantly reduces wait time between processes, reduces unnecessary people or tasks, saves on space, machines and resources and gives an opportunity for simpler management.
One piece flow is also opposed to “batch processing”, where items build up in a process causing larger inventories, longer queue times and rework.
Many of the eight wastes (3.1) will affect one piece flow. Unnecessary movement, transport, additional process steps or unevenness in a process can all slow things down. We can use our value stream map to see some of this waste, then root cause analysis to get to the real problem, and Line Balancing to see any variation in timings and balance the process to customer demand.
A Pull system, including Supermarkets and FIFO lanes and Kanban triggers in the next chapter (4.1) can also greatly assist with implementing one piece flow. Before we finish this chapter let’s look at one last thing:
SMED and Quick Changeovers
Just a quick note on Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED), which is another way of saying “quick changeover” techniques. Sometimes our process might have long wait times as we change between processes, people, machines, systems or tools.
While it is easy to see how a quick changeover can apply to a manufacturing machine creating two different items, it can apply to an office environment in the form of changing between people or processes as well. Brainstorming ways to change over quickly, based on the instructions below can help reduce this wait time.
The method for quick changeovers is based on two types of changeover operations which should be separated from each other:
- Internal, or “hidden” operations, which can only be done separately and when the person, process or machine is stopped, and;
- External, or “visible” operations, which can be done in parallel while the person, process or machine is still going.
The aim is to reduce any waste (3.1) in the changeover, and then to:
- Convert any Internal (hidden) changeover operations to External (visible) changeover operations.
- Perform these changeover steps in parallel to each other (at the same time) or while the process is still running.
Can a client’s details be filled out by someone, in parallel, while they are having their consultation? Or could a person changing roles within an organisation complete some of the changes themselves by making an internal, or hidden process, external and accessible? With a little imagination, we can transform our job and make it easier, which is why our first step would always be to “go and see” at the Gemba. Front-line team-mates often have great ideas on how to make hidden processes visible and complete changeover steps in parallel.
By putting all the steps in this chapter together we are reducing blockages, wait time, employee and customer confusion and unnecessary steps. Just doing this alone has the potential to add massive value to your company, department or business, and there are still more ways in the last two chapters to help you improve your work even further.
This is an excerpt from the book "Five Minute Lean", by David McLachlan - a wonderful book that blends teaching of the tools, culture and philosophy of traditional Lean with a modern-day Lean parable. You can get the whole book on Amazon here and enjoy your own copy.
Selected chapters from the story within Five minute Lean:
- Lean Parable – Where Lisa Makes a Change
- Lean Parable – Where Lisa Discovers a New Way
- Lean Parable – Where Lisa Performs a Balancing Act
- Lean Parable – Where Lisa Pulls the Trigger
- Lean Parable – Where Lisa Sets a New Standard
- Lean Parable – Where Lisa Becomes a Leader
Check out these selected chapters from the teachings within Five Minute Lean:
- Five Minute Lean – Use Kaizen and Kaizen Events to Help Stakeholder Buy-In
- Five Minute Lean – Implement With Agile for Fast Iterations and Feedback
- Five Minute Lean – Solve the Real Cause of the Problem
- Five Minute Lean – Present and Manage Your Change Using an A3 and LCA
- Five Minute Lean – Make Feedback Meaningful with Kano Analysis
- Five Minute Lean – Gather Direct Feedback and Indirect Feedback
- The Five Minute Catch-up
- Five Minute Lean – Help Your Process Flow with Line Balancing
- Five Minute Lean – Put it Together With Design for Ease of Use
- Five Minute Lean – Eliminate the Eight Wastes to Improve Flow
- Five Minute Lean – Add Important Data to Your Map
- Five Minute Lean – Create a Future State Value Stream Map
- Five Minute Lean – Value is Determined by the Customer
- Five Minute Lean – Use Pareto to Find Where to Start
- Five Minute Lean – Collect and Measure Feedback With the Net Promoter Score
- Five Minute Lean – Go to the Gemba
- Five Minute Lean – Introduction
- Five Minute Lean – Use Feedback to Fix and Guarantee
- Five Minute Lean – Heijunka: Level the Workload when Demand Fluctuates
- Five Minute Lean – The Power of Incentives – What is Measured and Rewarded Improves