Tag Archives: lean book

Five Minute Lean – Map the Value Stream to Reveal Opportunities

July 27, 2017Five Minute Lean Excerptfive minute lean excerpt, lean book, lean map, learn lean, swimlane chart, value stream map, value stream map definition, value stream map example, value stream map iconsDavid McLachlan

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.

Map the Value Stream to Reveal Opportunities

‘Mapping the process in this way, you can see your entire process at a glance, including any blockages or sticking points to fix.’

A Value Stream Map (VSM) is a map of the flow of steps for creating our product or service. It can be done at a high level, between departments or a low level, in a single task. Because of this, mapping the value stream is a good way to create a standard operating procedure (5.4), if one doesn’t already exist. This is also the method that Steve taught to Lisa and encouraged her to try with her teammates, and in doing so they revealed a number of problems and opportunities.

In fact that is the reason we map our value stream: to reveal opportunities in our process for us to improve. Things like long process times, many queues, having to redo work, or information travelling between too many departments. All of this is referred to as “waste”, which we go into in more detail in (3.1).

You should know that there is a lot of information packed into the next two sections, and learning how to make a value stream map can seem daunting at first. However, at the end you will be able to see your process at a glance, and it is a very powerful tool.

When creating a VSM, the easiest part to grasp is noting the process steps down the bottom, in order from left to right. Before that, the customer is noted in the top right hand corner, and the supplier is noted in the top left hand corner.

Let’s take a look at something simple to start with – our first “SIPOC” step, or Lisa taking a sales call at the Shoe Emporium.

lean value stream map basic

Figure 5: A basic start of a Value Stream Map for the Shoe Emporium sales process. The stream “supplier” is in the top left, the steps are bottom left to right, and we ultimately deliver to the customer again in the top right, completing the cycle.

As you go through the chapters in this book all of this will make more sense to you. Below are a few of the common icons you might come across in a Value Stream Map for you to reference as we progress.

lean value stream map icons list

Figure 6: Some of the main Icons to help show your process clearly when creating a Value Stream Map.

A picture says a thousand words, so let’s add some of these icons in where they belong, and we can see how they work in our Value Stream Map.

lean value stream map example

Figure 7: Our Value Stream Map with added systems, email communication, queues and delivery. With a little experience a map like this will be second nature to you.

We now can see queues in between our processes, an email communication, an automatic transfer of information from the telephone prompt, databases or systems for where our information is stored, and a truck icon at the end, showing the delivery of the forms to our customer to end this part of the process.

Swim Lane Flow Charts

For those of you who are not yet comfortable with a Value Stream Map, another way of mapping a process is to use a Swim Lane Flow Chart. Also known as a Business Process Map (BPM), it’s called a Swim Lane Chart because it looks like an Olympic swimming pool – but don’t be deceived by how simple it seems. This method of mapping a process is also extremely powerful.

Different departments or stations are noted on the left from top to bottom with their lanes extending to the right. It’s in these lanes that each step is noted, and the steps move up or down the lanes depending on who is performing the step. A picture will help:

lean swimlane flowchart

Figure 8: A basic example of a swim lane flow chart, used to map our value stream. The departments are vertical (up/down) and the process steps are horizontal (left to right).

The main difference is in the process boxes, where a square is a normal process, a diamond is a decision box (often posed as a “yes or no” question) with one or more pathways and a circle is the start or end of a value stream.

lean swimlane icons

Figure 9: The three main types of process boxes in a Swim Lane Flow Chart. A decision process step is often posed as a “yes or no” question, with the answer influencing where the process goes from there.

You can often get a good idea of the process at a glance using this method. It is also very easy (once you have the hang of it) to quickly jot a Swim Lane Flow Chart down on a napkin or piece of paper over a cup of coffee with front-line team-mates. Next, we add some more information to our map so we can see any opportunities to improve at a glance.

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Five Minute Lean – Make Feedback Meaningful with Kano Analysis

July 27, 2017Five Minute Lean Excerptfive minute lean excerpt, kano analysis, kano analysis definition, lean book, learn leanDavid McLachlan

Make Feedback Meaningful with Kano Analysis

‘By discovering what delights our customers we can do more of it, by discovering what dissatisfies our customer we can fix it.’

Alternatively to the Net Promoter Score, we can ask the following two questions to discover what delights or dissatisfies our customer:

What did you love about your experience?
What did you hate about your experience?

This gives us enough information to be able to separate the answers into three sections:

Delighters (things customers love, or anything mentioned with an NPS score of eight or above),
Satisfiers (NPS scores between five and eight), and;
Dissatisfiers (things customers hate, or NPS scores of four or below).

Where traditional Kano analysis focuses on basic needs, expected needs and exciting needs of the customer, quantifying customer feedback using an actual number (NPS) and broadening the scope to include things the customer dislikes gives us much more room for improvement. The aim over time then becomes to increase the things that delight customers, continue doing the things that satisfy them and reduce the things that dissatisfy them.

lean kano analysis

Figure 1: Slightly different to traditional Kano analysis, separating the “Voice of the Customer” into Delighters, Satisfiers, and Dissatisfiers using the Net Promoter Score results can give us more information to improve. The aim becomes, over time, to increase Delighters, maintain or increase Satisfiers, and reduce Dissatisfiers.

You will probably notice that the answers we get in general will also fall into our three Lean “Customer Driven Metrics”, which are things that improve on Quality, Cost or Delivery times.

The next section focuses on the one most people would rather avoid – customer “Dissatisfiers” – and how we can actually use these to our advantage.

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Five Minute Lean – Implement With Agile for Fast Iterations and Feedback

July 27, 2017Five Minute Lean Excerptfast iterations and feedback, five minute lean excerpt, how to use agile, implement with agile, lean book, lean startup, learn lean, prioritise a backlog, the lean startup is just agile, using a kanban boardDavid McLachlan

Implement With Agile for Fast Iterations and Feedback

‘Structure everything as an experiment first. Agile is the perfect tool for releasing your change while keeping risk to a minimum.’

Agile is another methodology that can be used in conjunction with Lean to great effect, especially during implementation. It is primarily based on releasing things in short, quick “iterations”, (implementations or experiments) to get feedback as quickly as possible. Iterations usually last from a few days to a few weeks before feedback is gathered, changes are made and the next iteration begins.

Additionally, we also want to release the changes we make in a controlled environment as a “pilot”, where possible. For example, making changes on one machine instead of 50 machines, or with a small group of call centre consultants instead of the full floor.

Implementing in this way has many benefits. With no large rollout the risk is minimised. With faster feedback we are also getting rid of opinions and cutting through to the hard data – we can see if something is working or not. We don’t have to put a lot of time and money into it to know if it works, and it also becomes easy to see if we have affected a downstream or upstream process adversely.

In Lean terminology this method of experimenting iteratively and gathering feedback is also called “Improvement Kata”, and again relates to the “Plan, Do, Check, Act & Adjust” cycle. Using Agile simply gives that cycle a solid framework.

Step 1: Prioritising a Backlog

The first step for the team, before an iteration begins, is to prioritise and display the work that must be completed during that iteration.

For example, team-mates would meet and write down all known and upcoming work (the “backlog”), put it in order of priority and place it on a card in the first lane of their Kanban board (below), giving them a “prioritised backlog”. Doing this, team-mates can see what needs to be done for them to succeed. This backlog of work may evolve as new ideas or problems come to light.

Cards for a Kanban board are usually written as a story, for example: “As a _____, I want to _____,” but they can also be in any format that is agreed within the team. In Steve’s business, when he was improving it and making changes, he might write, “As a car cleaner, I want to have all my cleaning tools in one easy to reach location,” for one particular change.

Step 2: Using a Kanban Board

A Kanban board is used to show us at a glance the pieces of work and who they are assigned to as they move from “To Do”, “In Progress”, though to “Done”. Remember Kanban literally means “signboard”, and a Kanban board on a wall that is easy to see is also good Visual Management (4.1).

lean kanban board

Figure 29: An example of a Kanban Board, also good Visual Management. This style of Kanban is often used in software development, but can also be used in implementing a Lean project or anywhere there are multiple tasks to complete.

You can have more columns if you need them, and name them to suit the phases of work or departments within your own business. The possibilities are up to you.

Step 3: Using Stand-Ups

A “stand-up” in Agile terms is a short meeting of 5 to 15 minutes where the participants stand up, usually around a Kanban Board. Cards on the board are updated or moved as each person speaks about the ones assigned to them and they have the opportunity to raise any issues or “blockers” that might be stopping them from completing the work. If a blocker cannot be resolved within the short timeframe of the stand-up, then the decision is made to “take it offline”, or discuss the issue afterward and make steps to solve it.

Standing up helps keep people focused and the meetings short, and meeting regularly allows us to call out blockers close to when they first occur, so we can fix them close to the source. This is one of the principles behind Jidoka (4.2) and also one of the capabilities of outstanding leaders, which we saw in the introduction of this book.

At the Shoe Emporium, Lisa might catch up quickly, once a day with her team-mates who are trialling new methods, to see if they are working or if they need help.

Because we are releasing in short iterations, we don’t have time for long meetings that happen once a month. Instead, we have short meetings daily, or weekly, and we can see all the information we need at a glance using the principle of Visual Management via the Kanban Board.

Step 4: Using Retrospectives

A “retrospective” in Agile happens when we have completed an iteration. This is where our team asks the following four questions to gain feedback on our experiment.

What went well?
What didn’t go well?
What have we learned?
What still puzzles us?

You might have many short iterations, named and numbered from one upwards, and it is great practice to stop and gather feedback during and after each one.

Knowing When it’s Time to Pivot

One of the main themes from The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is knowing when to “pivot”, or stop going down the path you are going during an implementation and pivot into a new direction, a new fix, experiment or even product. In other words, “Adjust”-ing our course in the Plan, Do, Check, Act and Adjust cycle.

How do we know if it is not working? If it’s not immediately obvious in the experiment we are performing then we should measure the metrics or outputs (1.2) associated with the process or the product we are changing. As you can see, this brings us full circle as we go back to chapter one and gather feedback on whether we are meeting value as defined from our customer’s point of view.

We can also ask the retrospective questions above for feedback on our internal process, or the Net Promoter Score (1.3) questions for our external customer.

When we are satisfied with our changes in a small area, we can release it to the wider business. And what do we do when we’ve improved our process and implemented successfully? We can monitor it and then go through the improvement process again as we strive continually for perfection.

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Five Minute Lean – Heijunka: Level the Workload when Demand Fluctuates

July 27, 2017Five Minute Lean Excerptfive minute lean excerpt, heijunka, lean book, lean heijunka definition, lean how to use a supermarket, lean load levelling definition, learn leanDavid McLachlan

Heijunka: Level the Workload when Demand Fluctuates

‘When demand for our product or service fluctuates, we can use Load Leveling, or “predictive Pull”, to keep our workload level.’

In a perfect world, we would know in advance what our orders or requests for service might be, so that we could have enough people or resources ready.

Unfortunately, in the real world, requests often come through in different amounts and at different times, with different items being requested. Most companies’ response to this is to either constantly be behind in orders or requests (while their customer suffers), or constantly have too much inventory or people in a desperate effort to meet demand, creating all kinds of waste (3.1).

We have already seen how to balance the Cycle times of our process with Line Balancing (3.4), but we can also balance our workload when demand fluctuates using Load Levelling, or “Heijunka”. By using information of previous orders (or demand), combined with information of upcoming orders (or demand), we can smooth things out considerably using the following techniques.

Let’s say a company regularly receives orders, for any type of item or service, for 100 items a week, but demand fluctuates from day to day (for example 40 on Monday, 20 on Tuesday, 20 on Wednesday, 10 on Thursday and 10 on Friday), we could use a small buffer of finished goods (like a Supermarket, 4.1) to respond to Monday’s high demand, then level production at 20 per day, meeting our 100 per week demand.

In Lisa’s case, if call volumes at the Shoe Emporium fluctuate from day to day, Lisa might get this information by checking the historical volumes from the last week, month and year. She might recommend having more people working on a Monday (a buffer, like the example above) who would assist in smoothing demand.

lean load levelling heijunka

Figure 23: An example of Load Levelling, where daily demand fluctuates. We can use a buffer, or “supermarket” on Monday to meet demand, then smooth production at 20 per day.

Alternatively, we can also level the type of item we work on. Imagine a company has three types of products (products A, B and C), with daily demand being 20 for Product A, 10 for Product B and 5 for Product C, or a ratio of 4 : 2 : 1. Instead of simply lumping (or batching) the production of each item together at the same time or with the same operator, we can level it out so there is an even number being produced at all times, allowing us to respond to fluctuating demand more readily.

lean load levelling heijunka

Figure 24: An example of Load Levelling, where the types of requests are different. Producing the Lean way, especially when we have one piece flow, we ensure there is an even number being produced at all times.

This is the type of thing that Lisa might use at the Shoe Emporium, if she got different types of sales and service requests by email. Instead of only one person performing one type of request, they can be spread across her team and ensure the requests are completed evenly instead of batching them together. This way there is less waiting while the one person completes their workload, and less chance of a single point of failure.

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Five Minute Lean – Solve the Real Cause of the Problem

July 27, 2017Five Minute Lean Excerptfishbone analysis, five minute lean, five why definition, five whys example, ishikawa diagram definition, ishikawa diagram example, lean book, lean five whys, learn leanDavid McLachlan

Solve the Real Cause of the Problem

‘Using a Fishbone diagram and the 5 Whys is a fast and easy way to get to, and solve, the real cause of a problem.’

Implementing solutions to problems in our job or business often takes time and money to do. Many people spend this time and money only to discover they were solving the wrong thing – addressing only the symptoms and not the actual cause. Using the power of Root Cause Analysis can help us discover and solve the real problem and avoid this waste. Problems are also wonderful opportunities – if we can solve the real problem it can make our job easier and far more enjoyable.

When we have a specific problem that we need to solve, it is extremely important that we:

Clearly define the problem we are working on, before we begin.

This means we “go and see” the problem, directly where the work is done (at the Gemba, 2.2) and hopefully as soon as it happens (with Jidoka, 4.2).

It also means articulating the problem specifically as a gap from where we are to where we want to be, based on something measurable like our customer driven metrics (Quality, Delivery, Cost or Sales, 1.2) or reducing one or more of the eight wastes (3.1).

For Lisa this might mean reducing wait time in a queue from 10 minutes (where she is) to five minutes (where she wants to be) instead of just saying “less queue time”. Defining a problem in this way also makes it easy to know when you have succeeded – you are not chasing a vague concept. And because you have defined the problem as a measurable gap, it is also easier to present a clear view from the problem, to a solution.

During our Kaizen meetings, while mapping our process, or even when walking the Gemba, we may need to get to the real cause of these problems we reveal. To do so we use a Fishbone diagram and the “Five Whys”.

Fishbone or Ishikawa Analysis

A Fishbone diagram is used to get a quick idea of where the cause of our problem might lie by separating ideas into categories.

The four categories are:

People
Information
Process
System

An easy way to remember them is “PIPS”.

In Manufacturing, the four categories can also be known as the “Four M’s”: Man and woman, Materials, Method, or Machine.

To use a Fishbone diagram, Lisa would note her clearly defined problem at one end, the “head” of the fish. She could then have her team-mates call out reasons why they believe the problem is happening. These reasons would be noted under any of the four categories, depending on where the cause lies.

As usual, a picture says a thousand words:

fishbone diagram

Figure 15: An example of a Fishbone or Ishikawa diagram, noting reasons under People, Information, Process and Systems. Once complete, we can group similar problems or reasons together and then perform the Five Whys.

Once she had a few reasons, Lisa could group them together further. For example, there might be a few reasons that relate to how people are trained, or others that always come back to a certain department. This allows her to narrow down her causes effectively into one or two main reasons, and she can then delve even deeper with the Five Whys.

The Five Whys

Once we have an idea of where our problem lies using a Fishbone diagram, we can use the Five Whys to delve deeper into any of the main reasons that we have come up with, if we need to.

To perform the Five Whys, we ask “Why” this is happening, and with each new answer ask why again until the answers have been exhausted or we need to gather more data.

Let’s say that in one of the process steps at the Shoe Emporium Lisa identified that there is a high rework percentage, perhaps 50%. Maybe it’s a form that doesn’t get filled out correctly and needs to be re-done.

The conversation might go a little like this:

Why does the form come back for rework 50% of the time?

1. The customer doesn’t fill it out correctly

Why?

2. They don’t feel like they have to, or they don’t understand it

Why?

3. We haven’t explained the importance of the form or how to fill it out

Why?

4. We don’t focus on building in quality when gathering the information, and it is too easy to make a mistake.

In this scenario we didn’t need all five “whys” – this is OK. The main point is to keep asking until the answers have been exhausted, or we need more information. We also know our Five Whys are working when we can go back up the line of questions and replace “Why” with “Therefore”.

For example:

4. We don’t focus on building in quality when gathering information

Therefore:

3. We haven’t explained the importance of the form or how to fill it out

Therefore:

2. Our customers don’t understand it

Therefore:

1. Our customer doesn’t fill it out correctly and it comes back 50% of the time.

Once you have narrowed down your answers, you can add the real problems into your Value Stream Map as Kaizen Bursts, and brainstorm solutions with your team-mates.

When you are brainstorming solutions, you can use ideas from Chapters Three, Four and Five to help you. This will give you tools such as having a standard process, error proofing or stopping when a defect is found, working towards one-piece flow, then changing how people are measured or rewarded and making information, process steps, queue times or other things visible, which can all have a huge impact.

It is also a good idea to use the 5 Whys on our processes – as in “Why do we do this step?” In many cases a process may have been created long ago and things have changed or moved on, leaving the process unnecessary. If the only reason for doing something is because “this is the way it’s always been done,” then thank goodness you are going through a Lean transformation!

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Five Minute Lean – Get Your Map Started with a SIPOC

July 27, 2017Five Minute Lean Excerptfive minute lean excerpt, lean book, learn lean, SIPOC definition, SIPOC exampleDavid McLachlan

Get Your Map Started with a SIPOC

‘A SIPOC shows you the basic process steps, as well as your customers, requirements and handover points, all at a glance.’

One of the fastest ways to get started in mapping a process is with a SIPOC. This kind of map gives us a very simple, high level view to help us begin. If you want a more detailed view, you can use a Value Stream Map (2.4).

SIPOC stands for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customer. It allows us to see the basic process flow, the suppliers and customers, and the inputs and outputs for each step. This information can be extremely useful, for example:

We can quickly see the connections between our process steps
We can see what is needed to perform our steps correctly
We can also manage risk efficiently, as we are seeing interacting points that might be affected by any changes we make.

In other words, when our SIPOC is filled out, we can see a large amount of information about our process at a glance.

The first thing we do in our SIPOC is a high level process flow – the main steps we perform to create our product or service. For the sake of continuity, let’s use the process flow from the Shoe Emporium in our story:

SIPOC example

Figure 3: The basic process flow outlined in our SIPOC, based on the Shoe Emporium sales process.

In a SIPOC we are describing only the main steps – as you would if you were telling someone you just met at a barbeque, about your job. Once we have a high level process flow, we can add the Supplier, Input, Output and Customer for each step as well. Remember – our Supplier can be any step before the current one, and our Customer can be any step after our current one.

SIPOC example

Figure 4: Our SIPOC with the additional information included so we can see our inputs and outputs at a glance.

We can also add “Customer Requirements” (which are the required outputs of the process), and “Measures”, or how the process is measured so we know when it is successful or completed. This additional information is also very useful, and would make our diagram a SIPOCr+M.

Now that we have a high level view of our process, we discover problems in our work with a Value Stream Map.

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Five Minute Lean – Collect and Measure Feedback With the Net Promoter Score

July 27, 2017Five Minute Lean Excerptcollect feedback, five minute lean excerpt, lean book, learn lean, net promoter scoreDavid McLachlan

Collect and Measure Feedback With the Net Promoter Score

‘The Net Promoter Score is a great way to discover and measure customer value.’

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) was outlined in a book called “The Ultimate Question 2.0” and is a great way to determine customer feedback and what they truly value.

It is a simple question we can ask when we want to gather direct feedback, typically after the product or service has been delivered.

1. On a scale of one to 10 how likely would you be to recommend us to a friend?

Let’s say a customer says a “six”. The next question works both because of its simplicity and its results:

2. What would it take to make it a 10?

When a customer answers this question for us, it prompts them to give more detail on what would bring them enough value to compel them to recommend our services. This question can be used in a survey, or as a follow up call to the customer to ensure we try and fix the problem straight away.

Using the NPS in this way is a great start in finding out what delights and what dissatisfies our customer, which brings us to Kano Analysis in our next section.

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Five Minute Lean – Present and Manage Your Change Using an A3 and LCA

July 27, 2017Five Minute Lean Excerptaction register, five minute lean excerpt, layered check act board, lca, Lean A3, lean book, learn leanDavid McLachlan

Present and Manage Your Change Using an A3 and LCA

‘With an A3 “one-pager” you can see your entire project at a glance, with an LCA Board you can see your change’s impact on frontline metrics at a glance, and with an Action Register you can keep everyone involved and accountable.’

Remember Visual Management (4.1)? As well as being something we can use in a process (like Jidoka so we can see if a process is broken, a Kanban to trigger work or even organising with 5S) we can use Visual Management for our project and metrics. It all comes back to the question: “What information would be really useful to see at glance?”

Using an A3

An A3 is a “one-pager” that shows us the details of the Lean implementation quickly and simply – usually following the Seven Step Problem Solving process and with the following information:

The team and timeline (including stakeholders and facilitator)
Defining the problem
Analysis of the current situation
Root causes and proposed solutions
The action plan
Measuring the results against the baseline
The new standard procedure

Another way to put it is in the form of the most recognised Lean cycle – Plan, Do, Check, Act (and Adjust), as you can see in the example below. A good reason to start filling out your A3 straight away, is because the first step is “Define the problem” (3.3). Many people try to solve things without really knowing what the problem is – filling out an A3 first helps avoid this. You can then include things like your Value Stream Maps, any data collected, and root causes and countermeasures in your A3 as you progress.

Lean A3

Figure 26: An example of an “A3”, where you can see the details of your project at a glance, all on one page. An A3 template is included at the end of this book.

Another reason to start an A3 as soon as you begin, is that it helps you take your team-mates on the journey with you, and build their problem solving skills as well. They can see the steps outlined clearly in advance, and the techniques the team has used along the way.

Lisa would use an A3 to showcase the details of her change to others (like Michael Pilbury), and help take her team on the journey as they progress, passing on the tools and methods.

Using an Action Register

It is essential in any company to put the details of who will action each item during the implementation. This is where an Action Register can come in handy, detailing changes, timeframes and who is responsible for getting them done. We should also include a “measure” of the item – with the existing data and the target data after the change is complete.

Lean Action Register

Figure 27: An example of an action register. It is wise to assign action items, give them a due date, and make them measurable (Figure 28).

Lean Measures Table

Figure 28: An example of a measures table that can be included with any actionable items, or in your “A3”.

Giving team-mates responsibility for action items will help bring them on board for the change, and including a due date for completion will help keep everyone accountable.

Using a Layered Check Act (LCA) Board

A Layered Check Act board, on the other hand, is designed to display how a process is running. It will usually be at least one to two meters in length, and it shows the metrics of a current process measured against the proposed targets. This is great for seeing whether or not you are on the right track in your work. If the metrics are not meeting the proposed targets, then countermeasures are added, using Lean tools and methods, to assist in bringing them into line. For this reason, and as we come full circle, it is often a good idea to use an LCA board at the beginning of a Lean transformation, so you can see how you are tracking.

What metrics should we put on our LCA board? Ones that relate to our customer, such as Quality, Delivery or Cost, as described in (1.2). First Pass Yield, or Pareto charts on defect types are important metrics that relate to Quality. Lead time, Cycle times and Takt time relate to Delivery, and everything ultimately comes back to Cost.

There may also be internal things specific to your company that management wants to measure, such as having a standard process clearly visible for each step or station placed on your board. Remember, what you measure, tends to improve (5.5).

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Five Minute Lean – Build in Quality with Error-Proofing and Autonomation

July 27, 2017Five Minute Lean Excerptautonomation definition, error proofing, five minute lean excerpt, jidoka definition, lean book, learn lean, poka yoke definitionDavid McLachlan

Build in Quality with Error-Proofing and Autonomation

‘By making it close to impossible to make a mistake, and making it easy to stop when something is wrong, we can save ourselves many hours in rework and many dollars of waste.’

Using Error-Proofing

Poke Yoke is a Japanese term for “error proofing”. The idea is to build in quality by providing constraints to prevent incorrect use, making it close to impossible to make a mistake.

An example of this would be a USB cable – you can only plug a USB cable into a USB port – nothing else will fit. It’s mistake proof! This is Poka-Yoke. Another example would be the fact that many cars are unable to start if they are already in gear, or a form with specific drop-down menus so the user choice is limited, avoiding errors.

The question we ask ourselves for Poka-Yoke is:

How do we provide constraints to prevent incorrect use in this product or process?

Lean Error Proofing

Figure 22: An example of error proofing, where plugs around the home or workplace can only fit into the socket they are meant for.

Using Autonomation

Autonomation or “Jidoka” in Japanese, means providing both team-mates and machines with the ability to detect when something is wrong and immediately stop work so they are not passing on defects to the customer.

Doing this also highlights any problems in a process, because work stops when a problem first occurs. By stopping when a problem first occurs, we can get a consensus on the root cause of the problem (3.3) before we try and solve it. Then we can put a quick fix in place at first to keep the process moving, and work on a long term fix directly afterwards.

Using an Andon, which is a light that shows the status of a process or operation (such as green for go, red for stop) is one way to use Jidoka.

The questions we ask ourselves for Autonomation or Jidoka are:

How do we know when something is wrong?
What is the visual signal we would like to see when this happens?

This step is an extremely important part of our ability to make problems visible (4.1) at the Gemba – Jidoka must be a part of each step in our process so defects are never passed through.

It is also one of the main principles of Lean that we “solve problems close in person, place and time”, as they happen. To give you an example, let’s think back to the Net Promoter Score in (1.3). If our customer gives us a six out of ten or lower, and we arrange to get this information straight away, we might call them to sort out any problem they might have right then and there, instead of letting it get lost in the system or losing valuable information from the source.

Implementing Jidoka with a Zero Tolerance for Rework

Jidoka is not just about stopping when we have a defect. At its core it is also about having a zero tolerance for defects and rework.

Before you implement Jidoka in your workplace, an easy way to begin is to have your team-mates set aside any item that comes to them requiring rework, and not work on it at all. Then, at the end of the shift, collect all the unfinished items and note down the different “defect” types. You can do a Pareto Analysis (3.2) to see which defect types are the most common, find out why they occur with root cause analysis (3.3), make errors visible if possible (4.1) and stop work if they ever happen again so you can fix them close to the source. This is Jidoka.

Add any Poke Yoke or Jidoka ideas that fit with your space to your current state Value Stream Map, as a Kaizen burst (2.5).

Check out these selected chapters from the teachings within Five Minute Lean:

Five Minute Lean – Introduction

Selected chapters from the story within Five minute Lean:

Five Minute Lean – Use Pareto to Find Where to Start

July 27, 2017Five Minute Lean Excerpt80 20 rule definition, five minute lean excerpt, lean book, learn lean, pareto chart definitionDavid McLachlan

Use Pareto to Find Where to Start

‘The 80/20 rule states that 80 percent of our problems or opportunities come from 20 percent of the inputs. A Pareto chart makes it easy to see where our best opportunities are.’

In some cases we might have a few different problems to choose from when improving our job or business. When there is more than one option it can be a good idea to discover the area that will give us the most value for our effort and start there.

Pareto Analysis or the “80/20 Rule” is a tool that can help us discover this, and quickly. The theory is that 80% of our results often come from 20% of our effort. This is the kind of thing Steve might point out at the boardwalk, where a restaurant might make 80% of its profits from just 20% of its menu. For Lisa it might be that the Call Centre loses 80% of customers waiting in queue because one of the five voice menu options sends them to the wrong place.

The amounts don’t have to be exactly 80/20, but you will usually find one or two stand out processes or problems that can give you a larger return on your effort if you focus on it first.

A Pareto Chart is a bar chart of whatever we are measuring – whether they are queue times, number of requests, sales figures, defects or mistakes. This bar chart is sorted from largest to smallest, and a line chart is then placed over the top of it showing the cumulative percentage as it grows from 0% of the results to 100%. In this way we can see where our larger opportunities are (such as in the first two queues in Figure 14) as they make up the majority of around 70% of the total time, and we can focus on these first.

Figure 14: An example of Pareto Analysis. Queue 1 and Queue 2 have the longest times and combined they make up around 70% of the total – the ‘significant many’. We can see that it might be valuable to start working on Queue 1 and 2 processes first.

By using a Pareto Chart, we can focus on where our biggest impacts might be. It is a tool that can be used for almost any input or when making a decision on where to start.

Selected chapters from the story within Five minute Lean:

Check out these selected chapters from the teachings within Five Minute Lean: