Dec 17 2015
The first Palo Alto Lean Coffee happened this morning, as planned, at the Palo Alto Cafe, with Paul Zhao and me. We didn’t know each other, and connected through Meetup. Paul is involved with a startup company aiming to be “Uber for 3D printing,” connecting users who have designs with shop that have 3D printers. Our discussion was centered on manufacturing strategies for startups with hardware products, a topic I expect to come up again in Palo Alto.
Dec 9 2015
David Veech last week suggested I start a Lean Coffee in Palo Alto. It seems like an attractive format, and I hope you find it useful.
It is scheduled early in the day to minimize interference with work. You don’t have to prepare anything. You come as you are, and I will provide Post-It notes for us to set an agenda when we start. Then we will discuss all the items agreed on, each participant contributing on the fly from his or her experience. It’s at the Palo Alto Cafe, and we can each enjoy coffee, bagels, muffins, or croissant-egg scrambles while letting others talk.
RSVP if interested.
Dec 6 2015
This is a translation of Bodo Wiegand’s latest newsletter, about Lean in Germany, followed by my comments:
This week I was with a company that is on its way to implement industry 4.0. All machines were networked. The manager could see from his desk which machines were running and which were not. All data were collected centrally and also shown locally to the machine operator. The trend was easy to see. One third of the machines had a malfunction. With an average OEE of 62%, the machines do not always run.
“As long as we buy new machines, we have to live with this,” was his answer to my question.
But, it was not only the newest, but also the older machines that don’t need to be smeared with oil and dirty, even even while generating chips. Provided on request, the Fire-Fighting-factor reported to us by the maintenance technicians was above 75%. The chief knew exactly: 76.6%. An OEE of 62% and 76.6% Firefighting means in plain language: In this business, there is no stable processes.
But what drives intelligent managers then to link his whole company, only to find that the processes are unstable? With some thought they could have discovered this without networking and invested first in stabilizing the processes. Introducing Industry 4.0 For industry on unstable processes will fail. The crucial question: how I manage to stabilize the processes and avoid unplanned shutdowns?
Nov 30 2015
Chet Marchwinski recently exhumed a 2011 discussion about Poka-Yoke that had been started by the following question:
I’m a manufacturing engineer and since I have started participating in kaizen workshops, I have noticed that production supervisors tend to disconnect some of the poka-yokes we’ve put in place in the machines. When I challenge them about this they argue that operators can’t run production and cope with the complexity of our machines. I am perplexed by this and wondered whether you’d have a comment.
In short, I can think of two reasons for production supervisors to disconnect Poka-Yoke:
The following paragraphs elaborate on these points.
Nov 27 2015
In The Wisdom of Teams, Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith explained that, for a working group to coalesce as a team, it needs a common goal, complementary skills, and mutual accountability among members. It sounds simple, but it is in fact a tall order, and there is no evidence that it is sufficient. The authors don’t claim it is, but they found these characteristics among successful teams in sports and business, and found them lacking in unsuccessful ones.
Let us explore the meaning of these three characteristics in more detail:
1. A common goal. It can be organizing a successful conference, or JFK’s “before this decade is out, landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth,” or building a motorcycle that wins a race. Whatever it is, the goal must be clearly stated in few words, with obvious success criteria, for team members to sign up.
Dec 21 2015
How Can I Speed Up My Team’s Lean Learning?
“How can I speed up my team’s lean learning?” is a question found on the web, with no context given: we don’t know whether it is team of managers, engineers, or operators, or whether it works in manufacturing, finance, or health care… We can infer from the tone of the question that its author is a leader frustrated with the pace of a team’s progress. I will further make the assumption that the concern is not just about skills but also about principles. It’s not just about know-how but also know-why, as it is essential to address new challenges.
Then we also need to make a distinction between learning as a team and learning by team members. You hear leaders say “as a team, we have learned to change over a lathe in 7 minutes,” or “as a team, we have learned to introduce a new product on this line in 3 weeks.” If such a team replaces one of its members, it can bring the newcomer up to speed and retain the skills and the knowledge; if, on the other hand, it replaces half its members, it has to relearn. A team is more than the collection of its members, but it builds on the expertise of its members, which means that their individual expertise also needs to be nurtured. This means that individual learning by team members also is a topic that must be addressed.
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By Michel Baudin • Answers to reader questions 8 • Tags: eLearning, Instruction, Lean, Learning