Maid on the couch

Posted: March 26, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Create Flow, Waste of Waiting | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I’m letting Gugu go early on Friday, my wife said.  Why, I said.  I just can’t stand to see her sitting on our couch (sofa), my wife said.  Well, has she finished all her work, I asked.  Yes, my wife replied.  So, what’s the problem, I asked.

Gugu is our domestic worker (or maid).  She is employed to clean and tidy our house and wash and iron our clothes (one of the perks of living in South Africa is that we enjoy a standard of living far above that of our equivalent income earners in most of the Western world).  Gugu is an efficient worker and frequently finishes her work early.  She will then make herself a cup of tea and sit on the couch and read a magazine.  This irks my wife.  She is frustrated when she sees Gugu idle.

Don’t laugh.  We react similarly when we see workers idle in our factory.  We get so uncomfortable that we will do anything to keep them busy.  How often do you find production has dumped a glut of excess labor into an assembly cell?  So instead of a perfectly balanced cell using three operators, you find seven operators falling over each other trying to get more work out.  What is the problem with this you might ask.  Three immediate problems come to mind:  Firstly, even if the total output is increased, the productivity per person usually drops which actually increases the unit cost of each assembly.  This is even before one has costed for the increased risk of defects due to deviation from single piece flow.  The third problem with keeping idle operators busy in this fashion is that it actually hides spare labor capacity.  When operators are busy, we believe we have no spare capacity.  However when operators are idle, the spare labor capacity is visible and therefore more likely to be used productively elsewhere.

So the next time you catch your domestic maid asleep on your recently purchased dark leather sofa, don’t admonish her for not keeping herself busy.  Congratulate her for completing her work timeously, and find some other value adding work for her to do like filing, cooking or spring cleaning the garage.  Similarly when labor capacity becomes available on the factory floor, don’t squander it.  Instead, measure it, make it visible, and use it productively.  If all else fails, seat all the idle operators on a “reserves bench” and call Sales to the floor to show them that you need more orders to keep your people busy.

So you think you’re doing Lean…

Posted: January 10, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Lean, Lean Accounting, Seven Deadly Wastes, Waste of Inventory | Tags: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Many companies begin their Lean journeys by setting up a few manufacturing cells (some even with a semblance of single piece flow) or changing the plant layout or filling the factory with charts and whiteboards.  Cost reductions (often achieved through the reduction of labor) are then offered as evidence of their Lean achievements.  Whilst these efforts are well intended (and even commendable in some cases), they are not Lean.

Lean is often misunderstood to be a cost reduction exercise.  Lean is actually a growth strategy.  It works by freeing up labor, machines, space and cash (through reduced inventories).  Freed up labor and machines creates spare capacity.  This spare capacity allows for sales growth at increased profitability (the labor and machinery is free).  Freed up cash can then be used to buy more machines which can be located in the freed up space and operated by the freed up labor.  This creates even more capacity which allows for further sales growth.

Lean is about doing more with less.  So, if you are doing Lean, your sales should be going up and your inventory should be coming down.  The single metric I therefore like to use to assess a company’s “leanness” is inventory turnover (calculated as sales divided by inventory).  If your sales (the top number) are going up and your inventory (the bottom number) is coming down then your inventory turnover will be climbing steadily, indicating Lean success.

Brian Maskell, at a Lean Accounting seminar in Johannesburg last year, said it best:  “If you’re doing Lean and inventory is not dropping like a stone, you’re not doing Lean.”

Learning to see

Posted: May 18, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Create Flow, Seven Deadly Wastes, Waste of Inventory, Waste of Movement, Waste of Overprocessing, Waste of Overproduction, Waste of Waiting | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

I’ve just cast my vote in our (South African) local municipal election and was particularly impressed with the process flow of the voting process.

The voting process involved the following operations: printing something; sticking that something in my identify book; looking up my name on the voting register; marking my thumbnail with black ink; folding my two ballot papers for me; making my marks on these ballot papers; and depositing the ballot papers in a box.

Waste was minimal.  The individual operations were located close to one another so that there was minimal movement required between the successive operations.  Single piece flow was adhered to which prevented a build up of voters (inventory) between the operations.  Once processing began, there was little waiting between each operation.  Each operation was working at the same speed (no overproduction) and there appeared to be no redundant operations (overprocessing).

A good process can always be improved however.  The bottleneck operation was the looking up of the voter’s name on the election register.  With some minor reshuffling of labour, the rate at which voters were being processed could be increased by about 30%.

How many of our employees (managers, supervisors and operators) who went to vote today saw a Lean process?  And how many looked for improvements?  It is not sufficient that only our industrial engineers are able to “see”.  It is not sufficient that we only “see” at work.

Lean is learning to see.  Lean is everyone learning to see.  Lean is everyone learning to see all of the time.

Robots are not lean

Posted: February 8, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Create Flow, Lean, Seven Deadly Wastes, Waste of Inventory | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A common sight in South Africa at rush hour is traffic backed up onto the highway at off ramps bringing the left hand lane to a standstill.  This is particularly frustrating to the South African commuter as the capacity of our highways to move traffic is significantly reduced resulting in delays and increased commuting time.

Have you ever wondered why “motorways” in the UK, despite a far higher traffic density than their South African counterparts, are seldom plagued with backed up, stationery traffic at off ramps?  Traffic at off ramps in the UK are controlled by traffic circles (or roundabouts, for the benefit of any British readers) whilst traffic at South African off ramps is controlled by robots (or traffic lights).

The control of traffic at an intersection by a robot is a typical batch and queue process.   Traffic in one direction is stopped by a red light, forced to queue until an economic batch size is achieved before being signaled by a green light to proceed, one batch at a time.  A traffic circle, however, is designed to facilitate continuous flow of traffic through the intersection.  In this way, no traffic is allowed to build up at intersections and to spill back onto the motorway.

Just as a traffic circle allows traffic to flow unimpeded towards its destination rather than building up and congesting our roads, Lean allows our products to flow through our factories to our customers rather than building up as inventory and choking  both our factory floors and our balance sheets.