Continuous Improvement Blog

Messaging and Wayfinding Project

Published March 17, 2023

Lean Thinking

John Jaszczak, Ph.D, is a professor of physics as well as the director and John and Phyllis Seaman endowed curator of the A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum here at Michigan Tech. In this video, he goes over how he used different Lean tools, especially the Plan Do Check Act model, to make improvements to different aspects of the museum. This includes the layout, tours, and how to deliver the messages they want to convey to their visitors.

Watch this continuous improvement journey by clicking on the video below!

Want to learn more about Continuous Improvement and see more videos like this one? Visit our YouTube channel by clicking on this link!

John Jaszczak Messaging and Wayfinding Project

Mailing and Shipping Improvement at Campus Store

Published March 3, 2023

By Jon Sturm

Lean Thinking

The Campus Store at MTU offers mailing and shipping supplies and services. However, they were running into a multitude of issues with those services that needed to be addressed. In this video, it is shown how using the Plan Do Check Act model as well as other Lean tools can lead to rapid improvement.

Watch this continuous improvement journey by clicking on the video below!

Want to learn more about Continuous Improvement and see more videos like this one? Visit our YouTube channel by clicking on this link!

Mailing and Shipping at Campus Store

Julia Semaan- Spaghetti Diagram Discussion

Published February 24, 2023

By Jon Sturm

Lean Thinking

At the time of this video, Julia was an intern with MTU dining services while she was getting her Master’s degree in clinical dietetics at Grand Valley State University. In this video, she goes over a useful Lean tool known as Spaghetti diagrams. These diagrams are a visual map that show where there is waste of motion and movement in a process.

Watch Julia’s video by clicking on the video below!

Want to learn more about Continuous Improvement and see more videos like this one? Visit our YouTube channel by clicking on this link!

Julia Semaan – Spaghetti Diagram Discussion

Teach Back- Fish Bone Diagrams

Published February 17, 2023

By Jon Sturm

Lean Thinking

Julie Stark currently works at the A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum here at Michigan Technological University. Julie is attempting to receive her Lean White Belt certification. She led a teach back as a part of her training that goes over Fish Bone diagrams and how powerful of a tool they can be for root cause analysis.

You can watch Julie’s teach back by clicking on the video below.

To view other useful continuous improvement videos, check out our YouTube channel by clicking this link.

Julie Stark Fishbone Diagram Teachback

Report Out on a Daniell Heights Damages Kaizen

Published July 13, 2022

By Ruth Archer

Events

AJ Mikus is the Facilities Manager for the Daniell Heights apartment complex at Michigan Technological University. AJ led an improvement event designed to improve the student experience of checking out of their apartments, reduce the amount of repairs needed, and ensure all damages were properly accounted for. Watch AJ’s report out on his kaizen experience at our Lean at Michigan Tech YouTube channel.

A process map of the apartment flip process — Process Mapping using Miro so the group could see together how the process was working for everyone.

Quantifying the Value of Lean Improvements

Published May 14, 2020

By Ruth Archer

We are pleased to present this guest blog post by Adam Wellstead, PhD, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Social Sciences at Michigan Technological University and 2019-2020 Faculty Fellow.

Every year, the Office of Continuous Improvement (OCI) undertakes a number of wide-ranging projects to make processes throughout our campus more efficient and effective. Often the project outcomes go unnoticed by a majority of the Michigan Tech community, including the bean counters. This contrasts with the manufacturing sector where Lean tools are applied to the creation of a tangible product, and costs/savings are meticulously tracked. Michigan Tech is a highly complex multiple million dollar business (of higher education), and OCI projects have improved safety and reduced waste. However, the accrued financial benefits are largely invisible because the current cost to the university for most of its processes is not documented. This year, I was a Faculty Fellow working with the OCI and one of my projects was to account for these costs.

Other universities who employ Lean methods and tools also struggle to show the financial benefits. One possible approach to account for these invisible benefits of Lean in a system that does not closely track expenses is to apply counterfactual thinking. This approach has played an important role in the efforts of social scientists, particularly historians, to assess causal hypotheses. By making claims about events that did not actually occur, counterfactuals play a necessary and fundamental, if often implicit and underdeveloped, role in the efforts to assess the hypotheses about the causes of a phenomena.

A well-known example is, had George W. Bush not been elected, would the Iraq war have occurred? Counterfactual analysis makes causal claims about events that did not actually occur; that is, non-observations. Social scientists have developed well-established criteria for judging counterfactual arguments (Table 1). For example, we cannot make implausible counterfactual claims. Looking at the Bush-Iraq War case, had George Bush not been elected, it is implausible to claim that Iraq would have been become a fully democratic country.

Table 1	Criteria Checklist for Judging Counterfactual Scenarios
Criteria	Description
Clarity	Specify and circumscribe the independent and dependent variables (the hypothesized antecedent and consequent)
Logical consistency	Specify connecting principles that link the antecedent with the consequent and that are cotenable with each and with the antecedent
Historical consistency (minimal-rewrite rule)	Specify antecedents that require altering as few “well-established” historical facts as possible
Theoretical consistency	Articulate connecting principles that are as consistent with “well-established” historical facts as possible
Projectability	Tease out testable implications of the connecting principles and determine whether those hypotheses are consistent with additional real-world observations

In the more modest world of Lean processes, we also can make a counterfactual causal claim about a non-observation, namely, what would have happened had the Lean process not been undertaken and what would have been the costs accrued by not addressing waste and inefficiencies? One recent OCI project highlights this approach. Daniel Heights has 52 buildings, all utilizing 1 of 13 different water heater pumps for circulating hot water to residents. This made it very hard to manage and keep records of the inventory for each pump type, brand, horsepower and orientation. Due to the amount of differentiation between the pumps, the process for reordering/replacing each pump lacked standardization and had many errors.

In 2019 standardization of pumps was implemented and an inventory of the pumps was taken. Now the shelves only contain needed pumps and are organized into a set space. Processes to perform inventory audits and reorder pumps are in place. The number of different brands of pumps being used for the water heaters in Daniel Heights went from 13 to two. They are also only using two different sizes of pumps when they were using five before. Table 2 lists the benefits that the project participants identified as well as the estimated yearly excessive costs of $8,461 had no action been taken (the counterfactual). The estimated value was determined by a deliberative process, keeping the criteria for judging counterfactual scenarios in mind, involving at least three OCI facilitators.

Table 2	Estimation of Excessive Costs Incurred by Michigan Tech
Area Improved from Standardization	Excessive Costs
Water Use/Efficiency	$100
Storage Space	$286
Time to Reorder	$375
$ Tied up in Inventory	$4500
Hrs. Recording Inventory	$270
Staff Training for Pumps	$330
Bulk Inventory	$2600
Total $ Saved	$8,461

Table 3	Estimated Costs Incurred by Michigan Tech Over Five Years
Year	Net Present Value
1	$8,058.10
2	$7,674.38
3	$7,308.93
4	$6,960.89
5	$6,629.41
Total	$36,631.70

This is an example of one fairly modest project. In the coming months, the OCI will implement this procedure for all of its projects being undertaken.

Michigan Tech will be a very different place this Fall, but one constant will be the continual need to root out waste and inefficiencies, and thereby reduce costs.

Welcome, Sydney!

Published April 7, 2020

By sedanker

Lean Thinking

Hello,

My name is Sydney Dankert. I was born in Omaha, Nebraska and lived there for 11 months before moving to my hometown of Pewaukee, Wisconsin. I am currently in my second semester of my first year here at Michigan Tech pursuing a degree in Chemical Engineering. I am delighted at how my first year has progressed as I joined the Undergraduate Student Government, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and College Republicans here on campus. Along with these fun activities I’ve found time to make friends and experience campus from hockey games to trivia nights.

I have just finished my training as a Student Process Improvement Coordinator, and I am learning the principles of Lean and the language of Continuous improvement. I have always had a passion for system improvement and I am looking forward to the professional experiences I will have here at both Michigan Tech, and at the Office of Continuous Improvement.

Greetings!

Published April 1, 2020

By

Lean Thinking

My name is Jon Sturm. I was born in Kalamazoo, MI and moved to a town called Kingsford in the U.P. at a young age. My dad’s side of the family has lived in Kingsford for four generations. I am pursuing a degree in chemical engineering at Michigan Tech. Even though the classes can give me more stress than I need at times, the people I have met here and the experiences I’ve had have been amazing. When I am not in class or at work, I enjoy hanging out with my friends, working out, and being outside (hiking, fly fishing, hunting, etc.)

Although my favorite subject is chemistry, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about Lean facilitating and continuous improvement. I love how the principles are applicable to a seemingly endless list of real-life situations. I am excited to finish the Canvas training and have my duties around the office expand and develop.

What is Lean to you?

Published November 20, 2019

By

Lean Thinking

Sometimes it can be hard to really grasp the concept of what Lean is and what it really means to use it, and it can be even harder to explain Lean to someone else. When I say I have an on-campus job many of my peers give the normal response of “where do you work?” and to that I reply with “The Office of Continuous Improvement.” While I get a couple responses to this like “Where is that at?” or “I didn’t know we had one of those,” the most common response I experience is “What do you do there?” When I first started working as a Student Process Improvement Coordinator I would just reply with “oh, I help do Lean for the school.” But after seeing the confused look on peoples’ faces I realized that they probably had no idea what I was talking about and I was going to have to start explaining what Lean was. So, I started thinking about how to describe Lean in my own words with out using any Lean lingo.

To me, Lean is a complex concept that ultimately always puts the customer and people first. Lean is based on waste elimination, respect for people and customer value. In Lean practices, it is important to simplify and standardize everything, to stream line it. In the end Lean should be more of a culture or a way of life than a practice or set of rules. I feel as if Lean is hard to define. The more information I’m introduced to the more broad Lean is and the more it can include.

I’m sure many others have different definitions of Lean than mine but that is kind of the interesting aspect of it. Lean is such a broad topic that encompasses so many aspects of our day-to-day lives. It’s much more than the tools and terms–its a way of thinking and a culture, which is why it is so hard to describe and define. So, what is your definition of Lean and Continuous Improvement?

Career Fair

Published September 27, 2019

By

Lean Thinking

Good afternoon! I hope you all have had a successful week. So much is going on. Career fair, industry days, interviews and more! Take advantage of every opportunity presented to you this week. Here in the Office of Continuous Improvement, we are looking forward to seeing you succeed and we would like to give you some tools to be more successful.

We have books on every part of improvement. From how to improve your office and efficiency on a personal level to the grander scale of Lean implementation throughout your workforce. In addition to our books, we have tools we can teach you about and classes in lean at Michigan tech that you can take. If you decide to read a book about self-improvement in lean, I would recommend “Organize your office”. This is an easy to read book for beginners, outlining simple steps on self-improvement in your office space. Just try a few tips a week and you will see tremendous results. Just imagine the reaction you could get from your boss if you manage to eliminate wasted time in the office.

Image result for an organized office with lean

If you would like more information regarding lean and how it can help you with your job, please feel free to reach out to improvement@mtu.edu or stop by our office in 136 W Wadsworth Hall between 9-5 during the week. We look forward to seeing you there!