Lean Thinking Archives | Page 12 of 21 | Continuous Improvement Blog

“PDCA Yourself, Before You Wreck Yourself”

Published June 29, 2016

Lean Thinking

… This is plastered on a sign taped to the front of my desk and they are words I live by. PDCA is a tool that every lean practitioner should use on a daily basis. Plan Do Check Act is used primarily when tackling projects or completing tasks in a timely, orderly fashion. However, I have recently found that it does wonders for your personal life.

I am a social butterfly. I pride myself in my ability to surround myself with genuine, caring, successful people… and a lot of them. However, sometimes it grows overwhelming to be this social all the time and I find that I spend less and less time caring for myself, because others tend to be more important to me. Eventually, I found that I was being walked on, that I wasn’t acting my normal happy-go-lucky self. PDCA saved the day! Now, I try to incorporate it into my daily routine to balance my tasks for the day. I plan my day out thoroughly and analyze each task, as well as how I am feeling, as I do them. After all of my necessary tasks are done (which now also includes thorough self-care) and I feel satisfied with myself, then I try to incorporate other people into the plan. At the end of the day I check how I am feeling again and go over the events of the day to see where things went wrong. Now I act by adjusting my plan for the next day, if need be!

So far this has been a great system of checks and balances for me. I highly recommend everyone PDCA all aspects of their life, not necessarily just professional. I myself am slowly learning that life will be more efficient and your time will be spent far happier if you pay attention to how you are feeling and adjust accordingly.

An Apple a Day Keeps the Problems Away

Published June 22, 2016

By

Lean Thinking

Lean is like eating an apple. There’s the skin that we all see-it has a color, a texture, and a stem. However, once you break through the skin with your teeth you see a different color, texture, and the core. This is the same principle in Lean and problem solving through the use of the five why’s.

You’re given a scenario (the skin), you see the results of the problem (the color), you see the repercussions of the results (the texture), and you may even see a sliver of the actual problem (the stem). Yet, until you sink your teeth into the scenario you won’t truly see what’s underneath. By taking a bite you slowly begin revealing a new color, a new texture, and eventually the core, or in this case the root cause.

For a moment let’s pretend that it only takes five bites to get to the core of the apple. Each bite represents one of the five why’s.

Imagine a woman who cuts off the ends of a ham before putting it in the oven. Her husband asks “Why do you cut the ends off of the ham before cooking it?” *Bite* She replies, “because it’s how my mother cooked it.” So the husband goes to his mother-in-law and asks, “why do you cut off the ends of the ham before cooking it?” *Bite* She replies, “because it’s how my mother always made it.” So the husband goes to the grandmother and asks why she cooked ham this way *Bite* here he got the same answer that he got from his wife, and his mother-in-law. Finally, he asks the great grandmother “Why have you always cooked your ham without the ends on?” *Bite* She replies, “so I could cook as much ham as possible,” the husband then asks, “why couldn’t you cook the whole ham at once?” *Bite* and she replies, “because the pan I had was too small.”

For generations, the women thought this was how they were supposed to cook a ham simply because their mother before them had cooked it that way, but not once did they stop to recognize that there may be an underlying method to their madness. Over the years this resulted in much ham, time, and money wasted for no real reason.

By asking ourselves five why questions we allow ourselves to get to the root cause. Now, if the husband had only asked four why questions, his last answer would’ve been, “so I could cook as much ham as possible,” this really wouldn’t have answered his question-it would’ve gotten him closer but not to the root cause. The same is true with eating an apple-by taking few too little bites you don’t ever see the core, all you recognize is the apple in your hand. However, if you take another bite you may just find the seeds, and your perspective and appreciation for the apple in your palm has changed.

*Note: The example of the ham is one that was introduced to me by Daniel Bennett of Public Safety and Police Services here at MTU.

What are some areas of waste around you? Have you properly identified the root cause? If not, try utilizing the ‘5 why’s” they may be able to help you find a problem you didn’t originally see.

I’ve been Ruined for the Better

Published June 14, 2016

By

Lean Thinking

I’ve been on board as a process improvement coordinator (PIC) for about three months now and believe me when I tell you I’ve been ruined… for the better. I truly had no idea what I got myself into by taking this job, let alone any idea of how much it would change ME so quickly. I’ve always been a well organized person, but with three months of lean in my life I’ve gone a little over the top.

When it became undeniable that I had changed and will continuously change was after I learned how to make an A3. It all started because I’ve been working on a project with our database so that it can be ready to be used to create our updates and annual reports for the board of trustees. That being said, there’s a lot of little things that have been creating tremendous amounts of waste within our current system. To be able to get to the root cause(s) appropriately is where the A3’s came into play. An A3 is a structured problem solving and continuous improvement tools that is outlined on a piece of A3, or ledger, paper (an example of the outline is below). To kick start this project I created six A3’s total, a parent and five daughters. The parent has all of the vague information of what’s happening, where each daughter goes into detail on one or several of the problems identified on the parent. Currently revisions are still being made to the parent and daughters. Revisions help in thoroughly planning out the project and ensuring all of the details are correct before making changes.

Going back to how lean has ruined me- I’ve recently moved into my first apartment and I’m noticing waste all around me. From clutter under the kitchen sink, to disorganization in my pantry and refrigerator, to how I store my shoes- there’s a lot of waste and unnecessary movement of things to get to what I actually want, causing a lot of wasted time. The moment that I noticed I was ruined was after my first draft of the database A3’s. I went home and noticed the waste of time, movement, space, and inventory. Having lean in my life I naturally began wondering where all of this waste was coming from, so what did I do? I created A3’s for myself and I’m on the road to improvement in my own environment. An example of one of my personal A3’s is shown below.

Feel Good with Lean

Published June 3, 2016

By Ruth Archer

We are pleased to present this guest blog post by Lisa Hitch, Business Manager and Technical Communications Specialist, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Michigan Technological University.

Our internal “Reward System” is a collection of brain structures that regulate our behavior by making us feel good when we achieve a goal. Everything necessary for the survival of our species–eating, mating, sleeping, and physical perseverance–is rewarded by a neurochemical called dopamine that makes us feel good. And the drive to feel good wins out over avoiding pain in most cases.

The problem is that we have evolved to the point that we are able to survive without our internal reward system. For example, we can just stop by a fast food drive-through on our way home from work to get our dinner–no big victory there. An inactive internal reward system can cause minor side effects such as procrastination, lack of organization, and missed deadlines. Moreover, low dopamine levels can also lead to serious conditions such as depression, attention deficits, anxiety, fatigue, poor concentration, and more.

Neuroscientific research shows that higher levels of dopamine might support the internal drive some people have to persevere while lower dopamine levels may cause others to give up. But dopamine can be harnessed and used as a prime motivating force to help us keep pushing and achieving our goals. The use of Lean tools and methods can actually help to create feel-good habits that increase our natural ability to produce dopamine.

Lean tools and methods help us to visualize our work, break tasks down to manageable pieces, stay focused, and–here’s the big one–finish our tasks, which rings the bell for our internal reward system. One such Lean tool is the Personal Kanban.

This image shows the basic concept of a Personal Kanban. Tasks are broken down and categorized into milestones or phases, such as “things to do,” “work in progress,” “waiting,” and “done.” Color-coded sticky notes help to separate the tasks between types of work we need to manage, “administrative,” “communications,” and “HR,” for example. The sticky notes can also be of different shapes and sizes to indicate levels of importance or flow of work. In any case, the movement of the task through the system and into the “done” column reinforces our internal reward system.

There are many other Lean tools and methods that can be found on Michigan Tech’s Continuous Improvement website. I encourage you to check them out and start rewarding yourself today!

Sources:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201112/the-neuroscience-perseverance

http://mentalhealthdaily.com/2015/04/02/low-dopamine-levels-symptoms-adverse-reactions

Moving Waste

Published May 25, 2016

By

Lean Thinking

Recently I have done what most college sophomores do- I moved out into my own duplex with a few friends. The experience has been liberating and I am excited to see what the year brings. However, I haven’t been excited to see the waste I have brought into my new lifestyle of blissful freedom. While unpacking boxes I found myself wondering “When was the last time I wore that shirt?” “What on Earth are these random bits and pieces of paper?” “I don’t even remember the last time I was even interested in this!” Needless to say, I have a lot of junk that doesn’t need to hang around any longer.

Fortunately for me, my job is centered around continuous improvement! Instead of immediately jumping to the conclusion that I need to throw all of my possessions away and start over again to get away from this overwhelming mess, I came up with a game plan for this weekend that will surely get my things in order. I will be doing an overhaul of my things using 5S- Sort, Set, Shine, Standardize, Sustain. I will start by going through all of my boxes and removing the things that I don’t need. Then I will make sure it is all clean (going out of order here, so I’m not putting dirty clothes away in my closet) and put it away in various locations around my room. In order to sustain my soon to be limited collection of valuables I am going to refrain from hoarding clothing and going through my things every 2 months to ensure that I am not to accumulate a surplus of unnecessary items. Daily, I am going to tidy up my room and this will keep my worldview from growing cluttered and overwhelmed.

Continuous improvement has brought a lot more to my life than just a job. It has given me a new way of looking at problems, fragmenting them into manageable pieces, and fixing them without jumping ahead of myself. I recommend that everyone who has trouble with waste, use 5S to help tidy their surroundings- I promise you’ll be able to breathe easier afterwards.

Aspen Holmes
Student Process Improvement Coordinator
The Office of Continuous Improvement

Staying organized during chaos

Published May 9, 2016

By

Lean Thinking

With the start of a new semester upon us and one behind, I got to thinking about how Lean can be implemented into finals week to not only help the stress of the student, but also their grades.

When finals week rolls in students can be found in just about every nook and cranny on campus. Whether they’re stressing over studying or stressing about not having enough time to study, students can be found with a frazzled look on their faces, myself included in this norm. This stress comes from the lack of organization of material, time, and areas to apply focus. Being in an environment of disorganization and structure simply adds to the stress and in turn takes a toll on both the student and sometimes their academics.

During the spring semester, I began my own studying for finals about a week earlier then most. While studying I began noticing that I wasn’t getting very much done in my drawn out hours in the library. I had a textbook open in front of me and I was taking notes, but I wasn’t sure what I was trying to learn let alone how to get there. I quickly realized that this wasn’t going to go very well especially because I wasn’t sure what it was that I was trying to achieve. I realized I was wasting my time and energy and I also noticed that this waste likely wasn’t going to have a desirable product, my grades. Thankfully I am familiar now with Lean and Continuous Improvement and was able to resolve this in a timely manner by implementing lean and 5s into my studying habits to achieve as much value added as possible. By implementing Lean and remembering improvement tools, I became more productive, organized, and stress free.

Using the idea of 5s allowed me to discipline myself to SORT out what material I knew and didn’t and also what seemed like it’d be important or not. After sorting through the material I was then able to STRAIGHTEN up how I was studying, I made a study schedule and also marked where all of the material I needed to study was in my textbook and/or notes. SHINE was next where I was continuously modifying the study schedule I had made to be able to stay on track and accomplish a lot at an attainable level, this changed a handful of times and continued to be modified up until the day before my exams. Finally, I STANDARDIZED the previous steps several times to make sure I was utilizing the most of my studying, and then I SUSTAINED. Through the previous steps, I was able to organize my studying to a simplistic schedule that provided a lot of depth for grasping the knowledge in a stress free environment.

As a result, my scores on my finals provided satisfactory results that triumphed well over what I had even hoped to achieve.

Spring Cleaning the Lean Way

Published March 30, 2016

By

Lean Thinking

The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the trees are budding. Spring is in the air, and spring means it’s time for spring cleaning! Traditional methods of spring cleaning involve hours of cleaning and organizing that can sometimes leave us very overwhelmed. Today I want to talk a little bit about one of our Lean Tools, 5S, and it’s application for continuous improvement in our homes.

The 5S System was developed for the manufacturing environment, but can be adapted to any environment since it is all about organizing a space to be clean, tidy, efficient, and safe. The 5S’s are as follows:

Sort
Set in Order (Simplify, Straighten)
Shine (Clean)
Standardize
Sustain

Sort

How many times have you said to yourself, “I might need this one day?” This reasoning has successfully created mountains of unused items in all of our homes. There are certainly some things you would not want to throw out, but there are many things that you can do without. So, take some time to go through your house and find out what it is that you are holding onto so dearly that you could really just live without.

Set in Order

Once you’ve figured out what you want to keep and what needs to be thrown out, you can begin straightening each area of your home. The idea behind this step of 5S is “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Take some time to arrange needed items so that they are readily accessible and labelled so that anyone can find them or put them away.

Shine, Standardize, and Sustain

Once you’ve eliminated unnecessary items and given everything else a place, the next steps are all about getting the area clean (shine), maintaining its appearance (standardize), and using preventive measures to keep it clean (sustain). The last three phases of the 5S go hand in hand; so take the time to plan what needs to be cleaned, when it will be cleaned, and who will do the cleaning.

Benefits of 5S

Increased efficiency and productivity
Improved Safety
Sustainable changes—no decline back to the previous way of operating
Simplification and increased flow of tasks
Reduction in waste
Control through visibility

This year, take a Lean approach to your spring cleaning…You won’t regret it!

For more information about 5S, check out the 5S Quick Point on our Lean Tools and Templates webpage, or contact the Office of Continuous Improvement at improvement@mtu.edu!

Daily Continuous Improvement

Published March 23, 2016

By

The ultimate goal of a Lean practitioner is to incorporate continuous improvement into every facet of their life. Contrary to popular belief, Lean is applicable in more environments than just industry. Tools like 5S and “Plan, Do, Check, Act” (PDCA) allow anyone to revamp the areas of their lives that may be creating “muda” or waste.

In our office we’ve used 5S to organize our supplies and we continue to sustain it by auditing twice a month. I have gone on to use Lean tools to clean and de-clutter my apartment, inspiring others to do the same. Life is chaotic, but when things are broken down piece by piece like Lean allows us to do, we can get more done with less stress.

Every day is an opportunity to improve and if what we have already implemented fails or has problems, we can fix it. Nothing is perfect the first time, but through continuous improvement we can sustain an environment that always changes for the better.

Welcome Rylie Store!

Published March 15, 2016

By

Lean Thinking

Joining the team in the Office of Continuous Improvement is a new Process Improvement Coordinator (PIC), Rylie Store. Rylie is a first year student pursuing a degree in Medical Laboratory Sciences with hopes to utilize her degree as a Pre-medicine parallel and eventually ticket her way into medical school. Although Rylie is only a first year she was actively involved in many clubs and organizations in high school such as Student Council, Prom Committee, and Yearbook Committee. Rylie is currently working on building up her involvement on campus and is currently an active member in the Alpine Ski and Snowboard Club. Prior to becoming a PIC, Rylie began her employment by forming her own photography business the summer going into her senior year of high school (July). She also received her certification as a Professional Ski Instructor of America in the spring of her senior year (March 2015).

Rylie will now introduce herself and share her own opinions on jumping on board with our team.

Coming into this position I’ll be honest, I hadn’t the slightest idea as to what Lean was. It wasn’t until a former employer of mine had guided me to the application for the opening of a PIC position and encouraged me to apply that I began to gain some basic knowledge of what it is that Lean necessitated. I’ve been on board officially now for about a week and in that time I’ve managed to complete some basic training. However, I still have a long ways to go before I’ll fully understand Lean to the capacity I feel that it deserves. With the minimal information and background that I have acquired I can say that I am most excited to become a factor in this journey to better improve processes and eliminate waste efficiently throughout Michigan Tech’s endeavors. Joining this team has encouraged me, even more so to expand my campus and community wide involvement while implementing continuous improvement in the process.

Although still being new in the office, I’ve managed to gather that my tasks in the office will be to not only grow my lean knowledge. but to do so through the arrangement, encouragement, and compilation of Kaizen Events.

I’m excited for this coming journey of mine as a PIC, but I’m even more so thankful to be given this opportunity to expand my horizon while also expanding the spread of Lean throughout campus.

Lean – More than a Buzzword at Career Fair

Published February 26, 2016

By

As the career fair has passed and students anxiously await interviews and follow ups from company representatives, I’d like to take this time to remind students about how Lean principles are more than knowing where to insert buzzwords. I know from experience that understanding lean practices and then applying the tools in a real world project can really make you shine as a candidate on career fair day–not to mention change your environment for the better.

For example, when I was a freshman I learned about Kanban and then integrated the principles into my own work flow. This has helped me tremendously when juggling school work, student organizations, research, and working at the Office of Continuous Improvement. A picture of a Kanban can be seen below. I encourage you all to learn more about Lean principles and start to integrate them into your daily life. Then when it comes time for an interview you can not only refer to the Lean term, but also follow up with an example of how you then applied the given concept.

kanban-board-e60650d1-1

If you want to know more about continuous improvement, feel free to reach out to the Office of Continuous Improvement either by phone at 906-487-3180 or email improvement@mtu.edu. You are also welcome to stop by our office (we love having visitors) located in 136 West Wadsworth Hall, right above the WMTU sound booth.

Category: Lean Thinking