Continuous Improvement Blog

Customer Appreciation Week Lean Tours

Published April 15, 2013

The Auxiliary Services Customer Appreciation Week was held at Michigan Tech a few weeks back. One event that we’d like to highlight today was the tours in the MUB which featured Lean improvements.

Heidi Reid, the Facilities and Events Coordinator at the MUB shared a bit about the tours: “The Lean tours consisted of several “day to day” continuous improvements that take place in our office and building.” The tour started off with their 5S improvement project for their inventory of office supplies. The 5S improvements to the supply closet and ordering system have been sustained for over 4 years and counting.

Standardized work was also covered on the tour, “We used standardized work for many areas including managing our guest room reservation/check-in procedure. We utilize a practice of standardized work called knowledge folders, which are step by step instructions for many routine operations. If a student worker needs to perform a duty they are not familiar with, they can use these folders to complete the task” stated Reid.

Other Lean improvements and tools covered on the tour were the value of auditing, daily team meetings , and visual controls. Reid added “our office staff are working every day to improve our processes and streamline daily work, in an effort to satisfy our customer’s needs.”

The tour sparked new interest in Lean practice to those who participated. Karen Patterson, new to the University and the Center of Diversity and Inclusion, had a positive experience on the tour. Karen came from Portage Health, where many of the nurses are practicing Lean. When asked about her overall impression of the tour Karen said she was very excited to hear about all of the improvements. Karen has taken the next steps to bring Lean to her new role and will be presenting some ideas to her office at their May department meeting.

Graduate Application Review Process

Published April 8, 2013

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Success Stories

Lean in Higher Education is about the University delivering expected value through their processes and services, using University resources more effectively, and providing employees of the University with more meaningful work.

The department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences, recently learned how successful their spring 2012 kaizen event on their graduate application review process was. The “current state” prior to any improvements was that the length of time it took to respond to graduate students was causing a loss of students (to other schools who respond faster), re-work, and over-processing of application material. The length of time to respond was approximately 50 days!

A cross-functional kaizen team was brought together one year ago to focus on this problem. The team consisted of members of the graduate student selection committee, a staff member from the Michigan Tech Graduate School, a graduate student providing the perspective of a customer, and a Lean facilitator. A process map was created indicating that there were 33 steps to complete a review and respond to students. The team identified problems within the many steps and brainstormed ideas to eliminate the problems/waste.

As a result the process was reduced from 33 steps to 24 steps, a 27% improvement. After a year of collecting post-kaizen metrics the team has recently learned that their improvements have reduced the time to respond to students from 50 to 15 days – an impressive 70% improvement! Congratulations to the kaizen team!!

The process map for the graduate application review process.

Personal Kanban Board Take 2

Published April 3, 2013

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You might recall a post from almost one year ago when I introduced the concept of personal kanban boards. I began using this tool that week and I have not gone a day without using my board since! I find this tool to be very effective for my work (projects, correspondence, coordination of activities, etc.).

If you compare the below picture to the graphic in the 2012 blog post you will see that my personal kanban has evolved quite a bit – a little bit of check and adjust. I have made many changes over this past year to adapt the board to fit my needs, I think this is a very important step in making your kanban board work for you.

Here is a bit about some of the changes I made to my board:

I color coded my work (stickies) by month – giving each month a color allows me to see items that are falling behind. A month works great for the type of work I do.
I changed my headings – the original PDCA heading was more confusing than helpful (personal opinion, I know others who find these headings to work well). I came up with three headings: my “hopper” are items I will work on at some point, “today” is work items for the day, and my “waiting” column allows me to keep track of items that I sent off but will be waiting for a response on.
I also strategically limited my column sizes. For instance, my “today” column cannot fit more than five stickies. I would despise working a day with more than five stickies – so this board constraint holds me to that. Limiting your work in process (WIP) is one rule for personal kanban. The other rule is to visualize your work.

In the past year, I also found a great website that helped me better understand this concept: http://www.personalkanban.com/pk/.

If you are interested in starting a personal kanban board for yourself or your work group, please contact me. We have many examples across campus to give you some ideas.

New Student PIC

Published March 29, 2013

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Hello there,

I am Mike Leveille, a new Student Process Improvement Coordinator working in the Process Improvement Office. I am a fourth year Mechanical Engineering student with a minor in Mathematical Sciences. When I graduate in spring 2014 I will be commissioned as a 2d Lieutenant into the US Air Force.

Two concepts that are important in the Air Force are situational awareness and attention to detail. The OODA loop is one way that these concepts are emphasized when making a decision. The OODA loop was originally developed by US Air Force Colonel John Boyd for military strategy. This decision making loop has also been adapted for use in the business world. The OODA loop stands for:

Observe: Collect information.

Orient: Analyze the information you’ve gathered and use it to get in tune with your current state.

Decide: Decide on a plan of action.

Act: Carry out your plan.

I am relatively new to Lean concepts and continue to learn more about them every day. I have learned that OODA loops can be compared to a cycle commonly used in Lean practice, the PDCA cycle. Like PDCA, OODA is a continuous cycle where you continue to collect feedback and make adjustments to your decisions and actions as needed until you have the desired result.

I am looking forward to begin my first Lean projects for the office. You can contact me at mrleveil@mtu.edu. Have a good day!

Mike

Note: Image from: http://3pointbeyondthearc.blogspot.com/2010/08/five-marketing-and-business-truths.html

ICE Rap

Published March 20, 2013

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Lean Thinking

One of the commonly used prioritization tools used in Lean practice is ICE (which stands for Impact, Ease, and Control). This helps to list out and prioritize any possible countermeasures based what impact they will have, the control you have over the countermeasure, and the ease of implementation.

Here in the process improvement office, we have created an ICE rap, using the song Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice as a guide. The lyrics can be read here.

Countermeasure	Impact	Control	Ease	Total

UPLMC Presentation and the Affinity Diagram

Published March 11, 2013

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On March 7, a group of Michigan Tech employees gave a panel presentation at the U.P. Labor Management Council’s annual conference in Harris, MI. The panel presentation, “Lean Principles: A Strategy for Improved Labor Relations,” was given by:

Amanda Cadwell (Administrative Aide, Civil/Environmental Engineering & UAW President)
Wendy Davis (Manager of Process Improvement)
Bob Hiltunen (Director, Auxiliary Services)
Ellen Horsch (Vice President for Administration)
Rhonda McClellan (Facilities Helper, AFCSME member)
Barb Ruotsala (retired, past UAW President).

Theresa Coleman-Kaiser (Assistant VP for Administration) moderated the panel presentation.

At the beginning of each presentation the panel used a tool called the Affinity Diagram to gather thoughts and opinions from the audience on what they thought about “Lean” in 3 words or less. While a presentation was given regarding the key concepts of Lean and how Michigan Tech has been utilizing Lean methods and tools, Theresa Coleman-Kaiser was organizing sticky note responses from guests into family groups by their affinity. This tool allowed us to better understand our audience, gave them a connection to our presentation, and allowed us to have a well moderated and engaging open discussion period.

Dining Services Lean Journey Article is published in The Business Officers

Published February 27, 2013

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Brittany Wood, Market Research Analyst Intern and I began working on an article that was to discuss the Lean “journey” Michigan Tech’s Dining Services has experienced over the past four years. After lots of research, interviews, and multiple drafts the article was completed in October.

The Business Officers magazine has published the article in their February edition! The article is the feature piece in the Business Intel section of the magazine.

Special thanks to Kathy Wardynski, Ellen Horsch, and Bob Hiltunen for letting us interview them on multiple occasions, and to Ann Kitalong-Will, Wendy Davis, Megan Johnson, Ellen Horsch, and Gina Sayen for reviewing and editing the many drafts of the article.

You can read the article online, or contact Wendy Davis to borrow a copy of the magazine out of the Lean Library.

HR Training Series Features Continuous Improvement Using Lean

Published February 4, 2013

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Events
News

Written by: Megan Johnson, Student Process Improvement Coordinator

The HR Supervisor Training series, a series of training for staff supervisors all across campus, will conclude this week with the final presentation of Module 6: Continuous Improvement Using Lean Principles. The purpose and goals of this 6 module training series as a whole were to provide educational opportunities, develop leadership skills, and provide tools for problem solving and communication for all supervisors.

Wendy Davis, Manager of Process Improvement, and Theresa Coleman-Kaiser, Assistance Vice President for Administration, presented Module 6. The objectives of Module 6 were for supervisors to:

Develop a problem-solving mindset using Lean Thinking,
Improve processes and services and strive for perfection, and
Improve labor-management relations.

In the session, information on various Lean topics was covered, including: a Lean Overview and Key Concepts, Waste, Lean Mental Models, and Employee Engagement and Culture Building. The interactive training module included a team exercise, discussion and sharing experiences, videos to provide examples or share testimonials, and role playing. At the end of the session, supervisors were encouraged to visit the “gemba” with a purpose, discuss improvement opportunities with their staff, visit a daily team meeting, practice Socratic questioning, reflect on their mental models, and call Wendy with any questions or improvement opportunities!

Michigan Tech Staff to be Trained

Published January 24, 2013

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A few Michigan Tech Lean Implementation Leaders/Facilitators will be traveling in the upcoming months for various Lean trainings. Stay tuned for updates regarding their training experiences:

Heidi Reid – “Toyota Kata” at University of Michigan

Wendy Jones – “Developing People with Capability for Lean” and “Coaching Skills for Lean Implementation Leaders” from Lean Enterprise Institute

Wendy Davis – “Lean Office Certificate” University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Training for these staff is supported by a grant from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

Lead Time

Published January 16, 2013

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Lead time is the elapsed time to make one item or provide a service; it includes the time from the initial step to the last step. Understanding what makes up your lead time and what percentage of it is actually adding value to your customers is important. Eliminating steps or activities that add to lead time but add no value to the customers is where improvements can be made.

During a recent kaizen event at the Student Development Complex ticket office, identifying lead time was one of the first steps the team took. The team set out to collect the current lead time for a ticket seller to make one quick sale. They also collected the process steps that went into processing the sale.

In the 15-20 minutes before a hockey game or event, quick lead times are ideal to move hundreds of customers through the line. The kaizen team set out to make improvements to the quick sale process and to update training materials so that new student ticket sellers can catch on quickly.