Continuous Improvement Blog

I was recently presented with an opportunity to “think Lean” outside of my normal work setting, with others who are unfamiliar with Lean. I have found that in a work place where Lean is the norm, it is very easy to do things the Lean way, especially since everyone is working towards Continuous Improvement. The real challenge is to implement Lean in areas of your life that you hadn’t normally before, and to challenge the way you previously reacted to situations. One of my personal challenges has been to remember to “Blame the process” when there’s an issue, instead of blaming myself or another. Instead, you must look at the process in order to find the areas that create opportunity for mistakes and waste.

Our student organization MEDLIFE had a shipment come in for a fundraiser, in which we looked at the master sheet to make sure we had everything we were supposed to, which we did. Off to a good start, we started distributing the goods. It wasn’t until we came to the last few orders that we realized we were short multiple packages, and customers orders were missing items. After wracking our brains and consulting, we found out that an entire order hadn’t been ordered, as the order sheet was in an envelope that was thought to contain only money, and it was never opened.

In situations like this, I have time and again looked for the person to blame, the person who “screwed up”. It was what I had been used to, and was something I used to witness on a daily basis. However, before I could let this take hold of me, I took a deep breath and chanted to myself “Blame the process, not the person.” And so, after figuring out how it was corrected, we all congregated and began the break-down of the issue.

We used 5 Whys to understand what lead to the envelope and order being missed, which led us to understand that the overall collection process had been terribly messy and un-standardized. People had randomly dropped off orders, names were not on all the papers, some money was in envelopes, some money was just clipped together, and most of it was not labeled. In addition, if we had taken the time to separate orders before allowing people to pick them up, we could have caught the issue sooner and there wouldn’t have been multiple incomplete orders.

Overall, a recipe for disaster! After going through everything, I was astounded by the fact that only one order had been missed, as it must have been very frustrating for those who had the job of counting everything up and recording the orders. With this information, we now have a standard of how things are to be labeled and turned in, as well as by whom and when. This way, our collection process for any future fundraiser will be much more efficient, and less stressful for those who are collecting.

Not only did it feel good that I was able to react in a Lean way, but it was also a good experience to correct an issue the Lean way with others.

Yesterday I attended the Michigan Tech Career Fair. I wasn’t going in-order to get a job, internship, co-op, or anything really, except for experience. Not many companies are looking for anyone like me with my major being Sports and Fitness Management, and me being a first year, the odds that I would get offered anything by any company were very slim, if at all in existence. Just to clarify, no, I was not offered a job or internship, but I did gain a bit of experience and confidence from career fair as a whole.
Last semester at career fair, I just walked around and didn’t really do too much, but this time I was determined to at least talk with one company to gain some sort of experience. I first went and got my name tag, had my professional picture taken (because I really needed one of those, living without one on my LinkedIn has been killing me!) So, after that was out of the way, I grabbed  a map of the Multi-Purpose Room, and a list of all the companies that were represented. Like I said, I wasn’t looking for anything but experience, so I wasn’t searching for any company in particular.
I walked in and did a couple of laps just to see what companies were there, and I noticed one that didn’t have anyone at it, so after A LOT of hesitation I finally just walked up and said hello. I talked with the representatives from the Oakland Road Commission, and essentially just told them that I wasn’t looking for anything like a job offer or anything, and I just told them a little about myself. During this conversation I brought up my talking point, Lean and CI, which was my common subject with any company that was represented at the career fair. Both representatives knew about Lean and we had a nice conversation about what I do with it here at Michigan Tech, and they told me about a couple processes in their company that have been modified using Lean tactics. After our conversation came to a close, I thanked them, and moved on.
I talked with a couple other companies, neither of which knew about Lean or CI, so it was a very valuable teaching moment for myself, and maybe I might hopefully have been a spark for their companies to get invested in Lean. I told them about the Office of Continuous Improvement here at Michigan Tech, and just what my job is here in the Office of Continuous Improvement. I also tried my best to explain exactly what Lean is, but everyone has a different definition for Lean, so I tried my hardest and I told them about some Kaizens that I’m working on and the processes that are involved to get them to their end states.
Overall, I had a pretty good time at career fair, especially after I got over my fear of talking to strangers. I’m excited for next year’s career fairs, to hopefully get some more experience, and to possibly spread the word of Lean further!

Fellow PIC’s Rylie Store, Ari Laiho, and myself embarked on a journey to try to improve the Ripley Kids program at Mont Ripley. Rylie is the Ripley Kids Program Coordinator, so she essentially runs the show when it comes to the Ripley Kids program. Ari is an instructor in the program, a ski and snowboard enthusiast herself. I, however, don’t ski or snowboard, and have honestly never even heard of the Ripley Kids program, so this was a whole new experience from day one for me.
Rylie was the team leader on this Kaizen, Ari facilitated it, and I was introduced to my first Kaizen as a PIC. Rylie, Ari, and I had our pre-meeting, and Rylie explained a lot of the challenges, difficulties, and frustrations she has to face as the Program Coordinator. She was worrying about instructors not showing up, classes not starting or ending on time, keeping track of each group, and the registration process (just to name a few). Needless to say, it was time for some improvements.
Rylie and Ari compiled a team that is directly involved with the Ripley Kids process, and they addressed many of the same issues Rylie shared in the pre-meeting. So, we went to work. The team was able to come up with many great ideas that the team was able to incorporate into the Ripley Kids program. They held an instructors meeting, where Rylie talked with all the instructors, and got their input on what they’d like to see in the Ripley Kids program, which went very successfully.
We just had our two month check-in yesterday, for a check-in on how things are going. Rylie said that this has been probably one of, if not the most successful years of Ripley Kids yet. They were able to purchase helmet covers to help in keeping track of each group as well as each kid in the groups, and so far there haven’t been any issues and non-of the covers have gone mission because Rylie has built a system for keeping track of them after each lesson. There was some resistance to the changes, simply because the processes are new, but overall the instructors seem to be enjoying the program more, and seem to be more committed to Ripley Kids, which has made everything else go much smoother. Rylie has also been keeping track of metrics such as start times, questions asks, the amount of time instructors spend on each lesson.
One of the biggest things Rylie has implemented is a reflection process after each lesson. Each instructor fills out a reflection to track the progress of each kid in their group, it helps to show the instructors and Rylie to see the progress and plan the next lesson plan in a way that is tailored to each student.

I am very lucky to be a part of this Kaizen, and I’m glad seeing that everything things improved, I can’t wait to see what the future holds for the Ripley Kids program.

Lean spends a great amount of time emphasizing the importance of the People. Whether this be through mutual respect, humility, Systems thinking, equality among ranks, Coaching, Teamwork, Active Listening, Conflict management… the list truly goes on and on. This is exactly why Toyota made “Respect for people” as one of two  pillars supporting their foundation.

The other pillar is Continuous Improvement. As Jeff Liker illustrates in his book The Toyota Way, Continuous Improvement is an embodiment of three areas:

1. Challenge – A long term vision that is designed to tackle challenges in a creative and valiant way that shows us what our goals are.
2. Kaizen – Constant improvement in the operations of a business through change and adaptation.
3. Genchi Genbutsu – “Go to the source to find the facts to make correct decisions and build consensus and trust.”

Continuous Improvement is not just a two word title. It is a change in mindset. It’s a sense of purpose, to strive for something greater and actually achieve it. Here at Michigan Tech we really emphasize this pillar. I mean, we are the Office of Continuous Improvement. We focus on utilizing the people we have, and their bodies of knowledge to propel the university higher. Our model of Continuous Improvement circulates around learning to improve, and we do this by:

1. Going to the Gemba – where work is done
2. Collecting metrics
3. Implementing the Scientific Method – Kata, PDCA, A3
4. Understanding the customers point of view so that we can add value
5. and Practicing a no blame environment – It’s the process not the people

The goal of our office at Michigan Tech is to help all areas of campus to reduce waste, and add value so that the University can function at the optimum level and focus on our customers, the students. We could not implement this second pillar of lean, if it weren’t for the first, the people. The people at this university, lean practitioners or non, are what drives our campus up.

The people here at Michigan Tech are almost always willing to join forces and tackle waste so that we can continuously improve and thrive.

Just after the semester started, I completed PIC training, and one of the first things I was assigned to as a PIC was to take over the MUB basement Kaizen from Matt, since he left the office. I was kind of terrified of it at first because it’d be technically my first Kaizen on my own, and I didn’t really have very much of an idea of what Kaizen’s really were yet, so I’m sure you can tell why I was a bit scared of it.

I started working with the team on the Kaizen at a newspaper meeting since the Kaizen technically started in January of 2017, so the processes at the beginning of the Kaizen were already long gone. Anyway, the first newspaper meeting I went to, we did a Gemba Walk through the basement and there was still some standards to be set with the janitorial supplies/carts, fire safety was another thing that still had to be implemented, and some small clutter things were waiting to be moved out. The next newspaper meeting, during our Gemba Walk, everything was moved/implemented, and there wasn’t very much left to do in the Kaizen itself. However, the two sides (Dining & Auxiliary Services/MUB) that have control of the MUB Basement decided to split up to assign uses for their parts of the basement.

Going through some of the pictures of the basement prior to the Kaizen, it’s so unbelievable seeing the changes that have been made, going from not have very much if ANY space to even walk, to having rooms opened and things having their own place, it’s a transformation unlike any other. Also the team has been fortunate enough to learn a lot of safety and disposal laws during the Kaizen. Even during the closure meeting during reflections, the only thing that the team could really say was “WOW.”

Now the two teams are doing their own Kaizens on their portions of the MUB Basement to see what to do with their areas, what processes work best for them, and what they’re trying to achieve. I’m very excited to see what will happen in the future given the tremendous transformation already. Both teams are just past the pre-meeting stage, and are moving on to the Kaizen days, so I can’t wait to see what’ll happen.

One of our newest additions to our PIC team is Ellie. She has been working on several enrichment projects since joining our office and to watch her mind start to shift towards a lean mindset has been nothing short of exciting. Ellie has continually expressed her excitement to work in the office and is already hopping on her first kaizen with Dining Services. She has even started to bridge the gap between lean and her major in psychology. We are so excited to watch our team grow and branch to other departments on campus. I’ll let Ellie take over from here…

Hi! My name Is Ellie Luokkanen, I am a first year psychology student here at Michigan Tech. I just recently started and am now finished training as a new Process Improvement Coordinator in the Office of Continuous Improvement.

I grew up in a small town called Fulton, 30 minutes north of Houghton.  I graduated from Calumet High School 2 years ago and have just finished taking a gap year to do some traveling and pursue my love of music. I have participated in PJ Olsson’s Rock Camp, as a vocalist, at the Rozsa Center here on campus for the last two years of my high school career, which is what prompted me to take my gap year. I got to spend a lot of time doing what I love, making music, as well as having great opportunities to travel. I even lived in Kentucky for a little while doing these things. After my year of travel I was excited to get back to school to start my journey towards a degree in another passion of mine, psychology. I couldn’t be happier to be here at Michigan Tech!

Thanks!