Toyota Way (Final part)

TPS tools help us in achieving Toyota way. The below two principles help us in understanding the TPS tools more effectively and most commonly used terms hereafter.

Kaizen:

Kai- Change

Zen- Good

So Kaizen means change for good. Any improvement (small or big) done to eliminate waste is called Kaizen.

 Kaizen has to be done to reduce the gap either in occurrence type or setting type. This change for good should happen continuously and so the term ‘Continuous improvement’.

Kaizen is not innovation; the following table from one of the earlier Japanese text books (1986) helps me in validating my statement.

  
Reducing any of the listed below 7 types of Muda (Waste) is called kaizen.

  
As mentioned earlier, Overproduction is the biggest muda and it leads to all other muda’s (as you read in the example of Curious case of vegetable seller) and so it should be attacked first.

 Muda is present in all the processes. Any process will have only 20 to 30% processing time and 70 to 80% non processing time. We must develop critical eye in order to eliminate muda from the non processing time. Of course there will be some muda in the processing time too, but the scope is less if the process is designed as per standard work.

   This also reminds me of the famous quote by Robert Bosch.

 “There is nothing that cannot be improved further”

Genchi Genbutsu:

This is always associated with 3G:

1)    Gemba: Actual place.

2)    Genbutsu: Actual thing.

3)    Genjitsu: Actual situation.

 Imagine Sherlock Holmes sitting at his desk and solving crimes. Funny isn’t it?

Same applies to the Engineers or Managers who sit in office and try to analyze causes for the problems in the shop floor. 

Genchi Genbutsu means ‘Go and See’ at the actual place (Gemba) to truly understand the actual thing in the actual situation.

 Taiichi Ohno used to draw circles in the shop floor and asked Engineers to stand inside the circle and observe the process for improvement which is now widely known as ‘Ohno circles’. 

 ‘Seeing is believing’ approach helps in identifying the exact root cause for the problem as well as to identify the waste in the process. The longer we observe the process, more the number of problems that comes to the surface. No problem is the biggest problem!

 These are the steps that can be followed here:

1.    When a problem arises, go to the actual place; observe the actual thing at the actual 

      time (Situation).

2.    Identify the problem.

3.    Take temporary or counter measure on the spot.

4.    Find the root cause and take a permanent measure.

5.    Standardize the solution to prevent recurrence of the problem.

 A request to managers and supervisors is to ensure at least they spend quarter of their time in the actual work place. This will keep more than half of their troubles away.

Management by walking around in HP:

•          In the early days of Hewlett-Packard (H-P), Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett devised an active management style that they called Management by Walking around (MBWA). Senior H-P managers were seldom at their desks. They spent most of their days visiting employees, customers, and suppliers. This direct contact with key people provided them with a solid grounding from which viable strategies could be crafted.

•         Going to the source is not limited to only production but to any field of work. Once we start observing the process, we must build a habit of questioning ourselves again and again. Preferably Why Why Why? Till we get a solution/root cause to our problem. These problems are golden eggs. Why’s are not limited to just 5 times. That’s a myth. Sometimes we might get the solution at 2^nd time or 20^th time of asking ‘why’. 5 why is the name of a technique and not limited to just 5 why’s! It’s a thumb rule to ask why a minimum of 5 times to go to the root of the problem.

Most of the times, this analysis leads to the Method we are following and need to improve that.

Let’s take a simple example to understand this theory.

Bulb is not switching on

Why?

There is no power supply to the bulb.

Why?

The fuse is not working.

Why?

There is no power supply to the fuse.

Why?

There is no power supply in the wire.

Why?

The socket is damaged.

Why?

The plug was not put correctly.

So the root cause here is plug was not put correctly and hence the socket was damaged. The socket should be replaced and care must be taken while inserting the plug.

As you can observe in this analysis, instead of replacing the socket, if the bulb or fuse was replaced, then the problem would have not been solved. Taking a wrong countermeasure is not only a waste of time and money but also might cause more problems.

Another key point to remember here is the verification of the 5 why. 5 why can be verified if it satisfies the therefore condition. Let’s verify my root cause.

The plug was not put correctly therefore the socket was damaged, therefore there was no power supply in the wire, therefore there was no power supply to the fuse, therefore the fuse was not working, therefore there is no power supply to the bulb, therefore the bulb is not switching on.

If it doesn’t satisfy this condition, then there is a mistake in the analysis.

I will give one of the 5 why analysis done by me to eliminate wrong part supply to customer.

Please do the therefore analysis and give feedback to me .

This completes the Toyota way module.

Toyota way (Part 2)

Let’s discuss about the second pillar now.

Continuous improvement involves three principles: Challenge, Kaizen, Genchi genbutsu.

I think this is what keeps Toyota move ahead of its competitors globally. If these practices are followed religiously, it will make wonders in any company. I call this as a culture to be created and followed.

 Many of them complain that although these are the best practices, why there was a mass recall of cars and labor unrest at Toyota’s manufacturing plants.

 The answer to this question lies in the question itself. These are best practices only if followed. It is as simple as that when a company as big as Toyota and the originator of these practices doesn't SUSTAIN them, it is bound to fail and to be noted that not only Toyota but any other company too fails if it doesn't respect its principles.

Challenge:

Everyone take up challenges. Sometimes we achieve them, sometimes we can't and other times we will change the challenge for better or reduce its priority as it is difficult to achieve. It is the same in running a company but with necessary backing and more stringent plan to achieve the target.

Let’s take up an example to understand this well.

I run 5 km every weekend.

I started running a year ago. When I ran the first time, I took around an hour to complete the task. I didn't have a challenge then. My aim was to complete 5 km and was not time bound. After which I decided to have a target and that was to run in 15 min which was close to impossible. Is it even a realistic target?

This is the same mistake we do at our work too. The targets should always be SMART and not superfluous.

Specific

Measurable                                       

Achievable

Realistic

Time bound

Without knowing our target, it is difficult to understand where we stand and what is necessary to achieve the target. In production terms, we call the target as Standard and where we stand now as Actual. The difference between the two is called as Gap/Abnormality. Unless we understand this, we will never be able to identify problems. After all Toyota way is all about problem solving.

(Note: I have found that many companies don't know what their actual is, it is very important to grasp the actual data, I’ll talk about this in KPI- Key Performance Indicators monitoring in the later posts)

In my example, my actual is 1 hr to complete a 5 km run and my standard is to complete in 15 min. Let me analyze this target setting in a SMART way.

1. Is my target Specific?

Yes, a run to keep myself fit.

2. Is my target Measurable?

Yes. 5 km run.

3. Is my target Achievable?

It’s very difficult.

4. Is it Realistic?

Not very much.

5. Is it Time bound?

I don’t know by when I want to achieve my target.

So after making an analysis on this, I got to know that 15 min is very ideal. I had to set a realistic target now. I practiced for a few days and took sample data over time and fixed the target as 25 min (A minimum of 6 months data is desirable in production/services).

 This was more realistic and achievable and I set 6 months as the time to achieve this feat which makes it time bound. I made a week by week target plan to achieve my standard. Now, I was more determined to achieve weekly targets in order to win the challenge (Small continuous improvements over time).

After 6 months, I ran in 24 min 32 sec. 

I was happy about this and then I stopped running for the next six months (I was lazy J). Now, I want to change the standard to 20 min.

I want to do PDCA in this activity before going for the new standard. PDCA is important at every stage of an activity. (Thanks to Shewart and Deming for teaching us this beautiful concept)

Plan to run 5 km within 25 min.

Do the running; I took 31 min 16 sec (This is what happens when you don't sustain, things can get really      

      worse).

Check against the target. A GAP of 6 min 16 sec found.

Act upon this.

My first target is to achieve my best. This is called Occurrence type of gap analysis (Every day there will be one or the other abnormality in the production line, this leads to the occurrence type of gap. We must eliminate this before going for a new standard. For ex: If efficiency target is 95%, and we are able to achieve 90~92% over a period of time. We must first achieve 95% consistently and then go for a higher target).

Once I achieve my best i.e. 25 min, only then will I be able to go for the new standard of 20 min. This is called Setting type of gap analysis (Once we eliminate or minimize the occurrence type, then we can go for setting type of gap analysis in production and achieve result. In the previous example, after achieving 95% consistently, we should aim for higher target).

Solving the occurrence type and maintaining it is called Sustenance. Solving the setting type and meeting the new standard is called Improvement.

The activity done to achieve both is called Kaizen, which we will discuss in the next topic. Before going to the kaizen section, I want to touch upon another topic called hoshin kanri which is very much linked to challenge.

Hoshin Kanri

Ho- Direction

Shin- Needle

Kan- Control or channeling

Ri- Reason or Logic

For a company to know its goals and work towards it, we need a direction and should control our movement through a strong logic to achieve the desired result. Just like how we need a compass to guide a ship in an ocean to reach our destination (Hoshin) and a good captain to take us there (Kanri).

Hoshin:

To set and prioritize mid to Long-term Management Plans and Annual targets, while engaging all levels of the organization to clarify their own targets and strategies.

Kanri:

Drawing up Problem solving strategies, constantly implementing them, checking for results, if not achieved adopting countermeasures

This is a detailed vision plan to achieve the results. The example I quoted about running previously was related to just one person. This is the main tool we use to break up the vision and set targets (Challenges) to each department and then to each group and then to every member in the group. In this way, every member contributes to achieve the company Hoshin.

A collective plan for the whole company can be done by following Hoshin Kanri, more information can be obtained online and in need of any clarifications, you can contact me.

In the final part, we will discuss about Kaizen and Genchi Genbutsu.