"Lean Is Harmony"

Got Boondoggle?: Lean Manufacturing Epiphany

Great post from Mike about his Japan tour, including this gem:

My lean manufacturing epiphany is quite simple, LEAN IS HARMONY. Culturally speaking in Japan, harmony is a treasured state of being for a person. With harmony, life is in balance and flowing in concert with its surroundings. The principles of lean are trying to put harmony into the workplace. This means harmony between man and machine, management and associates, company and customer, company and supplier, and even between company and society. The lean principles are helping us develop and promote harmony by removing barriers, rocks, and conflicts that disrupt flow in our business.

Click on the link above for his complete thoughts. I'm very glad he shared his experiences with us.

"Lookalike" Drug Packaging

Drug makers must think about different packaging | IndyStar.com

Here's a picture of the two drugs that were mixed up when the three babies were killed at the hospital in Indianapolis last week.

As the MD wrote in the letter-to-the-editor that I've linked to above, the deaths were absolutely preventable. We can't just blame the drug maker. This was a systemic problem. The "system" killed the babies.

The packages, to me, are hardly "identical." Similar yes, but not identical. The MD recommends that the manufacturer put the drugs in different sized bottles. That might be a decent step, and the extra cost to the manufacturer (stocking and producing different sized bottles) would be worth it.

Maybe stronger dosed drugs/pills should always be in larger bottles/packages, denoting "stronger." That might increase the inventory costs throughout the supply chain (more space taken up by larger packaging), but pharmacies I've seen typically have their shelves somewhat lightly utilized, at least in one direction (e.g., the shelves are packed from left to right, but they're not using vertical space well, or the shelves aren't close enough together). Pharmacies are hardly efficiently "cubing out" their stock space the way a lean manufacturer might tweak their warehouse or truck utilization. If they were really concerned about that, they would use SQUARE or rectangular bottles (ala Fiji Water -- look at how these bottles "cube out" nicely in boxes and shipping containers).

Anyway, this was a systemic problem with many root causes, all of which can be fixed using lean methods. The manufacturer -- change the packaging (an error proofing method). The hospital needs to take steps -- error proofing and standard work among the pharmacy techs and nurses to truly prevent the problems, not just to catch the problems in time or at the last minute before drugs are given to a patient.

I've read about how the hospital is putting in more "double checks." This is just more inspection. We need more prevention. 100% inspection isn't 100% effective. Having TWO people inspect anything (an engine built n a factory or drugs dispensed in a hospital) is sometimes WORSE than having one person inspect. Basic human psychology says we slack off if we think someone else will catch our mistake. Two inspectors might each think "well, the other person will catch it" and then nobody catches the problems.

What Are We Searching For? Part Deux

From the Lean Blog server logs.... I did this back in February and here's what people are searching for today.... not the most popular searches, but the stuff that was searched for lately by ONE person (these are NOT the popular search terms), in bold:

downside lean manufacturing

Sure, the negative nellies who have heard about how "lean is mean"

why toyota production system doesn't work in aero

Ah, more specific negative nellies -- so that's why Ford hired a new CEO from Aero, Allan Mulally, who ran Boeing's lean program?

fix gm

More of a command than a search question, eh?

hours per vehicle definition

I would have figured that definition was pretty self-explanatory.... # of hours worked divided by # of vehicles built. Oh, I forgot it's much more complicated if you're gaming the system... which hours don't count, can be excluded, etc.?

make drugs at home lean
making lean drugs

Wow, what in the world is that about?

the most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize

Great quote, Shigeo Shingo of course.

Since someone will ask, the most popular search terms were, in order of popularity:

leanblog, leanblog.org, ford buyouts, standard work, shingo prize, lean manufacturing china, conn selmer lean, kanban, gemba walk, lean mfg, nun and the bureaucrat, lean consultants china

Incentives for On-Time, But What About Quality?

Rotorhub: The Information Hub of the Helicopter Industry

Here's an article about some military helicopter part production and a "lean" system.

This jumped out at me:

At Boeing, a frank Joe LaMarca, divisional communications director, said it was true that union workers had missed a couple of incentive payments tied to guaranteed delivery schedules. ‘But that came after 20-odd successive payments,’ he said.

So if your incentives are tied to on-time delivery, that gives a really strong incentive to cut corners on quality or to look the other way if there's a question between shipping and making sure quality is perfect.

Sure, you might say, "Wow, that's cynical Mark. These folks are making helicopter parts, they know quality and safety matters."

Then where are the incentives for quality? Are they there? I've worked at a factory (a major manufacturer who is sometimes called "lean") where every incentive bonus for workers was tied to production quantity and efficiency, nothing about quality. The results were predictable -- it was ok to ship crap.

Incentives need to be balanced. You never know who might be under financial pressure and that extra pay means everything. If incentives really worked, there wouldn't have been any late shipments.... because people are "motivated" by incentives, right?

How about you pay people a fair wage, let them have pride in their work, and allow them to share in overall company success (which requires success in a number of balanced metrics, including quality)?

Amateurs Do It Right....

I like this quote from, of all companies, General Motors -- a GMC Truck ad:

"Amateurs work until they get it right. Professionals work until they can't get it wrong."

The ad shows images of football, but it makes me think of our lean efforts. Did you prepare enough, train enough, coach enough, practice enough to do it right once or to make sure you're doing it right every day?

Professionals work until things are habit or automatic. Professionals would also, I suppose, error proof processes so things don't go wrong.

I strive to be a professional. That's my goal.

Teaching Managers to Manage (or Better Yet, Lead)

Managers Rate Themselves High, But Workers Prove Tough Critics - WSJ.com

There are always stories about how something like 80% of employees think they are above average and that's mocked. OK, it's statistically possible that 80% are above average (it's not the median, but that's a little too Six Sigma for me), but the point is that most people over-estimate their capabilities.

This story from the WSJ turns the tables on managers and their lack of self awareness.

"Managers overall get an OK grade," he said. "But there's a big disconnect between how managers think they're doing and how employees think [managers are] doing. Most managers don't think they're doing a bad job. Most people don't think they're doing a bad job. But if you're not getting feedback from your employees on how well you're doing, where else do you get it from?"

Managers are surprised by their 360-degree reviews. Guess what, the managers aren't as good as they think they are.

"While 92% of managers say they are doing an "excellent" or "good" job managing employees, only 67% of workers agree. An additional 23% say their boss is doing a "fair" job, and 10% find their manager is doing a "poor" job, according to a survey of 1,854 U.S. workers by Rasmussen Reports LLC for Hudson, the staffing and outsourcing firm."

So why is this?

Meanwhile, 26% of managers said they don't get enough training to handle their responsibilities, the survey found.

"Managers are saying, 'I need help to do my job and to manage people more effectively,'" Mr. Morgan said. "I see this happen all the time. You promote someone who's one of your best employees, maybe your best salesperson.

"Well, what does the organization do to support that person in that transition? It's a whole different set of responsibilities."

How often do we see a top engineer or technical person who is promoted to manager and then flounders? This happens in healthcare also. "Congratulations, you're now management" and they're left to figure it out themselves.

One thing that fascinates me about Toyota (and leads to their success) is their leadership development model. They have standard work for team leaders, group leaders, etc. They TEACH you how to manage and how to lead people. It's not a free for all, you're taught to manage in a system and as part of a system.

Does your company really do this? 40 hours of random management training doesn't necessarily do it. Do they really teach you how to manage day-to-day or did you just have to figure it out? I know that when I was put into management roles briefly at companies, I had to figure it out by myself... and I hated it.

Congrats to Jamie Flinchbaugh

The Manufacturer.com - Lean Learning Center partner honored by Crain's

Congrats to Jamie, frequent contributor to the Lean Blog for being named the Detroit Crain's Business "40 under 40" list which "identifies men and women in the business and non-profit communities who have achieved solid business success before the age of 40."

Way to go!

"Lean and mean manufacturing"

Lean and mean manufacturing - 9/26/2006 - Modern Materials Handling

When I see "mean" in a headline, it's strange... I would expect that to be negative article, but this article is positive and pretty accurate.

"Most people think of lean as a system designed to keep inventory and waste to a minimum. While that’s true, the whole point of lean is to be extraordinarily customer-focused and responsive. Reduced inventory, lead times, paperwork and errors are a by-product of a system focused on the end-customer."

Not a bad definition. The lean methods they mention in the article are all solid. They don't talk about the culture or management practices, other than allowing workers to stop the line when a quality problem occurs.

Why would you say "mean" in a positive article? That blows me away. There's nothing positive about "mean" right?

Lean is the Norm??

Including the Missing Links in the Global Supply Chain - InformationWeek White Papers:

Here's one more reason to NOT pay attention to "lean" articles from software vendors. Don't waste your time on the link above, but it includes the line:

"The 'Lean' enterprise is the norm rather than the exception in larger companies."

Really? Do any of you think that is true? Lean is still very much a struggle because it goes against so many of the management principles that American management is still in love with.

I've been trading emails the past two weeks with a UAW trainer who works for a major auto supplier. He is tasked with training new hires about lean. He has his doubts that management is really walking the talk with lean.

I really empathize with his situation. I think he's setting up the new hires for frustration when he has to train them on lean. This UAW trainer is very bright and articulate about lean and management in his emails to me. But, in his first email, he said he's "new" to lean and he's been at that supplier for 26 years.

If that Shingo Prize winning company was really so "lean", how could you NOT know about lean?? He's supposed to train employees about lean and quality, but management won't people stop the line to stop quality problems. Management won't allow the supervisors to participate in the employee training. It doesn't sound like their management support is very strong for lean, they are just interested in "cherry picking" as my UAW friend puts it.

How is it that those of us lower in the organizations can understand lean but top management is so disconnected?

My final quote from the UAW trainer that really hit home to me:

"Management has this weird way of thinking they think they can open up a can of lean and it will just work. They did not take the time to change the culture but yet they expect miracles."

That about sums up the troubles in the auto industry. I really empathize with those still trying to fight the good lean fight.

Great Kanban Story from David Meier

Here is a story from David Meier, a former Group Leader at Toyota and the co-author of The Toyota Way Fieldbook and the upcoming Toyota Talent (April 2007).

He writes:
I am sure you have experienced the problem of how to attach kanban to cardboard boxes. We did not have too many cardboard boxes at Toyota so for the few we had it was not a big deal. We used bungee cord or rubber bands or slipped the kanban under the flaps.

In other companies there are many more boxes and it is a big challenge. A company I work with had a great idea. It started with one guy walking around Wal-Mart one night looking for an answer to this dilemma. He finally realized that a wood screw poked through the boxes would work so he experimented with it. It worked pretty well, but then there was a screw dangling from the kanban when not on the box.

Some time later another guy (his nick-name is Skinny) was working with the materials guy (nick-named Moose- I am not kidding those are their nicknames and I don’t know their real names) and Skinny relied on his previous experience in retail to develop an idea for the kanban. He suggested using one of those devices used to attach plastic tags to garments to attach kanban to boxes.

They bought a heavy-duty hand-held tag gun and gave it a try. As you can see from the photos it works great. This is one of the cleverest ideas that I have seen lately and since you are the king of kanban I thought you might like to spread a good idea. (Click on the pictures for larger views)


The company is MI Windows and Doors in Gratz, PA and the guys are coming up with some great ideas that I wanted to share. They bought the tag gun from ULINE at the link below. Make sure to but the heavy-duty needles. They are also looking at the unit that holds 1000 tags but I told that was over-production.

Here is a link for the gun.

Lean Outsourcing

By Mike Lopez

A Bay Area-based global outsourcing expert, Mark Zetter, and HP's former worldwide manufacturing education manager, Eric Olsen, Ph.D., have written a white paper on Lean Outsourcing. In the article, they raise a very good point. United States-based lean consultants often try to sell lean as a way to curtail the flow of manufacturing jobs offshore. As more offshore companies embrace the principles of lean, matching the quality and customer focus of their United State-based counterparts, the truly lean company may find that the most lean solution is to outsource. In graduate school, I personally experienced the benefits of Lean Outsourcing. I employed multiple computer programmers to do work for me overseas through the www.rentacoder.com website. The arrangement allowed me to offer the services of a large website programming business with no fixed overhead. All my costs were variable and everything was ordered just-in-time. Another review of the article can be found at Evolving Excellence.

Lack of Error Proofing Kills 3 Babies

This is an incredibly sad, and completely preventable, situation. Three babies are dead, and three more injured, because the wrong drug was administered to them at an Indianapolis hospital.

Let's keep in mind, first, this quote from the World Health Organization:

“Human error is inevitable. We can never eliminate it. We can eliminate problems in the system that make it more likely to happen.”

This quote could easily come from Toyota leadership. This is why they error proof. You want to prevent good people from making mistakes. My point is to look at this situation by NOT pointing fingers of blame at an individual.

The situation and the news stories:

Initial story about the first two deaths from a local news station

CBN story, again after the first two deaths

"At the newborn intensive care unit of Methodist Hospital, the staff is blaming the newborn deaths on human error. Somehow the wrong dose of a blood-thinner medication, Heparin, was stocked in a hospital drug cabinet.

President and CEO of Methodist Hospital, Sam Odle, said, "They're both one-milliliter vials. One has 10,000 units of heparin, one has 10 units of heparin...so the nurses -- knowing they only carry one dose on the unit -- took the vial out and administered it to the patients."The mistake proved deadly.In all, six premature babies were given adult doses of the drug. Three babies are in stable condition. Another is in critical condition. Two babies died."

A lot of the initial response was focused on "a nurse made a mistake." Situations like this are far more systemic and wide spread than to think a single person and a single mistake led to this.

A nurse said:

"I have always been confident that the drug that I'm looking at is the drug that's in the drawer," said a nurse. "But, of course, it's still my responsibility to assure it's the right drug."

Since this was a CHILDREN's ICU, you would wonder why an adult-dose drug was ever there. The nurse is saying that it should NOT have been there. But still, a nurse did not read the label, she ASSUMED. That's just one mistake. A better process would be to ALWAYS double-check the drug name and dosage. The drug should have been labeled "Heplock" but it was actually "Heparin" that was loaded into the cabinet. Heparin has been in the news before when adults are killed because "Heparin" was confused with "Insulin" (same vial, clear liquid, etc.).

Looking at future PREVENTION, the CBN article says:

"Under new guidelines, the hospital staff will double-check drug labels and remove certain doses of the blood-thinning drug, heparin, from their unit."

Now the second part sounds like an error-proofing step.... but removing the drug that already shouldn't have been there is very reactive. How do you prevent the adult-dose drug from getting there? What process was responsible for that?

The Washington Post news story, after the third death has some more details:

"According to hospital officials' account, a pharmacy technician had loaded the cabinet with heparin, at 10,000 units per milliliter, instead of hep-lock, at 10 units per milliliter."

So we had one mistake, a tech from a different department loading the wrong drug. The nurses, far too trusting of the system, didn't double check the label and assumed, incorrectly, that they have the wrong drug -- partially lulled to sleep by the technology that you might expect to prevent this. There is a cabinet in the ICU that requires a nurse to enter their ID code and a patient code -- it prevents the wrong DRAWER from being opened. But, it doesn't address the issue of a pharmacy tech loading the wrong drug. How is that error-proofed?

Everyone is pointing fingers, some of it system related (how does the drug maker help make the packages more distinct, so Heparin and Heplock aren't confused?)

The mother, and we can't possibly have enough sympathy and empathy for her pain and suffering, she says:

"The nurses is what I'm blaming. They need to lose their licenses is what I am saying so it won't happen again to the other babies," Jeffers said.

I'm sorry, but that's not going to prevent other deaths. Everybody in the system, particularly the nurses, were probably trying their best. We need to improve the SYSTEM to prevent it from happening at Methodist and at other hospitals. Was this a one-time error?

"Methodist has acknowledged two other heparin mix-ups involving babies in 2001, and said both infants recovered."If this was an isolated incident I would say that it would be solely the responsibility of the person at the hospital," Lee said. "But this is not an isolated incident.""

The five nurses and pharmacy technician involved are on leave and receiving support and counseling, and are expected to return to work, Odle said.

I'm sure all of the hospital employees feel sick over what happened. I know I would. Hell, I read about this yesterday and I had basically a nightmare where I was working with a pharmacy and trying to get them to improve, mistakes were still being made and I was yelling at people (and I'm not normally a yeller). This kind of situation really bothers me and reinforces my mission to work in lean healthcare.

When I'm back to work at my client tomorrow, I'm going to talk with a pharmacy tech I know and get her perspectives on this, what procedures would be in place at their hospital to prevent this kind of situation.

People need to "be careful" but that isn't enough. As the quote up top says, people are human. Blaming "human error," as the hospital did doesn't mean "what individual screwed up?" It means, humans designed a fallible system. We need to try harder to design error-proofed systems, whether in healthcare, aviation, etc. In the current situation,d either in it takes MULTIPLE errors for a death to occur, but it still happens too often.

There are over 5,000 hospitals in the U.S. This kind of error could happen (and probably does) at any of them. My question is this --- what kind of network is in place to share situations like this? EVERY hospital in America (and the world) should be looking at their own processes today to prevent THIS problem. With the internet and modern communications, each hospital shouldn't be operating in a vacuum. One mistake ANYWHERE should be enough to drive change and process improvement EVERYWHERE. We don't need to make the mistake at each hospital before each hospital fixes the process.

Do we have any Intel readers who could share how "Copy Exact" communication among the fabs takes place? Sure, a network of 5,000 hospitals under different ownership is one thing compared to a smaller number of fabs all run by one company, but I'm sure lessons can be learned.

One lesson for me -- if I had a baby in the ICU (or any loved one in the hospital), I would be there and would monitor each and every drug that was ever administered. If a nurse is offended, so be it.

An Example of Incentives Harming Customers

Flight Attendants Extort Blanket Sales From Freezing Passengers - Consumerist

In an earlier post's comments, Luke pointed out the importance of having the RIGHT incentives. As Peter Sholtes writes, people are amazingly good at meeting objectives, at the expense of the overall system (or customers).

The link gives the example of an un-named Asian low-cost airline. They now sell blankets to passengers. Airline management, wanting to maximize revenue, gives incentives and QUOTAS to flight attendants.

So, what happens? The flight attendants have the pilots blast the AC so they can hit their blanket quotas and goals.

There's an example of an organization that has completely lost sight of the customer. Don't let the same thing happen in your business.

How Incentives Are Ineffective

Reward and Incentive Programs are Ineffective -- Even Harmful by Peter R. Scholtes

It's worth a full post and full link, this article that John Hunter of the Curious Cat blog wrote about and mentioned in a comment to this post of mine.

I love the comment that Sholtes made, passed along by John:

When a client talked about needing to clear out the "dead wood" (poor employees) Peter asked if they hired dead wood or hired live trees and killed them. Peter's opinion was that they were doing the killing and hiring new people wouldn't help if you are just going to turn them into "dead wood." If you are hiring dead wood then stop doing that.

If you're not reading the comments to the blog posts, you're missing out on some of the good material that others contribute. If you have comments for this post, or any, click on the comments link and let us know what you think.

Highlights from the Sholtes post:

First, they don't work There are no credible data to show that any long-term benefit results from such programs. There are data, however, that show that they do harm.

They often set up a form of internal competition in which people strive to look good and look better than their fellow employees. Sometimes looking good becomes more important than doing well.

People pass problems on to others elsewhere and later in the system. "Don't let the problem appear to happen on my watch."

People will circumvent the system for personal gain, causing havoc to the system.

People will strive to look good even when it may hurt the customers. Sears auto-service personnel -- in order to meet their monthly profit quotas -- provided unnecessary repairs and replaced perfectly good parts. The customers paid dearly so that the repair shops could look good.

I've seen more harm than good come from incentives in my career. A personal pet peeve of mine is sales incentives that are added on during a year to drive additional sales (this is me speaking as a non-sales person). Your job is to sell... so more incentives are necessary to get you to sell more?

Remove the demotivators. Ask people what gets in the way of their doing work they are proud of. Remove those obstacles to pride in work.

Focus on improving the processes. You and everyone in your company need to become more aware of what systems and processes are, and how to study them, and improve them.

Focus on customers. Something that provides a lot of gratification and satisfaction to employees is to know that customers are excited about the products and services.

The things that get in the way of people doing their work -- that's WASTE. Remove the waste, allow people to improve their processes so they can spend more time focus on customers. That's why this is a "Lean" topic.

As Deming loved to say "Substitute Leadership" in the place of incentives, quotas, etc.

Another Lean Healthcare Overview

Squeezing the fat from health care - baltimoresun.com

Here is another nice overview of some of the results seen from the application of Lean Thinking to the healthcare realm.

One thing the healthcare people understand better than manufacturing folks is that you can't allow your lean efforts to be derailed by allow lean improvements to directly cause job loss.

"In some cases, they fail because of poor implementation or lack of resources. In turn, workers get frustrated and fear job cuts as companies cycle through such management practices. Several hospitals, such as St. Agnes, do not lay off workers. Instead, workers are typically redeployed throughout the organization."

In hospitals I work with, the goal is to either A) grow "the business" by using freed up space increase the amount of work done by the same number of people (such as insourcing lab work that was previously outsourced) B) allow headcount to drop through attrition or C) redeploy employees to full-time lean efforts or to other departments.

Since lean depends on getting employee involvement and participation, it's natural that the efforts would die off if people feel threatened.

I toured two "lean laboratories" today, in two separate hospitals in the same major city. It's so encouraging to see that a lean lab gets great results (faster, high quality test results to patients) and that people are happy working there. Lean is not "mean." Lean doesn't mean you pressure people or work them harder. Lean is about eliminating waste and making things EASIER. Lean labs are able to cut their cycle time (they call it "turnaround time") by 50 to 70% by changing the layout, moving toward single-piece flow and implementing standard work and standard processes.

People want to do Quality Work

A question to ask yourselves (if you're in management): does your management system allow people to do their best work? Even if you're "working on lean", do you pressure people to put sub-standard product out the door? A number of times in my career, I've seen someone be very upset because "management" cared more about money than quality. That's very sad. Nobody ever starts the first day of their job disgruntled or cynical. That's something that bad management does to them over time.

In your environment, have you been able to shift the focus from quantity and dollars to quality and, as Deming would have said, allowing workers to have pride in their work?

Lean Learning Center in the Detroit News

Novi center teaches lean way of working - 09/20/06 - The Detroit News Online

Congrats to our friend and blog contributor Jamie Flinchbaugh. His Lean Learning Center was featured in the Detroit News today.

Check out Jamie's podcast interviews for the LeanBlog Podcast, to learn about waste and leadership's role in reducing waste.

Review - The Toyota Way Fieldbook

The Lean Library

Here is a long overdue review of the book, The Toyota Way Fieldbook. I wrote the review following the format of The Lean Library and have also gotten the review published over there.

The Fieldbook is an outstanding book, I recommend it highly.

-----------------------------------------------

Name of the Book: The Toyota Way Fieldbook

Authors: Jeffrey K. Liker and David Meier

Publication Date: 2006

Book description: what’s the key message?

While Jeffrey Liker’s book The Toyota Way was an examination of the 14 Principles of the Toyota Way, it was not an explicit “how to” guide at a tactical level. This follow up book is intended as the more practical guide to Becoming Lean (to borrow the title of an earlier book written by Liker). The Fieldbook is organized in the framework of Toyota’s 4 P’s:

• Philosophy
• Process
• People and Partners
• Problem Solving

The book starts first with “philosophy,” not lean tools. It develops an important relationship between the two. The book, in its entirety, emphasizes that copying Toyota tools, regardless of how thoroughly, is not enough to become lean. Early chapters talk about defining your company’s purpose and philosophy, providing many examples of Toyota’s purpose and unique view of their place in society and the world. From there, the Fieldbook guides you through a reasonable progression of lean topics and methods to work with in your own company. While there is no simple linear progression through a lean transformation, the authors address the challenge well in structuring the flow of the book. Typical “early” stages of lean learning and implementation are covered first, including learning how to identify waste, establishing process stability, and developing flow. The book spends more time on organizational culture and management methods, as opposed to tools. The book remains practical and actionable, rather than theoretical.

A strong central portion of the book focuses on developing leaders, how to lead in a lean environment, and how to develop “exceptional” employees. One particular highlight are the detailed examples, including a breakdown of the roles of Group Leaders, Team Leaders, and Team Members in a lean setting, not covered in most lean books.

The book recognizes that companies are not Toyota as a starting point. Rather, they are trying to become a Toyota-like lean organization. There is a chapter on respecting suppliers and managing them as Toyota does. The last sections of the book cover Toyota problem solving and implementation strategies, including a discussion of the pros and cons of different common lean transformation or implementation approaches, including kaizen events and the development of a “Company Production System.”

How does it contribute to the lean knowledge base?

This book is a unique compilation of Toyota Production System methods, concepts, and philosophies. There are many adaptable examples of Toyota tools and methods, including Standard Work Combination tables, Cross Training matrices, 5 Why’s problem solving analysis, and A3 reports. There are many new case study examples in the book that will be helpful, even to an experienced lean practitioner.

The book is also unique in that it is co-authored by a former Toyota team leader, an American, as opposed to reading an older book by Toyota executive Taiichi Ohno or consultant Shigeo Shingo.

What are the highlights? What works?

The book is very readable and easy to understand. Its layout and format borrows many of the good practices of the “For Dummies” series. You might consider this to be a “Toyota Production System For Dummies” book. There are many callouts with icons indicating “Tips” and “Traps” to look out for in your own lean implementation, to help avoid common lean implementation mistakes or failure modes.

This is very helpful, as the authors realize that it can be difficult work implementing lean. They never talk down to you or make you feel bad that you might struggle with the Toyota Way in your own environment, because you are not Toyota.

Furthermore, co-author David Meier was a group leader at Toyota. Many perspectives on Toyota come from the process or industrial engineering perspective, but the perspective of front-line supervisor is of significant value and often overlooked.

What are the weaknesses? What’s missing?

While this is clearly a field book in its application focus, it is less clear how it is connected to companion book, The Toyota Way. The 14 principles of that book are mentioned briefly but are not integrated into this book. The Fieldbook has value as a standalone volume, but those looking for a specific companion to The Toyota Way will be disappointed.

You might be surprised to not find much information about Kanban, a process made famous by Toyota. Although the concept of pull is covered, there is no chapter on Kanban or examples of calculations or Kanban cards. Thankfully, there are many references and other books available on this topic.

How should I read this to get the most out of it?

The book can be read straight through. For an experienced lean practitioner, it can easily be used as a reference book. Topics are well organized and tools are easy to find with a well-documented index. For example, if you want an example of an A3 Report, you will find many pages of explanation about the tool and how to use you. You will also find fully completed examples of the tool. This is extremely helpful and adds to the book’s value as a practical reference.

Click here to buy The Toyota Way Fieldbook through Amazon.com

OK, So It's Not the "Lean Travel" Blog

I know not everybody travels, so y'all might not be concerned about attempts to see lean (or NON lean) practices in the travel world. But, I travel almost weekly, so this is one "gemba" I see quite a bit. One reason I like highlighting lean in the travel world is that it's something we can all experience and it forces us to look at a process outside of our normal work environment. I will do one more travel post this week, about hotel cleaning quality, staffing, and management attitudes -- then maybe I'll give the travel thing a rest.

Good System Design

I received an email from blog reader Walt, who pointed out some nice system design at the Atlanta airport long-term parking. Are there "lean" lessons here? Yes, if you consider not wasting your customers' time to be lean (ala Lean Solutions, by Womack and Jones) and if you consider not wasting gas and time driving around looking for a parking spot to be lean. It's nice to appreciate good system design when you see it -- when things "just work" in a way that's a bit surprisingly and delightful.

Walt's email:

I recently traveled out of Atlanta Hartsfield Airport, and was extremely impressed with their long-term parking process.

Upon entering the long-term parking area, they directed me to the only row that they were filling at that time. I thought that it was odd that only one row was open until I realized that they were filling (essentially "topping off") partially-filled rows, one row at a time. All of the rows to the north of me were completely full and all of the rows to the south of me were partially full. They eliminated the need for customers to drive all over the lot to search for a vacant spot.

There was a small queue of shuttle-buses waiting, with one bus ready to pick you as you exited your car. They eliminated the need to walk to, and wait at, a central area to be picked up.

When you entered the shuttle bus, they gave you a slip of paper with your aisle number written on it so that you could find your car easier when you returned. Poka yoke!!!

When I returned to ATL four days later, I pulled out my car location slip and gave it to the driver when I was picked up at the terminal. He sorted all of the slips and dropped us off at our car in the best order for reducing wait.

I watched the shuttle bus after all of the travelers were let off, and the bus drove over to the pick-up queue to get ready to get more travelers. This reduced the distance that the buses drove empty.

Someone did a great job in eliminating a lot of waste at Atlanta Hartsfield.

Not Balancing Cycle to Takt: Poor Management

By comparison, I was the vicitim of a horribly designed system, trying to return my car at National's O'Hare location. Yes, I'm back to using National after my last bad experience with them. I don't learn quickly, I suppose.

I pulled into the return lot at a very peak, busy time -- 4:30 PM on a Thursday afternoon. It was strange, I didn't see any National employees working in the lot, checking cars back in. I waited and looked, more cars kept pulling in. About 20 cars arrived and, you can see in the picture, customers are standing around and waiting. Since I was at the "front" of the queue, a few customers even came to me and asked "where are the employees?"

I waited a good 15 minutes and finally saw an employee. She was bouncing around the lot in a seemingly random order (certainly not First-In-First-Out), being expedited by customers who were late and screaming at her. Now this single employee, she was working very hard (and probably wasn't being treated well).

But that's management's fault for putting her in that position. They clearly didn't match their capacity (# of employees) with "takt time" (or the rate of customers arriving at that peak time). When the employee got to me, I asked her (very nicely), "Are you the only one working right now?"

She snapped at me, "Well, that's NOT MY FAULT." I could understand her frustration, so I didn't take it personally. It certainly wasn't her fault. If she knew me, she'd know I wasn't pointing blame at her, but I'm sure not everyone was so understanding.

National O'Hare is just sorely mismanaged, that's the only conclusion I can draw. A basic notion such as "have enough employees to serve your customers" is basic business, I don't know if I'd even call it a "lean" concept.

Luggage Batching and Risk of Errors

Last thing for this post -- when I got inside, I had to check my bag (something I would have never done before the new travel rules). It makes me VERY uncomfortable to not put my bag on a moving conveyor. Look at the WIP and batching that occurs before the security screening. I'm always thankful when my bag makes it onto the flight on time, considering the opportunities for delays with this awful process. Again, a case of bad system design. The security screening devices can't keep up at peak busy times (because they're expensive machines and traveler demand is not level loaded). I certainly hope there's a good FIFO and error proofing process to make sure some bags don't "fall through the cracks" missing their flights!

Linking Lean Thinking to Education

For those interested in lean applications to education, there is an upcoming conference that you may want to check out.

The conference is co-hosted by The Lean Aerospace Initiative Education Network (EdNet) and the Lean Education Academic Network (LEAN). The conference will be held from October 16 to 18 at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester Massachusetts and features Jim Womack as a keynote speaker.

The educational theme of the conference will be supported by presentations and discussions around how to apply lean principles to education in both an academic and industrial setting. Here's the link for more information and the detailed agenda.

Along with John Shevlin, a teaching colleague of mine, I will be participating in the contributed sessions with a presentation on how we have applied a lean mindset to Operations Management curriculum at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield Mi. Our talk is titled "Learning Through Lean" and we will be sharing details of our approach using lean tools to develop and deliver coursework with a clear focus on value from the students' perspective. In addition to creating a very streamlined and efficient course, all course materials and activities serve as an immediate example of lean in a non-manufacturing environment. Because students are all too familiar with 'mass thinking' in education, this is a great way to engage students and teach the benefits of lean thinking.

I'll be sure to use the blog to post ideas shared at the conference, as well as to report on anything else I learn or pick up on from other lean thinkers in attendance.

Some Detailed NASA Standard Work

Spacewalkers complete work on space station

The exact stat isn't in the article I linked to above, but I saw in a magazine at the airport today, these details about the "commands" issued from Ground Control to the spacewalking NASA astronauts who were working on the space station:

1631 different commands were issued, over the course of almost seven hours. A normal spacewalk involves 200 commands.

Think about the level of detail in your standard work. Pretty amazing that they could plan something and detail it into that many steps, isn't it?

LeanBlog Podcast #6-- Jamie Flinchbaugh, Part 2

Here is LeanBlog Podcast #6, the second part of my discussion with Jamie Flinchbaugh, Founder and Partner in the Lean Learning Center and co-author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean. You can find the