Everyday Lean: Aluminum Foil

snopes.com: Aluminum Foil Locking Tabs

Here's an interesting example of "Everyday Lean" that I never knew about. Have you ever been frustrated by pulling on a roll of aluminum foil (or plastic wrap) and having the roll pop out of the container?

The boxes for these are actually designed with a little method for keeping the roll in the box - a physical method is more effective than "being careful."

Click on the link above for some further explanation and a few photos. It's not rocket science - that's why I love this example. This is designed into the product, but we can use this to think about opportunities to error proof our processes - at work, not just in our kitchens at home.

Does saying "be careful" really work? If this were a workplace and the roll popping out of the box were a serious problem, would we post signs, cautions, and exhortations for our employees, or would we error proof it?

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Changing Glass vs. Pouring a Glass

One thing I observed at the Stars/Red Wings playoff game last Wednesday is that the arena crew could pretty much swap out one of the pieces of plexiglass behind the net faster than the concession crew could pour a glass of beer.

Two players crashed into the boards.... something got cracked or dislodged. A crew came out and, with almost-NASCAR pit crew efficiency, they replaced the glass. You could tell it was designed for a quick swap out and the team must have practiced. This isn't required every game, but thankfully they could keep the delay from being no longer than a normal TV timeout.

Now the concession stand... they are particularly bad at the American Airlines Center. They're learning their operational approach from their namesake airline, I'm guessing. Why do concession stands insist on "pouring to order" when customers order beer during an intermission? The typical process:

1. Customer orders
2. Employee starts to pour beer
3. Employee waits for foam to subside
4. Employee continues pouring
5. Employee waits again for form to subside
6. Employee finishes beer
7. Customer pays

It seems like some simple kaizen could improve the efficiency of the whole operation without adding people -- good for the arena (more revenue, since fewer customers would walk away from a slow line) and good for the customers (less waiting).

If you separated the work of pouring beer and taking payment, you could have someone pouring two beers in parallel, taking advantage of the "waiting" time on one beer to pour the other. Have that one beer pourer handing beers to multiple register attendants.

Another idea -- when you know things are going to be busy (such as pre-game or intermission), why not have a simple "beer kanban?" You could keep a few beers "in process" between the pouring and the register. The beers would keep moving (as long as you had First-In-First-Out) and you'd have a beer that had been poured pretty freshly. Really, what's the difference in a Miller Lite that's JUST been poured or one that was poured 60 seconds ago. They're still bad beer.

I don't know all of the answers, obviously. It's just frustrating to see the lack of kaizen in a setting as simple as a beer and hot dog stand. The concession stand is just as slow each game and each year. There's no sign of improvement. I wonder if they think they are as good as they can get or if nobody is challenging them to improve? Is nobody allowing them to improve? Dr. Deming would say that everybody is entitled to being able to find joy in their work -- even if that work is pouring beer, eh?

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Everyday Lean: Automated Coffee Ordering

For a little over two years, my wife and I have had a single cup coffee maker, one of those systems that makes an individual cup of coffee (or tea, the real reason we bought it initially) at a time.

I am a real amazon.com power user... they are my "single source" supplier as often as practical. I have almost always ordered my replacement pods through amazon -- fast, consistent delivery and shipping through their frequent customer program.

I recently discovered and took advantage of a "Subscribe & Save" service that they offer. If you're willing to sign up for a frequency of your choice, they ship automatically and give you a 15% discount each time (with no cancellation fees). Not a bad deal as a customer.

Now this isn't a "kanban" system really. This *is* a planned, scheduled "push" from amazon to my house. This is sometimes referred to, especially in hospitals, as a "standing order" system.

My previous set up, where I initiated the order, was a true "pull" -- when inventory got down to a certain level, I'd log in and place a "one click" order. Pretty easy, with no need for a "subscription." I was using a "re-order point" pull system previously.

A standing order system can work if you have very steady and predictable use of an item. The risk with standing orders is that if your usage is high, you'll run out before more is sent. Or, if usage is low, you'll end up with excess inventory. At least here, with the coffee pods, inventory is small and relatively cheap. I'll err on the side of ordering more frequently than I really need to.

The amazon website even told me that I last ordered the pods on February 8th. So, a little over two months. I set up a two month subscription frequency. If inventory is ever piling up, I'll just cancel or change the shipment frequency.

So why would I set up a push system? You'd think I'd be a "lean purist" and only want a pull system. Well, the 15% discount is an incentive to allow that push. And the downside risk is pretty low. I figured it was worth it to at least experiment with system.

What about you? Do any of you subscription type services that automatically deliver a quantity of something to your house? It's sort of like the old "milk man" type service, right? But today, we "pull" milk from the grocery store.

Some other issues that we could explore on this this topic:

• Which has more waste -- me driving to a store to buy these (or combining the purchase with a broader grocery trip) or taking advantage of the efficiencies of the UPS delivery network?
  
  
• What about the environmental impact of these small plastic coffee pods? At least I am countering that by brewing into a reusable travel mug, which helps cut down on the paper waste at a Starbucks store... of course I could take my travel mug to Starbucks (and they give you a discount for doing that even).

Updated: A few of you asked what single cup brewer I use. We love our Keurig for making both coffee AND tea. It's very fast and convenient in the morning before your commute or any time you don't feel like a full pot of coffee.

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Airline Kaizen - Action, not Whining

My Way News - Airlines slow down flights to save on fuel

I'm just thrilled anytime I see an example of an airline making a process improvement (a "kaizen" if you will) instead of their usual game plan of whining, slashing employee pay, or cutting corners.

Drivers have long known that slowing down on the highway means getting more miles to the gallon. Now airlines are trying it, too - adding a few minutes to flights to save millions on fuel.

Southwest Airlines started flying slower about two months ago, and projects it will save $42 million in fuel this year by extending each flight by one to three minutes.

On one Northwest Airlines flight from Paris to Minneapolis earlier this week alone, flying slower saved 162 gallons of fuel, saving the airline $535. It added eight minutes to the flight, extending it to eight hours, 58 minutes.

That meant flying at an average speed of 532 mph, down from the usual 542 mph.

This is a simple kaizen we can ALL apply. Instead of just whining about high gas prices, drive slower, ease up on the "rabbit starts," and keep your tires at the proper air pressure. To learn more about mileage improvement tips, click here.

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Starbucks Sign Displays Their Supply Chain

I stopped in at my local Starbucks on Sunday morning to get some coffee beans and saw an interesting sign. The signed advertised that the Pike Place Roast beans had been roasted on April 13, in Carson Valley, Nevada.

I'm a bit of a coffee snob and I thought, for a place that has been hyping "fresh roasted" coffee, beans that are almost a month old aren't exactly "fresh." Most coffee experts say that beans are beyond their peak freshness after about 10 or 14 days.

Would Starbucks so openly display their slow supply chain if more customers knew that April 13 isn't exactly "fresh roasted?" The bag was proudly labeled as "Freshly Scooped on May 10, by Chad." Scooping isn't exactly the "value added" step in that value stream. I guess if "freshly scooped" is all you have, then that's what you brag about.

I posted a question about this on the "Starbucks Gossip" blog. I got a couple of responses from (I suppose) Starbucks employees.

We're guaranteed to get the fresh-roasted beans within 14 days of roasting. As my store is 10 miles away from the Kent, WA roasting plant, it takes us 1 or 2. If they have April 13 beans -- about a month old -- then they haven't got their order pars sorted out yet.

By "order pars," the commenter means their inventory re-stocking levels. If the inventory levels were set too high, they'd have inventory sitting in the store longer than the 14 day window. But another employee disagreed:

I too thought that there was a promise of Pike Place being brewed within 14 days of roasting. I sent an email to the coffee department asking about this, because we were receiving coffee that wasn't going to fall within those guidelines and I wondered what to do with the coffee. His answer was simply "we never promised the 14 day freshness, but it is a goal we are striving to reach." I thought his answer was interesting. I am still receiving Pike Place that isn't within the 14 days and I have, in fact, set very accurate pars. It isn't the stores problem, it falls back to the roasting plant.

I wonder what the root cause of the supply chain problem would be? I wonder if the Starbucks associates are frustrated that corporate isn't meeting their guidelines?

Coffee roasting is a fairly simple production process (although I'm sure their volumes are a challenge). If it takes a week between roasting and shipping, that means the store needs to use a certain supply of beans within 7 days. It's not that coffee beans "go bad" or would strictly need to be disposed of after 14 days (it's not like spoiled milk), but I wonder how their supply chain perform if they had a rule of "must throw out beans after 14 days." I'm pretty sure my old local coffee chain in Phoenix had a similar policy (and I remember them displaying that their beans, roasted on site (in something like this), were roasted 3 to 5 days ago pretty consistently). Different supply chain, different performance.

Starbucks has a small number of huge roasting plants (the largest is 700,000 sq ft in York, PA). They're definitely going for "economies of scale," don't you think?

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"Stock Up?" Really? For a Penny Increase?

Time to stock up on Forever stamps - Yahoo! News

Sigh, first class postage has gone up from 41 cents to 42 cents. That really doesn't impact me, since I mail maybe two or three things a month (thanks to online bill pay -- something that hasn't always served me well).

The postal service did something interesting... they offered a "forever stamp" that can be used at any point in the future. So, paying 41 cents NOW is a hedge against future cost increases.

But does that mean you should have hoarded stamps and bought in bulk? This reminds me of classic non-Lean purchasing department behavior -- we got a great deal, so we bought a ton of them. OK, at least stamps can never go obsolete, so that risk is eliminated here with stamps. And, stamps don't take up much "home warehouse" space in a drawer, so that isn't a huge problem.

Let's assume you mail 20 items per month. That's 240 per year... you'd save a whole $2.40 a year by "stocking up" now (spending $98.40 on stamps). That money, kept in a bank account that earns 3% a year, would earn you $2.95.

What if you bought 30 years worth of stamps? That's a complicated calculation, depending on assumptions of inflation rates, generally and for stamps, over time. This article, from the last increase (from 39 to 41 cents), shows how, historically, the price of stamps has actually GONE DOWN when you consider the value of money over time.

My gut instinct tells me the "stock up" plan probably isn't going to save you much money unless you mail a TON of letters (such as a small business).

Who is benefiting from the "stock up" plan? The United States Postal Service:

The post office sold $267,696,023 in Forever stamps in March, up from
$207,900,132 in February and $115,303,031 in January.

Now, they probably "pulled ahead" sales from future months, but that's a nice cash flow difference for the USPS, getting that money now rather than later.

Don't get me wrong... even if a 30 year buy of stamps doesn't make sense, I'm not encouraging "single piece flow" of stamps. It doesn't make sense, from a total cost standpoint, to drive to the post office (or bank or grocery store) every time you need one stamp. Don't believe someone who says it would be "Lean" to do so, if "Lean" means low inventory. Low inventory of stamps would be traded off by the cost and time involved with driving to the store. Gas... now that's something that's REALLY going up in price more than stamps.

Did anyone stock up on stamps? If so, what was the economic case for doing so? Or did you just buy a pack of 20, as normal?

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Error Proofing Vs. "Be Careful"

Why do you need a "be careful" warning message when you've already error proofed something? For liability's sake?

I am going to be flying back and forth to the UK a lot this summer, so I needed an airplane power adapter/converter. The one I ordered had this packaging insert, pictured to the left (click on any picture for a larger view)

Why is the warning even needed? The product is designed with two types of error proofing in mind. First, there are colored lines that help visually indicate the correct orientation of the plug insert. Not the most effective error proofing, but it's something.

The second form of error proofing is much more effective -- the plug and port are asymmetrical. It seems pretty impossible to insert it the wrong way, even if you forced it. That's the smarter way of designing things -- make it truly impossible to do something the wrong way. So is the "IMPORTANT" reminder unnecessary? Seems like it.

This reminded me of a similar situation I saw in a hospital laboratory. They had two pieces of testing instrumentation, both from the same vendor. The one instrument (ironically, the newer one) had no error proofing. It was possible to load a rack of test tubes (pictured left) backward, which would have jammed up the instrument.

So, there was a warning sign, exhorting the technologists to be careful. How effective was this? Somebody managed to load it backward about once a week, they told me. You see, even if people are trained and they are "careful", human error is exactly that -- we make mistakes because we are human. Error proofing would have been a better approach

The loading chute for the older instrument (again, this manufacturer had taken a step BACKWARD in the new generation) was error proofed brilliantly. See the angled corner in the lower left side of the slot? It's shaped perfectly so the rack cannot be loaded backward. Just like my DC power adapter. No need for a warning or a caution or a "Be Careful!" It's not as "pretty" as the new instrument, but it's more effective. More "elegant," you might say.

I see far too many "Be Careful" signs in hospitals. I have quite a collection of photos of them. Maybe I can share them in some format, maybe a monograph on not exhorting people to "be careful"??

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Learn from this "Home 5S" Tip

Household: De-Clutter with a Six-Month "Maybe Box"

The site "lifehacker" is one of my favorite blogs. While not about "Lean" per se, there's often a great deal of overlap between personal productivity and Lean concepts.

In the post I've linked to above talks about de-cluttering the house, which is reminiscent of the early stages of a factory's "5S" initiatives (or a hospital's), where you go through a workspace and identify items that are broken, outdated, obsolete, or not needed. These items can be removed -- trashed, repurposed, or donated -- thus freeing up space for more productive uses, reducing waste.

It's important to recognize that this "spring cleaning" aspect of 5S is really just part of the overall equation of Sort, Store, Shine, Standardized, and Sustain. Spring cleaning really focuses on the first 3. We don't want 5S to just be a one-time or annual activity.

So the lesson from Lifehacker is a good one -- for work or home. Don't immediately throw all items into the trash. Some items are obviously trashable, but some items might be of questionable value. Some caution might be in order, as the post says:

...the Zen Habits blog suggests creating a "Maybe" box, stashing non-dire items in there, and ...

Then store the box somewhere hidden, out of the way. Put a note on your calendar six months from now to look in the box. Then pull it out, six months later, and see if it's anything you really needed. Usually, you can just dump the whole box, because you never needed that stuff.

Good advice! In a workplace, we often set up a "Red Tag area" or a "boneyard" where questionable items can be set aside. I often do this for just a week or two, not necessarily six months. This time frame is a "buffer" to make sure everybody has a chance to look to see if items can really be disposed of without harming operations. The night shifts and weekend shifts deserve a chance to review items. This way, decisions are not made exclusively by the day shift or those who happened to be around while the 5S sweep was taking place.

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A Home Kanban System

Here is a recent post from my blog at the Institute of Industrial Engineers site:

In the course of my consulting work, I'm sometimes asked something like, "OK, so do you use this stuff at home? Do you 5S your kitchen and your garage?"

Well sure, I've "5S-ed" my kitchen, in the sense that I try to keep items and equipment in the right locations. Last year, we moved the storage location for our knives so it was right in the island where we usually chop (and right near where we grab the cutting boards). So if you consider that 5S, sure we've used some elements of the approach. Do we have tape around everything? No, of course not.

The closest thing we have to a formal Lean system is our use of "kanban" to manage some home inventory items. Two items that are managed via kanban are toilet paper and paper towels.

In the garage (the "bulk warehouse") sit two large warehouse club sized packs of toilet paper and two packs of paper towel. This is a very simple system -- when one warehouse club pack is empty, that's our signal that we have to buy more. The beauty of the "two-bin" system is that we still have a whole pack left (plus what is in the house). We don't have to interrupt our lives to go to the warehouse club "NOW." We can wait a week (or even two) and have it on our list to buy when it's convenient.

This kanban system prevents overordering and it helps us avoid running out. Notice that no math went into this kanban system. We're often so focused in the Lean world on "getting the calculation right" instead of just having a system that works. Since toilet paper and paper towels are cheap enough, we really aren't worried about the cash tied up in the inventory. These products don't expire, although we do rotate our stock and use the oldest stuff first. If we lived in a small apartment, instead of a suburban home, we might have to set this system up differently.

There's a second kanban loop (or loops) for each item - from the garage to the points of use. For paper towels, these are stocked in the kitchen. Here, when a roll is empty, we just get more from the garage. No "two-bin" system, just a simple "need one, get one" replenishment.

For toilet paper, we do keep some inventory in each bathroom. I'll try to keep this discussion polite, but we really want to avoid a total "stockout" in a particular bathroom. So there, we tend to keep a six-pack of rolls in the bathroom. When the last roll is placed on the holder, that's the signal to get more from the garage "now" instead of waiting for an, ahem, emergency situation.

In the couple of years that my wife and I have been managing our inventory this way, we've avoided emergency trips to the store or emergency trips to bring more rolls to a bathroom. The value of that far outweighs the cost of $20 of inventory in the garage.

I've also applied a simple two-bin system to many of my items like shampoo, hair gel, shaving cream, etc. I always keep two on hand -- when one is empty, I always have a spare ready to use and I can buy a replacement at my convenience.

Does anyone else run their "home inventory" this way? Same thing could apply to kitchen items and food, don't you think?

I like our kanban system because:

• It works
• It's simple
• It didn't require math
• It didn't require a computer system

Don't you think those same principles could apply to many items in our workplace?

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An Example of Vehicle Error Proofing

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Cruise Control on Wet Roads Hazard

This is sort of an old urban legend that has been making the rounds again, but there's some truth to it in that we shouldn't use cruise control in our vehicles when it's wet or icy outside.

One thing reminded me of Lean principles and the idea of preventing errors from occurring, a mention in the one email version of this story that's making the rounds that pointed out how certain Toyota models prevent you from using the cruise control when the wipers are on, something mentioned here on the Popular Mechanics site.

Pretty good example of error proofing, don't you think? Are there other cars with that safety protection, or just those with new "adaptive cruise control?"

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Explaining Lean at a Bar

As if explaining Lean to people at hospitals doesn't stretch my brain enough, I sometimes find it's a fun (or at least helpful) challenge to explain what it is I do to folks who've had no exposure to it (like friends or family).

I'm on the road for work and was at the hotel bar with a few co-workers. The bartender asked what we do and I got the job of explaining. I told her we apply methods from Toyota, called "Lean," for improving quality and efficiency in hospitals. She asked some questions and I tried relating it to her job.

I put out the idea that her bar is probably pretty well arranged for her efficiency -- the soda and mixers tap is right in front of the bar, as are glasses and ice. I asked her how it would be if the ice were in the far corner of the bar, requiring lots of walking back and forth all day. She said that would be horrible. Well, that's what work is often like for nurses, running back and forth all day from patient rooms to central supply areas. Ah! An eye-opener for her.

To illustrate quality, I asked her what would happen if she accidentally poured a very expensive scotch instead of the cheaper one. "Well, the manager would be pretty angry." Some bars have a system (this one doesn't) that "error proofs" the pour size (with automation) to make sure a "double" isn't poured when the customer is charged for a single shot. The bar could have systems that help detect or prevent the wrong bottle from being taken (bar code scanning or other methods). That's a similar challenge to pharmacies and nursing units not taking or dispensing the wrong medication or dose. "Except that mistake can kill people at the hospital," the bartender noted. Exactly.

What do you think of those examples? Do you have "everyday explanations" that you use to explain Lean? I wasn't "dumbing it down," just trying to relate it to her everyday job... I think that's a good skill and practice.

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Recent IIE Blog Posts

Here are some of my recent posts at the Institute of Industrial Engineers blog, under my heading of "Everyday Lean."

• Ballot shortages in New Hampshire
• Starting the new year with 5S
• Happy "heijunka holidays"
• Navigational nightmares at the airport

Other IIE bloggers can be found here.

Note: I have zero control over their partial RSS feeds, layout, or other such issues I've gotten comments about. I just provide content.

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Buying a bigger pair of pants will NOT solve your weight problem.

by Dan Markovitz

Whew! Just in case you panicked at the thought of not having access to email on your upcoming flight to Slippery Rock, JetBlue has come to the rescue with in-flight internet access. You'll never again have to endure five whole unconnected hours without riveting messages from the CEO informing you that his daughter's Girl Scout cookies are on sale in his office.

Presumably, JetBlue's new service will be welcomed as a godsend by road warriors who break out in hives at the terrifying prospect of a few hours in the air without email. These folks live with some sort of imagined corporate armageddon looming over them if they can't respond to an email instantaneously, or at least within 19 seconds. To these poor wretches, I can only say: get over it. Your firm will not collapse like a dying star, nor will your clients wither away for lack of your expert ministrations. And if you really are that vital, well, you probably shouldn't be getting on a plane (at least not a commercial plane) in the first place.

JetBlue's service will also surely be welcomed by those folks who figure with an extra four or five hours of solid time paddling around in Outlook, they can really make some progress on the 639 unread messages languishing in their inboxes, as well as the other 281 messages that have been read, but need a response. To these lost souls, I can only recycle my favorite expression these days: buying a bigger pair of pants will NOT solve your weight problem. If the electronic seams of your email waistband are groaning, an extra five hours or fifty hours won't make a difference.

The problem is the lack of a decent process for handling email, not a lack of time to handle it. It's classic non-lean thinking: throw more resources at the problem by buying newer, bigger machines. This approach invariably fails to produce the desired productivity gains because the underlying process is dysfunctional.

The same is true of adding an extra few hours to your day of reading and writing email. The extra time isn't going to help you get on top of your email. It will only compound the problem. The lean approach is to improve the underlying process by which you manage email.

I've written about how to reduce the volume of email you suffer with here and here, and Merlin Mann has an excellent series of posts on how to get to inbox zero here.

Rather than waste an additional five hours getting yourself even farther behind, I'd suggest using that time on the plane to learn the lean process of handling email and finally take care of the stuff that's moldering away in your inbox. And treat yourself to an extra bag of Oreos while you're at it.

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iTunes and Reducing the "Waste of Bandwidth"

If you're an active listener to Podcasts, like the LeanBlog Podcast, you might likely use Apple iTunes software.

If you're like me, you might subscribe to more podcasts than you actually have time to listen to (although I hope you keep listening to mine, when I am able to put them out).

There is a neat feature in iTunes that prevents the "waste of overproduction," if you will, in the Lean vernacular. Overproduction is the waste of building more than your customer needs (as evidenced by automakers having to slash inventory levels after building products that people don't want). Here are some earlier posts on "overproduction."

iTunes senses that you haven't listened to certain podcasts and quits downloading new episodes. This saves their server bandwidth, and costs, I suppose. If you have a podcast with an exclamation point icon, if you click on it you get the pop up window that's pictured here. You can say, "yes, please start downloading these again" to overrule the bandwidth saving feature.

Seems to illustrate that Lean concept quite nicely -- prevent overproduction, but give your customer control to get what they need.

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New IIE Blog Posts

IIE Blog Directory

I'm happy to support the Institute of Industrial Engineers (I'm a member) with my exclusive "Everyday Lean" blog posts (appearing weekly, or so).

Recent posts of mine:

• Poka Yoke at the Airport
• Waste of Transportation on ABC

Also, check out this post:

• Kanban the Coffee! (Joe Ely)
  

And the main link, above, goes to the blog directory for the other IIE bloggers.

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Lean Transport: Buses vs. Light Rail

By Dan Markovitz

Mark posted yesterday about the relative leanness of light rail vs. buses. He pointed out that

a rail line probably has more capacity, but it's very much a fixed asset, a "monument" if you will. Buses are very flexible, both in terms of routes and incremental capacity, right? But, then again, buses do add to traffic congestion, so maybe there's no easy answer about which waste is worse.

But buses don't have to add to congestion as much as we believe. The January 2006 issue of the Sierra Club magazine featured an interview with Brazilian architect (and former mayor of Curitiba) Jaime Lerner about how to build a mass transit system that serves the needs of consumers without creating additional traffic. His questions, and his solution, demonstrate a keen eye for avoiding waste.

Lerner promotes a BRT ("bus rapid transit") system. Currently, more than 60 cities worldwide have some version of a BRT (including Seoul, with 10 million people, and Curitiba, with 1.7 million residents). A BRT requires only a few relatively simple modifications—dedicated lanes in the center of the street where transit vehicles run unimpeded, "boarding tubes" where passengers pay fares before their bus arrives, and curb-level entries so they board and exit quickly.

Lerner's team began with a clear customer focus: what do people value in a transit system:

We started by trying to understand what mass transit is and what it should be: fast, comfortable, reliable. Most of all, you shouldn't need to wait.

And in true lean fashion, they had to figure out how to do more with less:

We wanted to make sure we could run our system on surface streets because it's cheaper. We had no money and no loans. . . . When we started out, we thought our system could hold us until we could afford a subway. Now I'm sure we don't need a subway.

While Paris, London, Moscow, and New York have extensive subway systems, they were built at the beginning of the last century when it was significantly cheaper to work underground. BRT is also much cheaper than a light rail line. (Are you listening Seattle?)

Light rail is sometimes 10 to 20 times more expensive than a BRT, and it takes more time to implement. When you have time and money and are able to subsidize the system, light rail is OK. But when you have to subsidize every ticket, you're taking money from other social investments. That's the main issue. You can have a BRT system that's as good as an underground or light rail, and it pays for itself.

In true lean fashion, the city found (in Matt May's words) an "elegant solution" to their transportation issues. Lerner explains that

we had to have dedicated lanes. Not just separated by painted lines but physically separated and at the center of the street. And the system had to be fast. That means stops every five or six hundred meters [about a third of a mile], not every block. We transport 2 million people at one-minute intervals—and sometimes at 30-second intervals. Our BRT can carry the same number of passengers as a subway and is 100 times less expensive per kilometer.

The entire interview is fascinating and well worth reading. For my money, the best quote is Lerner's approach towards cars:

I'm not against cars. But your city doesn't have to be oriented toward them. A car is like your mother-in-law. You want to have a good relationship with her, but you can't let her conduct your life. When a city has good public transportation, it becomes for people and for cars. Imagine a city with 30 percent fewer cars on the streets.

30% fewer cars? Less traffic? Fast, cheap, mass transit? Public money freed up for other, more productive uses? Sounds lean to me.

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New Industrial Engineering Blogs

IIE Blogs - Main Page

Updated: the links should all be correct now, had some problems with that earlier.

I'm happy to be supporting the Institute of Industrial Engineers by contributing to a new series of blogs they are hosting on various aspects of the "Industrial Engineering Life."

I will be contributing blog posts under the heading of "Everyday Lean," which you can get to here. My first post is a continuation of the "Kitchen Nightmares" story that I started the other day.

I'm also going to contribute some original content, which I'll link to here when it's posted. I'll only blog there on occasion, nowhere near as regularly (and this blog isn't going anywhere). My first original post for IIE was a discussion of some queuing theory concepts that came up in an episode of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

There are other IIE blogs being hosted, be sure to check them out:

• Joe Ely, "Lean Believer" (you might also know Joe's existing blog)
• Gwen Morrison, "Inside IIE"
• Chris Sciacca, "Supply Chains are Cool"
• Tamara Wilhite, "An IE in IT"

Everyday Lean on Danish TV -- the Actual Show

Thanks again to Peter from Denmark for telling us about this TV in an earlier blog post.

Peter reports back once again now that the show has actually appeared (show link here, with a link to video). You can also try translating the page to English here. Peter wrote:

The show started out by introducing the couple that would have their everyday life improved by implementing Lean measures. Both of them worked at a very lean factory, in a company called "Vola". The company produces tap, mixers and related products. The boss of the factory (a very young guy btw!) started out by explaining how they had reduced the time it took to produce a tap from 41 days, to just 28 minutes.

Cut to the home of the two workers. They both explained how they had house-work of about 1½ hours per day that needed to be done, and any measures that would reduce this "non-value-added" time would be greatly appreciated.

A consultant from the Danish company "Implement" was given the task to find places in their home for improvement. He started with at task that he must have learned from your blog: The sorting of clothes by color, before they are put in the basket containing the dirty clothes. After this their closet was sorted out, so that all seasonal wear was put aside, so that it could be put away during off-season. 5S was then introduced in the kitchen, with regard to the messy drawer containing their seldomly used utensil, and a process for sorting the cutlery before it was put in the washer was introduced. In the end of the show the consultant made a weekly plan so that they could structurize their shopping and chores. In this way it would never become a surprise if something was to be done. In this way the need for "last-minute-production-orders"was reduced, and it seemed to reduced non-value added time.

That was about it. Overall a good, hands on, no frills introduction to Lean, and good examples from everyday life.

If you are interested the show can be downloaded as a podcast from the site, and even though you do not understand it all, you will recognize a lot of the stuff that is implemented.

Error Proofing Email Attachments

Dan Evans' VBA Scripts - Outlook Attachment Checker etc

LifeHacker Post

Have you ever composed an email, meaning to attach a file, even saying something like "see the attached file..." and then you forget to actually attach the file?

I do this all the time. I could put a post it note on my laptop that says "BE CAREFUL: Do not forget to attach attachments," but warning signs are not effective error proofing.

Thankfully, there are software methods available for error proofing this, with Outlook or other email clients.

The first link, up top, is a Visual Basic script that you can install on your Outlook software. I've tried it and it works just fine. The second link, from LifeHacker, has other software error-proofing methods as well as some process methods for error proofing, including:

Type "attachment" where the @ sign should be in the recipient box. Delete it after you've put the attachment(SsSsS) on.

Process based error proofing can work, but you have to be disciplined to follow the process. For me, I'm glad I have the script installed!!

Lean & Six Sigma at eBay

shmula » Need a Job, eh? : Business, Technology, and Stuff in Between

If you're in Vancouver BC and looking for interesting Lean work at eBay, check out this post from Shmula.com's Pete Abilla.

Some of his unofficial qualifications:

You can effectively answer the following: what is the impact on Throughput as WIP increases and Cycle Time remains unchanged? What are some Lean approaches to this scenario?

You can explain why variation sucks, with examples — both qualitative and quantitative. How does the DMAIC framework approach variation?

"Upstream changes; downstream impact" — what does that mean and general approaches to solving that problem — with examples.

You can explain the difference between poke-yoke and mistake-proofing (trick question) and give examples from everyday life of poke-yoke.

You might cheat on the interview and look here for examples of Everyday Lean.