The Journey to Reliability Uncovers a ‘Hidden Plant’ Within the Walls

Article extract from ReliabilityWeb newsletter:
http://reliabilityweb.com/index.php/articles/the_journey_to_reliability_uncovers_a_hidden_plant_within_the_walls/

Those working in the field of maintenance know how important it is to the success of any organization to maximize reliability and minimize or eliminate unscheduled downtime. This can be a daunting task and often requires professional collaboration, a change in organizational culture, and the willingness and ability to make decisions that are not always popular.

Lubrication Engineers (LE) is no different than any other manufacturing facility in the world. It can only make a profit if it is producing quality product and shipping it to customers in a timely fashion. If the facility experiences unscheduled downtime with its production equipment, it causes a ripple effect throughout the entire operation. When this happens, the organization seeks to learn from it and get better to minimize the risk of it occurring again.

LE manufactures its own high-performance industrial and automotive lubricants in its 200,000-square-foot manufacturing and warehouse facility. Its products are distributed and used by companies all over the world (Figure 1). As a batch process manufacturer - as opposed to a continuous process manufacturer - LE is able to give each product an intensive care approach during the cooking and blending steps. It formulates its products to meet the needs of the application and not just to meet minimum specifications.

After the finished product is approved by quality control, the product handling department fills containers ranging in sizes from pint bottles to tanker trucks. Product is stored in three warehouses across the United States, which helps lessen the delivery times to customers in various regions.

All this may sound good, but LE is never satisfied with the status quo. The company works continually to maintain or improve mechanical uptime in order to provide quality product and reliable service to its customers. Seven years ago, LE had some challenges to overcome. The biggest challenge was the need to change the reliability culture in the entire facility. While LE was already very good at helping its customers improve lubrication reliability and mechanical uptime, the company knew it could do better in its own facility. The organization needed to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

LE needed to focus on managing its assets at a higher level than ever before. The company initiated plant-wide meetings to discuss reliability topics. Discussions focused on reliability in terms of how it relates to its employees, as well as its customers. LE determined that it could do better in its reliability efforts and save money by doing so.

Getting Started

The beginning of a reliability journey can seem overwhelming, but that is why it is so important to be patient and take one step at a time. Although it would seem easy for a company like LE to get started because it already partners with reliability-minded product and service providers, its reliability journey still sputtered, at best, in the early stages, even with this built-in advantage.

Top-Down Support

It was imperative that senior management recognized that good lubrication practices would protect assets and keep them generating products and profits, positively affecting the bottom line. LE also needed its leaders to place equal importance on both human and mechanical assets.

Education & Training

LE chose to spend money on its people to get them the training they needed. The maintenance team and senior management attended maintenance reliability conferences and as many training opportunities as possible. Many were able to earn certifications, including Machinery Lubrication Technician Level I (MLT), Oil Monitoring Analyst Level I (OMA) and Certified Lubrication Specialist (CLS), which further increased their confidence and ownership of the process (Figure 2). They then began implementing what they learned into their operations.

Reliability Products

One of the first changes made was installing desiccant breathers and sight glasses on many of the assets (Figure 3). Top-down support was crucial for this investment to happen. It was understood and agreed upon that increasing the reliability of each asset would lower the total cost of ownership. LE later incorporated other reliability products, including automatic lubricators and filtration devices.

Computer System

As the workforce’s knowledge level increased and reliability improved due to the small changes put in place, improvements began to accelerate. LE began looking into a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) because, up to this point, maintenance reliability technicians were working from computer-generated asset cards to do lubrication activities. Maintaining this archaic system was not easy.

During its review of several CMMS packages, LE realized that a CMMS would be more time-consuming to implement than a simple computerized lube route system. At the time, the main goal was to quickly get a better handle on lubrication reliability practices, however, many of the CMMS packages reviewed did not incorporate lubrication, or their lubrication components would have been cumbersome to implement. After many discussions, LE came to the conclusion that adopting a CMMS system did not make sense at that time for its five person, one shift maintenance department. Having made this decision, LE was able to proceed more rapidly with the rest of its journey.

Plant Survey

LE’s mechanical assets include 177 gearboxes and gear reducers, 119 electric motors, 51 pumps and 21 stirring vessels, as well as compressors and additional miscellaneous equipment. The entire facility was surveyed and each lubrication point on each asset was identified. This helped the facility visualize the amount and type of equipment it was performing maintenance on and gave it a blueprint to start managing the equipment more efficiently. This is a critical step in the process and should not be skipped.

Lube Room

Lubricants are the lifeblood of mechanical assets throughout any facility. LE regards them as assets, not consumables. In fact, LE looks at lubricants as its number one asset. Just like any other asset, lubricants need to be maintained properly and used properly for specific applications. A well-equipped lube room will protect these fluid assets so you can sleep at night.

LE purchased a new lubrication storage system and created a dedicated lube room (Figure 4). This made it evident to all employees that the company was serious about reliability. The maintenance team took ownership of this new lube room and storage system, and they are very proud of it.

This created momentum in the lubrication reliability journey, which became increasingly evident as the maintenance team began to think of more ways to improve machine uptime.

Lubricant Identification

All lube points were tagged according to product number and color-coding that matched the storage system tanks was implemented. This helped make lubrication a smarter, more streamlined process for the team and it raised the knowledge level of each team member.

Lube Route Software

After a search of available software solutions, LE purchased lubrication reliability software to manage all its lube tasks. The quick turnover to this system enabled LE to keep its mechanical assets running and minimize downtime. With the software, LE was able to assign lubrication routes and schedules to team members who took ownership of the process to ensure “their” equipment was maintained properly.

The software significantly improved LE’s ability to manage the lubrication of its mechanical assets and helped the facility organize its approach to handling maintenance activity.

Results

By implementing all these steps on its reliability journey, LE has seen a major reduction in the cost of equipment repairs and maintenance. From 2006 to 2008, LE documented an annual average expenditure of $243,000. In 2009, the first full year after lubrication reliability changes, this annual number dropped dramatically to $83,000. LE spent an average of $76,000 annually in the five years since the program was implemented on repairs and maintenance of equipment (Figure 5).

Using condition-based monitoring and oil analysis, LE also drastically decreased its oil usage. From 2008 to 2013, annual lubricant usage dropped from 449 gallons to 67 gallons, for a savings of more than $11,000.

Reducing lube change-outs, as well as repair and maintenance tasks, contributed to significant labor savings. In 2008, 672 hours of labor were dedicated to maintenance and repair tasks; in 2013, that dropped to 120, for a savings of nearly $10,000 (Figure 6).

Looking back, the main drivers that helped LE on this journey were:

• Supportive top-down leadership;
• Willingness to invest equally in both people and mechanical assets;
• Detailed plan of attack;
• Patience (organizational stamina);
• Quantification of results.

With similar drivers in place, your organization can achieve the same positive results. The most important thing to do is take that first step and get started. Soon, you will be on your way to finding the hidden plant within your facility.

Darren Booth, CLS and vice president of Manufacturing Operations, has worked for Lubrication Engineers, Inc. for 25 years. Darren currently oversees plant operations, consisting of manufacturing, product handling, traffic and maintenance. Through his role in helping implement lubrication reliability throughout the operation, he has been a catalyst in lowering LE’s total cost of ownership of its mechanical assets.

Help Workers Get What They Need

Article extract from ReliablePlant newsletter:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29268/what-workers-need

If you are like me, you've listened to the Rolling Stones over the years. Their contemporaries, the Beatles, became more artistic and lyrical as they evolved, but for driving party music, the Stones are still hard for any band to beat.

I even heard the words to one of their songs quoted recently: "You can't always get what you want." This much I already knew, but what follows has a lot of meaning in continuous improvement: "But if you try sometime, you might find you get what you need."

So many times in problem-solving work, you do all of the analysis with the really smart, expert people and come to what you truly believe is the right answer — one that you really want to work. But then you find when you implement it, "You know, it just didn't work," or "It just didn't last," or "Nobody would buy into it."

Most people tend to get hung up on what they want rather than what they need. They want their elegant solution to work. They fall in love with it. For engineers, this is usually the technical solution. Having found that perfect solution, well, let's not waste any time getting it in place. Forget all of that soft-skills stuff; just make people do it now.

For some, change management is simply convincing people to do things that, for various reasons, they don't seem to want to do.

Others have talked of the frustrations and time consumed in hunting down and eliminating the wily, elusive, supposed single root cause, as opposed to just implementing some of the many solutions to various, fairly obvious contributing causes that just make things quickly better. This isn't saying that structured analysis isn't necessary, but rather that it's not the biggest part of fixing or improving.

Unfortunately, because they tend to address fundamental issues, too many of the "best" solutions become larger, which usually means expensive and time consuming. That's also frustrating, as managers will usually push back at the thought of expensive.

I remember a problem that was aggravating and constantly frustrating plant personnel (as well as affecting productivity and quality) that could have been fixed for about $2,000. The solution had been developed with some help, but there was another, much more extensive engineering project in the works with a price tag of $80,000 that also would have taken care of that problem, among other things, so why spend the $2,000? Besides, adding in the fix on the small issue would help justify the big project.

Unfortunately, after a number of months of management pushing back, the $80,000 project was abandoned. Sadly, the $2,000 project seemed to have been forgotten by then. Months of productivity and an opportunity to build some ownership were lost. It was their solution; they would have made it work. Instead, there was ongoing frustration at the needless waste and at being ignored. Of course, management again paid the price of being tagged with "too cheap to do the right thing."

The real trick in all of this is finding the way to "what we need." So, what is missing? What do you have to "try sometime?"

Well, how about listening to people? How about giving them the opportunities to make changes? How about helping them rather than telling them? Amazingly, people really know a lot about what the issues are and how to deal with them if asked and given the opportunity rather than being pushed aside while the experts deal with it.

Implement a process that uses communication to build ownership. This doesn't just happen, and you can't just do it now and again when you have some time. It takes a routine, everyday, structured process that will go on forever. Issues and improvements are identified and discussed. Actions (including communication) are decided on, along with any necessary follow-up.

The daily, small-unit shift exchange meetings can be the most powerful way to get this to happen. It also takes the involvement of supervision, maintenance personnel and even engineers to get to what you need. Although people know what they need, they usually require some help getting there and are typically receptive to genuine attempts to assist them. Engineers and managers are there to help people find their way to the right answers and, in doing that, develop to their potential.

Remember, the right approach is not to get people to do things that they probably don't want to do, but just to help them get to what they need.

About the Author

John Crossan

Currently working as a consultant, John Crossan retired after spending 30-plus years with the Clorox Company. His roles for much of the past 14 years were mainly focused on improving operations by ... Read More

Choose Continuous Improvement over Lean Manufacturing

Article extract from ReliablePlant newsletter:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29408/lean-continuous-improvement

Some organizations misuse lean manufacturing to overwork their people and reduce the overall headcount. Let me assure you, I am not arguing to counter the fact that reducing the headcount will save money. In the short term, it most certainly will save money. However, this savings in headcount does come at a higher cost.

Some managers seek headcount reduction because they associate fewer operators with increased profits. Elimination of headcount for this reason yields poor results culturally. Soon after launching a campaign such as this, operators will start noticing the intent. This will lead to a refusal to cooperate with any effort to reduce headcount and eliminate waste. The operators will begin to adamantly resist changes because they are fearful of losing their job or possibly contributing to a co-worker’s job loss. This causes stress, conflict, finger-pointing and eventually failure. It also is a surefire way to pit management against the shop floor.

This lack of understanding has left a bad taste in the mouths of many shop-floor employees. Likewise, it has also contributed to the conquered attitude of many managers because they have attempted this idea of “lean” before and have seen it fail more than once. Understandably, this is frustrating for an organization’s leadership as well as other employees. It leads me to the opinion that the word “lean” might need to be eliminated from our vocabulary for a while.

I think when leaders focus strictly on lean, they inevitably pay more attention to the dollar numbers. While the dollar numbers are important, there are other elements within an organization that far outweigh the bottom dollar. These elements create awe-inspiring flexibility and opportunity for future growth.

It is my opinion that running a lean organization is actually a by-product of continuous improvement philosophies, specifically the eighth waste (the underutilization of people). When you focus your sights on lean and lean alone, you miss the bigger picture.

Culture is the most important element to true organizational maturity. Continuous improvement philosophy zeroes in on culture and stimulates its development. It focuses on the people and the success of the organizational team. Its aim is to involve and engage everyone, to educate and stimulate the minds of the people. It requires everyone’s engagement, commitment and trust. It is culture-driven and will help the company grow. Everyone should be trained on its ideals and philosophies.

For a continuous improvement organization to truly thrive, leadership must dedicate at least 85 percent of its efforts to the development of employees through training, influence and on-the-job training. Once the majority of the organization understands the philosophy, then and only then is it time to move to the next step. Otherwise, resistance will remain at the doorstep.

The remaining 15 percent can then be dedicated to implementing the actual tools and engaging employees. The employees who own the process need to make the change and improve the organization’s current state (with assistance from a trained continuous improvement team). Not only does this encourage them, but it also increases the chance that the change will be sustained and standardized.

Organizational leaders must be careful not to put the cart before the horse. You cannot simply read or benchmark other companies and expect that you can photocopy that into your organization. You have to remember a picture is a snapshot in time. It does not tell you what happened before the picture was taken. Therefore, you cannot expect significant, highly profitable changes too fast. You cannot have the baby without going through the labor, so to speak.

Let’s get “lean” out of our heads and start communicating continuous improvement. It’s broader, includes everyone (especially the operators) and will provide long-term gains. Let’s train, empower and engage rather than cut time, rebalance and lay off. 

About the Author

Eric Bigelow

Eric Bigelow is an industrial engineer and continuous improvement professional. He is currently a lean coordinator located in Spirit Lake, Iowa. He has trained numerous individuals in lean ... Read More

Why Improvement Efforts Fail

Article extract from ReliablePlant newsletter:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29248/improvement-efforts-fail

Why do improvement efforts fail or perhaps not sustain the recent gains? There are many reasons, but those most often stated are "lack of commitment" and not "following the process." But why is there lack of commitment, and why aren't processes followed? Here are a few of the most common reasons:

Too Much Focus on Tools Instead of People

Analytical tools and improvement process steps are important, but people are more important. It's not about "selling" them or using "change management" tools to have them accept whatever the "really smart" people have come up with. It's about involving them (all of them) and having them own the process.

Communication Not Emphasized, Structured

Without communication, paranoia develops between work groups, shifts, departments, individuals, etc. This destroys involvement and ownership. Casual (now and again) conversations and major presentations are only a small part of what it takes. Communication must be structured and orchestrated, part of the everyday routine, and flow both ways.

Not Knowing and Respecting What is Already in Place

Every organization does some things well, and the people there have pride in their particular organization (despite what they might tell you). To ignore this is insulting and arrogant. Too many times the "everything here is wrong" attitude is evident (and sometimes outright stated) by program "experts." Setting up "negative waves" like this never helps. Use what is in place as a start.

Developing the Elite vs. the Majority

Improvement is an "everyone" thing. It's too easy to just work with the bright, energetic people and count on them to carry it all. Most people are hesitant or unwilling to accept what they haven’t had some involvement in developing or improving. Besides, this ignores a huge pool of capability. Everyone brings something to the table, but some may be unwilling to share for many reasons, such as their past ideas may have been criticized or not welcomed, there are peer-pressure issues, trust issues, etc. Sincere, routine involvement efforts can overcome these obstacles.

Improvement Events vs. Routine Improvement

While big events are good at generating interest and knocking out a lot of work in a short time, the heart and soul of sustaining improvement is getting a solid, everyday, routine process to have everyone continually dealing with the many small opportunities.

Focusing on Solving Specific Issues Rather than Developing People

It's easy to get absorbed in solving specific issues and using specific problem-solving techniques instead of using the issue-solving process as a way to develop people. Of course, there will always be plenty of issues and opportunities to deal with. The scarcer commodity is the capability to deal with them. Even rarer is the ready motivation to do so.

About the Author

John Crossan

Currently working as a consultant, John Crossan retired after spending 30-plus years with the Clorox Company. His roles for much of the past 14 years were mainly focused on improving operations by ... Read More

How to Foster a Culture of Involvement

Article extract from ReliablePlant newsletter:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29196/culture-of-involvement

Building a culture of involvement that includes self-managed work teams is undoubtedly the most challenging of all leadership endeavors, but it is also the most rewarding. Great leaders involve employees from all levels in the business operations. By creating an environment of trust and openness and developing a culture of risk-taking, leaders are able to turn over the responsibility of the daily operations to the employees. These leaders recognize the need and take active steps to produce ownership within the ranks.

The key here is involvement, and the critical question is: "How do you involve employees and motivate them to take ownership?" The best companies know that employees who feel involved in the business feel trusted. This trust helps to create a sense of ownership. A sense of ownership enables employees to empower themselves, making them happier, more fulfilled, productive and loyal.

It is important to note that you cannot empower employees. However, you can provide them with the environment, the tools and the resources to empower themselves.

Keep in mind that the process of involvement is tricky. It takes work, and all supervisors, managers and leaders must be on board. There must be consistency in the rollout, support and accountability processes. For most organizations, especially manufacturing organizations, the level of involvement is very low, if not non-existent.

Deciding to implement a process of involvement is about making dramatic cultural change. You will face resistance. The roadblocks to involvement include:

• Lack of trust – Most employees will be suspicious of a leadership team that has, in the minds of its members, suddenly decided to involve them, ask their advice and listen to their ideas.
• Fear – Employees will quickly realize that they will be required to learn new skills and perform additional responsibilities. They will worry about what happens if they make a mistake (will they be disciplined or lose their jobs?) or if they are not able to learn the new skills (will they lose their jobs, be moved to less desirable positions or be forced to take a pay cut?).
• Resentment – Employees may resent taking on more responsibility, especially with tasks that they perceive to be management's responsibilities.

Despite the challenges and frustrations during the process, creating a culture of involvement is worth the investment. When I worked for Textile Services (Disney's laundries), I was fortunate to have been a member of a committee that changed the laundry operations from a typical, autocratic, authoritarian operation to one of involvement and self-managed work teams. During the process, we thought often of giving up, but in the end the perseverance paid off.

At the end of one year, we saw light at the end of the tunnel. Within the next two to three years, we managed to change the culture, despite the fact that more than 40 percent of the workforce had tenure of 20 to 25 years. When I left Disney three years ago, the culture of involvement was still firmly in place and had been the mode of operation for their business for more than 12 years. The benefits realized from directly involving the employees in all levels of the business were:

• Turnover was reduced from 60 percent to an average of 5 percent annually.
• Prior to the cultural change, the plant ran with four managers per shift, for a total of eight managers per day. This number was reduced to one manager per shift, for a total of two per day.
• On the annual survey, more than 80 percent of the employees stated that they were very proud to say that they worked for Textile Services.
• The customer survey ratings improved dramatically to more than 80 percent satisfaction with all aspects of customer service.
• Outsourcing was no longer a threat.

5 Tactics for Creating a Culture of Involvement

Below are the tactics that we used at Textile Services to create a culture of involvement within the laundry operations. They should be considered guidelines and a good place to start.

Tactic 1: Communicate the vision and ensure everyone is on the same page, working toward a common goal.

It is imperative that all employees buy into the vision if they are going to assist in the execution of the vision. In most cases, they are not paid more to get involved. Therefore, it is critical that the benefits to the employees are clearly articulated by leadership.

One of the roadblocks at Textile Services in accomplishing this goal was the diversity of the employee base. Employees in the laundries represented 15 countries and spoke seven languages, many of them speaking no English whatsoever. Obviously, communicating the vision in English alone was not the answer.

The committee settled on a more creative method of communication. They scheduled several sessions where employees were released from their positions for approximately one hour. The vision and the mission were presented to all employees in groups of 30 to 40.

The laundry leadership team communicated this important message in English with bilingual translators in the room representing every group. The leaders demonstrated the principles of great service through mini-plays or skits. Employees were encouraged to get involved by giving feedback and asking questions at the end of the session, ensuring clarity of the message and expectations of the employees.

Every employee was required to attend one of the scheduled sessions. For those who were not able to attend due to extenuating circumstances, leaders were required to meet one-on-one with these employees to communicate the key message points.

The results were surprising. The vast majority of employees was on board and excited about the future. This led to an immediate increase in productivity and a buzz of excitement in the plants.

Tactic 2: Create a culture of trust by giving employees the knowledge, skills, tools, resources and parameters to make good decisions, ensuring that they will successfully deliver on the vision.

Providing this level of skill and knowledge can be accomplished in many ways. Informally, daily huddles can be held to share information critical to the day's work. An article in the April 2006 issue of Business 2.0 magazine highlighted how UPS starts each day with a three-minute huddle to keep 220,000 drivers and package handlers on time. These meetings ensure that employees are informed of company announcements, local traffic conditions, customer complaints and even a daily safety tip. The strict 180-second time limit helps enforce the company focus of punctuality.

More formally, monthly meetings and training sessions that facilitate two-way conversations are valuable ways to involve employees. For those employees who may not be comfortable sharing information in a group setting, one-on-one conversations are good ways to get people involved.

Providing tools and resources is critical in supporting self-directed teams. You must determine which tools and resources are necessary for the employees to experience success in their new roles. These tools and resources could be computer training, English-speaking classes, effective communication classes, training for implementing new processes or updated standard operating procedure (SOP) manuals.

Tactic 3: Involve employees in the process for budgeting financial results.

Once employees understand the process for budgeting productivity, purchasing supplies, etc., they are more likely to understand their impact on the budget. However, it is not enough to explain the process. To build trust and commitment toward delivering on the goals of the organization, employees should be involved in creating the budget goals.

Some managers would argue that employees cannot possibly create budget goals. Although it may be true that some employees have limited education and cannot comprehend the complicated process of budgeting, only by having a hands-on experience will employees understand their role in making the business successful. They will realize that it is they, the frontline employees, whose primary interaction with the customer has the true ability to impact the customer experience. Employees who are involved in creating the budget will understand their value and importance to the organization. They now have a sense of control over their own destinies, making the connection that success for the organization means success for them.

Tactic 4: Develop training that creates interaction within departments and with customers.

Great training is about more than a strong on-the-job (OJT) training program. Certainly nothing replaces a good OJT program, but consider enhancing it with a cross-utilization or job-shadow program. This type of training builds camaraderie, relationships and empathy for one another's positions. It is especially helpful in situations where the success of one department is reliant on the success of another.

Tactic 5: Build continuous improvement into every step of the operation.

Teach employees the process for measuring operational efficiencies and challenges, and involve them in the continuous improvement process by asking for their opinions and ideas. This is how you leverage the talent, knowledge and experience of your employees. No one knows better than the frontline employees what is and isn't working. They understand where you can gain operational efficiencies to impact the business in a positive way.

A word of caution: The mistake that many managers make is that they ask but do not act, saying things like: "We can't do that," "We don't have the money for that," or "It's been tried before, and it didn't work."

The leader's place in this process is to clearly delineate the parameters, provide tools and knowledge, remove roadblocks, and support the employees in their efforts. This means that leaders must implement employee ideas as often as possible. Supporting the employee by implementing their ideas, even if they seem small and insignificant, builds the leader's credibility and relationships for future endeavors.

Undoubtedly, you will not be able to implement all employee ideas, but what you must do is acknowledge the employee for trying to improve the operation and explain why the idea cannot be implemented. If you do not at least acknowledge employees for their efforts, you may never receive another idea from them, but the most damaging result will be the loss of credibility by the leader.

Reward and recognition is a critical step in the process of continuous improvement and does not have to cost a lot of money. Employees who feel valued are more likely to work harder.

Creating a culture of trust is hard work and means taking risks. Each day, you face the risk that employees will make bad decisions and that those decisions will cost the company money. Taking the time to provide the skills, knowledge, tools and training will not eliminate the risks but will minimize them.

Some employees will carry their sense of involvement to the extreme, despite your best efforts to communicate the parameters. It will be necessary for you to coach and counsel these employees. If they insist on working outside the stated parameters, you may need to take some level of disciplinary action. However, experience has shown that these employees are the exception to the rule and that the benefits far outweigh the risks.

About the Author

Debbie Zmorenski

Deborah K. Zmorenski, MBA, is the co-owner and senior partner of Leader’s Strategic Advantage Inc., an Orlando, Fla.-based consulting firm. During her 34-year career with the Walt Disney ... Read More

Why Continuous Improvement Groups Can Do More Harm than Good

Article extract from ReliablePlant newsletter:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29180/continuous-improvement-groups

As strange as it may sound, I believe that continuous improvement (CI) culture is something that many organizations resist without realizing it. Sometimes it is not a mountain to climb but an anthill to step over.

Culture is defined as integrated knowledge, belief and behavior; a set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterizes an organization. If an organization lays the foundation for the employees to embrace each of these examples, it can result in harmony and progression. It can eliminate finger-pointing, develop a balanced scorecard, and produce a creative and productive working environment.

One mistake many organizations make is the implementation of a “CI group.” This is a group of employees who explore the shop floor, seeking improvement opportunities. It is somewhat respectable when organizations implement such a group because they are making an effort toward CI, but assigning a group to kaizen full time demonstrates little confidence in lean methodologies and shows no loyalty in constructing a true CI culture.

These CI groups more often than not harm organizations because they assume the responsibilities of the process owner, which slows down development. They can also create inner turmoil between departments and turbulence in the improvement process. This pushes the organization further from a healthy CI culture.

In addition, the improvements implemented by the CI group are not sustainable in most cases. The process owner has surrendered his or her ownership, resulting in resistance to change that he or she did not implement.

It’s comparable to someone else entering your home and rearranging your living room furniture. You might leave it that way for a day or so, but eventually you would either move everything back the way it was or rearrange it in a different way altogether. It could be because you were not fond of the arrangement or were uncomfortable with the change. What it really boils down to is that you were not part of the concept development or the decision-making process.

It is painful for some organizations to admit the burdens of a CI group because they have devoted time and money to it. This is understandable, but as we all know, in order to fix a problem, you first have to admit that there is one.

The CI group is not a bad idea. In fact, such activities can be extremely valuable in developing a continuous improvement culture. It’s their job duties and assignments that can turn them into a harmful entity within the organization. This is where CI-driven managers have to be careful and use the group strategically.

Instead of assigning group members to kaizen, it would be advantageous to center their efforts on lean education. The CI group members should act as consultants and use their expertise to guide improvement efforts throughout the organization. They should coach and train the shop-floor personnel as well as the process owners.

The owners (shop-floor personnel, leads, supervisors, engineers, etc.) should be the champions when improving their processes. A member of the CI group should be assigned to assist and guide them in the lean direction. This way, the process owner is learning lean methodologies and applying them in his or her projects. It will sanction much more sustainable changes and stimulate the owner, who will see firsthand the results that can be achieved with lean.

Once everyone understands what CI is and how to apply it, the CI group should focus on improving the lean tools and analytical procedures. After all, the organization’s lean process should, in itself, be a lean process.

The group’s input and talent should not stop there. It would also be beneficial to allow group members to assist in rewriting the organization’s policies and practices to ensure that lean permeates throughout the organization’s rules and decision-making.

If you have a CI group at your organization, assigning these responsibilities to them will progress the organization’s continuous improvement culture and provide sustainable, positive change. It will enlighten and encourage everyone to get involved with lean.

About the Author

Eric Bigelow

Eric Bigelow is an industrial engineer and continuous improvement professional. He is currently a lean coordinator located in Spirit Lake, Iowa. He has trained numerous individuals in lean ... Read More

How to Manage and Benefit from Change

Article extract from ReliablePlant newsletter:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29174/manage-change-benefit

Great organizations are always changing. I don't mean change for the sake of change, but planned, structured, progressive change that enables organizations to grow, evolve, survive and thrive in any type of marketplace.

When discussing change, many questions arise, such as: "How can you leverage and manage change?" "How can you become a change agent who is constantly and proactively preparing for change?" "How can you create a culture where you are able to make change work to your advantage rather than allowing it to destroy you?"

The better question is, "Why change?" The answer is reflected in the statements below, adapted from Joseph Rost's Leadership for the Twenty-First Century:

• "Everything that can be invented has been invented." (Charles H. Duell, director of the U.S. Patent Office, 1899)
• "Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote." (Grover Cleveland, 1905)
• "There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom." (Robert Miliham, Nobel Prize in physics, 1923)
• "The horse is here today, but the automobile is only a novelty — a fad." (President of Michigan Savings Bank advising against investing in the Ford Motor Company)
• "Video won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." (Daryl F. Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, commenting on television, 1946)
• "What use could the company make of an electric toy?" (Western Union, when it turned down rights to the telephone in 1878)

Businesses today are experiencing more change than at any time in history, and the pace of change is accelerating. It has taken just 15 years for 25 percent of households to embrace personal computers, 13 years for cell phones, and astoundingly only seven years for the Internet. (Harris, 2002)

There are three types of businesses that implement change. The first is the one that is bottomed out. They suddenly realize that the competition has caught up or maybe even surpassed them and are scrambling to make change in their organization in order to get back on track. Unfortunately for these organizations, by then, it is usually too late. They have been blindsided by change, meaning that they were completely focused on the way they had always done business, allowing new and innovative ideas to catch them off-guard and unprepared to compete.

The second type of organization changes just enough to maintain the status quo. These are the companies that are doing OK. Business is pretty good. They say to themselves, "Why do we have to change? Change upsets employees, and change upsets the customers." Ultimately, they change only enough to maintain their current status. Eventually, they may find themselves in the position of the first organization, where competitors catch up or surpass them.

The third type of organization is the one that embraces and leverages change while creating a culture of change, whereby leaders are encouraged or expected to be change agents. They are continually evaluating their organizational structure and looking for ways to make beneficial organizational change. These organizations use change as a catalyst to drive them forward and to improve their business results.

Jack Welch, retired CEO of General Electric, said, "I am convinced that if the rate of change inside an organization is less than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight."

Even powerful organizations do not usually possess an innate skill for making change. It seems to be something that is learned over the long term, and it is a painful process for most.

Invariably, when we suggest to organizations that they become more effective at change, the reaction is defensive. Comments like, "You have to be kidding! We're great at change. We change all the time. We love change!" The truth is, most organizations are not good at change and are especially lacking in the ability to communicate change to employees in a positive way.

Embracing and leveraging change helps companies to maintain competitive advantage. Knowing and facing this fact is the first step in proactively utilizing change to the advantage of the organization. In order to proactively plan for change, ask yourself and your employees the following questions:

1. What are the early warning signs in your industry that change is inevitable?
2. What systems, structures and processes might you put in place to maintain competitive advantage over your competitors and avoid being blindsided?
3. How can you understand the thinking of demographic groups not represented in your organization?
4. If you were your own competitor, how could you catch up to or surpass your company?
5. What customer requests seem the most outrageous and impossible? If you were to consider meeting these requests, what would you have to change to accomplish this task?
6. What technologies have recently been announced that could threaten your business?

In order to anticipate and leverage change to the advantage of the organization, you must be aware of the external forces driving change. There are three major categories of external forces driving change: information technology, demography and customers.

Information Technology

The network of computers linked around the world has become a major driver of change in the environment. The world is shrinking, not only creating new and exciting business opportunities, but also creating tough competition. Organizations can now be global, delivering services and information to customers faster and more effectively than ever before. Suppliers are connected through technology, creating efficient systems for ordering, delivery, communication and processes such as just-in-time ordering.

So what does this mean to your business? In order to maintain competitive advantage, your company must accelerate its ability to learn in order to keep up with accelerating change driven by technology. At the same time, you must manage the decisions that are made around choosing and implementing technology that most benefits your organization.

Demography

Demographic differences in the behaviors of customers and employees are the catalyst for organizations learning to meet a broad spectrum of needs and wants for both categories.

Generally, employees are more educated and as a result expect more involvement and more interesting work. Add to this complication that the workforce today is more diverse, creating unique opportunities and challenges. The rules for motivating employees have changed, and cultural differences must be taken into account.

Interestingly, the same demographic challenges that apply to employees also apply to customers. Due to the diverse demographics of customers in the marketplace, it is increasingly difficult to figure out how to meet the broad spectrum of customers' needs and wants. Companies may find themselves trying to be all things to all people, which is an impossible task. Organizations may have to consider changes that will help them to identify and meet theircore customers' needs.

Customers

Customers are more demanding and less tolerant of mistakes than ever before. They want exceptional service. They want employees to be courteous, knowledgeable and proactive in understanding their needs. Customers expect to be involved in decisions that affect them. They want to be asked about processes that impact them and their lives. They want more say and more control. These demands make them a driving force for change in industry.

An organization must change to meet customers' needs or fail. Without the customer, there is no business. Clients often ask, "How do I know what to change?" The answer is not a simple one. There are many factors to consider, but as far as the customer is concerned, the best way to know what to change is simply to ask them, and ask them frequently. "How are we doing? Are we meeting your needs? If not, what can we do better?"

To meet customers' needs and to operate in a fiscally responsible manner, companies must know for sure that they are changing the right things. If they do not, they will find themselves spending a great deal of time and money on ineffective change, or change for the sake of change.

Customer relationship management, commonly referred to as CRM, is one way to effectively manage customer-driven change. CRM involves integrating all customer information and making it available to all employees dealing with customers. CRM eliminates the guesswork and the need for psychic powers.

When pondering change for your organization, the important thing to remember is that change must happen for the right reasons and in the most effective way possible. A plan for change, based on real data and information from customers and employees, must consider the need for new technology and the ever-evolving demographics in the workplace and customer base.

As any organization that is trying to deal with change that is coming fast and furious from external and internal forces knows, it seems like an overwhelming task to compete and grow in an environment where change is a constant. To help manage and benefit from change, from a leader's perspective, here are three tactics for change management.

Tactic 1: Learn to anticipate the need for change. If an organization waits until circumstances force it to make change, it is too late. Anticipating change means constantly looking at the internal and external forces that are driving change. Once the factors that are driving change have been identified, it is easier to anticipate change.

Tactic 2: Communicate change to all employees up front and candidly. One of the most important steps in a successful change process is communication. Everyone in the organization must receive the communication. Leaders must be held accountable for ensuring that the communication flows in all directions, and especially to the front-line employees.

Employees must understand why the change is happening. In order to achieve buy-in, leaders must candidly and truthfully tell employees the reason(s) for change. One of the most common mistakes that leaders make is that they assume employees do not care or will not understand the factors driving change. These are excuses for avoiding a tough task. Seldom do employees accept the old dictatorial style of "Do it because I'm the boss" or "Trust me on this."

Like it or not, employees want to know, "What's in it for me?" This is not about monetary compensation. The benefit for the employee may be a better work environment, more involvement, more opportunities, or it may be as simple as everyone keeps their jobs. Also, statistics show that most employees want communication face to face from his or her leader. They do not want to hear about changes second-hand (i.e., the news media). Failure to communicate even the smallest change candidly and up front erodes trust and creates fear.

Tactic 3: Deal with the emotions of change. As leaders prepare to make changes in the organization, they must recognize that change is emotional and plan to deal with the emotions of employees, customers and vendors.

The plan should incorporate not only the methods to work through the emotions of change but also strategies for communicating the new processes and policies for getting work done. Leaders must ask themselves, "How might employees, customers and vendors react when they hear the change news?" Natural emotional reactions to change are anger, fear and frustration.

Leaders who respond with impatience or anger to the emotions of change are validating the employee's belief that the change is bad. The result may be an unhappy and less productive workforce, high turnover of skilled and knowledgeable employees, and possibly even formal complaints to employee relations or unions.

So what does all of this mean to you as a leader? It means that your job is to anticipate change and to figure out what it looks like from the business perspective. You must identify the internal and external forces driving change in your organization and, considering these forces, identify how to implement change effectively, leveraging change for success.

It is also means that it is your job to help employees accept change and to assist you in implementing change that will drive the organization forward. Ensure that part of your change plan includes a comprehensive communication process and that it addresses the emotional aspects of change. It is not always comfortable, but it is reality and something from which great leaders do not hide.

About the Author

Debbie Zmorenski

Deborah K. Zmorenski, MBA, is the co-owner and senior partner of Leader’s Strategic Advantage Inc., an Orlando, Fla.-based consulting firm. During her 34-year career with the Walt Disney ... Read More

Executing a Continuous Improvement Plan

Article extract from ReliablePlant newsletter:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29137/continuous-improvement-plan

Every plan for continuous improvement should follow a path based on performance metrics for quality, cost, delivery and safety. For each of these groups, you should have well-defined targets such as to improve by 10 percent, reduce by 12 percent, increase by 9 percent, etc. For each metric, you should have a corresponding objective.

Additionally, you should have communicated the plan and the reasons why you are going after certain items on the plan. It is now time to execute. Each of the items on your plan may need some additional analysis to see exactly what is involved in the improvement of those items.

Are you going to have a team leader by initiative? Are you going to employ value-stream management? Are there natural families for you to follow? Is your continuous improvement effort themed in one area (quality, cost, delivery, safety, morale and/or innovation)?

As you go through the next levels, you are moving from strategic questions to more tactical questions. At the high level, you may want to improve delivery performance by 11 percent. However, before you can attack delivery performance, you need to do some analysis of what goes into the delivery performance. This may include questions about volume, customer mix, new products, standard vs. special systems, days of the week, geography, etc.

My recommendation is that you employ lean and Six Sigma to these next steps so that you are able to effectively sort out which is which. Please be careful that you don’t just do what you have always done. In other words, if your organization is slanted toward Six Sigma, don’t make everything a define-measure-analyze-improve-control (DMAIC) project. On the other hand, if your organization is more of a lean organization, don’t call everything a kaizen either.

As you are laying out the next steps of your executable plan, you must first decide which approach to use. Not everything is a kaizen; not everything is a project. Selecting the right tool will ensure you the highest impact at the lowest cost in terms of time required.

For purposes of simple definitions, consider the following:

• Kaizen — This is a very rapid approach to continuous improvement. The scope should be such that while you have a problem statement identified, you do not yet have the solutions. Be careful that you are not trying to “boil the ocean” in a week. You are willing to empower a team to execute the improvement process. There are specific and measureable goals and objectives for the problem statement. During a kaizen week, there should be a miniature plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle within the week. You also have a resource who is well-versed and capable of leading a kaizen for you.
• Project — This is a more long-term approach that may allow for items to be scoped on a larger scale. These may include projects that are bigger than a kaizen. In some cases, projects may be made up of several kaizens. There are specific and measureable goals that you are after. You are willing and able to empower a team to pursue the effort. You have a resource available who is capable of managing a project and has enough continuous improvement experience to bring the expertise to the project.
• Do-It — These are items in which you know what needs to be done, but the resources just haven’t yet been allocated to the effort. For example, in looking at the plan, replacing the spindle bearing on a piece of equipment shows up as a reason you can’t perform. Replacing the spindle becomes a “do-it.” Now, just “do it!”

At the end of each of these activities, don’t forget to update your posting(s) and communicate the activities to others. You also need to chart and track the results to make sure that your efforts are yielding the results you seek.

Remember, what you want is a culture of continuous improvement. Along the way, you will reap a great deal of benefits in terms of performance improvements and tactical performance. The end game is always the culture. Never lose sight of that fact.

Partnering for Continuous Improvement

Article extract from ReliablePlant newsletter:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29106/continuous-improvement-partnering

A major U.S. manufacturer of fabricated steel and metal products was experiencing a troubling and ongoing series of bearing failures on a dual line used for coating operations. A critical bearing located on the outboard roll of the dual line’s cleaning section would fail, necessitating repeated replacement. This occurred six times over the short period of four months, resulting in unscheduled downtime (to replace a failed bearing time after time) and lost productivity.

The bearing was the subject of frequent monitoring, with vibration analysis showing no readily detectable problems (all spectra appeared good). Nevertheless, it was only a matter of weeks before the latest replacement bearing took its turn for the worse and for reasons unknown.

Determining the root cause of the problem and arriving at a solution ultimately resulted from a unique three-way relationship between the steel manufacturer, on-site reliability engineers and locally based industry specialists (a team of highly trained engineers specializing in specific industries). Both the reliability engineers and locally based industry specialists, working hand in hand, had already become invaluable on-site resources for the operation, serving as intrinsic members of the manufacturer’s maintenance staff – regularly attending maintenance planning and scheduling meetings, convening with the customer’s reliability manager, and contributing input and suggestions along the way regarding optimized machinery health throughout the plant.

In this case, reliability engineers tagged the “bad actor” (failed bearing), and the industry specialists performed in-depth detective work into the root cause of failure. The conclusion was that the bearing was failing due to the roll’s thrusting in an axial direction, which the particular type of bearing could not accommodate. After documenting that the installed bearing could be suitably replaced by a more appropriate toroidal roller bearing that was specially designed to handle axial displacement without inducing additional axial forces of friction, a switch was made. In addition, a more suitable lubrication recommendation was adopted. The line has been running smoothly ever since without a bearing failure or process interruption. Value added over mean time between repairs (MTBR) to this steel producer was more than $230,000 in the first year, with cash flow breaking even in one month.

While this represents an example of how various bearing technologies can solve particular operational challenges, the compelling story runs much deeper and is illustrative of a trend that is gradually shifting the reliability landscape into a new territory – light years ahead of the conventional (and reactive) practice of engaging maintenance expertise only after the fact.

This case especially demonstrates how an operation can elevate reliability partnerships to an entirely new level by teaming with reliability and engineering professionals who become integral members of an organization’s maintenance framework. The on-the-scene professionals serve as focused sets of “eyes and ears” – supported by an array of relevant resources and expertise – to identify and diagnose machinery health problems, propose incisive recommendations to solve them, document all findings in writing, tally anticipated savings and efficiencies to substantiate the efforts, and make necessary fixes just in time.

This innovative approach (and advanced alternative) to traditional predictive maintenance practices effectively re-casts “supporting” players into the role of highly involved team players dedicated to the success of an operation’s initiatives for continuous improvement.

Creating Value

Advantages of this approach can extend well beyond the basic capability to make immediate, timely and long-term fixes to machinery assets.

First and foremost, while partnerships between operations and expert resources have always been recognized as critical to the success of reliability programs, the inclusion and participation of experts as actively involved members of an existing maintenance team can help to dramatically improve communications, advance relationships and knowledge, and result in newfound improvements in the health of assets across the board. Committed and sustained partnerships among all players will contribute significantly to the success of any reliability program and create value along the way.

Among value-created opportunities, this approach opens the door to readily available root-cause analysis – digging as deeply as necessary into machinery health problems to identify the true culprit(s) and take the appropriate remedial action(s). This practice goes well beyond those employed during typical predictive maintenance activities and can help prevent problems from recurring and taking productivity down with them.

Such improvement initiative programs can further benefit operations by introducing a training element for maintenance staff to equip them with insights into relevant procedures and technologies to help lower the total cost of operations and to recognize – and remedy – a problem when they detect one. Routine maintenance procedures can be improved, too, as maintenance education and awareness expand and new technologies are put into play.

For example, a U.S. taconite mining operation has partnered with a dedicated team of reliability engineers and locally based industry specialists with powerful results. The engineers conduct weekly predictive maintenance “routes” throughout the operation, provide reports advising machine conditions and recommended actions, and recover or preserve failed components (such as bearings) accompanied with a detailed history of the failure(s).

In turn the industry specialists, who are well versed in the mining field, perform damage analysis, report and document the root cause, and recommend improvements designed to eliminate repetitive failures. The specialists additionally provide on-site training associated with bearing and seal installations, as well as support during installations – all of which are highly valued by the mine.

Specific project successes at this site included the following:

• Root-cause failure analysis showed that conveyor pulley bearing failures were being caused by the ingress of contaminants and were resolved with an improved sealing system.

• Mill pinion bearing failures were linked after analysis to poor support for the bearing and ingress of contaminants, and were remedied with a recommended improvement to the bearing housing fit, custom sealing system solution, and pinion rebuild and replacement overseen by the industry specialists.

• Dust-collector fans suffered from poor installation practices, and training was subsequently provided to demonstrate the proper use of a hydraulic assist for installation (consisting of a hydraulic nut, hydraulic pump and dial indicator).

Making the Grade

While this real-world demonstration of teamwork can help reap measurable rewards from improved asset reliability, increased machinery uptime and enhanced productivity, such initiatives will be highly dependent on the level of expertise and the extent of a reliability partner’s experience, capabilities, and supporting resources and technologies.

Among the questions to ask when beginning the selection process for a reliability team to help realize optimized results consistent with a viable continuous improvement initiative include:

• Can knowledge and experience specific to your industry be demonstrated?

• Are the provider’s supporting resources (from technologies and services to analysis and training) sufficiently extensive?

• Does the provider understand how reliability influences the life-cycle management of assets?

• Can the team respond quickly when machinery problems unexpectedly occur?

• Can the team seamlessly blend with the existing maintenance function?

• Will written documentation on problems and recommended solutions be part of the package?

• Will the provider be suitably equipped to support equipment fixes?

• Can the provider demonstrate a close relationship with distributor sources to supply solutions in a timely manner when required?

• Will program progress be measured in a meaningful way? How?

• Will total cost of operations be demonstrably reduced over time?

The answers to these (and related) questions can help guide decision-making when selecting a reliability partner best equipped to sustain a continuous improvement initiative and accrue both immediate and long-term benefits for any operation.

About the Authors

Andy Rein is the director of SKF Reliability Systems and is based in Schaumburg, Ill. He can be reached via e-mail at Andrew.Rein@skf.com. James A. Oliver is the director of sales support engineering for SKF USA Inc., with headquarters in Lansdale, Pa. Contact James atjames.a.oliver@skf.com.

An Effective Way to Drive Improvement

Article extract from ReliablePlant newsletter:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29102/effectively-drive-improvement

When I think of planning, I always remember a quote that is attributed to Abraham Lincoln. "Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening my axe." The point is that if you spend adequate time preparing to do the job, the job itself will go much smoother/better/faster.

There is a process for driving improvement and alignment called the PDCA cycle. PDCA stands for plan, do, check and act. It is a great approach to any business challenge. In very simple terms:

Plan

• What do we want to do?
• What do our customers want us to do?
• Why is it important?
• What are the steps we are going to use to actually move it?
• What process will be needed? (Hint: Lean Six Sigma).

Do

• Communicate that the plan exists and why it is important.
• Make the plan visual using graphs, charts and scoreboards.
• Explain what the organization needs to do to be successful and clearly define what success “looks like.”
• Execute the plan.
• Chart where the progress is vs. where we want it to be.

Check

• Evaluate that the plan is yielding the results you intended.
• Provide team updates and progress reports.
• Include this on all monthly and quarterly reports.
• Communicate and post the results to date on the visual boards.
• Celebrate and communicate success as you find it.
• Hold people accountable for the progress.

Act

• Refocus on areas where progress is not up to par.
• Adjust the plan if the success isn’t in line.
• Add or take away from the plans if/when the business needs change.

Throughout the year, there should be information moving through the organization from senior management to the shop floor and vice versa. As business needs change, some of the metrics and measures might also need to change. As the improvements are made, the results need to be included in the information being shared. This creates a very clear and reliable source of alignment to again reinforce the need to keep all resources pointed in one direction.

A few summarizing thoughts about using PDCA:

1. This clarity of purpose will drive the organization to improve those key metrics that are most important to the customer.
2. The alignment of the effort drives synergy, teamwork and ownership.
3. The communication helps break down walls and focus the organization on the right parts of the business.
4. The combination of these items will most certainly yield high-impact results.

A Tactical Approach for Improvement

Article extract from ReliablePlant newsletter:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29094/tactical-improvement-approach

When planning your continuous improvement (CI) efforts, you must first determine what it is that you are going to improve. There are always thousands of things you need to do but only enough resources to really go after a few of them. So which ones do you go after? Which ones will impact your business the most? Which ones will impact the customers the most? Which ones will help you be more profitable?

My recommendation is to start with your customers. There are several ways of obtaining input from the customer. I don’t want to get into how to collect information in this article, as that would be fodder for a whole different series of articles. However, if you don’t currently have a mechanism, try this approach: Pick three to seven of your biggest and most influential customers and call them or invite them to visit you.

Ask them these questions or other questions like these:

1. How can we serve you better?
2. What do we do in our process/product that causes you issues, challenges and problems?
3. What would make us your No. 1 preferred vendor of choice?

Be prepared for price and cost to come up and be a part of the discussion. You will have to choose how to respond to this question, and you and your team need to be ready.

Next, talk with some of the internal managers and leadership. Check with accounting to see if there are things on which you should focus. Sometimes the trends can hide the details. Maybe there is an uptick in one area but a downward trend in another area. In this case the bottom line doesn’t change much, so you probably should look into what is driving the numbers up and down. Other places to look include vendors and purchasing, quality, distribution and warehousing, and sales.

Finally, talk with internal team members, informal leaders and managers. There is a wealth of information in every organization if you only take time to ask the questions and listen to the answers. Ask the internal members:

• What issues do they struggle with?
• What makes their jobs hard?
• What should you improve?
• What would make them happier to come to work?
• How could you make their particular process more efficient?

Hopefully, you get the idea that you need to sort through and seek out input from several perspectives. The more places you look, the more comprehensive (and meaningful) the list will be. Remember, the driving force behind this is to develop a three-, six-, nine- or 12-month CI plan. Maybe this is an annual planning session to develop the Lean Six Sigma plan for the year.

The point is that you are developing your plan for improving the business in several key areas. This is a serious effort that will to some degree determine where you will spend your time, effort and resources.

Now that you have a plan, or at least a framework for the plan, you must line up the resources necessary to drive that plan and ensure that you will be successful. You need to get the right people around the table to ensure that you have buy-in and that the leadership team is going to support the plan with resources, support, time and attention.

Hopefully, since you have asked them what it is that they want you to accomplish, you have developed a plan that these folks will support. This is called alignment. Alignment means that the team in a company, division or plant agrees to support the plan and the initiatives, both tactically speaking and strategically. If you have been diligent in reaching out to people and ensuring that their thoughts, ideas and issues are represented, you should have fantastic alignment. If not, you probably have a plan with very little support.

As you are talking with different factions of the organization, you should be looking for overlap or multiple people talking about the same issue. In other words, you may hear the same issue from several different perspectives. For example, you might overhear the accountant talking about how much inventory is being carried and the manufacturing manager talking about running out of space. This is probably the same problem from two different directions.

The solution(s) to this problem will most likely solve two problems, but it will also be a large problem to tackle. The places where you have the most overlap are where you will have the most alignment and the largest potential for success.

Also, realize that while you hear about a problem, you will have to study and understand the baseline of the situation. Where do you stand now? What is the situation at present day, and what has the trend done over the trailing 12 months?

Once you have the plan and the people sitting around the table talking about the plan, look around the room and ask them: “Will you support this plan and help drive the success of this effort?” Until you get a “yes” from each stakeholder, the meeting isn’t done and you are still in the planning phase of the plan, do, check, act (PDCA) cycle.

In summary, you must have a comprehensive plan for your CI effort. Reach out to stakeholders (both internal and external to the organization) to gain buy-in, alignment and ownership. Articulate what it is you are trying to accomplish in SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) terms. You then will have specific targets that should yield significant impact to your business.

Hopefully, you have some high-level goals and objectives, such as:

• Reduce overall cost by 7 percent
• Improve output by 9 percent
• Reduce lead time by 14 percent
• Reduce lost-time accidents by 7 percent
• Improve quality (measured by first-pass yield) by 9 percent
• Improve on-time delivery to John’s House of Widgets by 11 percent
• Reduce inventory on-hand by 10 percent
• Reduce cost of manufacture by 4.5 percent

The next question is how are you going to implement the plan? What should you do next? Where do you start? The first step is to see where you are currently. You may have heard the phrase “baseline.” Where are you today specifically with the data?

Next, you are going to enter into the “do” phase of the PDCA cycle.

Some potential places to start:

1. Value stream map
2. Road map
3. Scorecard (if the data is the same as the goals and objectives)
4. Lean audit (think in terms of the principles of lean that Dr. James Womack outlined in his books)
   • Value
   • Value stream
   • Flow
   • Pull
   • Culture

This last one may be hard to put together in the short term. If you choose that route, ask around to see if you can find a lean audit that you can use without creating one.

Communicate to Build World-Class Culture

Article extract from ReliablePlant newsletter:
http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/29089/communicate-build-culture

What is the real objective of Lean Six Sigma? When I ask this question, I usually get responses such as increased quality, improved speed, reduced cost, reduced errors and many other tactical improvement measures. Those are all benefits to continuous improvement (CI). The real goal of CI is to build a culture or improve a culture. As Dr. Womack wrote in Lean Thinking, the fifth principle of lean is culture.

So what does it mean to build a culture or to enhance the culture? How does a world-class culture behave? A world-class culture has an engrained tendency to seek out, identify and drive improvements at all levels of the organization. It moves from a culture where lean and Six Sigma are something to be done (like a project) to a place where Lean Six Sigma is simply the way things are done.

As you are engaging your CI plan, ask yourself what your culture is like. Are you doing CI or is CI simply the way things are done? This shouldn’t be hard to figure out, so don't spend a lot of time dwelling on it. Either you are or you aren't. Either answer is OK. Just recognize where you are and where you are trying to go.

Part of the equation in building a world-class culture is to engage people at all levels of the organization. Leaders must tie everyone into the plan for the CI process. They must get people involved, ask them for help and support them through the change. In short, leaders must lead them through the process. Communication is the first step to doing this.

Once you have developed your CI plan for the division, plant or department, tell people about it. Share it with those around you and those who work in the processes that will be affected. Tell them what you (with their help) are going to do. In so doing, you are absolutely obligated to two things:

1. Tell them why you have this plan.
2. Tell them what is in it for them.

I can’t stress these two items enough. If you are going to build a culture and truly reach where you are trying to go, you must get everyone involved and singing from the same sheet of music. You must get them onboard with the plan if they are going to support it.

Too many management teams still employ demand and direct tactics. They use pressure to get things done. While this can be effective, it usually does little to engage the culture or endear the personnel to the organization. Engage and empower your team members if you want to accelerate the velocity of the CI plan.

Another part of the communication process is to post the information on the wall, on the shop floor and wherever you have a facility board. Put the plan, targets, progress and results together in one place. As you can, have communications at that place and talk about it. People want to know how they are doing, what is coming up next and how they are involved. People want to hear about results and plans. They want leaders to point out when things are going well and when things need to be improved or changed. People want to know where they stand. It is the leaders’ job to have open and honest communications with them as much as possible.

After you communicate and post the plan, you are almost ready to start executing. Before you do, however, you also need to make sure that all of this work doesn’t become "window dressing." How are you going to communicate going forward? How are you going to share the wins, challenges and opportunities going forward? How are you going to hold yourself and your team accountable? What are you going to do to keep people fully engaged?

I am not going to tell you the answer, but I will offer some very strong advice:

1. Communicate clearly.
2. Communicate frequently.
3. Communicate consistently.
4. Communicate honestly.

As I once heard about cowboy leadership principles, "If you are leading a herd of cattle, take a look around every once in a while and make sure they are still following you."