by Lee Fried, on 23 Apr 2007 07:26 pm
The Journey
A Fun Lean Story
In the Model Line we are current in the process of training all 85 managers in a program called Customer Focused Management Training. The focus on the training as I have mentioned before is to put in place a Daily Management system where all processes are standard, visual, measured, etc. The learning has a classroom component, but is primarily applied learning where each manager brings a process, learns a module and then goes back to their team to teach and try. Today I was talking with one of the trainers that told me a fun story about one of the groups that is currently going through the training that I thought I would share.
The manager of this group picked a fairly complex process that she thought was fairly standard since there was procedures in place. After doing some observations and collecting date she realized that she was wrong. (Many of the managers believe they have standard processes at first) In fact, nobody on the team was following the same steps and there was more then twelve different ways that the team was completing the process with a large variations in quality and productivity. Realizing this she gathered the team together to share her finding and to decide on which practice should be made the standard work. A large debate broke out with several of the staff feeling frustrated because they believed they “had the most efficient process.” After some hard work she got the team to agree to all follow a single, standard process and they even agreed to the steps they would follow.
A couple week later the team was finalizing the last steps of the training when a member of one of the downstream process teams inquired what they were up to. After the process was explained this staff member asked why they were standardizing the process they had chosen since nobody was using the information anymore and fact they hadn’t in a while.
At first the team was frustrated, but they shouldn’t be. This is what Lean is all about, reducing waste. There should be no blame for wasted work of the past as long as we keep making improvements moving forward.