Common sense

I had the good fortune to be helping Productivity Alberta with a session they were running on innovation at the Dicky Days Innovation Conference at the Telus Spark.  First thing the Telus spark look awesome and a lot of fun.  The amount of good noise coming from the kids (small and big) touring said only one thing, they were having a lot of fun.  The second thing, I learnt something I had never considered before.  Common sense has its own perspective.  What is common sense now, may not have been common sense before.
The example I was given was that it was common sense a few hundred years ago that the world was flat.  Of course it was you only had to look out at the horizon and you could see it was flat.

Photo - Flickr Simon Ska

This got me thinking how much "common sense" do we hang on to?/it  There is the adage that is slowly being worked away that mass production and scales of economy are cheaper than only making what you need.  How many other ideas of common sense am I carrying around?  The question that follows on is how do you challenge the current common sense; how do you create an environment where the current common sense can be challenged and a new common sense built?

Those are big questions, and ones for me to think some more on.

In reflection

Jim

SMED for home

One of my very first posts was on the simplicity of SMED, this post is another example that SMED should be simple. 
When doing a SMED exercise with clients one are we consistently find takes longer than it should is fiddling with equipment to get the right setting. This example only has 2 settings, the rightway up or upside down and I was getting it wrong as often as I'd get it right.  This little problem was plugging my phone in at night to charge.  I'd grab the cable and try my luck:

Black on black, while maybe looking good did not give me much of a chance to always get it right.

Now with a white do on black I get it right every time.  Chance is out of the game, I don't need to guess.  The second advantage is that I tend to plug the phone in last thing at night and the white does makes the cable easier to see, saving me needing to turn the lights on in the entrance hall.  So the white dot in fact removes two steps from the simple task of plugging in a phone to charge. 
In truth the saving is minimal each night, but added up savings like this are what make Lean and SMED/QCO's work.

The white dot I found made life that little easier so I repeated it.  I can now tell which way is up on all my USB, HDMI and assorted cables.   A critical part of Lean is the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle.  And this is last step is what ACT is about, when you find a solution that works, standardize it.  Ask "how do I make xx part of our standard work and where else can I use xx?".
The white stuff is call sugru and has almost endless uses.

Over production

Beautiful picture from Magnum Photos via Slate.com

YEREVAN, Armenia—Packaging bottles, 1972.

© Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos

Wild Rose 3

Last 2 pictures from Wild Rose

 

This is the tool board on a normal day, not pre or post 5S check.  People have set up a system that works for them and because it works they use.  Note the Orange and Yellow tags per yesterdays post.

 

No arguing where this goes back.

Wild Rose 2

As I have said I had the good fortune to work with Wild Rose Brewery.  I had the even greater fortune to meet up with Richard at Wild Rose and see they were continuing their own 3S.  These guys Sort, Set and Shine as they need to.  The culture is such that there is no need to do any Standardize and Sustain.  These steps are built in, in their own special way.  And the truth is that Sort, Set and Shine are the steps that make the difference, most companies need the last 2 S's to keep themselves on track.
Below is an example of good consistent visual management.

 

Yellow is for BREWING use ONLY

Blue is for FILTRATION use ONLY

Orange is for PACKAGING use ONLY

 Again nothing overdone (over processing), a good simple approach.

Marginal gains

If you are regular reader you will have noticed a number of cycling related posts.  One because I'm a cyclist from the UK and the success of British cyclists excites me.  And two because of the kaizen approach that British cycling takes to winning, this approach is know as "Aggregation of marginal gains".  Sound familiar?

Generally I've been able to read about the tech and training approach of the team.  Today I got a chance to read a little more about the overall approach of the team.

• “Firstly, you need a team with the skills and motivation to succeed”
• “Secondly, you need to understand what you want to achieve”
• “Thirdly, you need to understand where you are now”
• “Then, you need to put a plan in place to see how you can get from where you are now to what you want to achieve”
• “Also, it’s important to understand the ‘aggregation of marginal gains’.  Put simply….how small improvements in a number of different aspects of what we do can have a huge impact to the overall performance of the team.”

These 5 points are a great combination of Lean thinking and also many of the lessons from Jim Collins book Good to Great. 
Full article over here  - http://www.tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/business-studies/comments/gold-medals-kaizen-and-the-aggregation-of-marginal-gains

Wild Rose 1 - The point is not to touch

One of the odd things about companies as they start their Lean journey is they think that everything has to be perfect.  It does not need to be perfect, it needs to be better.  One company I worked with that did not fall into that trap is the wonderful Wild Rose Brewery here in Calgary.
Label printers are nice but the message will still be the same.