No matter how good your lean design is, there will be always be waste trying to creep back into your processes. Recall that waste is any activity that does not directly meet your customers needs.
Why is this the case?
- You cannot predict all of the circumstances that your process will be subject to. Sometimes an unavoidable situation arises.
- We do not design lean solutions to cover 100% of the situations. We would be gridlocked to a stall is we tried to have a solution to every possible situation before implementing a lean solution.
- Removal of one layer of waste exposes additional layers of waste. Much of the waste is still hidden regardless of how great our design.
So we need to have a system to address problems when they arise. There are many approaches that lean organizations use to addrtess problems. Ironically it takes several years for organizations to adopt these proven approaches. In fact one of the the leading indicators I have of assessing lean maturity is the sophistication of organizational problem solving.
Here are the five steps:
- Go to gemba - go to the source of the problem
- Check the gembutsu - identify relevant facts at the source; who, what where, when, why, how often, how many (also known as 5W and 2H)
- Install a temporary countermeasure - contain the problem immediately. Develop a solution immediately, albeit temporarily stop the problem. This may require additional resources or extra effort in the short run.
- Determine the root cause of the problem- usually a fishbone diagram and/or 5 Why problem solving.
- Standardize the solution to prevent the problem from re-occurring.
Most organizations are really deficit in their problem solving approaches. Root cause problem solving takes discipline and time. But it prevents problems from coming back.
How many times have you solved the same problem?
Lean Blessings,
Ron
Ron Bercaw
President, Breakthrough Horizons
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