Lean Principles - Visual Management

Lean Nation,

Happy New Year to all you Lean practitioners.  I hope this year will lead to significant changes in business performance and culture related to your relentless pursuit of eliminating non-value added activity for your core business processes.

 

This blog is part five in a six part series.  In the three previous blogs we have covered the lean principles of flow, pull, and zero defects.  The next lean principle is about how you manage in a continuous improvement environment.  World class organizations manage visually.  The principle behind visual management is to create the manage systems, both visual and/or audial, to be able to quickly discern normal from abnormal.  An abnormal condition must be readily visible to all staff, and action must be taken in real-time to return the workplace to normal conditions.

 

Some examples of visual management in your life would include the gas light coming on in your vehicle when your fuel tank approaches empty.  Many times the light is accompanied by a ding sound using both audial and visual  indicators of an abnormality.  An intervention must be taken (i.e. get to a fuel station to re-fuel) or the vehicle will stop operating soon.   Traffic lights are another type of visual management.  The traffic light colors come with a variety of visual clues telling you to stop, proceed with caution, or stop.  Failure to take the appropriate, immediate intervention can result in an accident or a traffic violation. 

 

In the workplace, visual management is used to manage both process and results.  At a very high level, I like to break the concepts of visual management into three buckets.  The first area of visual management is the management of outcomes. This system is a collection of trend charts showing results and targets, as well as the corresponding action plans to deliver on these targets and the status of these plans.

The second area of visual management is the system of managing process. This system shows hour by hour status of the process and highlights when the system is not operating as designed. Variations from standard are identified and if possible fixed in real-time. If the issues cannot be resolved in real-time, then the sources of variation need to be identified through a histogram/Pareto diagram so they can be prioritized for problem solving. Problem solving is best done using a 5 Why and 2 How approach that gets to root cause, where the direct cause can be identified and the problem can be countermeasured for permanent solution. we'll discuss problem solving in a future blog. The final piece of the visual management for process involves the action plan for resolution. Summarizing, visual management of process involves seeing normal operations from abnormal operations, capturing the frequency of deviations from standard, and documenting the corrective actions for resolution. All posted in a transparent manner for everyone to be able to see.

The third area of visual management involves management of the workplace. The workplace is usually managed visually through the implementation of a 5S system.  In a bit more detail,  5S is a management system that visually creates a high performing work area. Many wastes are eliminated through 5S, and I consider 5S to be a basic staple of any improvement system and everyone should begin with this system.  I have a previous blog that talks about 5S if you are interested in learning more.

A world class organization has all three elements of visual management in place, current, and followed. These elements include visual management of outcomes, visual management of process, and visual management of the workspace.

Managing visually makes seeing abnormal conditions obvious.  The power here is that interventions and time spent resolving issues can be focused and prioritized.  The process of managing by exception is what makes excellence possible.

The next blog will focus on the final lean principle :  kaizen.

Lean Blessings,

Ron

Ron Bercaw
Breakthrough Horizons Ltd
www.breakthroughhorizons.com