As a I travel around the world and watch lean thinking applied, I see a theme developing. As more and more improvement facilitators, engineers, and quality improvement scope out improvement activity and apply various tools a key aspect of the Toyota Production System is being lost. In the big picture, every organization is trying to shrink the timeline between a customer having a need and that need being met. Let's look at a few examples:
- A customer has a need for a new cell phone. a lean organization will aspire to:
- shrink the timeline from customer (market) need to product available on the market
- shrink the timeline from the moment a customer walks in a store until the time the phone is purchased and the service is activated
- shrink the timeline from the moment a support call comes into the service center until the customer issues is resolved.
2. A customer needs a surgery. A lean organization will aspire to:
- shrink the timeline from appointment needed until the clinic visit is complete
- shrink the timeline from decision to operate until patient leaves the surgical center
- shrink the timeline from service to collection of cash
The single leading indicator of competitiveness is time. World class organizations provide products and services in shorter time lines than their competitors. There have been some studies done that show that those that can do that repeatedly have shown the ability to grow 4 times faster than their competitors.
In a lean improvement project (event), time is used repeatedly. Time is used to calculate takt time, to determine manual cycle times, to calculate value added and non value added times, to determine the loading diagram and staffing models, to calculate work in process space requirements and space requirements in general. So time is a pretty important piece of data.
So now to get to the point of this blog. I have dozens of teams and organizations that run improvement events without a measure of time. The goal is to create standard work, or improve the customer experience. To be clear, there are events that focus on quality and safety improvement. These activities might not have a time measurement. ( Although in the big picture, higher quality and safety will ultimately reduce lead times)
However, I would encourage you to always have a time measurement in your discrete improvement events. Shrinking the time from customer need to customer need met through the elimination of wasted time and activity is the end game of lean improvement. Not everyone in management or staff likes the direct accountability of a time measure. Also capturing time observation data can be time consuming, boring, labor intensive, etc. These are only excuses. Some dimension of time should accompany every improvement project.
Lean blessings,
Ron
Ron Bercaw
President and Sensei
Breakthrough Horizons Ltd
Shingo Award Winning Author
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