continuous improvement consultant Archives

Improvement suggestions program, what is it?

A solid foundation of employee involvement activities is critical to achieving the continuous improvement goals. One of those elements is the improvement suggestions program.

What is an improvement suggestions program?

An employee suggestion program gives your employees a formal way to express their ideas to improve the processes of the workplace conditions. Also, it is a way to channel those ideas from the work floor to management.

A well manage suggestion plan serves two purposes. The first is to formalize the suggestions process. The second is to provide documentation of individual contributions. With the former, leadership can prioritize ideas aligned with the company goals. The ladder provides documentation for the year-end performance review.

Are you ready to lunch this program?

Why do you want to lunch an improvement suggestions program? If you want to check a box from your to-do list, do not do it. Are you receiving a steady number of suggestions? If ideas are not flowing from employees to supervisors and managers, maybe you are not there yet. On the other hand, if enthusiasm is growing and team members are communicating ideas constantly, it is time to launch your suggestions program.

Characteristics of an improvement suggestions program

But the improvement suggestions program is much more than a suggestions box. Above all, careful design of the process is important. For instance, the following are factors that describe a successful suggestions plan.

Hassle-free process – Make it easy to participate by providing a simple suggestions form.
Clear and fair rules – Same rules for everybody, explain how you would assign a value or impact to the results of the estimated improvements. Moreover, explain the rewards and recognition system tied to the suggestions propositions and results. Also, establish guidelines for the type of topics open to suggestions and how ideas are prioritized.
Quick feedback – Establish a standard, such as responding to suggestions within one week. Even more, create the standard for what information should be included in the response and how the feedback will be provided.
Program promotion and evaluation – Check how the system is doing versus the standards and look for areas for improvement. Furthermore, create a measuring or evaluation system and publish the results. For example, the total number of suggestions and participation percentage

Don’ts

A badly designed program will hurt your continuous improvement transformation. Once it loses credibility it will be undertaken to win it back. Put simply, avoid hurting the continuous improvement journey and the business bottom-line. The following are mistakes that should avoid.

Create a complicated form requesting too much information.
Take too much time to answer, don’t be the bottleneck of the process!
Have a homogenous evaluation team, include people from different functions and levels.
Fail to follow the program rules.

Summary

Team involvement activities are critical to achieving improvement goals in the areas of quality, cost, and delivery. For that reason, their engagement is decisive to achieve the continuous improvement goals. Certainly, it is important to create and maintain a fair and simple program that motivates participation.

Daily & Events CI

Kaizen event do’s and don’ts, behaviors for success.

The ten ground rules for practicing continuous improvement events exist to ensure the right environment to encourage participation exists. Therefore, is the job of the event facilitator to set clear expectations about following those rules. It is also their job to steer the group in the direction. Effective facilitators know how to guide the team and get results creating a positive and high-energy environment. They do that by encouraging and motivating the right behaviors. Let’s summarize them with the continuous improvement or kaizen event do’s and don’ts.

Kaizen event do’s and don’ts for Success

Keep the momentum on your CI event

Through the kaizen event, the facilitator teaches team members how to think lean and identify waste. For instance, the team will learn by doing. While they go through the event process, the team learns and uses tools to analyze the current state. Using lean thinking they will question the status quo and will learn how to see things differently.

To keep momentum, the event facilitator keeps asking questions. He or she builds upon the team’s ideas and concerns to challenge the status quo. Maybe, asking questions is the facilitator’s most important job. In other words, questions are the vehicle to guide the team to discover their solution. Through questioning with respect, they learn how to challenge the status quo.

Kaizen event do’s and don’ts, one more don’t

Also, to keep momentum on your CI journey I have one more Don’t for you. Do not engage in an event that is not aligned with your business goals. Through events, you are targeting those big gaps between the goals and the current state. Before you start planning the event, ask Do these activities help the business to achieve its goals? If the answer is no, then find another subject for your event.

Daily & Events CI

What are the key roles for successful kaizen?

Planning and executing a continuous improvement event is a team activity. The team participating in the event is vital for its success. But there are other equally critical key roles. These roles are executive sponsor, value-stream manager, facilitator, event coordinator, and team-leader. Let’s see the responsibilities of each one.

Key roles for direction and support

The executive sponsor is typically a C-suite leader, vice-president, senior leader, general manager, or plant manager. His/her job is to provide direction and support to the event. For instance, the sponsor will talk at the beginning of the event to clarify that a successful activity is necessary for company performance. Moreover, the achievements of this type of exercise will not risk anyone’s job.

Frequently, the value-stream manager is a vice-president, director, or middle manager. It is someone that has the authority to approve policy-related changes. In addition, he or she has the power to approve improvements that can impact regulatory, financial, safety, or a critical process. The value-stream manager works with the event coordinator and participates in the planning and preparation stages. Another duty is to communicate complete support to the event and the team. Above all, should be present during the event ready to answer questions and remove barriers.

Key roles for planning

The event coordinator is responsible for the logistics of the event. For example, coordinate the event date(s), reserve the room, and send out invitations. Another task is to ensure that all necessary equipment and materials are available. The coordinator is part of the team whose responsibility is to identify the best team members. The other people responsible for this task are the value-stream manager and the HR manager.

Event Execution Roles

The facilitator is responsible for leading the event. Sometimes, the event coordinator and the facilitator are the same people. This situation is typical when the company has a seasoned staff in CI matters. The facilitator participates in planning, team selection, and event logistics. Also, it is part of the follow-up and post-event reflection.

In general, the team leader is the team member with the most knowledge in the process. This position may not be necessary if the event is led by an internal facilitator. But, if the facilitator is a consultant or external resource, the team leader is an advisor. The facilitator will ask this person for advice or help when needed.

External help for your kaizen event

If you are starting and have never done an event, you may want to hire an outside professional as your facilitator. The objective of a good external facilitator is to help you to become a skilled facilitator and coordinator. A good consultant will work with all the key roles in the planning, event execution, implementation, and follow-up of the event. He or she will teach each member how to fulfill their role successfully. Also, will let all key roles member to do their tasks while coaching them.

Are you ready for your first continuous improvement event? If you have doubts or need help to start your improvement journey, call Better Process Solutions. We can help!

CI Basics

Continuous improvement books for beginners

I learned that February is the library lovers’ month. Many of us don’t visit libraries anymore, but still, keep our love for books. In my case, I have a weak spot for continuous improvement books. Books are an excellent way to learn, find inspiration, or have a good time. My CI learning experience includes traditional classroom training, webinars, hands-on workshops, and others. But my favorite way to learn more about CI is by reading books. Perhaps, it is because I can go at my pace, reading, learning, and practicing.

Continuous improvement books

There are thousands of books about CI out there. Although there are real gems, there are also some that are not very good. As a result, finding the right one can be difficult. Some publications are best suited for beginners, while others are for people with some experience.

Here is a list of my favorite CI titles

Gemba Kaizen by Masaaki Imai – This book is an introduction to kaizen and gemba. Although the book contains all the traditional lean jargon, it is easy to read. In addition, includes various case studies including hospitals, product development, ground transportation, and logistics.
Lean Production Simplified by Pascal Dennis – The title says it all, it contains a simplified explanation of the lean system. The book includes a description of various concepts like five S, visual management, standardize work, and others.
The lean turnaround by Art Byrne – If you are an executive looking to start a culture transformation, this is the one for you. It focuses on lean as a strategy to create value and transform the company.
Lean Office and Service Simplified by Drew Locher – If you work in an office or service environment, look no further. The author presents all lean principles and concepts from a non-manufacturing perspective. He describes how to use tools like value-stream, standard work, flow, visual management, and others. In addition, it provides several examples and implementation strategies.
The Toyota Way to Service Excellence by Jeffrey K. Liker and Karyn Ross – The authors explain how to use the lean principles, practices, and tools to provide better services. Moreover, it contains case studies in various service industries. The examples include financial services, telecommunications, health care, and insurance.
People: A leader’s day-to-day guide to building, managing, and sustaining lean organizations by Robert Martichenko, Steve Gran, Roger Pearce, & 4 more – This book is a leaders’ guide to build and sustain a lean organization. It provides guidance for all the tasks, activities, and behaviors a leader needs to transform the organization and get long-term success.
Lean Thinking by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones – This publication is a best seller classic. It goes from the principles to lean thinking to action, presenting how to close the gap between customers and providers. It also has case studies to explain those concepts. One of them is Wiremold Company with Art Byrne as its president and CEO. Yes, you are right, he is the author of the #3 on my list.

You read continuous improvement books, and then what?

The short answer to that question is that you learn, explore, and practice lean. Learn new ways to do things. Second, you explore how to apply those ways within your business. Third, you keep learning by teaching others how to do it. And third, you keep learning and practicing.

The secret to a continuous improvement culture transformation is that lean, or CI, is a system, not a group of tools. The focus should be on the people and the learning process. One common mistake is to spend too much time learning and using tools. Instead, focus on working with the people. The real success is, being able to engage your team in CI. That is to say, do not waste your time reading books unless you are committed to learn and teach.

What else you can do?

To increase your learning opportunities, combine reading books with hands-on workshops and training. For even better results, get a serious professional to help you along the journey. We all need a coach or mentor to guide us through the challenging steps of transforming a culture. Here in Better Process Solutions, we are ready to help. Get in touch!

CI Basics

Take Baby Steps for Continuous Improvement

How do we learn to walk? The first step is crawling. As the babies become stronger will start pulling themselves up with the support of someone or something. Once they are up will learn balance and how to keep themselves up without any help. The next stage is walking with the mom or dad’s help, learning how to move their legs to take steps. Their curiosity will drive them to use that learning to wander around the house, using the furniture as support. They build confidence in their skills and keep practicing. Those small steps show them how much independence they gain, and they don’t want to lose it. One step at a time, they finally learn to walk.

The business process improvement is very similar. The goal is clear you want to thrive during good times and survive the inevitable challenges and economic downturns. You know that you need to improve your processes to accomplish on-time delivery of quality goods or services at the lowest cost. You want to change but do not have a clear idea of how. Like the baby learning to walk, you need to take small steps, one at a time.

Continuous improvement (CI) or Kaizen is the daily practice of creating small changes using low-cost common-sense solutions. Before you start complaining about the Japanese words, let me explain its origins. The USA Department of War created in the early 40’s a training program named Training Within Industry (TWI). It was developed within the industry to help ramp up the production of war materials and equipment. TWI introduced the concepts of job instruction training and job methods. Job instruction training teaches the “one best way” to do the work, which we now call standard work. Job Methods taught employees how to break down jobs into smaller steps questioning each one as a way to generate improvement ideas. As a result, a high volume of small incremental improvements from individuals was delivered.

After World War II, the American occupation forces brought in experts to Japan to help to rebuild their industry. Edward Deming introduced TWI, and the Japanese love it so much that they give it a Japanese name, Kaizen. Kaizen comes from two words, Kai (change) and Zen (good). It is commonly translated as a change for good or continuous improvement (CI). The strength of CI comes from the participation of workers, of all levels, in the business improving effort. These efforts are driven by three major activities, standardization, 5S, and waste elimination.

By approaching change in small, incremental steps, CI reduces the fear of change. Like the babies learning to walk, the small steps increase your confidence to keep trying until you find success. If you need help on your journey, reach out, I can help!

This article was originally posted by Jina Rivera in Organization and Efficiency Solutions.

Business Performance

What can I do for my business now?

These days we are living a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Uncertainty is the word of the day, every day. Anxiety levels are higher than ever, everybody is wondering what is going to happen when the pandemic is over, and we go back to our “normal” lives. For small business owners, there is one question constantly bouncing inside our heads. Would I still have a business? I don’t know the answer to that or many other questions, but I do know what not to do.

I know that this is no time to waste my energy thinking in all the what if. There is nothing to gain but more anxiety, trying to imagine a world where I do not have the means to bring food to my family or pay for our house. I also know that in difficult times it is worth focusing on the positive things.

What is positive about this pandemic? For one we have time to do those things that we always say, I love to have time to do. Of course, things that we still can do within the social distancing and CDC parameters. It is a good time to pick up that hobby or home project you never have time for. It is also time to clear your head and separate yourself from the challenges coming ahead. It is important to recharge before you can focus on the fight ahead. One thing is sure, the economy, will not be the same when we reopen for business, we have to be prepared.

Focus your attention on all the positive things you can do to strengthen your operation without investing more money than you are right now. Here are a few examples.

You can do virtual networking to get in touch with your old contacts to say hello and make new ones.
While you reach out, does anybody need your help? Collaboration is a good way to create long relationships, a network of people that can help when you needed the most.
Read a new book, learn, and change what you can.
1. What your customer reviews in social media are telling you? What do you need to improve?
1. Do you know your customers well enough to anticipate if their needs will change? Create a new marketing plan using social media.
1. Analyze your business performance and assess your business. What do you need to improve? There are several applications that you can use to communicate with your team and work together on improvement ideas.
Learn about the different programs and aids the Small Business Administration and local governments are offering.
Revisit your business plan and update it. Adopt a new strategy, set new goals, and prepare a plan in tune with reality.

I humbly suggest that you read about continuous improvement and how it can help you to navigate through the storm. Lean was born in a time of need; Toyota was facing bankruptcy when Eiji Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno created it. Continuous improvement is not easy or magical, but it has been proven to work in any industry, any size, anywhere. At moments like this, it worth more than ever to try something new, like CI.

CI Basics

Do you believe in these lean misconceptions?

Do not makes these mistake, learn about lean misconceptions. — Do not makes these mistakes, learn about lean misconceptions

Like many other things in life, continuous improvement is often misunderstood. During my journey, the following are the most common lean misconceptions that I have encountered.

Most common lean misconception

CI is not a department store. Therefore, you don’t get to pick and choose what you think you need. CI is a system where you can only achieve consistent results is by using all its parts. CI is a business management system designed to provide customer value with fewer resources. It is made up of a group of principles, best practices, and tools.

The heart of the system is the people, and you show respect by developing them. Moreover, these motivated and engaged teams participate in the improvement process and create value. In other words, you cannot focus on the tools while ignoring the people’s part.

Delegating the culture change is another lean misconception

The second misconception is the idea of delegating the implementation. CI thinking is opposite to traditional management. For a successful transformation, the company culture has to change. This change only happens if it is coming from top to bottom. Top leaders need to learn and practice CI every day, everywhere, just like the rest of the team. They show commitment by supporting and actively participating in the transformation.

Lean or continuous improvement is not a cost reduction tool

Another mistake is believing that CI is a cost reduction tool. Do not start this journey without a clear purpose. Why do you want to do it? If the answer is cost reduction, think again. Go and see, ask why, and show respect will lead you to achieve cost goals. But that cannot be the purpose. Instead, think about changing lives or creating value.

The biggest lean misconception is that it is for manufacturing only

The biggest misconception is believing that CI is only for manufacturing companies. Have you heard about Continuous improvement, Best Business Practices, Danaher Business System, or Lean Manufacturing? All of them are different names for a way to conduct business.

The foundation for those systems is the Toyota Production System (TPS). The name Lean Manufacturing shifts your attention to manufacturing. Also, TPS makes people focus on cars. I prefer to use continuous improvement or Best Business Practices. Those are general terms with no reference to any industry.

Now you know what not to expect from continuous improvement. If you haven’t yet, read my post What is Continuous Improvement and Why you Need it? You will see why you need it in your business.

CI Basics

Do you want to see simple solutions at work?

There different ways to create improvements in your business. One way is through innovations. Another one is using common sense, low-cost solutions. In this post, I want to present to you one example.

Need simple solutions to improve a laboratory efficiency

ChemTest is a chemical laboratory that provides services for the food manufacturing industry. The laboratory had problems to released test results as per the customer demand. It was common to see samples waiting for analysis, piling up on the refrigerator. Therefore, the staff was working overtime to process the backlog. The manager was getting ready to hire an additional lab technician. But I suggested to let me help him. He agreed to walk the lab with me while explaining what he thought was wrong.

Reasons for the laboratory inefficiency

I noticed various boxes on the floor, which is a safety hazard. The working tables looked cluttered. I watched one technician searching for the right sample for almost five minutes. They don’t have an efficient method to store them. Also, I observed another technician walking around the room to work on different workstations to complete his test. While I was watching him, somebody came to drop more samples. She just put them right on top of the piled the other guy did while searching a while ago.

Within the first ten minutes, I identified two causes for inefficiency, disorganization, and ineffective layout. Everything I pointed out was waste from the customer’s point of view. All those things contribute to increasing the testing time per sample without adding value to the process.

We have a short meeting with the staff to explain the situation. Also, we invited them to be part of the solution by participating in an improvement activity called Kaizen. They were happy to do something. Although they like the extra money, they wanted to spend more time with the family.

Simple solutions to reduce processing time and increase tests per day

The laboratory performs on a daily seven major types of tests. One of them accounts for almost 70% of the daily demand. We focused our analysis on that test type. The staff draws a process map with the steps to complete that test. They also measured the time to complete the test and watched the process to identify waste.

We used 5S, a housekeeping and organization program to clean and organize the entire laboratory. The staff used a drawing of the facility layout to draw all the walking between steps of the process. They also measured the distance walked. Based on their observations and suggestions, we moved some equipment and tools to have them closer to where they need them.

Just by doing that, they reduced the walking time by more than 50%, which reduced the test process time as well. Other benefits of this event were: 27% reduction in over-time, 52% reduction in total process time, and 30% more on-time test results released to the customer.

The results

They need some help to move the equipment, but the investment was peanuts compared with the benefits. After the event, the customer noticed the improvement in the quality of service, and the team was able to rest better and spend more time with their family.

You can have similar results by using continuous improvement as your strategy to increase customer satisfaction. Let’s have a good old conversation about how you can do it!

Business Performance

How do you reduce operating expenses?

There are two ways to increase profits, to increase revenue or reduce costs. Operating expense is a common headache for business owners, are you one of them?

These days consumers have more choices and more information than ever. They know that with so many competitors, they have multiple options for the needed product or service. To survive and be successful in this environment, cost reduction is critical. How do you reduce operating expenses?

Unfortunately, when it comes to cost reduction, the first thought is to reduce team members. Another common idea is to cut materials cost by buying inferior quality. You can not afford to do anything that affects the quality of the service or product. The best solution to cost expenses is to identify and reduce waste.

Waste reduction has to be an everyday activity, it is not a one-time event. With the help of your employees, you can improve your business working with continuous improvement basics. The basic activities of CI are housekeeping and organization, waste reduction, and standardization. You know already what waste is, in the next weeks I will talk about the other two.

Assessment of your business processes to identify waste reduction, standardization and organization opportunities is the best way to improve. Do not start this process as an excuse to cut manpower. Reducing team members is not, and never will be a continuous improvement goal.

Business Performance

What are your business goals?

you can achieve your business goals with continuous improvement

I bet that one of your business goals is to deliver high-quality products to the customer at the lowest cost. The goal of lean or continuous improvement is to provide the customer with the highest quality, at the lowest cost, in a shorter time. It sounds to me that both goals are the same, what do you think?

Business goals and continuous improvement

Continuous improvement achieves the goal by continuously eliminating waste. To achieve your business goals, you need to learn what it is and eliminate it. Your customers don’t have problems paying for activities that transform materials into finished goods or processed information. We call those activities value-added. However, they are not willing to pay for the waste in your process.

The customer should not pay for the cost of fixing errors, waiting time, or excess inventory. These activities are non-value-added or waste. Therefore, the target of continuous improvement is to eliminate them.

What is waste? The seven types of waste in continuous improvement

Waste has seven categories: transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, over-production, over-processing, and defects. There is another category added later, which is the underutilization of people’s talents.

Transportation is an essential part of operations, but it does not add value from the customer perspective. The goal of CI is to minimize transportation to the minimum necessary.
Inventory of raw materials is also a necessary evil, but you do not want to have excess inventory. Excess inventory is at risk of being damaged or become obsolete.
Any motion of a person’s body that is not related to adding value is a waste. Poor ergonomic designs make people move their bodies more than necessary, causing safety and productivity issues.
Waiting for materials, for approvals, for a phone call, or for shared equipment to become available are all examples of waste.
Over-production is when we make too much because we are producing ahead of the real demand. Over-production creates more waste in the form of inventory, motion, waiting, and others.
Over-processing is doing more than what the customer requires. For example, when you receive items in a box that is three times the appropriate size.
A defect is when we make a mistake or produce defective items. Fix defective products comprise time, material, and other resources.
Underutilization of people’s talents is not letting people work at their full capacity. Examples are lack of training, not trusting in their capacity to improve processes, and siloed thinking.

Achieve your business goals with continuous improvement

What are your business goals? Is one of them to deliver a high-quality product at a low cost? Are you targeting to increase your business profitability? Do you want to grow your business? If you answer yes to any of the last three questions, then continuous improvement is the business strategy you are looking for. Contact us, and we will work together to improve your business processes from the customer’s perspective.