My first lean tour

By James Sandfield© 2016

MY FIRST LEAN TOUR

INTRODUCTION BY HOST

A small welcome and safety presentation was made by a 17 year old, she had only been out of school 3 weeks.

I had a question:

With all these CEOs in the room, weren’t you scared presenting to us?

She had an answer:

Why would I be scared? My boss is here if there are questions I cannot answer.

MY FIRST LESSON OF THE MORNING

How many of us truly empower people? Or do we just check and double-check what they have done and protect our position?

WE WALKED TO THE NEXT PRESENTATION

In the corridor there was a map of Australia, on that map were some simple performance metrics, we were in the UK, this was puzzling.

The map was explained, as follows:

Australia is dependent on what we send them. If their performance

drops, we ask ourselves what could we have done better?

MY SECOND LESSON OF THE MORNING

Do the measures in our organisations reflect our view of the world or the people and customers we serve?

WE HAD NOW REACHED THE WAREHOUSE

The 17 year old explained how people stand in a circle, drawn on the ground and, watch what each other are doing

I had another question:

Wouldn’t it be better if people worked instead of standing around?

She happily answered:

We watch each other to learn how to do the process better, this makes us more efficient.

MY THIRD LESSON OF THE MORNING

Continuous improvement happens when you see opportunities, this is done where the work happens, not in a meeting room.

IT WAS TIME FOR LUNCH

I had time to digest what I had seen.

I was eager to see the next items on the tour; would lean work in the

office environment?

…THEN WE CHANGED LOCATION

BUS JOURNEY TO THE OFFICE

I had the pleasure of sitting next to their CEO for the 20 minute journey. She explained to me how important people were…

Private tour

….she had not missed a recognition event in the

last 20 yearsIt was a case of priorities

Priority #1

Meaningful recognition

Priority #2

Take planned vacation

Priority #3

Attend board meetings

MY FOURTH LESSON OF THE DAY

If people are your company’s most important asset; they need to be at the top of the leader’s priority list.

WE ARRIVED AT THE OFFICE

The supplier payment process was explained to me. It was disappointing, I felt there was insufficient detail in the process map, it was too simplistic.

Open

Post

Enter

Invoice

Check

Invoice

Pay

Invoice

I turned around and it was true, there were 4 desks and an invoice was completed in less than 4 minutes.

I was told this was not a representation of the process this was the actual layout of the process.

MY FIFTH LESSON OF THE DAY

Make things simple not simpler; this is harder than making processes complex.

I was asked where is the most experienced person?

My reply was easy: They check the invoice

No, they open the post.

This ensures perfect goes into the process and errors do not.

They follow-up with actions to prevent the issue repeating.

MY SIXTH LESSON OF THE DAY

Maybe experts should prevent fires instead of putting them out. Then problems in my organisation will reduce.

IT WAS TIME TO GO HOME, I HAD SIX LESSONS TO TAKE WITH ME

Also available, lessons from “THE JOY OF STANDARDS”

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