DarrenW
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| posted on 3/6/13 at 09:45 PM |
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How many Lean / 6 sigma experts are on here?
As title, just wondering how many people practice lean on this site? And if do, what tools do you use the most?
I always start with 5S but amazed how many firms dont even do that correctly. The 5th S is always the hardest and really tells you if the firm has the
capability to proceed. Most seem to want to dive into Kaizen and save some cash.
[Edited on 3/6/13 by DarrenW]
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stevebubs
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| posted on 3/6/13 at 09:57 PM |
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From what I've seen in my organisation, yes - they go straight to Kaizen...and that's how the internal training courses are run...no
mention of 5S anywhere so far...
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DarrenW
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| posted on 3/6/13 at 09:58 PM |
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Also interested to know if you are in a traditional manufacturing environment or a service sector. Whatever your sector, tell me what the industry
is.
I tend to stay within automotive for lean type work, but work in rail and renewable energy for other consultancy.
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DarrenW
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| posted on 3/6/13 at 10:04 PM |
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Im a big fan of lean in manufacturing (Consultant). there are big advantages of using the tools in the service sector, especially as that is probs the
future of this country.
[Edited on 3/6/13 by DarrenW]
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mookaloid
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| posted on 3/6/13 at 10:17 PM |
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I wish I knew what you were on about 
"That thing you're thinking - it wont be that."
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Peteff
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| posted on 3/6/13 at 10:20 PM |
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Sounds like more corporate bullsh!te insted of letting the people who know what they are doing get on with the job How much does it cost ?
yours, Pete
I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.
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stevebubs
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| posted on 3/6/13 at 10:55 PM |
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Services, Telecoms. Also being applied in manufacturing and design...
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twybrow
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| posted on 3/6/13 at 11:10 PM |
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I am a Green Belt in DMAIC (GE - Lean/Six Sigma), and a yellow belt in DFSS. We are just trying to introduce lean six-sigma principals to the company
I work for (design and manufacturing of carbon fibre and carbon fibre products), but it is a slow process (quality hasn't been a focus up until
now).
If you always start with 5S, you are presumably trying to make improvements, rather than fixing a specific quality issue?
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wombat
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| posted on 3/6/13 at 11:13 PM |
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Food manufacturing, been a long journey but finally getting staff to realise the benefits.
Common sense to you and me, but basically a place for everything and everything in its place..
#OCD
#love5S
Sustainability is the hardest S , but it's so rewarding when it gets there.
Bit of corporate bullshit if you view it that way, but it's a fact that simple is easy and why make it difficult, none of us would work the
hours we do if we didn't have too...
Next.
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TimC
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| posted on 3/6/13 at 11:14 PM |
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Beware - jargon within.
I had to check that I hadn't stumbled onto a Linkedin forum in error...
My thesis looked at the understanding of Lean and its application within SMEs (in Wales specifically.) I was enormously surprised by how few business
leaders understood any of TPM/TQM/Lean/6sigma at any usable level - this is based on a pretty large survey. Because I'd 'been
exposed' very early in my career I'd assumed that the methods would be fairly well understood. Not so.
My particular leaning is towards what I think of as fairly 'pure Lean' - that is something akin to what Toyota built. A lot of what has
followed looks like old wine in a new bottle to me. That said, I'm yet to work in a manufacturing system with that level of maturity so
Collaboration (intra-and-inter firm) and C.I. (not keen on Kaizen as a term as it can turn people off and it's not easy to explain a Japanese
term to folk from Poland/India/Pakistan etc. in English) are what I think of as 'Lean Envoys' - foundation stones for more complex
ideas/tools/methods that may follow.
VSM can be hugely helpful - although I struggle for time to do it well. The Beer Game continues to be the single best afternoon that I can spend with
Supply Chain people who do any sort of forecasting or ordering.
Forgot to say, like Wombat, I work in the food industry.
Can I get back to cars now?
[Edited on 3/6/13 by TimC]
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JacksAvon
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 01:50 AM |
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Well all you food manfacturing types, I started at 13:00 yesterday, finished at 02:00 today, not bad for what my contract says is 7.5 hours a day.
No 5S, no fishbones, no kaizan.
We dont have the people, we dont have the time, production is king.
And yes I have done BIT 2 and 3, but then we step back into the real world
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onenastyviper
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 06:52 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by JacksAvon
Well all you food manfacturing types, I started at 13:00 yesterday, finished at 02:00 today, not bad for what my contract says is 7.5 hours a day.
No 5S, no fishbones, no kaizan.
We dont have the people, we dont have the time, production is king.
And yes I have done BIT 2 and 3, but then we step back into the real world
...and this is the problem why it is never (or hardly ever) applied correctly.
Many people forget that all these "Lean" processes are formalising common sense in so far that they teach methods, ideas and techniques
that can be applied to a problem (or even to find what the problem is).
Too many businesses try to apply them as a prescriptive tool (i.e. if we see this then we do this, if we see that then we do that) but this is
incorrect. It is all about the process of investigating, evaluating, implementing, reviewing & correcting, where necessary and repeating it all
again.
A common scenario is:
Group: we need to improve X, we think it is because of Y but lets run a Kaizen (or other lean tool/event)
Kaizen starts
Data is gathered
Data is skewed directly or indirectly because of a predjudice (Y)
Results: The Kaizen shows us we need to do something about Y because it affects X
Potential Outcomes:
- "Negative" reinforcement: This kaizen is a waste of time, we already knew it was Y.
- "Positive" reinforcement: This kaizen is a good tool, it proves that Y was the issue.
I believe that they are all good tools when correctly applied but they all rely on good, unbiased data but there are statistical tools which you can
use to verify that the data is not biased.
If any of you have been trained in logical fault-finding, you will find some of the concepts very familiar but I agree with an earlier post,
"Lean" (of whatever variety) is death by "jingo".
"If I knew what I was doing then it wouldn't be called research would it?...duh!"
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clanger
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 07:03 AM |
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worked in some very large organisations where it has been in place for 20+ years.
Most of it is common sense, but getting the people (most expereicned) on board who really make the difference is the biggest hurdle.
Its these (sceptical, because they've seen all the latest flavour of the month initiative) people who get the widgets out the door, that
count.
I'm in the sceptical camp, as when the latest flavour of the month comes around, its starts off with one or two champions then spawns its own
dept, ending up with dozens of people who would be better off helping get the very widgets out of the door that pays their wages...................my
tuppence!!
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sdh2903
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 07:15 AM |
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Too much talking not enough doing! That is why we are no longer a great manufacturing nation. Stop talking about how to do it and just bloody get on
with it!
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mds167
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 07:40 AM |
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I've seen Kaizen used in Retail Banking back office processes.
That was a while ago.
Don't think my company uses any branded methodology...though most project follow Prince2 I think.
"No, you can't lick the system; but you can give it a damn good fondling."
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Peteff
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 08:13 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by JacksAvonWe dont have the people, we dont have the time, production is king.
And yes I have done BIT 2 and 3, but then we step back into the real world
When I was working in factories we went through all the different fads paying consultants tens of thousands for their advice on things that we on the
shop floor all knew needed doing or not doing whichever was the case, "just in time" and all the BS standards that companies said were
needed for them to trade with each other, filling out pieces of paper to show that a job had been done using the approved method and it soon got left
behind when it slowed the job down looking for the piece of paper before we could proceed or waiting for materials because "just in time"
had become "still on the motorway"
yours, Pete
I went into the RSPCA office the other day. It was so small you could hardly swing a cat in there.
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Grimsdale
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 08:14 AM |
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we've got this in our place at the moment - as a result we've lost an hour a day to meetings, and we're now doing more admin (that
admin staff used to do) instead of doing paying work. Oh and because we've made less money, I don't get a pay rise this year.
I feel a little set up!
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hughpinder
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 08:37 AM |
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I work in the pharmaceutical industry and we use 5S, lean, 6 sigma. In my own opinion:
5S is good for areas where many people use a given area E.g the workshops where everyone need to be able to find a specific tool, control room where
verything is handed over every 8 hours etc, but not so useful in the 'individaul user' areas where it is unusual for someone else to have
to find something.
Lean is good for Technical people where a small number of people can decide what is required and make the decisions required. E.g for most problems
6 sigma is good if you need a lot of different people from different disciplines to get together to solve a problem, or if you need non technical
management buy in to your work (usually to get budgets approved). Unless the amount of work is large(by which I mean many man weeks), you tend to
waste a lot of time trying to get succinct and complete problem statements, KPIs etc that don't benefit us a lot. I have often found the
solutions tend to end up going for the 100% solution, when an approach where you just use the 'lean'/most obvious improvement and the old
fashioned 80/20 (or 90/10 even) rule would have been good enough.
Unfortunately I think we often to use 6Sigma for problems where everyone knows 'the answer' after 2 hours and you then spend 2 weeks
ploughing through the process to get through the procedure.
Regards
Hugh
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coozer
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 11:23 AM |
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I know what your on about and really pleased I got out of it!
1972 V8 Jago
1980 Z750
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garybee
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 02:24 PM |
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I just love explaining to never ending streams of people the reasons why we've ended up doing a process a certain way. These people seem to
genuinely believe that we make our jobs intentionally difficult. I know exactly what will happen next time we have a 'lean event'.
We'll spend a week sat in meetings about why spanners should be arranged in order of frequency of use. A week moving everything around at work
so it looks like something has been achieved and all the clowns can pat themselves on the back. A week of working massively inefficiently as
they've messed around with all the processes which had evolved over the years to a point of being about as efficient as they could be. Then one
week of putting it all back to how it was before they started mucking about. At the end of it all, we'll be a month behind but will have some
nice new mouse mats and cheap biros that don't work.
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DarrenW
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 03:10 PM |
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Some very interesting comments. Im picking up the 'negative' views are more from those that are on the receiving end of Lean as opposed to
those implementing it (negative in the loosest sense). Iam not surprised by the comments as i have worked on both sides of it. What is jumping out
very clearly is that which-ever company is trying to implement it and leaving you with these views either clearly doesnt understand how the tools and
techniques fit together. Cherry picking is where the 'flavour of the month' misconception comes from.
Right now i practice and implement it, and try to de-jargon where possible. I prefer to major on the common sense / benefits for all side (for obvious
reasons).
Carry on offering your views please.
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DarrenW
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 03:12 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by garybee
I just love explaining to never ending streams of people the reasons why we've ended up doing a process a certain way. These people seem to
genuinely believe that we make our jobs intentionally difficult. I know exactly what will happen next time we have a 'lean event'.
We'll spend a week sat in meetings about why spanners should be arranged in order of frequency of use. A week moving everything around at work
so it looks like something has been achieved and all the clowns can pat themselves on the back. A week of working massively inefficiently as
they've messed around with all the processes which had evolved over the years to a point of being about as efficient as they could be. Then one
week of putting it all back to how it was before they started mucking about. At the end of it all, we'll be a month behind but will have some
nice new mouse mats and cheap biros that don't work.
Let me guess your role - Production Engineer?
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snakebelly
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 03:57 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by sdh2903
Too much talking not enough doing! That is why we are no longer a great manufacturing nation. Stop talking about how to do it and just bloody get on
with it!
+1000000000000000000000000000000000000000
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twybrow
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 04:15 PM |
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As an example of making a positive change, my Six-Sigma Green Belt project looked at a quality issue in a previous company I worked for. The issue had
been looked at several times before by production/manufacturing engineers with no cause identified.
By applying the methodology, over a 2 month period, I identified some changes to our process, that reduced that defect by ~80% for one product (my
project only looked at one product, although the changes could have been applied to others afterwards). The changes will have given a saving of
£800,000 per year in scrap/re-work. I think that is worth my 2 months, an the very modest budget I need to complete the project.
I don't have as much time for Lean, although I can its place. For me, it was far more interesting to be solving a problem using statistics etc
(a technical problem in my case) than to be 'applying common sense principals'.
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DarrenW
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| posted on 4/6/13 at 04:27 PM |
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Fantastic example Twybrow. all i would say is that if done correctly it is not about having time for Lean - Lean is a culture rather than an event.
Again this suggests the company does not understand what it is as it should be a part of normal working.
havind said all this - it took Toyota years to perfect and embed within their organisation so we cant expect all companies to be
'transformed' overnight (what a horrible little phrase!!!!!)
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