How to Launch Lean Manufacturing
The Lean ROI
Lean plants are safer, produce higher quality products, ship product on-time and produce at lower costs than non-lean plants. History has already proven these facts. As such, your lean journey is guaranteed to provide you and your manufacturing company with an unimaginable return-on-investment (ROI).
Your Launch Strategy
Once you've decided to take the lean journey then you need to understand that lean is a step-by-step journey. Every lean plant began their lean journey with a successful kickoff event. If you are pursuing a lean implementation strategy then you will want to kick it off with a successful kaizen event too. You will be overwhelmingly successful but there will be no shortcuts to your success. The kickoff event alone requires a methodical plan. Here's how to launch:
- Go public. Promote the kickoff kaizen event to your plant employees by announcing it at a company meeting. You don't want your first kaizen event to be some top secret mission. Explain it and promote it to everyone in your plant.
- Open the dialog. During the plant announcement, invite all employees to view the project area sometime after the event. Tell the employees that you want their feedback and that there will be a feedback system in place for them to communicate. Encourage your employees to share their ideas and concerns. Then install a suggestion/feedback box and solicit their feedback.
- Choose a qualified facilitator. The kaizen team members need to learn lean best practices and so your kaizen event facilitator needs to be lean expert. This could be a consultant or a lean-trained manager. The role of the facilitator is to teach the team about lean manufacturing and to guide the team's activities. This person may or may not know your plant or its processes.
- Choose a qualified kaizen event leader. The kaizen event leader is someone other than the kaizen facilitator. The kaizen leader does not need to be a lean expert but they do need to be on-board with regards to your lean initiative. In other words, the event leader cannot be a lean skeptic. If your kickoff kaizen leader is a lean skeptic, then your entire initiative is destine to fail. Additionally, the event leader needs to have credibility within your organization. They need have leadership skills, solid process understanding and be a respected leader. This person will be leading the hands-on team activities. They will have their boots on the ground during the event. They will be the go-to person during shopfloor activities and they will lead the classroom discussions about the shopfloor activities.
- Resource it well. Put your heavy-hitters on this kaizen team. Staff a cross-functional team with your best Planner, your best Engineer, your best Quality Inspector and some of your best managers. Of course it is essential to include operators and the area supervisors on the team as well. You want about 12 people on this kaizen team (+/-2). Your operators need to be the operators that actually work on the production process. They may not be the very best that you have in the plant and that is okay. You are looking for operator buy-in. However everyone else on the team needs to be topnotch. You need to demonstrate significant progress on this first project and you can't afford to fall short. To their demise, some plants staff their first project with only the resources that they can afford to give-up for a full-week kaizen. But for success, you really need to dig deep and skim-off the top of your talent pool for the kickoff, not scrape-off the bottom of the talent pool. If your not willing to make short-term sacrifices for long-term results, then you are not committed to your lean journey.
- Prepare the support resources. You will need help from resources other than those who are staffed as part of the kaizen team. This may be your maintenance manager or a company buyer. Talk to these resources in advance of the event and let them know that supporting the kaizen team during the event is a top priority. You expect significant progress during the week and you need their help to make it successful.
- Establish the objective. The goal of the first event is not "to cure world hunger". Although you may have major problems in your factory that require solutions, but this kickoff event isn't the time or place for critical breakthrough work. Save that thinking for later. Instead you want an easy win for this team.
- Scope it out. Keep the scope somewhat narrow. You can't implement all of the lean tools during just one kaizen event. If the area is messy, I recommend tackling 5S and visual controls. Like I said, make this event an easy win for the team. Keep the scope narrow.
- Use an engaging process. Understand going into a 5S event that some employees will feel the need to defend their well established workplace clutter. But you can easily defuse the conflict by using 5S red tags and a 5S holding area. These methods will open up constructive conversation instead of causing angst.
- Establish the timing. The kickoff event should be one week in length and it needs to be scheduled when your primary resources are available. While I hate analysis-paralysis and excuses, your key players do need to be available for this kickoff event. If your lead-operator is scheduled off for vacation during a certain week, you will need to schedule the event around their vacation. Subsequent events are less critical and so vacation schedules aren't as much of a consideration in long-term kaizen schedules. But the first event needs to be resourced correctly so schedule it around the availability of key team resources.
- Make it visible. Your kickoff kaizen needs to be in an area that is visible to the majority of employees. For example, select a process that is near the main employee entrance, the main breakroom or the most common employee walkway. You want every employee to see the team's progress as they walk the through the plant. Remember that this pilot project will eventually be the showcase and a model to be repeated throughout the rest of the plant.
- Train. The facilitator needs to conduct a few hours of basic lean training during the kaizen event. By the end of the week long event, everyone on the kaizen teams needs to know what lean is all about. They need to understand how it works and know some of the main lean tools. A good lean facilitator will use simulations and interactive exercises to demonstrate the tools and benefits of lean manufacturing.
- Get boots on the ground. This is where the event leader comes in and drives implementation. About 75% of the event time should be focused on implementation. This is when everyone on the team rolls-up their sleeves and gets dirty. The kaizen event leader is the person who leads this effort. During the event, this work area needs to look like a beehive of activity and the leader needs to be coordinating all of the shopfloor activities.
- Support the operator. You want the actions and the outcomes of this event to be centered around the operators. Listen to the operators and help them solve the problems that they encounter during normal operation. At the end of this kaizen event their job needs to be safer, easier and more efficient.
- Provide lunch. The employees on this team will be working hard and should be rewarded with meals everyday during the event. Also, you want the event to be something special and something that other employees see and look forward to participating in someday.
- Have a control plan. On the last day of the event, the team needs to discuss a plan to sustain and advance their progress. This will include things like a 5S audit and a list of open action items.
- Have a closeout meeting. The kick-off event is deserving of a closeout meeting with the Plant Manager and their staff and any executives that may be on-site. I like round table discussions as opposed to formal report-outs. Consultants like to have the team spend hours preparing a formal presentation and they do this mainly to promote their own consulting business. For this reason I recommend round table conversations instead of formal team presentations.
A kickoff kaizen is an exciting event. All of your employees will begin to feel the winds of change. Some will immediately get on-board, some will resist and some will just "wait and see." Those who quickly get on-board are anticipating your next step. Those who are resistant to lean are hoping that it just fizzles away, never to be seen again. And those who decide to wait and see and sitting in the wings. If you continue with lean implementation, then they will get on-board and if you don't move forward, they will just go about doing business as usual.
So what is your next move? Well your lean continuous improvement journey actually resembles a migrating flock of geese flying in v-formation. Your kickoff event is the lead goose and it needs to guide the flock in the right direction. Don't let your lean program fizzle away.
Your Next Move: Kaizen to Continuous Improvement!
Commit. Kaizen. Continue.
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