May 20, 2012
Toyota Way Principle #5: Stopping to Fix Problems
It really pains me to see cars tape up body fixtures like broken tail lights. It looks so tacky AND fails to provide suitable coverage and protection.
Sure, it’s a cheap temporary repair and a broken tail light slapped together with tape will get you to the repair shop, but how long must “temporary” be in place before the real fix has to be put in place?
Temporary repairs always cost more than the permanent fixes – you’ve spent money but still have to do the permanent fix too!
At least a temporary fix is something that will hold you over and you’ve addressed it. Somewhat. How bad would it be if you just ignored the problem all together? Safety issues (no lights to communicate braking) and no protection from the elements (rain water or animals finding their way into the interior) could be more detrimental.
Toyota Way’s fifth principle is:
“Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time.”
It’s so easy to just ignore problems when they pop up because they keep you from being productive. Sometimes you brush it off and say it won’t happen again.
But how do you know? If it happened once how are you sure it won’t re-occur?
Truth be told, it’s easier in the long run to stop and fix the issue right away because you’ll be doing whatever is necessary to make sure the problem will NOT re-occur.
Notice that I said fix. I’m defining fix as not only repairing back to standard condition (how it was when it was brand new) but also finding ways to safeguard against re-occurrence. Fix is better than repair because I’m defining repair as a temporary stopgap that re-establishes functionality to a sufficient level but not to the standard condition.
It’s easier to fix instead of repair even if the pain up front is rougher. If you’ve fixed the problem properly (used root cause analysis as necessary and considered all possible problems against which to safeguard) then the problem will most likely not come back. Compare that to easy repairs that you might have to repeat again and again.
Use root cause analysis and the five-whys to figure out why a problem occurs, figure out what can be done to make sure the problem won’t come back, and make that fix.
The more you attack problems and fix them, the more the organizational culture will begin to see the simplicity in doing so and the benefits realized by not having as many breakdowns or repeated repairs. This will build momentum toward a change in culture of not tolerating problems and continuous repairs.
Fixes are faster, easier, and cheaper in the long run. Sacrifice temporary pain to make sure long-suffering frustrations disappear.
GolfNow and Service Process Breakdown
One of the benefits of using Orlando, Florida-based GolfNow is online booking of rounds of golf at many courses around the world at discounted fares. For the convenience of online booking around the clock for greens fees in advance (or even day-of) there’s a booking fee.
Well yesterday a friend and I wanted to play a round at an Augusta-based course (no, not that course) and my friend told me to use GolfNow.
I found my course, I found a time, I selected two players, and clicked BOOK.
The next page gave me an error message.
Okay, fine. But under this error message I was asked again if I wanted to book a round so I tried it again.
Tried to book again, and got the same error message. I clicked the link to send an email to customer service and explained the problem. After waiting an hour and hearing nothing I called the 800 number.
The customer service representative asked for the email address for the account with which I was booking, and I told him I didn’t have an account. He said “Oh, well, that’s why you have the error message – you have to have an account first.”
Well, okay, if that’s the case, why didn’t the GolfNow booking process indicate as such instead of giving me an error message? If that’s the problem, maybe the site should direct me to create an account instead of making a phone call.
Unfortunately it is not clear on the website how to create an account. Here’s what I saw.
I see a “sign in” which I presume is for those with accounts. I also see something about an email club. Is that the account the CSR is referencing? If so, that is very unappealing – as an infrequent golfer, the last thing I want is a bunch of emails from a club.
I clicked “sign in” to see what happens, and it takes me to an account creation page. Well that’s good. I’m glad I found that by clicking something that indicates it isn’t where you create an account. I create my account, but then the site doesn’t directly take me to where I can immediately use that account to book rounds. I click the GolfNow logo at the top, just to go back to the beginning.
I again attempt to book a twosome at the course…and again I get the error message.
I call customer service back and get a different CSR. They ask where I’m trying to book, what time, and how many. The CSR brings up the control panel to book tee times on his computer…which takes a while.
So we wait. And wait. And wait. I get put on hold while the control panel comes up.
When it comes up, the CSR says the request is available but he has to call the course to book it. I get put on hold again so he can call the course and get it set up…basically the same thing I’d do if I wasn’t using GolfNow.
We’re about 15 minutes into this call now and about 30 minutes into the entire process. When I’m taken off hold I’m told I am all set up and asked if I want to pay for the full cost now or pay the greens fees at the course and the online booking fee now. Wait, I have to pay an online booking fee for something that wasn’t booked online? I tell the CSR that I’ll just book my own greens fees by calling the course directly and let them have all the money GolfNow was going to charge for this “convenience.” The discount I saw on GolfNow (Save 19%!) was almost completely absorbed by the online booking fee and taxes. Some discount.
After calling the course and realizing that their call-in greens fees were a lot higher than GolfNow’s retail price for a round, I reluctantly tried to re-book with GolfNow. I tried online booking again, which failed. I called customer service and booked the round and paid the “online booking fee.”
So about 40 minutes worth of process navigation and burned cellular phone minutes probably saved me around $10.
What went wrong?
First, I don’t know how often error messages occur with online bookings, but GolfNow should figure out why. They could manually book my tee time, but the system put in place to make it easy for ME to book my tee time was not working. As a result it costs MY time to talk with customer service, and it costs GolfNow money to pay for the customer service rep’s time.
By fixing the website and having marketing and IT collaborate on the path a potential customer is to follow – making sure accounts can easily be created, that messages on the website direct customers to the right locations, etc. – is a good idea so that customers aren’t deterred from just giving up and GolfNow losing the sale all together. In addition, the less a customer requires calling customer service means the less investment the company has to put into customer service representatives.
Next, GolfNow should really re-evaluate their root cause analysis. Clearly it wasn’t the fact that I didn’t have an account that caused the website to not book my fee. In fact, I didn’t even get a real reason. All I learned as a customer is that if I’m willing to put up with 40 minutes of time spent in a process I can save about ten dollars.
Has anyone else had good experience with GolfNow? How does it work at optimal condition when everything is fixed? Is it convenient? How long does it take to book a round?
Rushed Orders at Louisville Slugger
Norfolk Tides pitcher Pat Neshek took a tour of the Louisville Slugger factory while on a road trip and he shared this tweet and photo:
Hopefully rushed customer requests happen infrequently and that orders are placed and fulfilled with plenty of time and effort to spare.
However, if you’re seeing lots of late shipments and many “emergencies” you could probably use a full process evaluation. Look at the process from start (order placed) to finish (order shipped or delivered) and analyze the process for waste activities. How much time is spent on waste? Can those waste activities be reduced or eliminated? What kind of impact does that have on your cycle time?
You should be able to answer a lot of questions during your process evaluation. What are customer expectations and what is keeping us from meeting them? Why are processes taking so long to complete? Are we not staffed properly? Are process steps unbalanced, and lots of work-in-process is built up?
If you can eliminate waste activities, you can reduce costs and possibly grow sales through greater customer satisfaction from on-time deliveries.
Toyota Way Principle #4: Level Out the Workload
(This is the fifth post in a series about the 14 Principles of The Toyota Way.)
As previously stated, the ideal process will have implemented continuous flow featuring time-balanced process steps with very few peaks and valleys in production rates.
However, that is very difficult to achieve when demand goes up and down sharply and with limited predictability. One strategy to combat this is with pull/kanban systems. It adds a lot of flexibility when other process steps lack continuous flow and incorporate batching (like having to buy in larger quantities and reorder intervals are not steady).
Another viable way to handle spikes in demand (or valleys) is NOT to make process operators work faster or harder (“haste makes waste”) but through scaling the process up or down to meet demand or with adding or taking away process operators and shifting process steps up or down the line.
And this is the fourth principle of The Toyota Way:
“Level out the workload (work like the tortoise, not the hare.)”
Like with the fable about the tortoise and the hare, “slow and steady wins the race.” Maintaining optimal effort from operators is important, whether demand goes up or down. You don’t want to slow the process effort down when demand falls, nor do you want to double the individual efforts applied by operators when demand doubles.
So how do we handle this?
Using an example where demand doubles, a “simple” way to handle this is by replicating the entire process. Instead of using one assembly line to complete a process, create a second flexible assembly line to handle the additional demand.
However, in most cases of demand rising or falling, it isn’t so easy. Maybe demand fluctuates by 10% one way or the other.
Using a second simplified example, let’s say a four-operator process is balanced and each operator carries out five process steps to complete the assembly of a part. There are twenty individual process steps needed to complete the process (operator 1 gets steps 1-5, operator 2 gets steps 6-10, etc).
Now let’s say demand jumps up 25%. If process steps are standardized and balanced properly to handle fluctuating demand, you could add a fifth operator to the process and shift process steps up or down (depending on where the fifth operator is placed) and give each of the five operators four process steps to complete. Therefore you still have the twenty process steps to complete, but the effort given to each operator remains the same and they can devote adequate time to completing each process step in the same amount of time as before (operator 1 gets steps 1-4, operator 2 gets steps 5-8, etc).
In the real world, not all steps are balanced and demand doesn’t always scale so easily. That being said, there are strategies you can apply to find interesting ways to balance the workloads.
Toyota Way Principle #3: “Pull” Systems
(This is the fourth post looking at the 14 lean principles of The Toyota Way.)
The third lean principle of The Toyota Way is a follow-up to the second lean principle, which says to create a process featuring continuous flow so that problems can come to the surface right away.
Continuous flow is very difficult to achieve, especially in environments when job functions change frequently and operators or associates are swapped from task to task. In small businesses, almost everyone has to be a multitasker or wear multiple hats. This is simply the nature of the business, but it’s important to at least investigate opportunities to make continuous flow happen. Continuous flow is really the ideal lean state of a process.
If you can’t implement continuous flow between process steps, move onto the next best thing: a pull/kanban system! Toyota Way Principle #3:
“Use ‘pull’ systems to avoid overproduction.’
The purpose of the pull system (also called “kanban” system) is to have a measured queue of materials (raw materials, work-in-process, components, whatever) ready to be “pulled” by the next process step. After the materials are “pulled” a signal is sent to the preceding process step to replace what was taken.
The most common example of a pull system is your neighborhood supermarket. Shelves are lined with quantities of goods for sale. When you pull a jar of peanut butter off the shelf, a vacant spot remains. At a regular interval (hourly, daily, weekly, whatever is called for in the process) shelves will be checked for quantities of goods removed and purchased and a stockperson will replenish those purchased goods. (Of course, now we have inventory management systems that calculate how many items have been purchased and signal to shelf-stockers how much peanut butter is to be brought out.)
The key concept of a pull system is to maintain small quantities of items that you know are needed, and replenish what is taken only when it has been taken. This helps to avoid overproduction and overordering. You replenish only what has been used, and reorder based on rate of consumption, delivery frequency, and minimum order quantities.
Let’s do a quick pull system example.
Let’s say a concession stand uses an average of one jug of Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce per game. Sometimes the stand uses more (but not more than two jugs), and sometimes less.
Management might be inclined to keep 3, 5, or even 10 jugs of barbecue sauce in the stand just so they don’t have to rush out and get more 3, 5, or 10 games down the line and they’ll never run out. Well, that takes up 3, 5, or 10 jugs worth of floor space – now there’s clutter with excess materials, and if floor space is at a premium you’re wasting it on items not yet needed.
Instead, consider a system where a labeled rack in the concession stand holds either two jugs or one (with one in the fridge) and replenish the rack (or fridge) daily. You always have only as much as you need, and not excess. If you start the game with two full jugs and use 1.5, put the extra half jug in the fridge and restock the shelf with another full jug. Use up the stuff in the fridge before moving to the next jug.
So how are shelves replenished? Maybe once before and once during the game, have an operator check in-stand inventory of what has been consumed and how much to replenish. Use a reorder checklist of everything in the pull system (including barbecue sauce) with quantities and check off what is needed. Go to a main food inventory holding area (perhaps there’s a collection of racks and refrigerators inside the stadium), remove what is needed to restock the concession stands…and restock the concession stands.
(In this scenario, it helps to have a material handler replenish every item that’s stocked at pre-determined intervals instead of having operators leaving to get items one at a time as they run out.)
That’s the essence of a pull system – having on hand what you expect to need in a given amount of time (for example, one game) and replenishing only what is used.
When you get into calculating the right amounts to stock, you’ll take into consideration minimum reorder quantities, “safety stock”, replenishment frequency, and expiration dates (at the end of a homestand prior to a long series of away games, you may not want to stock perishables that could expire before being used). More on full calculation of pull system metrics later.
“Because I Said So” is Destructive
I had a conversation with a friend this weekend who was telling me about his little boy. He’s enlightened by his son’s curiosity and ability to ask questions and interest in the world around him, and as a parent he takes pride in putting in time to answer his son’s questions.
He really refrains from resorting to dropping the “because I said so” line, but when he does the son knows that’s as far as he’s allowed to take it (and those moments are quite infrequent).
I think this is great and refreshing. At the same time, by facilitating and answering questions of “why” the father is also creating an avalanche of even more “why” questions.
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This is part of the reason why many people think “Because I said so” works so well – it stops the annoying questions from coming, taking stress away from the answerer, and because silence is golden.
Well, what else happens?
You begin to facilitate an environment where rules are meant to be followed and never questioned.
You demonstrate that asking questions will often lead to dead ends, and one should just accept the finding as is.
Depending on how the response is delivered, maybe you suggest that asking questions will lead to punishment or embarrassment.
Either way, the built-in curiosity is squelched and the learning process is fractured. In addition, because parents are the first role models in a child’s life, parents are also demonstrating that curiosity and failure to follow rules to the letter are not ideal ways to get through life. Children trust early on that they can go to their parents for answers, and when that trust is broken they turn to someone else for answers.
So the child either doesn’t learn, loses inspiration to learn, or has to find other (possibly unapproved or dangerous) avenues through which to learn (like learning from bad influences).
What happens when children don’t learn or learn improperly? Either they don’t improve and grow, becoming stagnant, or they follow the wrong path.
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You want your organization to grow and adapt with the changing business climate – if you or your colleagues have a tendency to not give proper credence to new ideas, point to the employee handbook for every question of “why” or say that rules are not to be broken, you are squelching your employees’ curiosity and trust for the company doing the right thing or finding ways to improve.
It’s easy to use a rulebook as a scapegoat instead of addressing the real answers for questions posed by associates. How can your company get better if new ideas are continuously squashed and teamwork/communication trampled?
Instead, welcome your associates’ interest in getting better. Facilitate candid conversations where questions can be asked and honest answers can either be provided or researched. The more you say “because I said so”, the more the rift between associates and management grows and trust gets eroded.
And if you develop an effective means of communicating improvement ideas and you are overloaded with more questions? Push back on those questions with a “What do you think?” or “Why do you think we should do this?” and get the askers to think as well. This not only continues the dialogue but it helps them think constructively and research ideas more thoroughly. Part of improvement is the ability to ask questions and to think independently.
Let your associates ask questions, and give them honest and thorough answers. They will thank you for it with more questions, more ideas, and more trust in you. You never know – you might learn something too.
Questionable Sign Usage & Moving Trucks
A couple of weeks ago I posted about the process of moving south and sorting through belongings during packing and loading.
I came across something that really stuck out to me, with regard to the moving truck. On the right side of the loading door on the rear of the truck there is a vertical aluminum handle with which you can pull yourself up while stepping on the back bumper. However, inside the cargo area on the other side of the truck I saw this:
A sign indicating there is no handle to grab on that side.
And no, the sign is right – there is no handle on the left side of the truck.
My question is…instead of putting up a sign that says there’s no handle, why not put up a handle and let people get in and out of the cargo area on either side?
Yes, it’s probably cheaper to slap a sticker in the box instead of going the extra mile to accommodate movers, but still.
Video: Rob Neyer’s Mailbag on SBNation
Rob Neyer, National Baseball Editor for SBNation, shares a video mailbag where he answers readers’ emails. He provides an answer for a question I sent his way about what sports organizations can do to enhance the customer experience.
Thanks for the response, Rob!
I think that’s a nice idea about preventing fans from going to/from seats in the middle of hitters’ plate appearances. Seated fans might not want to miss any game action.
If I haven’t harped on in-game music in a blog post already, I certainly have on Twitter. Excessively loud music makes conversation and communication hard. Baseball is a quiet game, so why take that away?
Probably the biggest issue I have had with music isn’t the volume but the music selections. Most minor league teams allow hitters to select their at-bat music. Not to sound like an old fogey and go all “GET OFF MY LAWN!!” but most young minor league hitters are between 18-23 years old while most game attendees are either 25+ years old, or younger than 12 – you know, families. I’m betting the paying fans aren’t going to care much for the music enjoyed by 18-23 year old players. If the minor league game experience is to be geared toward the fans, select more fan-friendly music.
I’ll use an example. I have great love for the in-game programming of the Dayton Dragons. When I last attended a game, they played fun family-friendly music for their hitters as they came to bat (it’s possible the management took suggestions from players or provided a list of select songs they could then choose) and they picked silly music for opposing batters (think the Sesame Street theme or Daydream Believer by the Monkees). I thought it was quite novel and I’d like to see more teams do that for their fans.
Not exactly a discussion on implementation of lean concepts, but in minor league baseball the primary focus of any activity should be on the fan experience. Using lean thinking feeds into that, as does in-game programming.
Visual Management and Strawberry Jam
Every couple of years my mother and I get together to make batches of strawberry jam.
She’s made freezer jams for as long as I’ve been alive, and since I’ve been such a significant consumer of said jams (with strawberry being my far-and-away favorite flavor) a few years ago we started to make extra-large batches together and would split the jars. I absolutely love the homemade stuff, as it simply doesn’t compare to anything you can pull off the supermarket shelves.
Two weeks ago we took a weekend day and devoted it to making the batches that would last us for a couple years. However, the last time out I found a lower-sugar recipe and wanted to try it. It was so much more flavorful and considerably less unhealthy compared to the previous recipe, and despite the lower yield (less sugar needed = more strawberries needed) I swear by it.
Just like that last time out, we made both recipes. To tell the difference between the two recipes when digging for jars in the freezer, we used colored dot stickers on the low-sugar strawberry jam jars. Otherwise it would be nearly impossible to distinguish between the recipes quickly without grabbing a spoon and digging into and tasting frozen jam. Dot vs. no dot made a very simple and low-cost visual management system.
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Quick programming note: I would like to thank everyone who helped spread the word about my blog post on the on-stage personalized jerseys at the NFL Draft’s first round on Thursday. Thanks to Mark Graban for sharing a link to the post in his “Stuff I’m Reading” list and to Paul Lukas of Uni-Watch for linking to the post as well (third link in the Uni-Watch News Ticker section). Also I really appreciate everyone that retweeted the blog post link to their followers.
I’ll also put in a plug for some charitable auctions of lean literature Mark Graban is donating. Please check out his eBay auctions that go to support a very worthy cause. I’ve already been outbid on a couple of the auctions but I will most certainly be back closer to the auction closing.
Manufacturing Process of Footballs
To continue the series of posts on how sports equipment is made (see baseballs and bats as well) here’s the video from SBNation on Wilson’s production process for NFL footballs.
(Sidebar – when situated in Ohio I wasn’t too far away from Ada, home of the production home of the NFL footballs. I wish I had the opportunity to visit the facility before relocating to Georgia, but it never came to pass.)
This video (and previous iterations of videos of the manufacturing process) brings me great pain. It’s great to see that the most junior of operators in this process has years of experience in the high-teens and that the process works for those long-tenured workers, but that is a LOT of stress put on one’s hands. Hard, laborious process steps are a type of overprocessing (because of the extra effort put into the process), not to mention a major ergonomics problem. Remember, lean is not just about doing things faster or with fewer defects but also about making completion of processes easier and less labor-intensive.
Here are some parts of the process that stood out to me.
During the stitching process, the leather pieces are butted up against a barrier that permits the precise stitching dimension along the football panels. Assuming the panels have been cut from the leather hide consistently, the stitching will also be completed with a consistent distance from the edge. This is a form of error-proofing, or poka-yoke – if the leather is butted up against the barrier during stitching at all times, it is essentially impossible for the stitching to be defective.
Hammering the nose of the football? That’s a lot of effort and a lot of excessive motion. What can be done to simplify this step and reduce the effort exerted? The leather has been pulled from a steam box that will make the leather more pliable, but the nose of the football still requires hammer time.
And the turning!
The turning! The operator folds, wraps, tugs, and pulls down on the leather against a vertical rod in order to turn the leather inside out. This is a process I wouldn’t want to perform day in and day out for twenty-plus years.
Lacing requires a lot of motion too and appears to be an ergonomically-challenged process.
And then we have the molding part of the process. Honestly, I don’t know what molding is, specifically. What this video tells us is that it’s a step that features a lot of waiting.
Keeping in mind the other lean process wastes, here are some additional things I spotted.
- Defects – the operators indicated that the NFL only receives footballs that are perfect, but how is perfect defined and measured? If there are perfection standards, what process steps might be culprits for producing footballs that are less than perfect?
- Overprocessing – we’ve covered most of that with the ergonomics, but the varying needs of the NFL players and teams indicates that some footballs will be treated differently than others and will require different handling processes.
- Waiting – time spent in the steam box is a waste in waiting, but maybe the turning operator tosses the leather into the box while turning another set of leather panels so there’s no downtime (the video doesn’t indicate this).
- New Ideas/Employee Knowledge – these operators have been doing this for longer than I’ve been alive, so surely they’ve introduced new ideas to the process. If that’s the case, why does it seem so physically taxing to complete the full process?
- Transportation – any batching and transferring of work-in-process from one station to another would be transportation, but this wasn’t evident in the video (but extremely likely in real time).
- Inventory – everything in this video appeared to be done in a short run so we couldn’t pick up on inventory waste.
- Excessive Motion – a lot of motion was demonstrated in the hammering of the leather noses and turning of leather.
- Excessive Production – none was evident from the video.
NFL Draft – Player Names on Jerseys
Thursday night featured the first round of the NFL Draft in New York. One of the most notable things about the prime time coverage of the draft was the players standing on stage with jerseys of the teams that drafted them featuring the player’s last name.
What’s special about this is that this was the first time the players received personalized jerseys onstage during the draft, mere seconds after being drafted. Previously, players might not see personalized jerseys for days or weeks because manufacturers would wait until after a player was officially drafted before beginning production.
So how did the NFL pull this off? Well, backstage at the draft the league had someone operating this:
That is a hot press, regularly used for melting designs/iron-ons onto clothing. Obviously it is regularly used for jersey production to put players’ names and uniform numbers in place.
The operation consisted of the hot press, a large clothing rack featuring 4-5 blank jerseys of each team (in case a team somehow collected a whole bunch of first round picks in the middle of the draft, the presser would be ready), and a series of prepared last name formations of potential first round picks (see names on white board in picture).
The above photo was taken right before the Arizona Cardinals drafted wide receiver Michael Floyd from the University of Notre Dame. As soon as his name was announced, the operator grabbed the pre-formed “FLOYD” and properly pressed it on the jersey. Between setting, pressing, and cooling, the process might take thirty seconds (totally guessing here). Between Michael Floyd standing up, hugging family, kissing his mom on the cheek, shaking hands, walking out of the “green room” and receiving his new Arizona Cardinals cap (not personalized) the operator has plenty of time to get the jersey finished and hand it to commissioner Roger Goodell.
This process worked because it wasn’t for production – everything pressed was a single unit, based on a speedy process started as soon as there was a known commodity (player + drafting team).
This was a neat little feature and nice personalized touch to the draft. In addition, the operation produced limited process waste – maybe some of the players whose names were pre-formed didn’t get drafted on the first night and the big rack with blank jerseys didn’t get completely consumed but these pieces will surely be sent back to production because they aren’t scrap. Compare that to championship games featuring pre-formed merchandise featuring each participating team and having to scrap half of the merchandise.
(H/T to WSBT.com for the Michael Floyd picture, Darren Rovell of CNBC.com for sharing the hot press picture, and Melissa Heyboer of Aerys Sports for tipping me off about the hot press)
Winners of the Masters Pin Flag Giveaway
We have winners in the Masters pin flag giveaway!
The winner from the email subscriber pool is Gabe Sincropi, Jr., the Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations for the Williamsport Crosscutters, a minor league affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. Thanks for being a subscriber to Lean Blitz and we’ll get the pin flag out to you right away!
Our winner from the folks who *like* Lean Blitz on Facebook is Andrew Douglass, who is completing a two-year Lean fellowship at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. His work is focusing on the hospital’s efforts to improve the effectiveness of the nurse staffing model. Keep up the good work, Andrew, and this flag will be on its way to you.
In addition to the pin flags, we also gave away this limited edition Baseball Winter Meetings cap from New Era to one of our Twitter followers. The winner of the cap is Dwain Scott. He’s a Continuous Improvement Coordinator at a manufacturing facility in Memphis, Tennessee. In addition, he writes a Lean blog of his own at Frontline Lean. Thanks for following, Dwain!
If you didn’t win? No worries! Lean Blitz will do giveaways to followers and subscribers again in the not-too-distant future. The format of the giveaways may change but the drawings will be for all followers/subscribers, not just new ones.
Production of Baseball Bats – From Forest to Field
As a follow-up to the video about the production process for baseballs, Mark Graban of LeanBlog.org passed along this ESPN video about how baseball bats are made.
Forest to Field from ESPN Creative Services on Vimeo.
Very interesting to see all of the production steps together, all the way from a felled tree to Hanley Ramirez’s locker in Miami.
So recognizing that all processes (whether they’re deemed efficient or not) will have some waste activities inherent within, here are some of the waste activities I saw in the video.
- Quite a bit of transportation – hauling the felled trees to the trailer, then driving the trailer to the sawing facility
- Collecting inventory of trimmed sticks (the raw, round cuts from the tree, yet to be shaped into a bat by the lathe) builds WIP between process steps
- Repeated touching and motion by the operators – transfer from conveyor to pallet, set on pallet and push, picking pallet up and transferring to semi trailer
- Handling sticks from pallet into mechanical queue for lathe
- Manual shaping of the bats while on the lathe could introduce inconsistencies – either cutting too much or not enough
- Tapping of numbers into ends of sticks – the ends are removed during the trimming process, so the tapping process is essentially overprocessing
Obviously there will be more, and not every waste can be alleviated. The tree is felled in Pennsylvania, but the bat is created in Louisville at the Louisville Slugger plant – waste of transportation would be minimized if the felled tree didn’t have to be shipped so far or could be processed as close to its roots as possible – Louisville Slugger isn’t going to relocate itself to where the trees it uses are growing.
You have to look at waste activities as those parts of the process for which the customer isn’t willing to pay. Louisville Slugger is willing to pay for trees to be shipped from Pennsylvania if they’re the preferred ones. Ideally those trees would be closer. Maybe Hanley Ramirez wants his bats delivered a dozen at a time in a cardboard box with each bat individually bagged.
But if there is an opportunity to find ways to reduce the investment in time, money, or effort in order to accomplish what the customer desires, the opportunity should be investigated.
Masters Pin Flag Giveaway Ends Tomorrow!
Just a reminder that the 2012 Masters pin flag giveaway to subscribers has been extended to tomorrow night at midnight (well, 11:59 p.m.) so if you aren’t already subscribed or following Lean Blitz on Facebook or Twitter here’s your last chance to enter and win!
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GolfNow and Service Process Breakdown
One of the benefits of using Orlando, Florida-based GolfNow is online booking of rounds of...
State of the Lean Blitz Blog: April 2012
I figured that since the blog is between 5-6 months old now that I provide a “state of the blog” address – what has changed since the blog first kicked off, where Lean Blitz has been, and where it goes from here.
The original state – November 2011
When the very first blog post was written, the original state of the blog was based just north of Dayton, Ohio and the full gamut of writers consisted of, well, me. I was, and still am, a fellow with experience working in sports organizations (Atlanta Braves, Elmore Sports Group, South Bend Silver Hawks) as well as having lean/continuous improvement experience in traditional business/manufacturing environments. However, what I did NOT have was a complete meshing of having fully applied the lean principles within a sports organization.
The plan was to provide a source of lean knowledge as it would relate to sports organizations and small businesses, but then also what anybody and everybody can do around the house with lean to make their lives easier. My intended audience was essentially everybody that could read and had an internet connection (mostly because just about everybody lives somewhere).
My primary communication method would be daily blog posts, following a model similar to what is used by Seth Godin (post once daily, seven days a week, keep it simple). My communication media would include email subscriptions, Twitter, Facebook, and email. (I have a Google+ account, but merely as a placeholder for a future communication media if it becomes all the rage.)
I would attend a few trade shows and speak at events, pick up a bunch of followers/subscribers via conversation, word of mouth, communication media, and hopefully a few “sneezers” that would share my content with other interested parties. I assumed that everyone would LOVE lean and the idea would catch like wildfire spreading through a dry field.
It was my understanding that there were no sports organizations currently applying continuous improvement techniques such as lean and Six Sigma, so this idea of showing teams how to use lean to make business processes better appeared not only novel but also one-of-a-kind. I was very fortunate to have a guest blog post for Darren Rovell’s Sports Biz at CNBC.com written and selected by him and his editors to share with his readership. This suggested to me that there is an opportunity for teams to use lean to become streamlined off the field.
But underscoring all of this is the fact that I lacked that direct experience and portfolio of projects where lean has been used in sports organizations. That being said, lean is applicable anywhere. I knew it would work for sports too.
The State of the Lean Blitz Blog – April 2012
And now cut to the spring of 2012, over 110 blog posts later. It’s still just me writing the blog, but I would like to begin bringing in outside writers for guest posts. Lean Blitz has relocated from Ohio to just outside Augusta, Georgia. I have reduced the intended audience to primarily sports organizations and small businesses – there are already enough “home tips” sites out there that I need not add another one to the pile. This has allowed me to better focus my subject matter.
I’ve completed specific coverage of the lean wastes and started looking at the lean tools before realizing I need to back up and examine the 14 lean principles outlined in The Toyota Way. The foundation for lean knowledge needs to be set before I start getting into the “how do we do this” portion. We need to identify opportunities first before we just start fixin’ stuff – the whole “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail” thing.
The blog has covered concessions and merchandise service cycles (I won’t say “sales” because there’s a lot more in the background that requires examination). Most of the attention has been sports-based, primarily on baseball. In addition to the features on the wastes, tools, and principles, I also wrote about the Baseball Winter Meetings and The Masters.
To follow up on that point, sporting events covered included the Baseball Winter Meetings and The Masters, the NCAA Tournament, and games by the Atlanta Braves, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Augusta GreenJackets. I also covered the University of Notre Dame football locker room (highest number of page views), the Ryan Braun steroid scandal, and Moneyball the movie.
More than I anticipated, I’ve looked at production processes for sports merchandise and equipment – mascots, bats, baseballs, jerseys, t-shirts and championship game apparel.
I’ve also been fortunate to provide guest posts for Mark Graban and his blog Lean Blog, and Lean Blitz received some coverage at the Baseball Winter Meetings by ESPN.com’s SweetSpot and Ben Hill with Minor League Baseball.
Something I have learned as I’ve gone forward is that there are teams (edit: a pair of teams) practicing lean and continuous improvement in Major League Baseball. They’ve hired outside consultants to come in and identify ways to improve business processes. I won’t say what teams quite yet (it will be part of a not-too-distant-future post) but I have had lengthy conversations with their executives and even had discussions with their consultants.
What I will say about my conversations is that our thoughts are in alignment – we have identified the same key processes and have had the same reactions and ideas for problem solving, even sharing some new ideas with each other.
The most effective media for communication has been via Twitter and email. Facebook has been mostly served as a place to send new posts for folks not subscribed via email to read. I have all but neglected Google+ so far. I didn’t have any goals for number of Facebook “likes” or Twitter followers because I’m more concerned with making solid connections with individuals who are invested in getting better instead of a whole bunch of folks that are only marginally interested.
After the Masters pin flag giveaway (run in conjunction with The Masters), I’ve learned that reaching out to individuals and teams in the form of cold calling/emailing is ineffective. Part of the reason for this is that lean is hard to explain in a concise manner via email/voice mail message without sounding bossy or controlling. This goes back to making a few solid connections with individuals and developing those conversations to explain what lean is and how it can provide significant improvements.
That being said, I would like to have something to share with individuals new to lean. I am in the process of writing a short e-book about what lean is without getting into the nitty-gritty details of how to implement it. I hope it will provide a high-level overview for folks who have no idea what lean is, but will at least get the mental gears turning and inspiring the desire to make things better where they see shortcomings in processes. All email subscribers will receive a copy of the book once it is completed.
One thing I would like to see more is commentary from readers. I am receiving adequate page views but I would very much like to read and respond to more comments and questions on what I’ve written. For that to occur, I need to better facilitate a forum for dialogue via blog posts or by questions received via email or Twitter. Whenever questions/thoughts/concerns are posted I make sure to respond as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Much in the manner of the five-whys, I want people to ask why instead of simply ignoring or pretending a problem doesn’t exist. I would love to have conversations with teams and businesses, even if the first question is “What the heck is lean?”
Now that we’re in the swing of the baseball season (no pun intended), most of my posts going forward for a while will be focused on the customer experience at games and with any situations where customer service and satisfaction is impacted by waste activities like waiting and defects. I concede that my familiarity mostly lies with baseball because that has been my industry of experience, but eventually I will begin transitioning to other sports. Of course, most business processes will remain the same – making a hot dog at a baseball game is probably the same as making one at a soccer game.
There are some additional “irons in the fire” that cannot yet be discussed but they will very well slightly alter the direction and content of the blog going forward.
And going forward for you, the reader…please ask questions! I’m happy to talk about lean and how it can help you.