Lean Management – ALFRA Lean Advisors

Hoshin Kanri and Daily Management

ALFRA Consulting — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 15:44:49 +0000

We want to discuss about two important concepts for a Lean Transformation, Hoshin Kanri & Daily Management, both are critical factors for a cultural shift and performance improvement at a company level, unfortunately they are not so well understood.

Hoshin Kanri management aligns the activities of people throughout the company so that the company can achieve key goals and react quickly to a changing environment.¹

How is the Hoshin Cycle Managed?

1.-Strategic Planning, The direction.

The first and very important point is to define a direction, that’s comparing the company’s multi annual goals vs. the current condition, its critical to understand the current organization’s capabilities to clearly understand the gaps to the desired condition and the goals.

2.- Hoshin Deployment, what do we need to do?

Once the direction is established, we will define what we need to do at every level and each department of the organization to achieve the milestones and goals established, we can normally split it on company, department and group level actions.

We will define by which means we will achieve them, here we focus on the process, since each organization and department will find their way according to their specific situation, here is critical to establish a Daily Management System, where we will establish the standard actions to be perform at each leadership and team levels to assure we are daily aligned to the main objectives.

Why is important to link the Hoshin Kanri with Daily Management?

We cannot foresee the future, so we will always have to iterate, observe, learn and adjust, and the only way to do this in an effective way is in a daily manner

Shop floor effective management is the way we manage the company ship daily, this give us the capability to react and correct as soon as we discover deviations and unplanned stops, this will always happen.

Effective daily management without a solid strategy (long term strategic vision) wont go so far, in order to boost the performance into the right direction we need to match both and control them in a frequent manner.

3.- Controlling by Metrics, how are we doing?

Define the ways we will measure it, we should review and define which Indicators will give us the sense of direction and establish the frequency of review for each level.

Main KPI’s
Sub KPI’s
Process Indicators

Whit this we will assure everybody at every level understand how is contributing to the main goal.

4.- Check and Adjust the direction,

For the different Indicators structures (Company to Group level) there is also a frequency of review, these can go from Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Quarterly reviews, this will give the capability to study and react the sooner the possible to keep the way towards our goals.

This 4 steps cycle is performed repeatedly at every level of the organization during the year, until we reach the objectives established, normally at company levels are annually new goals.

References: 1 (Shiba, Graham, and Walden, 1993)

Value Stream Mapping Introduction

ALFRA Consulting — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 06:51:54 +0000

Why? – Main reasons of VSM:

When planning our improvement efforts, It gives a complete picture of the actual condition, in a value flow approach (material and information flow), this help us to focus in the overall system efficiency and not isolated efforts.

And principally, it supports the point of turning department/functions as partners and align them in common goals.

What is a Value Stream Map (VSM)?

A value stream is the chain of steps performed to create a product or service, this chain can include activities that add value and many times, waste and unnecessary activities.

Then a Value Stream Map plays a critical role for Deploying the Organization’s strategy (what we call Hoshin), it is the connection between the company’s strategic goals and the execution on the operations.

It can be conducted in Manufacturing processes, or Business processes (like Product Development, New Product Introduction), the challenge to measure and visualize them differ on each process but the principles remain the same.

1.- Select the Family of Products/Processes

This step is mainly easy for steady high volume environments, where the equipment is mainly dedicated to a single or few similar products which runs in a fast pace.

The challenge comes for when equipment or people are shared with several products, and the combination of products can be infinite or its “make to order”.

One rule of thumb to define a product family is, the products that go through at least 80% of the same processes and the work content between the products variations is no more than 30% of difference”, if a product doesn’t comply with any of these requirement you should not included in your Value Stream Family.

2.- Develop a Current State Map

The materials and information flow are equally important for the entire process, walk and review both of them by yourself, then draft the process.

3.- Develop a Future State Map

After understanding the opportunities from the value stream, the team should define a future state VSM, which is a target condition to achieve on the next 3 to 6 months, depending on the needs of the value stream you can focus on the Quality, Productivity, inventory, Safety, Cost, Delivery and others.

4.- Define and Action Plan.

One we have a future state map, we will define which actions we will experiment to achieve that target condition, remember, that this is a continuous process that will require to iterate and experiment to find the desired solution for each specific problem, process owners should the the main responsible for this challenges.

Once that we achieve that current condition, we will re-do the cycle to identify the next future state, this matches very good with the Toyota Kata routines.

For some it may seem an unnecessary “tool” and for others it’s a “one time” work, but VSM is the compass that guides you in the short term (3 to 6 months) to keep aligned with your long term multi-annual objectives,

Who?

Normally is recommended to involve multi functional members to have an integral understanding of the activities (supply chain, manufacturing, quality, sales, engineering, maintenance, IT and related functions), also functions with decision must be involved in the development and review of the Map, they should understand first hand the process being analyzed and improved.

There is in several organizations a function called Value Stream Manager, who is in charge from coordination the activates across all the functions to ensure that the product/service will be delivered under the desired conditions.

How? – Main tips

As you conduct several cycles of mapping the information becomes more solid and useful for taking decisions, don’t stop on the first version, conduct reviews and updates every time you have significant changes (lay out changes, product introduction, kaizen projects, equipment changes and so on).
Use other analysis and visualization methods to complement and help you to better understand your process, some of the commonly used are SIPOC, Man-Machine Chart, Spaghetti Diagrams, Yamazumi Charts, among others.
The team that creates the maps the process will be the same that develop the counter measures, so involve the decision makers from the beginning, they must understand which is the actual condition, in order to develop the countermeasures
Develop your own solutions, Don’t copy solutions from other processes, even when they are from your own company, a solution for one process may not be suitable for another.
There is no crystal ball, testing hypothesis is the only way to find out if you are correct, but you should do it in a structured, standard way like PDCA with A3 reports or Improvement/Coaching Kata Cycles.

We try to cover details that are not discussed in normal conceptual description of Value Stream Mapping, there is a lot of good definitions and step by step information in how to conduct a VSM.

We want to let some questions for you to share:

Is your company using Value Stream mapping?
Its working good for your company? Which benefits have you perceived?
Which are the main challenges to adopt this approach in your company?

Share your comments with us.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

De ce Implementările Noastre Lean Se Disipă?

ALFRA Consulting — Wed, 04 May 2016 15:13:39 +0000

Multe companii au făcut mai multe eforturi pentru a îmbunătăți și chiar a crea procese fără pierderi de la început, deși unele dintre ele sunt foarte bine planificate și proiectate, am constatat de multe ori că aceste beneficii promițătoare nu durează atât de mult.

Atunci, care este problema? Este o chestiune de disciplină? Sau poate principiile Lean nu pot fi aplicate în aceste companii?

Folosind abordarea “punerea în aplicare a instrumentelor Lean”, fără a dezvolta într-adevăr o gândire de zi cu zi a îmbunătățirii în organizație, va crea un sentiment fals de îmbunătățire și de viață scurtă a posibilelor beneficii.

Unul dintre multele probleme pe care aceste companii nu îl iau în considerare este Entropia, care, în cuvinte simple, poate fi explicată ca o măsură de dezordine în cadrul unui sistem, a doua lege a termodinamicii, spune că entropia într-un sistem nu va scădea.

Dacă luăm în considerare acest concept ca analogie într-un proces tranzacțional, (așa cum mi l-a descris Jeffrey Liker), entropia înseamnă că societățile (și toate procesele sale) sunt sisteme vii care în mod natural tind să se descompună, iar dacă nu facem nimic se poate ajunge la niveluri haotice.

Procesele tranzacționale sunt influențate de mai multe surse de variații (angajați noi, tehnologii și metode noi, concurenți noi, schimbări de reglementare și așa mai departe).

Toate companiile vor suferi aceste variații într-o cantitate mică sau mare, exemple de mici variații de zi cu zi au loc atunci când, un operator nu ajung la locul de muncă sau pur și simplu renunță, atunci când unele instrumente încep să dispară, când mașinile încep să aibă defecțiuni mici, când cutiile cu materie primă vin în diferite dimensiuni sau cantități, când apar noi locuri de stocare temporale în linia de producție și depozit, când muncitorii nu au calificările și cursurile adecvate, iar lista de abateri mici poate continua.

Este atunci, când oamenii noștri vor începe să se adapteze la standardul original și să găsească modul de a face lucrurile să se întâmple.

Managerii tradiționali vor da vina pe muncitori pentru abaterile de la standardele definite și vor indica de asemenea lipsa de disciplină, dar realitatea este că mulți oameni se abat de la standardele cu intenții bune, deoarece standardul definit nu mai este cel mai eficient sau chiar viabil.

De cele mai multe ori aceasta este o problemă de management, aceștia sunt responsabili pentru a crea cadrul (strategia și resursele), să dezvolte și să mențină condițiile de standard corecte și să lupte împotriva entropiei.

Ce fel de manager ești? Dai vina pe alții pentru că nu păstrează disciplina sau accepți că afacerea este dinamică și se va schimba întotdeauna (în mod normal, se înrăutățească dacă o lași în voia sorții).

Astfel păstrează în minte faptul că îmbunătățirea continuă este o datorie zilnică și ar trebui să se facă la toate nivelurile organizației (cel mai important la nivel de middle si top management).

Deci, ce faci pentru a promova zilnic o stare de spirit de îmbunătățire continuă?

Ce este Lean Manufacturing ?

ALFRA Consulting — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 16:42:08 +0000

Ce este Lean Manufacturing?

În anii 80, un grup de cercetători de la Institutul tehnologic din Massachusetts (MIT) au studiat și comparat industria auto din companiile Americane, Europene și Asiatice.

Au publicat cartea “Mașina care a schimbat lumea“, creând conceptul de “Lean Manufacturing” pentru a se referi la Sistemul de producție Toyota (TPS).

În această carte sunt prezentate statistici care compară indicatorii de la fabrici care produc mașini similare.

Și-au dat seama că există diferențe semnificative de performanță.

Toată munca implicată în fiecare proces poate fi clasificată într-una din următoarele tipuri de activități:

Value Added (VA) : Activități care transformă materialele sau informațiile, în ceva care clientul percepe și pentru care este dispus să plătescă.

Exemplu: Asamblarea unei părți

Required Non Added Value (BVA) : Fără valoare adăugată produsului, dar necesară procesului, adesea numită Valoare Adăugată pentru Companie (Business Value Added).

Exemplu: Transportul materialelor, Inspecția

Non Added Value (NVA): Acestea sunt activități care reprezintă

risipa care nu trebuie să existe.

Exemplu: Reprocesarea și defectele, Lipsa de materiale.