The Jaws of Lean

Did you ever imagine that the Lean effort of Ford & Toyota would affect the Emergency Fire and Rescue industry?
Check out Sturdy Cars Make it Harder for Rescuers.

The Ford Fusion's reinforced steel construction probably saved the lives of the 18-year-old driver and his 16-year-old passenger. But Roberts said it gave his Hillsborough County Fire Rescue crew fits as they tried to free them last November.
Because hydraulic cutters couldn't shear the roof posts, rescue workers had to turn to heavy-duty electric saws, replacing blade after blade as they dulled on the rugged material.
"It was just beating the snot out of the tools," adding minutes and delaying medical treatment, Roberts said.

"We build more fire stations, we make faster fire trucks, we've got helicopters to get you to the hospital," said Roberts, an expert who teaches extrication to colleagues around Florida. "But what's slowing us down are these vehicles that are harder for us to get into."

"Mike Ader, a volunteer firefighter in Rockville, Md., recalled the layered-steel roof post from a 2008 Toyota Camry that wouldn't budge under the blades of a hydraulic cutter after a broadside crash Jan. 2. The patient, whose injuries were serious but not life-threatening, finally had to be maneuvered around the post.
Ader used two types of saws and numerous blades to remove the post after the patient was removed. The department quickly decided to buy a new, more powerful cutter.

Lean drives positive change in relationships with customers and vendors. As a matter of fact, it creates new types of relationships.

But having the effect across industries- now that's real change!

Making Work Visible

The Spray Shed Team is doing a great job!

This week we did a "mock up" of a control board. We took the next day's work order spray cards (from Tiger Jill), and simulated the sorting and grouping efforts the Spray Team does daily. But instead of creating piles of paper, we laid the paper out flat, on a large poster board.

Then we created row and column headings. Column headings were hourly increments, and field location. Row headings were Team Member name, and chemical.


Here's how the team dynamic unfolded: Everyone had a basic common knowledge of the process. But there were things Team Members knew, that management didn't. And there were things management knew, but Team Members had not thought of. There were things that some Team Members knew, that other Team Members didn't. Together, they put together all the elements and activities of the process. It was awesome!


The board makes the work visible. Simply look at the board- it communicates all the spray types and chemicals. It communicates schedule- if it's 2pm and a Team Member still has cards in his 12:30 slot, the entire time will know something is amiss. It shows work progression. It allows for the prioritization of work. It has the potential to control how the work is released, to accommodate scheduling, rescheduling, and cross functional issues. It lays the foundation for making the 7 deadly wastes visible and eliminating them.


Now we are setting up a sturdier board on plywood, which will actually drive the spray process. The group dynamic and institutional knowledge build is still going on, so the plywood will give us the ability to design and experiment, with the board design and work flow, on the fly.

If we see as one, we can know as one, and we can act as one.

"Respect for People" is a Pillar of Lean- so DON'T WATERBOARD THE EMPLOYEES!

A foundational pillar of Lean is "respect for people" or "respect for humanity."
If a company has product flow, but treats employees poorly- it has fake flow, becasue it does not respect people.
Have you ever heard of the 7 deadly forms of waste?

1. Overproduction
2. Waiting
3. Transportation
4. Over-Processing
5. Inventory
6. Motion
7. Defects

Actually, that list of 7 is an Americanized version of Toyota's definition of wastes.

Toyota considers waste in 3 categories

• Muda - activity that adds no value to the customer (the 7 deadly forms of waste)
• Mura - Unevenness in activity (not driven by the customer)
• Muri - Undue stress on People and Machines

Can you imagine- a form a waste that focuses exclusively on the impact on employees! Employees have the process knowledge. They are the ones that have the answers to all the process problems a company has.

Here's an idea you may want to put on your checklist in order to show your respect for humanity- Don't waterboard the employees!

Check out this article in the Salt Lake Tribune:

The suit claims that Hudgens' team leader, Joshua Christopherson, asked for volunteers in May for "a new motivational exercise," which he did not describe. Hudgens, who was 26 at the time, volunteered in order to "prove his loyalty and determination," the suit claims. Christopherson led the sales team to the top of a hill near the office and told Hudgens to lie down with his head downhill, the suit claims. Christopherson then told the rest of the team to hold Hudgens by the arms and legs. Christopherson poured water from a gallon jug over Hudgens' mouth and nostrils - like the interrogation strategy known as "waterboarding" - and told the team members to hold Hudgens down as he struggled, the suit alleges. "At the conclusion of his abusive demonstration, Christopherson told the team that he wanted them to work as hard on making sales as Chad had worked to breathe while he was being waterboarded," the suit alleges.

Ha! What a hoot. The suit also claims this employee was singled out for not meeting Sales performance goals (I never knew the Sales Team could have it so rough!)

This is one reason I'm glad to be in the Horticulture industry. As a whole our industry was built on values you would find on a family farm, and has a high degree of respect for others. I've not heard of any greenhouses waterboarding their employees!

Lean Cool Gadgets

I love Lean Cool gadgets.
Gadgets are often good.
But to be Lean, they have to reduce waste.
And to be Cool, they have to so simple, or so profound, they change the way you do a job forever.

A Lean Cool gadget is often a simple, everyday tool, that we would normally never consider, applied to simplify a process. They come about, not because we were searching for gadgets, but as a result of a long hard team improvement effort. They are the by-product of effective kaizen.

Here are some Lean Cool Gadgets we've developed over the years. As I looked at our kaizen history, I realized we are producing more Lean Cool Gadgets now, and very few early on. Hmmmm....

The Lean Cool Gadgets on this video slideshow, have been developed by my colleagues- the hard working, dedicated, Lean Thinking men and women on the Yoder Production Team.

The Power of VSMing

Nothing beats the power of a
Value Stream Map (VSM).

It's really a combination of tools:

• a process map


• an inventory tracking chart


• a timing chart


• a project management tool

Each of these contributions is significant, but it's greatest effect is really team-building. Each member of the VSM team, sees their core process, the same way, at the same time. It produces incredible synergy, which marks the beginning of team members starting to move a common direction in their efforts, toward a common goal.

This map, as you can see, was done by hand, with the spray team, right in the spray shed. Folks passing by stopped to see what was happening, and often stayed to give input. People love talking about their processes, (and as management, we should love to hear about it.)


You might not be able to see it as well, but the process blocks in pencil, are planning activities.


The best part- team members defined each of their activities from the customers' perspective: Each activity was labeled:

• green- value added,
• yellow- non-value added but necessary,
• red- waste.

Labeling each activity is exciting because team members are learning to see their activities from a customer perspective. Seeing a distinction between hard work and activities that have been developed over the years vs. what the customers values is the beginning of real process improvement.

The map above is the current state process. When then walked through the Value Stream Questions to define our improvements, and will soon build a future state VSM. The VSM will act as a baseline, or skeleton, upon which all or future measurements and controls will rest.

VSM - what a tool!

The Power of Batch Size Reduction at the Zoo

Lean Thinkers leverage the power of batch size reduction. I marvel that such a simple concept could have such powerful application.

I was reminded of it's power when my second-grade son, the night before his field trip to the Tampa Zoo, told me he already had his buddy for the trip.

Instead of taking a single approach where one parent or teacher is in charge of 14 children, in addition, each child had their own accountability partner.
(I know everyone does this on trips, but when it involves one of your own young'ins, it takes on new meaning.)

What's the probability of a teacher in charge of 14 students finding out quickly that something is amiss with one of the children?- all thing being equal, it's 7%, as she has to split her attention among 14 students.

How sensitive can an accountability partner on a field trip be to the status of his partner? 50%!

So batch size reduction makes defects (a missing buddy) more visible sooner, conversely, it helps to ensure quality (by creating 2 parallel systems- teacher/student accountability system, AND student/buddy system.)

The whole approach made me, as a customer of the school, very satisfied.

So how does this apply to a Greenhouse operation?

Let's take something simple, like loading a cart with potted plants, to transfer them to another location.

Do you fill the cart all the way up before you transport?

• Why?
• How many people are waiting at the next operation while you fill the entire cart?
• How many customers will miss the opportunity to see your product while you fill the entire cart?
• What if you loaded half a cart, then transported to your internal or external customer?

We often fill the entire cart because we think it's more convenient for us. But Lean tells us to focus on the customer. The voice of the customer should determine how many pots we load before we transport. And often the voice of the customer often calls for more frequent deliveries, at a reduced batch size.