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.