Chrysanthemum Germplasm Bank Kaizen

Wow!

What a busy three days! We did a kaizen in the germplasm bank. It's an amazing process in-and-of-itself, but looking at the process through the lens of Lean really turbo-boosted the whole experience.

We did our training, with the Lean Lego factory, a couple of weeks earlier. Then Cecilia and I worked through a Pre-Scoping & a Scoping process.

I've got to thank Beau Keyte for his excellent training and insight into the Scoping process. It really helped us bring the voice of the customer into the kaizen, and laid the ground work for customer driven specifications. More on that in a later post.

We developed a current state Value Stream Map (VSM) of the process. I had video taped a few key elements of the process earlier, so we were able to observe the process with up to 11 people in the spacious conference room. We would not have been able to cram 11 people around a hood.

Then we walked through the Value Stream Questions, and developed the Future State VSM, prioritized our 10 projects, and broke up into team to attack the problems.

• One team worked on developing Standard Work for the retrieval process.
• Another team worked on work station design (cell flow) under the hood.
• And the third team worked on defining storage locations in the cooler layout.

This was one of the best teams I've ever worked with. They grasped key Lean concepts and were able to make some insightful, powerful application to this lab process. Great job Team! And thanks Cecilia & Mary for all your guidance and support.

The DNA of the Toyota Production System

Here's some of what Pascal Dennis shared in the "Building a Sustainable Lean Culture Workshop." It's great material that lays the ground work for good management, team dynamic, and leading-edge greenhouse application. (If you get a ever get an opportunity to be in the workshop- it's worth it's weight in gold.)

Jim Womack says we are on the verge of the 3rd Age of Lean.

• 1st Age: 1900-1980. Age of Discovery.
• 2nd Age: 1980-to present. Age of Lean Tools.
• 3rd Age: TBD. Age of Management Mental Models

This 3rd age will call for management to create new mental models about their

• Business Purpose
• Business Processes
• Business Performance

Lean is more than the implementation of tools. Steven Spears, in his Harvard Business Review article "Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System" gives insightful analysis into what really makes Toyota tick.

As a matter-of-fact, 6 out of 10 companies that try to implement Lean fail. Largely because they try to replicate the tools, instead of changing mental models to to understand the DNA in the underlying system.

So here's a thumbnail of the DNA:

The Four Rules

Rule 1 - Standards

• All work (including support processes) is highly specified as to content, sequence, timing, & outcomes.
• People who actually do the work, design the work
• The work has self-tests built-in

Rule 2 - Connections

Customer-Supplier connections are direct, binary, & self-diagnostic

Rule 3 - Pathways
Pathways (the Value-Stream) for products & services are

• simple,
• pre-defined, and
• self-diagnostic

Rule 4 - Improvement

Our Problem Solving approach is

• structured,
• standardized
• self-testing
• occurs by those who do the work with capable teachers

The Four Capabilities

1. We design work so that problems are readily apparent
2. We swarm problems when they occur
3. We share learning laterally
4. Leaders take responsibility for developing their people.
   
   

Learning Lean from a Lean Master

Well I can't believe I'm here. I'm in Pittsburgh, attending a set of Lean Workshops presented by LEI. And here I am with the one and only Pascal Dennis. Pascal leads the nation on his ability to communicate Lean (he worked for Toyota for many years.) He has also written several excellent books on Lean.

Pascal facilitated a workshop on "Creating a Sustainable Lean Culture." He walked us through the Toyota DNA and made it crystal clear. My mind is ready to explode, so I'll have to get home and digest the content, of which I'll share more later. Wow, this stuff is amazing!