Artificial intelligence is evolving at an unprecedented pace—what does that mean for the future of technology, venture capital, business, and even our understanding of ourselves? Award-winning journalist and writer Anil Ananthaswamy joins us for our latest episode to discuss his latest book Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI . Anil helps us explore the journey and many breakthroughs that have propelled machine learning from simple perceptrons to the sophisticated algorithms shaping today’s AI revolution, powering GPT and other models. The discussion aims to demystify some of the underlying math that powers modern machine learning to help everyone grasp this technology impacting our lives, even if your last math class was in high school. Anil walks us through the power of scaling laws, the shift from training to inference optimization, and the debate among AI’s pioneers about the road to AGI—should we be concerned, or are we still missing key pieces of the puzzle? The conversation also delves into AI’s philosophical implications—could understanding how machines learn help us better understand ourselves? And what challenges remain before AI systems can truly operate with agency? If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Sign up for our newsletter at techsurgepodcast.com for exclusive insights and updates on upcoming TechSurge Live Summits. Links: Read Why Machines Learn, Anil’s latest book on the math behind AI https://www.amazon.com/Why-Machines-Learn-Elegant-Behind/dp/0593185749 Learn more about Anil Ananthaswamy’s work and writing https://anilananthaswamy.com/ Watch Anil Ananthaswamy’s TED Talk on AI and intelligence https://www.ted.com/speakers/anil_ananthaswamy Discover the MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship that shaped Anil’s AI research https://ksj.mit.edu/ Understand the Perceptron, the foundation of neural networks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptron Read about the Perceptron Convergence Theorem and its significance https://www.nature.com/articles/323533a0…
Have a sage and wonderful New Year and thank you for listening! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan
Since it is near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover what to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list- I’m breaking the topics up over several weeks. Up to this point, we have covered 12 other Lean topics- Lean History, VA vs. NVA, the 8 wastes, 6S, Current state and future state VSM’s, waste walks, PICK chart, RIE’s, A3’s, setting up an LPO and developing a Master Plan and RIE report-outs. If you cover these topics, I know you will have a very solid start in educating employees on Lean topics that will benefit your company immensely! It’s helpful to add workshops for many of these topics to keep people excited and engaged when we can all get into a training room again! 1. Flow tools & balance One of the most important elements of Lean is being able to flow products or processes. Think of a river. You don’t want a bunch of delays in the flow of product or information as items pass through your systems. Delays lead to increased lead time, which affects your customer and impacts cash-flow. There are many flow tools to use in understanding how you build your product. The first high-level tool is value stream mapping. Then you can use process flow diagrams and product families to understand which parts belong in a family-based upon process commonality. You can use resource calculations to calculate how many resources you will need to produce a certain volume of product. Once you understand how many resources are required, it’s important to lay out the resources in an efficient manner so your product can flow. The closer you can come to the product process flow diagram, the better your flow will be, because the process flow diagram shows the most efficient way to build the product. Spaghetti diagrams- where you follow a part through its current state, visually show the state of your current flow. It’s called a spaghetti diagram because, more than likely, your flow will resemble a bowl of spaghetti. Now it’s time to develop a future state flow. You can try using cells- self-contained layouts where raw material enters and a complete part leaves the cell. These are great for supporting families of parts. A key element for setting up a successful cell is balance. It’s important to set up a cell where each step in the operation has about the same amount of work content as the other ones. You want to produce a product from the cells based upon a Takt time- a German word for rhythm or beat. We base it upon customer demand and let you know how often you need to produce a product. 2. Pull Systems (Kanban) You try to flow your product as much as possible, but when you can’t flow it, you can pull it using a visual signal called Kanban. Kanban is a Japanese word that means signal. It can be a card, it can be an X on the table. It signals your operators when to do work or when to stop doing work. The purpose is to signal you only when more items are needed. If you don’t have a signal to product items, you don’t build. This is a powerful tool for controlling inventory and WIP and works well in freeing up inventory dollars. 3. Setup reduction/TPM You might think that setup reduction is only applicable to a machine shop. It’s applicable anywhere you have a setup. Maybe you need to switch between computer software to do your job. That’s a setup. Regardless, teach the steps of setup reduction. 1. Identify what setup to focus on. This might be a high-moving part. 2. Video the setup. Use two cameras and video the setup. One closer to the setup where you can see the operator and one farther away so you can see where he/she goes. 3. Review the video and write down the setup elements. Mark them as VA or NVA. 4. Either eliminate the NVA steps or do them externally to the setup. Operators might shut the machine down, then go get the paperwork. That is internal to the machine. The machine must be off. Getting paperwork is something that can be done externally. It can be done while the machine is running. Move as much work as possible to do it externally. 5. Write new work steps and trial them to see if you have reduced the setup time. Usually, you can reduce it by 50% because you see the operator gone 50% of the time getting paperwork, tools, material, clamps, etc. Teaching them to do those elements externally will reduce an extensive amount of the setup time. TPM- Total Productive Maintenance. Total productive maintenance includes more than just preventive maintenance. Preventive maintenance is an element of TPM, but it also includes how often a machine is down, how long it is down for if it runs to optimum speed and these elements impact a measurement called OEE. Overall equipment effectiveness. Good OEE is greater than 85%. 4. KPI’s/Daily stand-up meetings Becoming Lean entails a lot of visual management. You want to share information visually. You want employees to know exactly where everything goes and how they are performing without having to hunt someone down and ask questions. Why do we keep score in ball games? So we know who is winning. The same thing goes for your business. Share KPI information on area performance boards so people know how they are doing. Have daily stand-up meetings or huddles to review the performance and review your True North. This goes a long way to engage employees and change the culture. I hope you can take these ideas on what to include in your lean training to make your company better in 2021! As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan…
Employee engagement is going to make or break you on your Lean transformation. For those that are interested in a successful Lean Transformation, I have a secret for you. Lean is about changing the culture of your organization. Ask yourself, how do I turn my employees into daily problem solvers? One success indicator of employee engagement is having them drive the transformation effort within your company, but how do you get there? Here are five ways to engage employees during your Lean transformation. First, let’s talk about what the end state looks like. Ideally, you have developed a supportive culture that develops over years. You want a support system driven from the bottom up. Most organizations are top-down driven. That looks like a typical triangle organization structure. The top leader speaks, and everyone works to carry out those directives. To truly have culture change, you need to adopt a more supporting servant leadership style of managing. Each level provides support to the one above it, and employees are driving the transformation. It is the leader’s job to provide support and remove roadblocks. This servant-leader culture looks like an inverted triangle. That’s great, you might say. I can see from the graphic how it is supposed to work, but how does my company get there? How do we drive daily problem solving into the organization and change the culture over time? How do we embed Lean thoughts and processes into our company’s DNA so that this isn’t some flavor of the month program? Here are five opportunities that you can use during your Lean transformation to get employees engaged and excited about culture change. 1. Have a clear vision and present it to the workforce This means you have developed a True North vision and your company’s Lean Management System. These two items share with employees which is important to the company. After these are in place, you can reinforce company values and goals during daily stand-up meetings with employees. 2. Have daily stand up meetings If you aren’t having daily 10 minute stand up meetings, begin having them. This is a perfect time to review 1. Safety issues 2. Quality issues and review elements of the Lean Management System. It will take time, but eventually, employees will open up and share opportunities for things to improve in these meetings. 3. Have all employees attend Lean training It doesn’t have to be super intense but provide training that introduces employees to Lean terminology and a few key concepts like Value Stream Mapping and Rapid Improvement Events. The key is to have everyone in the company take part in the training. This lets everyone know that you are taking the Lean Transformation seriously and it will not become a book of the month program. 4. Ensure the workforce is involved in Lean activities Invite employees to develop Value Stream Maps, take part in 6S activities, and be in Rapid Improvement Events that occur within your organization. One of the eight wastes is Not Listening to People’s Ideas. You must include employees in these Lean activities. They are the ones on the front line every day. They know where the waste is in their processes. Engage them to make improvements within their areas. 5. Celebrate! Make sure that at the end of every 6S event, Rapid Improvement Event, or Value Stream Mapping event you have them report out to the leadership team. As leaders, make sure you support and celebrate their efforts. Thank them for participating. Recognize that they are nervous during the report out. Celebrate the fact that you have gotten 5-8 more people engaged in the process! If you follow these simple steps, you will engage employees during your Lean transformation! As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan…
What is the purpose of your business? Is it to make money as many people believe? I took finance during my MBA program and finance says your goal is to generate shareholder value. That doesn’t sound like a great rallying cry for employees. “We have to focus on increasing our shareholder value in 2021.” Yeah, no. How about you find better ways to focus on the customer in 2021? Can you use that to engage and energize employees? I bet so, and if you make improvements in that area, I bet your revenue will increase. 1. Review your True North Hopefully, your True North focuses upon the customer. If not, give it a review. Here is LinkedIn’s- “to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful”. Nike’s is to “Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world*”. The asterisk says if you have a body you are an athlete. Take the time with your leadership team to review your True North and make sure it makes sense. 2. Instill it in the company culture Now that you have a relevant customer supporting True North, how do you ensure your company walks the walk? Maybe you had outside help in developing your True North and hired a firm to make a nice graphic, posters, etc. Now the heavy lifting begins. Instilling your True North into the company culture. Every employee has to understand their role in supporting the customer. Supporting the customer has to show up in their employee review language and employee plans. Begin every meeting reviewing the True North until everyone has heard it 2,000 times and then you have a good start. Ensure your actions and the actions of those you lead to support the True North and the customer. 3. Map the Customer Journey Now that your enterprise culture change is beginning, map the customer journey from the time they click on the website or pick up the phone until the product or service is delivered to their door. Where are there multiple points of contact required of the customer? What are your response times in your call center? What are your first call resolution statistics? Use items like value stream mapping and customer journey mapping to “see” where you can make improvements. Make sure these events are cross-functional and have input from employees in every area of the business. Ensure that your IT group is part of the mapping as well, so they can understand there is a difference between pretty and functional. Or high-tech and meeting the needs of the customer. 4. Develop your 2021 improvement plan As a leadership team, develop your improvement plan. Where do you need to focus on improving the customer experience first? Second, etc.? Deploy the resources required to make the improvements. Establish the correct metrics to measure your performance. Survey your customers. Then survey them again. Consider using the Net Promoter Score to compare yourself to others in your industry. Ensure the improvement plan is moving forward as planned. Discuss it in leadership meetings. Make sure leaders involve employees across the business. This helps you cement your True North and drive employee engagement. If you follow these steps and focus on the customer in 2021, you will have an incredible year! As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan…
Organizations have dramatically sped up their digital transformation activities. The pandemic has made companies consider a digital transformation much sooner than before. Companies of all sizes realize they need to transform. To help guide you, here are the top roles for a successful digital transformation. 1. Solution Architect Just like it sounds, a solution architect develops the overall strategy for the digital transformation. Think of the solution architect as the techie that can explain software solutions to the leaders in the organization. They explain how software and digital solutions solve business problems. 2. Data Architect Now that you have a system-wide view of your digital transformation, you will need a data architect. Their role is to develop the data management plan. How will your company collect, analyze, protect, and maintain data? These are questions that a data architect answers. 3. Chief Digital Officer It’s great that you want to undertake a digital transformation, but why? Because everyone else is doing it? The Chief Digital officer understands the revenue streams, Omni channels, new business opportunities, and customer services that will benefit from the digital transformation. 4. Database Administrator Database administrators do what their title sounds like. They work closely with data architects and ensure data is stored and organized properly. Their primary goal is to ensure data is available when needed. This includes making sure you complete backups, data is seamlessly available from cloud providers, etc. 5. Cloud Specialists Because you keep more and more data off-premise these days, i.e. in the cloud, cloud specialists are extremely important. They manage edge computing opportunities and manage business solution software that is kept in the cloud. 6. Data Analysts These are your go-to employees that can retrieve, gather, and access data. We are in a data-driven world, and these employees help us make sense of the massive amounts of data your company collects. They help provide a data-driven approach to decision making. If you want to know the top color of your product that is sold in Aurora, Colorado data analysts can provide that answer. 7. User Interface (UX) designers Remember Blackberry? Everyone had a Blackberry phone. The slang name for them was crackberry because everyone used them all the time. Where are they now? The iPhone came out in June 2007 and it killed Blackberry phones. Why? Because the iPhone had a much better user interface. You didn’t have to scroll using a little button in the middle of the phone. UX designers focus on developing a positive interface between the customer and the business. They are customer advocates and communicate customer needs to the team building the website, product, etc. 8. Systems Integrators There is no out-of-the-box solution that will meet the needs of your digital transformation. You have many legacy systems that have to stay in place. Systems integrators ensure these systems communicate with each other. If you embark on a digital transformation in 2021, these are the top roles for a successful digital transformation. As always, it’s an honor to serve you, and I hope this helps you and your organization get a little better today. Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan…
Since it’s near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover topics to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list- I’m breaking the topics up over several weeks. If you cover these topics, I know you will have a very solid start in educating employees on Lean topics that will benefit your company immensely! It’s helpful to add workshops for many of these topics to keep people excited and engaged when we can all get into a training room again! 1. Rapid Improvement Events (Kaizen) Last week I mentioned the eight wastes and PICK charts. Pick charts are impact/effort matrices and the letters stand for Plan, Implement, Challenge, and Kill. As you develop countermeasures for the waste you identify on your Enterprise Value Stream Map (EVSM) run those ideas through a PICK chart to select the best ones to implement. Focusing on the ideas in your Implement quadrant (low effort/high impact) it’s time to schedule Rapid Improvement Events to eliminate the waste. What’s an RIE? An RIE is the implementation method used by thousands of companies to make the change. RIE’s are focused efforts 2-5 days long focused on a specific area of the business. The goal is to complete 90% of the work or change within the event. Having led over 400 RIE’s, I can tell you they can be company changing. It’s also important that the RIE’s will make improvements to the overall business KPI’s. Don’t hold RIE’s just to have activity. You are working to make the company better and impact the bottom line. But, before you have an RIE you first need to develop a… 2. Project Charter/A3 Every RIE should have a project charter, sometimes called an A3 developed for the event. If you don’t do this, you can suffer from scope creep and you won’t get everything completed in your timeframe. The project charter makes sure you think about what we can accomplish in a 2-5 day timeframe and not try to boil the ocean. 3. Master Plan and LPO Now that you have your RIE’s identified, it’s important to develop a three-month master plan of events. This provides your company with an implementation roadmap. If you can, give some thought about who to include in the RIE’s so they can get the event on their calendar. Establish an LPO or Lean Promotion Office where you can display the three-month schedule among other items like the A3’s, and RIE report outs, value stream maps, etc. 4. Rapid Improvement Event Report Outs Finally, after each RIE, it is important to have the team members make a small presentation to leadership that tells the story of the event. Make sure as the event is happening you take pictures since you will want to include them in the report out. It’s a chance for the team to share their hard work and for leadership to show their support. These are four more great topics to include in your lean training! As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
Digital transformations are important in today’s world. Even if you are an “old-school” manufacturer- you make stuff- you still have to find customers. It could be there are ways to increase the digital aspects of your products. Regardless, this will require change, and the best way to approach it is to unleash your intrapreneurs. Here are five steps for supporting your digital intrapreneurs. Step 1- Find a customer Companies are spending millions on digital transformations. They believe if they install the latest software, they’ll have a digital company. It doesn’t work that way. The latest software might make you more efficient, but it won’t allow you to develop new products. Your internal entrepreneurs- intrapreneurs need to be in charge of that. One of their first tasks should be to understand what the customer wants and needs. Do your customers want product extensions or increased digitalization of your current products? You digital intrapreneurs should find out from some of your best customers who are also different from each other. This way you hear from customers with different needs and use cases. Step 2 – Find company sponsors If you don’t have an intrapreneurial culture today, leadership representatives will have to remove roadblocks so the digital intrapreneurs have a chance at seeing their offerings all the way through. Choose managers who will go out of their way to ensure the intrapreneurs get the support they require. Step 3 – Knowledge of company digital technologies Many employees today are digital natives. They have grown up with technology and use it daily- sometimes minute by minute. It’s not an issue of understanding how to use technology- it’s about learning and understanding what to do about digital opportunities. The opposite is also true. It’s important the intrapreneurs you select understand how to identify digital threats. Make sure your digital intrapreneurs can work with the sponsors to develop entirely new digital use cases if required. Step 4 – Let them follow-through Motivating intrapreneurs isn’t hard. They have an entrepreneurial attitude. The worst thing you can do as an organization is to de-motivate your intrapreneurs by bringing in “professionals” at the end of a project to implement the digital solution. Allowing them the chance to implement the digital transformation required to transform your products and services or they will bolt your organization. There is no shortage of companies willing to hire them. Step 5–Develop an intrapreneurial culture It will take time, which you may not have. Work with business leaders to develop an open and creative culture so you can attract and maintain intrapreneurs. Have your middle managers keep an eye out for talent that asks a lot of “why” questions. Like, why do we do it this way? Have you thought about this? Customer X is doing… These are potential intrapreneurs. Put these five steps for supporting your digital intrapreneurs in place so they become engaged and have a place where they can feel safe and be successful! As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
Let’s talk about what 2020 taught leaders and the rest of us, but first a story. The Voyager spacecraft was leaving our solar system in 1990 and NASA had it take one last picture since it was leaving our solar system. Voyager was 3.7 billion miles from the sun. What it captured has become known as the pale blue dot picture. Its impact is more than a picture. It shows Earth from the perspective of the edge of our solar system and how insignificant Earth looked. You can barely see it in the picture below. If 2020 has taught us anything, it has taught us to: Keep Perspective If you are reading this or hearing my voice on the podcast, congratulations. You made it through 2020. Maybe you have had family or team members lose someone in their lives. I’m sure you’ve read about the many job losses and changes to people’s livelihood. Hopefully, you have been spared that kind of impact on your life. It’s easy to complain about the changes you’ve endured as a leader this year. Keep perspective for great things you have had this year and… Have a role model mindset It’s more important than ever to act as a role model for those you lead. Given the tremendous strain your employees have been under, it’s important you show them how to act and react when situations arise. We can’t predict the future, but you can as a leader… Remain Confident It’s important to believe you will figure things out. Have the belief you make the absolute best decisions given the information you can gather. Have the confidence your team will follow your direction and do their best to carry out the company vision. Has your company had to pivot? There are those that have done extremely well during the pandemic because they… Don’t wait Did you grow or create when things changed? I hope we are all aware that fortune goes to those companies that take action. Don’t wait till the right time to take action because that time will never come. Leaders show up You show up because you want to be a servant leader. You understand it’s important to lead the employees who are lost or have questions. You may not become famous as the pilot Sullenberger when he showed up as a leader in a short time of crisis. Do it because you want to make a difference in being a leader. Great leaders also aren’t afraid to… Ask for help As we transition into 2021 don’t feel like you have to go it alone. Find mentors and others from whom you can learn. Go back and listen to the leadership episodes on my podcast. Hopefully, they have added value to your leadership journey and you can reflect upon what 2020 taught leaders. As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
One of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. This week is a little different, I share the mic with James, a buyer at a Multi-National Fortune 100 company. He shares inside secrets on supplying a Fortune 100 company. James is unique in that he worked with both a supplier to Fortune 100 companies and is now a buyer from the same supplier base. He has been on both sides of the equation. Some key points: As a supplier, they grew from 3M to 16M and used their Lean journey as a sales tool. Their customers included Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Woodward, and other large Primes. These Primes were looking for systems and processes that would improve OTD, quality, and price . They were expecting improvements in operations as well as office processes like accounting. Primes are looking for suppliers that can handle terms of 60-120 days. They want suppliers that are flexible and can handle re-schedules in today's environment. They want suppliers that can communicate in a concise manner. Suppliers that can take on a large amount of work and separate themselves from others are key. Key Tips: 1. Have a website that is brief and includes your equipment, approvals, is current and correct! Supplying a Fortune 100 company means you need to constantly update your website. 2. Share your Lean journey . Include before and after pictures. Be vocal about the improvements that you have made! 3. As a company, your ROI will be greater if you bring in outside consultants to guide you on your journey. They will reduce your learning curve! As always it is an honor to serve you and I hope you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
It seems like we are just learning about Industry 4.0 and the enablers that will impact that digital transformation. Now companies are discussing what Industry 5.0 looks like. Earlier in the year, I talked about the use of cobots to support Industry 4.0. Industry 5.0 is based on humans and robots working together in close proximity. Given the advances in sensors, cobots no longer need to be kept in a cage away from humans. Smart sensors deployed on a cobot allow the cobot to work directly on an assembly line alongside human counterparts. Some of the smaller cobots only weigh 30 pounds and can handle about 6 pounds of material. These cobots can complete tasks such as screwing screws or tightening bolts into place. Tasks typically completed by humans today. Larger cobots can handle activities like machine tending, packaging, material handling and driving larger screws and tightening bolts. Given a large variety of grippers, they can handle many tasks. How will this drive Industry 5.0? 1. They will be deployed to improve the customization of mass-produced products Imagine if Sony 3D printed the outer case of a PS5. Yes, the new Playstation due at any time from Sony. What if you were giving this as a Holiday gift and wanted to engrave a personal note on the outer case. A Cobot could handle engraving unit after unit with each note being unique. No setup required. Customer units could be kicked off the production line and a cobot could add the customization and the unit could be added back to the production line to continue its journey into a box. 2. Product Inspection Cobots can be used as the primary inspection tool for products and suspect units can be routed to an employee for further verification. They could be deployed alongside employees in a line and using vision sensors ensure that the employee completed the work required at their operation. Product assembly errors are dramatically reduced when a cobot is part of a check, do, check scenario. 3. Deburring and CNC machine tending What would happen in your machine shop if a cobot could unload machined parts from a CNC machine, deburr the parts and then neatly stack them for movement to the next machining operation? Advances in deburring flat and rough surfaces are happening at a rapid pace. Having a cobot arm next to the machinist would allow the machinist to monitor and manage additional machines. Reducing deburr operations means there is less “blending” of a surface that a talented deburr operator needs to accomplish. They can focus on completing more complicated deburr work that the cobot can’t complete. In Industry 5.0 your co-worker might not want to go out after work for beers, but it will help you get more done and make your work a whole lot easier! As always it is an honor to serve you and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
Since it’s near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover what to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list- I’m breaking the topics up over several weeks. If you cover these topics, I know you will have a very solid start in educating employees on Lean topics that will benefit your company immensely! It’s helpful to add workshops for many of these topics to keep people excited and engaged when we can all get into a training room again! 1. Current State Value Stream Mapping From an implementation perspective, value stream mapping should be one of the first activities you conduct. The purpose of a value stream map is to visually show where the waste is within your processes. Value stream maps are icon-based and introducing students to the icons should be covered. There are different icons for the current state and future state maps. Cover process boxes, collecting information for the process boxes, putting process boxes in the correct order, and then adding more detail by adding additional icons. Share what triangles mean in a value stream map- inventory or time and how to collect that information. Talk about taking the value stream map and walking it backward to catch any steps you might have missed. Finally, share how to draw a timeline across the bottom of the value stream map to show the relationship between value-added and non-value-added work and the % of value-added work. 2. Future State Value Stream Mapping Once you identify where the waste is within your processes in your current state value stream map, it’s important to develop a future state value stream map. A future state value stream map uses different icons- icons that represent pull systems, FIFO lanes, supermarkets, and level loading. The purpose of a future state map is to provide a road map for your improvement activities. Depending upon your organization, it may take several years to approach the future state that your map depicts. Place the map in your Project Management Office (PMO) and continually work toward it. 3. Conducting a Waste Walk Conducting a waste walk happens after you develop your current state value stream map. As you walk your map backward, take notes on the waste you see in the different processes. Have the team members take notepads with them and have them identify wastes that fall into the eight waste categories. After walking your vsm backward and taking notes, teach the team to put the wastes they identified on your DOWNTIME chart. Remember, the eight wastes can form the word DOWNTIME. Have them take their best guess which category the waste falls under. 4. PICK Chart (Impact/Effort Matrix) Now it’s time to educate your team on brainstorming ideas to eliminate waste. It’s great to identify and classify the waste, it’s more important to eliminate it. Have the team brainstorm ideas for eliminating the wastes on the DOWNTIME chart. Take those ideas and place them on an impact/effort matrix. Teach the team to focus on the ideas that end up in the Implement quadrant. The easy to do/large impact quadrant. The ideas from this quadrant, based upon the identified wastes within your value stream map, form the basis of kaizen events moving forward. Schedule the kaizen events one quarter at a time and conduct them. This will help you head toward your future state design. Next week I will cover more on what to include in your Lean training. As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
For companies that are developing their Lean transformation, a key element for supporting the transformation is sharing information within the company, and engaging employees. Establishing a Core Team of representatives from different functional areas helps with that information sharing. You should also rely on your core team to support company culture. There are several steps to establishing this infrastructure properly. Believe me, selecting the right employees to be representatives on the core team will help your business transformation immensely. If you choose well, your transformation will excel and you can utilize these resources to have a positive impact on your company culture! 1. Establish your Governance Team Regardless if you have been on your Lean journey for years or if you are just beginning, establishing a governance team is key to success. The Governance Team consists of leaders who affect the direction of the Lean transformation. The Governance Team’s purpose is to establish the Lean Management System, develop the business KPI’s that will be tracked, support enterprise Value Stream Map development, and supply resources and support for the Lean and culture transformation. 2. Establish a Core Team The Core Team consists of representatives from the functional areas of the organization. All the areas need to be represented. A true Lean transformation affects every area of the business. Core Team members share information with their functional areas. They generate excitement about the transformation. They represent their functional areas in joint meetings with the Governance Team. They drive any Lean training required. They act as subject matter experts for their areas in Value Stream Mapping events. They work with their departments to identify and capture improvement opportunities. They mature processes by developing standard work and training. These important team members are your conduit to supporting your company culture. 3. Use the core team to support the culture Because the Core Team members have a huge influence on the success of the business transformation, they are the perfect resources to keep your company culture intact during these trying times. Ask them to “take the temperature” of the group during monthly Core Team meetings. They can capture where employees are struggling. Since they already have established meeting times with their functional team members, ask them to be a communication conduit about what is happening inside the company. During their Core Team meetings, establish a time to talk about company culture and capture improvement opportunities. Let them share small wins with their areas and capture small wins as well. If you take these steps you can rely on your core team to support company culture! As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
Leading employees is never easy. It is more complicated given the current restrictions as we all know. Regardless, here are six leadership traits for today you can rate yourself against. If you are looking for future leaders, these are prominent traits to consider. Trait 1 – Approachable Since you probably aren’t in a face-to-face situation, your employees must know they can approach you with problems/concerns as they arise. This doesn’t mean you have to be available 24-7 but are there “office hours” you can set up so employees know when they can approach you? It’s important to let everyone know they you are available and approachable to help answer their concerns. Trait 2 – Calm When employees approach you with problems, it’s important to remain calm. It’s okay if you don’t know the immediate answer to a problem, but approach situations with a sense of calm. So much is different for your employees right now, they need a calm presence in their lives. Trait 3 - Have an open mind Business environments are constantly changing, especially now. There are always going to be new processes and ways of doing things. Make sure you keep an open mind to solutions your employees bring to the table. I wish I had a dime every time I heard someone say that’s the way we have always done it here when I ask why they do what they do. Don’t have your employees park their brains at the door when they come to work. Continually ask them for better ways to do things and keep an open mind to their suggestions. Trait 4 – Adaptable Along with having an open mind, it’s important to be adaptable. Your first reaction to suggestions for change can’t be that will never work here. Think about how the suggestion could work and succeed. Work with your employees using a kaizen mindset to make change successful. Trait 5 – Responsible You own the success of your area of the business. Take full responsibility for the success or failure of your area. This means when things don’t go to plan, you don’t play the blame game. You look for course corrections and work with your team to implement the changes. Your employees will model your behavior. When they see you taking responsibility for your actions, they will do the same. This increased accountability among everyone will develop a high-performance team. Trait 6 – Assertive and respectful This doesn’t mean you are a yeller or treat people poorly. You won’t have a team if you don’t treat everyone with the utmost respect. It means that you can assert yourself in Zoom meetings that have gotten off track. It means you assert yourself with your boss to support your team members. It means you assert yourself if you see situations that don’t support your culture. You can be assertive and respectful at the same time. So, reflect and consider how you stack up against these six leadership traits for today! As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
Industry 4.0 is being accelerated by what is happening during the pandemic. If you or any of your employees would like to learn about the growing need, learn about what MSSC has to offer! Upskill for industry 4.0. CPT 4.0 is a nationally portable, industry-led program that prepares and certifies individuals for career pathways in advanced manufacturing. This online training program delivers the 21st Century, in-demand skills that today’s employers need for over 6 million frontline production jobs. CPT 4.0 is delivered and customized locally through 1,500 MSSC Centers with a network of over 2,300 Authorized Instructors at colleges, secondary schools, and other convenient locations. Well-Established Technologies already included in MSSC Production Standards: Computer numerically controlled (CNC), Statistical Process Control (SPC), Six Sigma, Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean, Robots, Sensors, Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Human Machine Interface (HMI), Lasers, Mechatronics, Plan-Do-Check-Act, Root Cause Failure Analysis, Pareto Analysis, Barcodes, PC Ethernet, Variable Frequency Drives (VFD). Newly Emerging “Industry 4.0”: 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Autonomous Robots, Additive (3D), Data Analytics, Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT), Augmented Reality, Nanomanufacturing, Advanced Materials. MSSC’s full Certified Production Technician 4.0 (CPT 4.0) certification consists of 5 stackable credentials: Safety & Employability, Manufacturing Process & Production, Quality Practices & Measurement, Maintenance Awareness, and Green Production. The CPT Plus certification complements the full CPT credential by providing employees with proof that an individual has the comprehensive technical knowledge and hands-on skills needed to be qualified production technicians. Help your employees upskill for industry 4.0! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
As the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us, companies can pivot quickly and produce entirely different products in a short period of time. The need for ventilators, n95 face masks, and other personal protective gear has made companies pivot quickly. Are you adopting Industry 4.0 quickly enough? Even organizations as large as General Motors (GM) have pivoted. They won a $489MM award to build 30,000 ventilators for the US Government to stockpile . They will deliver all 30,000 by the end of August 2020 which is only five months since they began the process. What does this prove? Manufacturers typically think in a linear fashion. We do x, then y, then z. Supply chains take years to develop, except when they don’t. Many companies have pivoted quickly to produce products to fight COVID-19. Now with social distancing requirements that will probably be here for a while, companies of all sizes are facing pressure to increase the speed of Industry 4.0 adoption. Cobots, 5G networks, big data, additive manufacturing are all elements that need to be deployed quickly for increased worker safety. Here are some suggestions that can help you adopt elements of Industry 4.0 quickly. 1. Develop a Smart Value Stream™ We use a Smart Value Stream™ to develop what your Industry 4.0 opportunities look like quickly. This information provides you with a plan and time frame for adoption. It shouldn’t take months to develop what your future state can look like. It should take days. 2. Start small and inexpensively As you can see above, there are many elements for a full Industry 4.0 digital transformation. Does that mean you have to implement all of these enablers at once? Of course not. Start with a smart plug. Smart plugs can be attached to a sensor and provide them with more control functions. It can be programmed to act as a timer, counter, or a frequency monitor. Regardless, there are inexpensive ways to learn how Industry 4.0 works in your business. 3. Get professional guidance This isn’t a DIY project. There are communication protocols, cyber-security, data storage and retrieval issues, hardware and software concerns. Too many moving parts to manage yourself. Get referred to someone that you can trust that has done digital implementations before. Make sure they are partnered with a firm that understands manufacturing. There is nothing worse than setting tech people loose in your factory without a firm grasp of manufacturing. I know that you can use these guidelines for adopting Industry 4.0 quickly. As always, it’s an honor to serve you and I hope this helps you and your organization get a little bit better today. Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
Since it’s near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training for next year, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover what to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list and I’m going to break this up over several weeks. I'll cover more topics through the end of the year. So stay tuned! If you cover these topics, I know you will have a very solid start in educating employees on Lean topics that will benefit your company immensely! It’s helpful to add workshops for many of these topics to keep people excited and engaged when we can all get into a training room again! 1. Lean History People need to know Lean isn’t something new. It wasn’t invented by Toyota. You can trace the roots of Lean to Frederick Taylor, who understood if you divide work evenly among multiple people, you can produce a product quicker than one person building the item can. This was in the late 1800s. Henry Ford used that concept to build millions of cars and it revolutionized the auto industry. Today Lean is used in many industries, from hospitals and financial services to manufacturing. Don’t spend too much time on this, just provide some background. 2. Value-added and Non-value-added work Something the customer will pay for is value-added work. Just about everything else is waste. The entire goal of Lean is to identify and eliminate waste from processes. Not eliminate people. When companies say they don’t have time to work on eliminating waste, it’s because they spend too much time conducting nonvalue-added activities. Rework, building scrap, dispositioning scrap, looking for things, traveling, etc. When you eliminate the waste, you do less firefighting. 3. The Eight Wastes Now that you’ve mentioned waste within processes, it’s time to introduce the eight wastes. Put these in this order so they spell the mnemonic DOWNTIME. Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Not Listening to People’s Ideas (N), Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Excess Processing. Have employees identify wastes in their areas that fall into these categories. This gets them thinking. Write them down on a flip chart. 4. 6S 6S is a cleaning and organizing method. Each step begins with the letter S. Sort, Shine, Set-in-place, Standardize, and Sustain. This is a key Lean method and where many companies begin their Lean journey. The key to drive this home is to show pictures of areas that have gone through the 6S process. Share before and after pictures. Show pictures of what a mess the area was before and what it looks like after everything is in its place. You can discuss if your company will conduct 6S audits or use a better method, which I will share in a later blog. Next week I will cover more on what to include in your Lean training. As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
I’m sure preparing for 2021 is on the minds of many organizations this time of year. Given the strange year it has been, I’m sure we all want to move on from 2020. To prepare these weekly blogs and podcasts, I do a lot of research. Like many things, the impact of working from home depends upon the company culture you already had in place. Here are three ways the pandemic is impacting your company culture. A study by Qualtrics shared that 37% of 2100 employees who took part in the study felt that company culture had improved. 52% of those asked felt more purposeful in their work since the pandemic started. Another interesting stat is that 68% of the employees want to work remotely some or all of the time after the pandemic. Some key company abilities affected by the pandemic include: 1. Agility I’ve mentioned this before. The pandemic has pushed initiatives that were coming in a few years into this current time frame. Digital transformations, the ability for large numbers of the workforce to work from home, different business models. These are all being explored and implemented as quickly as possible. Take the airline industry. They have seen demand for their services drop by as much as 70%. I just read that United Airlines is beginning the first transportation of the COVID-19 vaccine. They are taking advantage of a built-out delivery structure to deliver the vaccine to locations far and wide. 2. Innovation Along with agility comes innovation. Can you think of new products that have come about because of the pandemic? A visit to Etsy will show you thousands of mask makers. What about masks being integrated into clothes? Athleta, Patagonia, and LL Bean are a few brands I’ve seen with these options. I’m sure eight months ago, they wouldn’t have been in that position. 3. Focus on the Customer If the demand for some goods and services is shrinking, you better focus on the customer. I think this is one positive that has come out of the pandemic. In the great times of the last 10 years, when you could ship anything you made to willing customers, companies have had it too easy. Lean is a very customer-centric method and considers the voice of the customer. Hopefully, this small reset makes companies re-evaluate their customer journey and make adjustments where necessary. I believe the companies that support the customer the best will come out on top as we move through these trying times. Customers will remember the companies that performed for them. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning three ways the pandemic is impacting your company culture. As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
Leading employees is never easy. It is more complicated and messy given the current restrictions as we all know. There are still ways that you can lead with courage. Take a minute to review these and ask yourself are you a courageous leader? Since we have been recording history, there are many stories of leaders who acted courageously. Did they act courageously because they had to, or because that’s how they learned to lead? Personally, when I think of courageous leaders- George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, etc. They are people who led in circumstances of crisis. A crisis is typically not a normal set of circumstances, nor is it expected. Sound familiar? When faced with a crisis as a leader, you can retreat or you can lead with courage. Here are some elements that courageous leaders share. Tip 1 - Acknowledge people will struggle during the crisis Sure, you can pretend that nothing is happening and everything will be business as usual. You can hold people to the same metrics and expectations as before the pandemic. You can pretend that employees will figure out how to work from home seamlessly with no interruptions to their daily work activities. Or you can lead with empathy and courage and acknowledge that your employees might struggle during the work from home situation. You can support them as they transition to initially working from home and then hearing it might not be a temporary situation. Tip 2 - Communicate often and communicate small wins If your staff is remote, there is no such thing as overcommunication. Your employees are concerned about the future. Communicating small wins lets employees know that progress is being made, and the company is moving forward, although it might be at a slower pace. Sharing a simple message repeatedly, such as, “We are moving forward, and here’s a win I’d like to share.” This type of courageous communication motivates and engages employees to keep pushing to make it through the crisis. Tip 3 - Share lessons learned A Lean technique of servant leadership is to ask for lessons learned after Rapid Improvement Events or Kaizen occurs. The purpose of this is to allow employees to reflect on what they learned. Reflection is a great attribute for a courageous leader. There is no owner’s manual for leading in a pandemic. As a leader, you have to try your best, see how it works, and then share lessons learned upon reflection. The mark of a courageous leader is to share those lessons learned with your employees. Sharing the fact you are learning along with them, helps them realize you are doing your best along with them and trying to lead with courage in a crisis. As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
This week I get to interview David Goodreau the President of the Small Manufacturers Institute and he shares their mission and passion for helping small manufacturers. David helps design and implement programs that make manufacturers more profitable and give people a career. His 40-year work history is as a machinist, manager, entrepreneur, and a builder/collaborator of non-profits that service industry and communities. The Small Manufacturers Institute (SMI) is his current focus, building an expandable workforce strategy that solves skilled labor problems through the management of a framework of local stakeholder networks. A life of working within small manufacturing firms as an employee, owner, and partner shape an individual and provide a credible advocate for manufacturers in the public arena. His bio speaks to the experience of understanding the problems of manufacturers, and also, the confusing web of public and private support resources. As we read about our nation's new commitment to America's Manufacturer, never have we been so weak to respond to this opportunity. Forty years of decline in the industrial arts; increasing global and supply chain competition/consolidation; crippling increases in regulations and customer requirements; steady declines in participation and membership in manufacturing associations, industrial unions, and trade societies outline the challenges our organizations seek to solve. Together with the NTMA, we founded both the Small Manufacturers Association of CA (SMA) and Small Manufacturers Institute (SMI) to give our peers a voice. There is no greater challenge our country faces than to engage the manufacturing community in the process of leadership, education, and process improvement. Both SMI and SMA stand tall in the marketplace by reaching beyond our own needs to better understand and develop strategies that will work at getting the manufacturers to participate. No government program, incentive, or motivational conference can turn this around. This perfect storm of industrial apathy must be solved organically, driven locally through self-interest and sustainable value that increases profits. Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
Cloud computing is seeing tremendous growth in many sectors and is being driven by companies such as Amazon, IBM, Alibaba, and Google. Because of the work from home situation, many of us have found ourselves in, the expected growth in this sector is expected to be 25% a year. Here are six advantages of cloud computing for manufacturers. 1. Simplifies product delivery Because cloud computing simplifies the delivery of goods and services over the internet, product delivery becomes easier. 3D printing is a perfect example of an industry that is benefiting from cloud delivery. No longer do companies have to purchase 3D printing systems. They can develop prototypes in CAD, upload those drawings to a 3D printing company, and take advantage of their 3D printing expertise. As a small company, you don’t have to make the investment to benefit from rapid prototype parts, etc. 2. More collaborative product development Especially since many employees are working from home, cloud collaboration tools make it easy for companies to develop new products remotely. Engineers and designers can access services, applications, data, and design software from anywhere at any time. These distributed services help reduce the lead time for new product development, which can allow companies to pivot quickly if required. 3. Real-time monitoring of machines and equipment Several weeks ago, I interviewed a company that uses cloud computing to monitor sensors and switches on all kinds of production machinery. The company is a Factory Wiz . The information their services provide allows business owners to make better decisions regarding their business. Great examples of how cloud computing will benefit manufacturers. 4. Improved supply chain visibility Supply chains for manufacturers can be quite complicated and volatile. Imagine trying to get exercise equipment from China during a pandemic. Or an appliance from South Korea. These items have been sold out for months. Using cloud computing, you can establish real-time connections, and applied with other technologies like RFID tags, you can know the exact location of anything within your supply chain. 5. Improves customer information Because cloud services can aggregate customer data from many different channels, manufacturers can develop a better picture of their customer base and their needs. Most CRM tools are cloud-based and provide manufacturers the ability to quickly identify and service customers when they contact you. Because they are cloud-based, they are more secure as well. 5. Virtual cloud desktops This is a relatively new service offering known as Desktop as a Service or DaaS. Employees only need a screen with some basic hardware, and the software is provided by cloud-based services. Users only pay for cloud usage, eliminating the cost of expensive hardware and continual software updates. These are all examples of the advantages of cloud computing for manufacturers! As always, it’s an honor to serve you, and I hope this helps you and your organization get a little better today. Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
Over the thirty years that I have been honored to work with companies, I have seen fantastic, mind-blowing results from Lean efforts. I have also seen companies lose interest after a short time. They treat their Lean innovation like a Book of the Month Club or get frustrated from a lack of results. Some organizations become paralyzed and never begin their Lean Innovation. To me, that is the worst situation of all. I would like to share some gotchas I have seen. Companies make their Lean Innovation more complicated than it needs to be. They gather too much data. They struggle with analysis paralysis. They confuse the workforce with Lean terminology. None of this helps the company improve. Use a simple roadmap for success. They put the success of the innovation in the hands of a few individuals. Leadership hands the effort to a few “Lean coordinators” and expects them to affect the bottom line. How can you drive real culture change if everything is left to a few people? There won’t be engagement if they involve only a few employees in the innovation. The number of Kaizen or Rapid Improvement Events (RIE’s) conducted is a Key Performance Indicator. This can lead to RIE fatigue. We schedule people into events they know nothing about. They are included in events to “check the box” that they were in a Rapid Improvement Event. To make your Lean transformation more successful I wrote a book called the Lean Game Plan which shares a four steps for a successful Lean transformation. Define your championship (Vision) The first step is for leadership to agree upon what the True North is for the organization. This translates into a Lean Management System. They must agree upon a few Key Performance Indicators that measure the performance of the business. I had a client whose mantra was to measure what matters. They went from measuring thirty KPI’s to about six. Guess what? They gained much more clarity in their business decision making and they made rapid gains in a short time. Develop an Enterprise Value Stream map to identify waste opportunities which feed into your Lean Game Plan. Conduct waste walks and go to where the work is being done to learn. Establish a Lean Game Plan that includes Lean activities scheduled a quarter at a time. Employee training camps This should go without saying, but I’ve seen many organizations skip this step or try to take shortcuts. It is important to train everyone in the organization on basic lean concepts. You aren’t trying to make them experts but expose them to Lean concepts. This helps provide a background they can rely on when they take part in RIE’s. Follow the Lean Game Plan Using Value Stream Mapping as your backbone, identify waste in your processes. Focus on removing the waste using Rapid Improvement Events or Kaizen. Schedule the events a quarter at a time and make sure they occur. Ensure teams have a report out after every event. Video the report-out in case members of leadership can’t attend in person. They can watch the recording and provide positive feedback to the participants after the report out. That feedback is a key ingredient for generating employee engagement and culture change. Half time adjustments Review your RIE library quarterly. After you have been conducting RIE’s for a while, you will develop a library of events that are complete. Have a monthly meeting to review the events, formally close events, and ensure you are sustaining the gains. If you are not seeing improvement to your KPI’s after two quarters, don’t be afraid to make changes. Sports teams often make half-time course-corrections and your company should do the same! The organizations I have coached over the years that adopt this simple framework have better results compared to organizations that don’t. They have benefited greatly by using these four steps for a successful Lean transformation. As always, it is an honor to serve you and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
I’m sure preparing for 2021 is on the minds of many organizations this time of year. Given the strange year it has been, I’m sure we all want to move on from 2020. I have seen companies “decide” they want to implement Lean in the next year when they do their annual planning. What I rarely hear is we need to develop a culture that supports Lean efforts. To get you thinking along those lines, here are some elements of a lean culture. It starts at the top Any successful business or cultural transformation starts at the top. The same is true when trying to develop a Lean culture. One of the first things the leadership team needs to establish is the True North for the company. If it already exists, great. Then move on to the next step, which is to establish a Lean management system. A lean management system supports the True North of the company and becomes the “rules of engagement.” The Lean management system provides the elements the organization views as important to their success. I often present the Lean management system as a house. Regardless, it is an extremely important part of a Lean transformation. Having a servant leadership mindset are other elements of a Lean culture. “Inverting the triangle” refers leaders supporting those below them in the organization instead of a more command a control style of leadership. Focus on the Customer As you develop your Lean Management System, it is important to focus on the customer. Successful Lean cultures are obsessive in supporting the needs of their customers. This is a cultural element that separates them from their competition. Ensure you remain or become even more focused on the needs of the culture and communicate that throughout the organization- every day! Think of a company relentless about servicing the customer- Zappos. The founder passed away this weekend- but he took a business from $100,000 in sales and grew it where Amazon bought it for 1.2 Billion dollars. He built a culture focused on servicing the customer. Mutual respect Companies with a Lean culture operate and communicate with mutual respect for everyone in the company. Many elements of a Lean transformation require people to get together in a room and problem solve or kaizen. The problem-solving or kaizen activity requires employees to have frank and open discussions to make the company better. This is much easier to accomplish if everyone’s ideas are treated with mutual respect. Focus on eliminating waste The core of a Lean culture is a focus on identifying and eliminating waste in processes. Great companies spend the time and money necessary to train everyone in the company on how to identify waste and the tools used to eliminate it. If your culture follows a True North and has established a Lean management system, then training everyone is a great next step. Training everyone in the company on Lean methodologies will help you develop the elements of a Lean culture. As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
There have been great strides in developing vaccines for COVID-19, with four different companies announcing vaccines that will be available soon. While that is great news, the logistics of producing 300M doses in the US, keeping them cold enough for distribution- as cold as -100 degrees Fahrenheit won’t happen overnight. That said, it’s important as a leader to lead for growth next year. Here are three tips to lead for growth in 2021. Tip 1 – Re-evaluate your business plan If your business plan is based upon having physical locations, what steps can you take to increase the speed of your digital transformation? If you supply goods or services to industries that have been affected, are there complementary industries you can provide your goods and services to? Since things appear a little clearer, gather your leadership team to develop the best case business plan for the next two years. Then develop a plan B and a Plan C business plan. Everything that I have read says there will be a phased approach to delivering the vaccine starting with health care workers, people at risk, then the public. I believe it will take until the last half of the year before things return to a semblance of the past. I’m a pretty optimistic person. Tip 2 – Focus on company culture If you are like me, you are suffering from COVID fatigue. Many of your employees are being asked to work from home for the first time. The impromptu chatting with neighbors or in a break room has disappeared. Can you establish a morning coffee break employees can join? What about zoom cook-offs where employees can share home recipes and then show the completed meal? Look for ways to remind people that their hard work isn’t going unnoticed. Can you provide gift cards for a meditation app? Can you purchase gift cards that can be used for a powerful massage gun like a Jawku which can relieve sore muscles from sitting all day on Zoom? Peter Drucker said culture eats strategy for lunch. It is more important than ever to focus on generating or keeping a positive company culture as everyone adjusts pitches in to support your growth plans for the next two years. Tip 3 – Over-communicate If your staff is remote, there is no such thing as overcommunication. Your employees are concerned about the future. Share with them the business plan for the next two years. Let them know what the B and C plans look like. Provide a forum where they can ask questions and have input into the business plan. The more they are heard, the more ownership they will take in making it happen. It’s a tremendous way to get them involved and engaged to lead for growth in 2021! As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are he re Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
If you are like me, I'm sure you never stopped to think about where your turkey comes from- the turkey supply chain. As you can imagine it takes a large effort for the turkey to arrive at your local grocery store in time for Thanksgiving. Here are some interesting facts about Thanksgiving in the United States. The first celebration was held in 1621 and in 1863 Abraham Lincoln made it a National Holiday. It's estimated 88% of Americans will eat turkey on Thanksgiving. The interesting part is that over 220 million turkeys are sold in the United States annually. If you were to level that out, it is close to 1 million turkeys per working day. As we know, it doesn't work like that. The high points for turkey consumption is Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. We consume 46 million at Thanksgiving, 22 million at Christmas, and 19 million at Easter. Imagine having to produce 46 million of something to be ready for a single day. This requires an amazing amount of pre-planning and logistics. 18% of all turkeys are produced in Minnesota, 14% in North Carolina, Arkansas, and Missouri are large producers as well. Did you ever wonder why you typically buy turkeys frozen but you can buy a chicken un-frozen any time you want? The reality is, that is the only way to make 46 million turkeys available to be consumed in one day. It also explains why Minnesota is such a large producer- they can just store the birds outside and they will freeze. Just kidding. Turkeys are produced year-round and kept frozen. Turkeys that aren't sold for Thanksgiving can be sold for Christmas, etc. The suppliers do have to prepare about six months in advance to get the turkeys where they need to be. That's just the logistics side. Turkeys reach their size in about 14-18 weeks, so about 4.5 months. This year has been especially complicated because of COVID19 and the concerns of spreading the virus in large family gatherings. Many families are forgoing large get-togethers because of concern for older more susceptible members of the family. This has altered the demand for turkey size. Since smaller gatherings are happening, the request for smaller turkeys has gone from "give me the biggest turkey you have, to give me the smallest turkey you have." Turkey breast only options have also increased. These are better sized for 1-3 people. This year also brings an increase in families trying to cook a turkey for the first time. Whole Foods is teaming up with Progressive Insurance to offer a $35 gift certificate to the first 1000 people who make a claim of a ruined turkey. This is why there is always Chinese food as an option. Finally, I want to mention the Butterball turkey hotline which has been around for 30 years and receives about 100,000 calls per year. You can even access it through Alexa. If that isn't a sign of the times, I don't know what is. I hope that you have a fantastic and safe Thanksgiving and until tomorrow, have a great one. Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
Undertaking a business transformation is difficult. After all, who are the only people who like change? Wet babies. Depending upon where you start, it can take a lot of heavy lifting from many people in the organization. It’s easy to get caught up conducting “activities” on a weekly or monthly basis, which is why it’s important to slow down, reflect, and be grateful during your Lean journey. Henry Ford recognized the value of bringing people together to accomplish work and make improvements so a business could last multiple generations. He realized the opportunity to work together, really work together toward a common True North was a success. Does your company have that same mindset? Here are a few tips so your company can be grateful during your Lean journey. 1. Realize it’s not a set of tools Many people think that undertaking a Lean business transformation is deploying a set of tools. I used to be that way as well. I was lucky enough to be part of a large Lean transformation in the late 1980s when I was a college student at the University of Cincinnati and co-oping at Huffy bicycle. At the time, we didn’t understand how a successful Lean transformation hinged on engaging employees and generating excitement in the organization. It wasn’t until I studied more, learned more consulting with companies, and saw greater benefits from getting everyone engaged that it clicked. Benefit from my experience, Lean implementations should focus on activating and engaging your workforce to make your company better. 2. Support their efforts When you engage employees by having them take part in training, value stream mapping, and Rapid Improvement Events, make sure they have a report out at the end of the activity. Ensure that leaders in the organization are there to watch the report out. Nothing will kill employee engagement quicker than presenting to an empty room. If leaders say the business transformation is important, then show up and support the hard work your employees have done during the 3-5 days of the Rapid Improvement Event. 3. Thank them Now that you have shown up for the report out, thank the employees for their hard work. Realize they aren’t expert public speakers and it takes a lot of courage to stand in front of their leaders and present what they did. Make sure the leadership team gives them huge congratulations and encouragement. Thank each participant individually if you can. Let them know how grateful you are for making the company better. Realize they your most powerful resource for building a successful company. I know if you follow these three steps you will be grateful during your Lean journey. As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
Staying with the theme of gratitude for this Thanksgiving week, I want to share some tips to develop a culture of gratitude. If you weren’t aware, there are science-based benefits of being grateful. Productivity increases, job satisfaction increases, as does your mental and physical well-being. Here are some actions to consider. 1. It starts at the top Any successful business or cultural transformation starts at the top. The same is true when trying to develop a culture of gratitude. When leaders in the company recognize minor acts that would otherwise go unnoticed, others in the organization will do the same. Leaders the next layer down will begin doing the same and it creates a snowball effect. At first, it might seem odd, but like anything, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Eventually, it becomes more natural. 2. Be specific Similar to what I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, recognizing employees needs to be around a specific activity where the employee added value. Saying, “I want to thank Tom for showing up for work today,” doesn’t have the same weight as “I want to recognize Tom for his input on our project to reduce our customer lead time from 6 to 2 weeks.” 3. Do it regularly Try to thank someone daily. Yes, daily. It will be hard at first, but as you flex your gratitude muscle, it will get easier. Thanking people regularly is a lot more genuine than thanking them once a quarter or once a year during an annual review. 4. Provide opportunities for employees to give back One way for employees to show gratitude is for them to give back to others in the community. Maybe you allow them a longer lunch occasionally to serve meals on wheels. You might choose a local school and provide resources to teach coding or business. I know early in my career I taught Jr. Achievement in a local high school. The company I worked at supported my time off for that activity. I know a company in San Fernando Valley that allows employees 24 paid hours a year to work with charities. This is a $15M a year company. It’s based upon what is important to you as a company. 5. Make it easy to provide gratitude I’ve seen companies with thank you walls where employees can leave large post-it notes on the wall thanking other employees. I’ve seen companies make thank-you notes available in break or lunchrooms so other employees can write hand-written notes and place them in a box. They share these over the company intranet on monitors throughout the company. Brainstorm what works best for your company and culture and try it! You’ll soon develop a culture of gratitude. As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
Here in the United States, we are beginning Thanksgiving week, which occurs this Thursday. Often this time of the year people are flying to visit family and friends. They are scurrying to prepare a large festive gathering for friends and family. The wonderful pandemic has put much of that activity on hold. I think it's even more important this year as leaders to show your employees gratitude and here are five ways you can that. 1. Touch base this week Since many employees won't be traveling to visit family and friends it is hard on them. Many employees look forward to the break to re-charge and enjoy friendships and spend time with family. I realize you can't take the place of the family but make sure you check in with each of your employees. Find out how they are doing besides whatever their work tasks are. They will appreciate you checking in with them. 2. Admit that it has been a strange year to this point No one could have predicted the pandemic and the changes that have occurred because of it. Working from home for extended periods of time. Not having a defined separation between home and work. Juggling parent duties and home school duties while trying to do their best work. It has been a very strange and hard year for your employees. Acknowledge that fact. I'm sure, like myself, everyone has COVID fatigue. We're tired of hearing about it, talking about it, and having it interrupt our lives. When you check in with employees this week, acknowledge it has been a struggle for everyone. 3. Share positive words Yes, it has been a struggle. Your employees look to you to provide leadership and guidance. Make sure that you provide positive words of encouragement, thankfulness, and guidance. Identify 1-2 positive things each employee has accomplished during the year so far. As you reach out to your employees, share with them these positive things. Then... 4. Publicly recognize your employees Everyone likes to hear their own name mentioned with accolades. Publicly show your employees gratitude by recognizing them and the tremendous strain they have overcome. Use the 1-2 positive things you identified above and publicly recognize them for those activities. Make it intentional and unique to each person. Yes, these last two steps will take some time. It's worth it if you want to be a great leader. Realize they aren't there for you, you are there for them and they need your support more than ever. 5. Say "Thank you" All of the above activities mean nothing if you don't say "Thank You" to each of your employees. Those two small words mean so much to people. Especially when it comes from their leader. If Doug Conant who used to be the CEO of Campbell Soup can write 30,000 thank you notes over his career, I think you can take 5 seconds and thank your employees. Ideally, do it individually when you check in with them this week. If that can't be accomplished, then thank the group, but individually thanking them is a great way to show your employees gratitude. As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day! Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
One of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. These are keynotes from a conversation with Mike Stankus, Chief Revenue Officer at Paperless Parts. Paperless Parts is a secure cloud-based quoting platform that allows collaboration and quoting quickly and easily. It resides outside your ERP system and provides enormous analytic capabilities measuring win/loss performance and other information for busy business owners. These are some key points taken from my interview with Mike: Mike has been a sales leader in the technology space for the last 30 years. He has built companies to over $200 million in sales. He liked the mission and what he saw at paperless parts and joined the company. Everyone we talk to is aware technology can improve their business. Companies we talk to want to automate their quoting and also use the platform to make better decisions. Our client base ranges from mom and pop shops to shops that are hundreds of millions in sales. W Machine works is a successful company that is using paperless parts to capture their tribal knowledge. The primary thing companies are looking to do is turn around quotes faster with greater accuracy. Additional benefits include better collaboration using secure chat and tracking comments all along the process. Data analytics is another key benefit customers are looking for. We track quote time and show customers a win rate by turnaround time, by material type, by the customer, by lot size. Paperless parts makes the quoting user experience better by extracting dimensional information from the drawing or model and uses that to populate a quote. Our mission is great. We are helping American manufacturers, many family-owned businesses improve their competitiveness Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies
Two weeks ago, on my podcast, I interviewed a consultant who was part of a team that generated “hundreds of millions of dollars” in savings within the oil and gas industry. Knowing the vast landscape and impossible places that many oil rigs are in, it makes sense oil and gas is at the forefront of IIoT adoption. Here’s what they are doing. 1. Information Technology (IT) Given that oil and gas companies are undergoing a digital transformation, it makes sense they are highly leveraging information technology. Advances in information technology let oil and gas companies capture real-time performance data from their assets. Using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and developing digital twins within the IT arena let rig owners know immediately if their assets aren’t performing as they should. In the example that Ben Griner gave on the podcast, he noted the client knew vibration was an element of concern when monitoring oil rigs. Using low power sensors that can send information to satellites allows these assets to share their performance information. Taking this information and using machine learning and digital twins the oil and gas supermajor can predict when preventive maintenance needs to occur. This provides huge savings in operational efficiency and performance gains. 2. Operational Technology Information systems are the broad category of collecting, analyzing, and using data and turning it into information. Operational technology is the hardware and software that collects the information and notices when a change has occurred. Oil and gas companies have recently begun integrating their OT and IT software and hardware. Like many other industries, they’ve adopted this model to prevent increased cyberattacks. These are multi-million dollar assets they are collecting data from and sending that information via satellite. OT security is extremely important. Which leads to the next industry 4.0 technique. 3. Cybersecurity The IIoT technology governs devices and information systems that transmit data over the network or are embedded with sensors, electronics, and software connectivity. Because the devices transfer data without human assistance, data is transferred automatically and frequently. This prevents all kinds of cybersecurity opportunities. Imagine having assets scattered all over the world in extreme conditions. Having sensors on those assets that upload information about their location, performance, output, vibration, etc., and uplinking that information to satellites. Having an integrated risk management and a cybersecurity strategy that integrates IT, OT, and risk is key to putting oil and gas at the forefront of IIoT adoption. As always, it’s an honor to serve you, and I hope this helps you and your organization get a little better today. Rate and Review Here More show notes are here Schedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed. Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoach Join me on Linked In…
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