People, Process and Principles - all in one

#leanthinking as a concept of maximizing value addition time in any of the value stream is effective even where there is no assembly function. Bringing the concept of Lean to being just “a shop floor thing” is not justice to this great concept that promotes identifying, reducing, and eliminating the non-value adding time and the productive time. As we progress and add more varieties in the unique implementation of the concept, we will start finding more similarities in the way it is done. I happened to see it working for me even when I went to get my Toyota Corolla serviced. The workshop was alive with Lean, and its influence was so vivid that it impressed me.???

It was interesting to note that the people inside were a happy lot. They were busy doing their jobs at hand however, could still manage to smile at the new customer entering their workshop. How many of us find this at a place that is infested with grease, oil and machines? I could immediately sense that this #Toyota Workshop was different in terms of the Work #Culture . I started following the process of the way the work is done. I could lay my hands on their Route card.

It starts with Wash -1 and ends with Delivery Preparation being ready for the customer. Check out from the bottom. This Route Car enabled the technicians to follow the same process for all the services. In a way, it was easier for them to check what had already happened to the car and which was the next to come. It was mistake proofing against forgetfulness and haste. On the back of the card were entries made by the person who attended that process on the route card.

It added the names of the people who are responsible for the separate activities to be done at various stages of the route card. Check it out below here. It gives responsibility at every stage, and it also gives location- Waiting for wash 2 after final inspection.

Ready

There were hardly any of the vehicles waiting in queue. And more surprising is the fact that nothing ever was delayed than what was estimated and promised to the customer. Wherever the vehicle might be, it always suggested the position of servicing on the car. The fact that the car was with a route card made it easier for the information to be shared with the customer on real time concept. The activities were also highly systematic and organized.

The right tools were found at the right place where the visibility of the tools made it accessible at the right time. It was #PEEP (place for everything and every useful thing in its place) in action. The uniforms of the technicians were clean as there were no leakages of the pneumatic lines and greasing lines. They had separate workstations for every process. This demarcated their work area thus enabling personal responsibility of the Zone.

After having observed this kind of systematic Lean workstation, I was elated and tried to relate it with the other clients I had to visit in the coming week. One of our premium clients had a gear business line where the range of problems were as diverse as critical parts missing out during assembly, parts mixed up, too much grease and oil around, improper sequence of operations and a disturbed flow. There were manual methods of transferring material from one point of flow to another. During the transfer, I observed there were multiple chances of material getting damaged on edges and notches getting jagged.

As any sane lean practitioner would recommend, I shared my experience with Toyota. They could easily associate with the example and could find a solution on paper that seemed to take care of the PEEP and #Flow . During implementation, we could add the route card to all material lots that went for machining, heat treatment or assembly. It was their genuine teamwork and management support that empowered the people to pick up the right idea and put all systems in place. Hope to see this idea bringing benefits to all.

Bravo #Lean #Champions ! Keep improving continually!??