Process Improvement of Nappy Changing

Introduction

I did operational management as part of my MBA and enjoyed it quite a bit. However, when studying, there is no way to get the data required from our existing companies due to legal or governance reasons, especially ones that entail operations. So here, with this dilemma, I turned to my children. Here is an assignment I turned in on using operational management techniques to improve the babies' nappy changing station. Have a good laugh, everyone.

Summary?

This essay will examine the process flow of changing diapers/nappies for a twenty-one-month-old and a six-month-old. Firstly, the essay will concentrate on the nappy-changing task and discuss the required or potential improvements. The process hierarchy (Slack et al., 2022, p20) will be used to define the scope and as-is process, and a Gemba Walk will be conducted to establish the current state of the nappy-changing station. Secondly, the essay will analyse four brands of nappies for the 6-month-old to measure the impact of these efficiencies on the process flow of the nappy-changing station. Thirdly, based on the findings, the 5S method will be used to improve the nappy-changing station. Fourthly, a literature review will discuss the teachings of Lean Six Sigma, focusing on how Gemba Walk (GW), Value stream mapping, and 5S (Slack et al., 2022, p530-572) were used in this essay. Finally, the essay will discuss how these teachings have influenced the nappy-changing process and the benefit of using Kaizen, the art of continuous and incremental improvement (Slack et al., 2022, p514).

Analysis

The household has many areas to look upon as shown in Figure 1. The 3-level analysis (Slack et al., 2022) helps funnel the scope to nappy-changing household tasks. From the macro level with the meso levels:

·??????Food - cooking and shopping for groceries.

·??????Maintenance - cleaning, storage of items and gardening.

·??????Personal - grooming, clothing, showering, etc…

·??????Household - mortgage, tax, insurance, broadband, and decorations.

·??????Work - working from home area.

·??????Caregiving: Parents, Pets, and Children.

The meso level of Children is cleaning. The diagram above shows the process of getting from a dirty nappy to a new cleaned nappy. The current nappy-changing station has many flaws, such as when clothes are dirty, the parent or caregiver must go to the children’s room to change their clothes. The essay will go further into detail in due course.

Findings

Gemba Walk

The household has two nappy-changing stations, one upstairs in the children’s room and one downstairs in the living room at the bay window. The upstairs is generally used when a child is bathed or needs nappy-changing at night. Predominantly, the downstairs bay window area is used throughout the day.

Figure 2 above depicts the value stream of inventory and outputs of a nappy-changing station, with these issues identified (see appendix for images):?

1.????Clothes piled up next to the downstairs nappy-changing station and upstairs has the same issue where clothing from the laundry piles up waiting to be added to their drawers. This blocks the nappy-changing station from being used. However, the full potential of the stations is achieved when laundry is sorted.

2.????The nappy bin was placed too high to reach, and the nappies were left on the bay window until one could reach the bin by stretching and pulling to dispose of the nappies. A lower and closer bin was needed to dispose of nappies easily, but a smaller bin would have reduced capacity for nappy disposal and increased the frequency of internal to external bin disposal.?The version of the bin only comes in two sizes: the standard and XL, the standard size is used in both locations.

3.????The flow of changing the nappies - as the clothes, nappies, vitamins, and other medications were scattered across the bay window. It was essential to have relevant items available either to the right or left of the nappy-changing station to ease the process of changing a nappy.

Furthermore, the hypothesis is whether the frequency of changing the nappy depends on the brand. The reason for the hypothesis with the twenty-one-month-old was that the use of Tesco nappies would leak easily. Decreasing the changing time or number of nappies used daily will provide which nappy brand should be used to reclaim time. The comparison test of four different brands of size 4 diapers will be conducted on the six-month-old.

Nappy comparison

Table 1 displays the number of nappies used and the average time taken to change a nappy, which is not affected by the brand. Pampers provided control of 2:22 and 1:51 minutes for the upper and lower limits respectively coloured red in Figure 3. Rascal and Friends showed a variance of 15 seconds between the two days. However, there was a discrepancy on day six where the six-month-old had two extra nappies due to overflowing, which led to dirty clothes. The hypothesis of using a different nappy brand to reduce the nappy-changing time was unsuccessful. Failure is an opportunity for further improvement; differences in nappy brands in terms of the performance objectives of cost, quality, durability, and sustainability can be further analysed.

Performance Objective 5 Pole Analysis

As mentioned, Pampers was chosen to reduce the risk of stained clothes after Tesco nappies would cause leaking. The youngest six-month-old child started from the beginning with Pampers Nappies. A summary of the performance objective of the four nappy brands is shown in Figure 4:

1.????Pampers has two areas that need improvement: price and quality. Quality is at 3 as the pull tabs on the sides of the nappy would sometimes tear off while changing the nappy.

2.????Tesco shows the lowest scores in four out of the five categories as nappies would leak and when applied would easily tear.

3.????Rascal and Friends is a pull-up nappy like normal pants without any tabs on the sides to close. The assumption was that it will reduce the time of changing a nappy, but this was not the case. It took much longer for the six-month-old to wear the nappy due to their inability to stand. The nappy leaked through two layers of clothing on two occasions. Nonetheless, there was a difference in the weight of the baby advertised on the pull-up nappy, such as the size 4 nappy for babies weighing 10–15kg vs 8–13kg of the other brands. The scoring reflects these shortcomings.

4.????Lidl nappies were uniform in all categories as it was the cheapest and did not tear easily or had any leaks.

The 5-pole analysis suggests that switching from Pampers to Lidl nappies would result in cost savings without compromising on quality. The only disadvantage is that Lidl is situated one mile further than Tesco. The analysis concludes that the financial benefits outweigh the additional travel distance.

Improvements

The 5S’s (Slack et al., 2022, p571) is a methodology that aims to improve a process by eliminating waste, organising the workplace, standardising procedures, and sustaining good practices. The How to Guide of Lean Production (n.d.); Pannell (2020) were used to perform the 5S methodology.

1.????Sort - Seiri?(整理): Removing all items from the area and re-organising items into categories of clean laundry, dirty laundry, nappies, wipes, essentials, and nonessential items such as medication and vitamins.

2.????Straighten - Seiton?(整頓): From left to the right; the nappy organiser is kept on the ledge, the bin was moved onto the lower bay window seating area to make it reachable, the changing mat is placed next to the bin, and the right, there are two small laundry baskets placed to dispose of any dirty clothes.

3.????Shine - Seisō?(清掃): Two small cat-shaped laundry baskets are placed for dirty clothing to shine the nappy-changing station. Where the ledge would hold medications, these have been moved to a small caddy on the bay window to keep the area clean.

4.????Standardise - Seiketsu?(清潔): The ledge only has the nappy cream, wipes, and the nappy organiser, which holds only nappies in the three compartments, one for the six-month-old with size 4 nappies and two for the 21-month-old for Daytime and Night-Time nappies.?

5.????Sustain - Shitsuke?(躾): The weekly collection of bins by the council, also known as the “bin day”. The process is a checklist to refill up to 44 nappies for each child, restock the wipes and empty the bins on both nappy-changing stations. Further ensuring that the standards set have been adhered to, the laundry baskets follow the washing laundry process cycle.

Analysis Summary

Conversely, the nappy changing station has been improved to an acceptable level. A Kaizen event is finding a way to store fresh clothing nearer the downstairs changing station. After completing the 5S and VSM, laundry is another process requiring improvement.

Literature review

Gemba derived from the Japanese term "the actual place," involve observing processes without making immediate improvements (Slack et al., 2022). This helps assess performance objectives such as cost, quality, sustainability, durability, speed, and flexibility. Using a Value Stream Map as a visual representation, one can analyse external factors that can aid in improving the process. The hypothesis test and 5-Pole show that analysing and then verifying reduces inefficiencies from being added (Heyde & Seneta, 2001). Adams’s (1963) Equity Theory is shown when the Gemba walk respects the employees by listening to their feedback. Thus, the output of reduction in waste by moving the bins to an acceptable height is observed.

The Value Stream Map (VSM) visually represents the supply chain for a process as observed from a Gemba. It will uncover non-value-added activities and denote the appropriate tool (Snee, 2010). The Hypothesis test failed in the analysis above, which led to using the 5S methodology. The 5S is a simple tool to implement and allows for quick wins, but flaws should be shown at this level. A flaw in the essay was that the 5S were blindly trusted. According to a chart, depicted in Figure 5, in a study by Leotsakos et al. (2014), the 5S's form a cycle and "Sustain" is not the final step but a signal to begin the 5S process again. The problems and solutions statement must be shown at each stage to quantify outcomes (Wilson, 2012). The Pareto charts can then be used to inform when to move to the next S or find a new process to improve (Beno et al., 2021). The Pareto principle states that 20% of issues in a process will yield 80% improvements (Slack et al., 2022, p467). Beno et al. (2021) used the Pareto charts to stop the overdoing of process improvement. Mixing the Lean Six Sigma toolbox to enrich tools in the DMAIC steps enables process-improved techniques to grow (Snee, 2010). Being critical of Lean, Six Sigma and other methodologies is a form of Kaizen that one must perform.

The tools used or the framework needing to be adhered to could be why the hypothesis fails. The analysis above implies that the DMAIC process (Figure 6) was being used. The Define phase was the 3-level analysis and Gemba, and the Measure phase tracked changing times. The Analyse phase is the 5-pole comparison of different brands of nappies. The VSM showed other areas to improve as the hypothesis failed the analysis. However, instead of continuing with the DMAIC process, the analysis skipped to using the 5S methodology by bringing agility of moving from Six Sigma to Lean.

DMAIC is subliminally used in the analysis above, Figure 6 shows that each phase of DMAIC has a tool, while not implicit for only that phase. The 5S’s “Sustain” can be interpreted as Kaizen sitting in the Improve phase. When DMAIC is viewed as a cycle, it becomes Kaizen. The NIST framework uses the cycle to Identity, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover in cybersecurity. These similarities show how deep the Deming Cycle (Slack et al., 2022, p 517), shown in Figure 7, goes in various industries. There is one issue when Lean Six Sigma is being implemented in the fields that are not manufacturing the issue is how to follow the process and choose the correct tool to improve processes when tasks are very hard to perform. Snee (2010) shows two issue types; Human and Process, that businesses seek to improve:

Henceforth, matching the issue with the company goals leads to the process that should be used. Table 2 shows Lean, Six Sigma (6σ), Agile, Design of Six Sigma, and House of Productivity and the areas to improve against.

Nonetheless, considering the process to improve the nappy-changing process by Lean itself would have posed as the better option, and continuous improvements to revalidate the characteristics will lead to reaching a fully comprehensive system. It should be noted that during the Theory of Constraints, Total Quality Management, or Design Think, a framework is not chosen and kept to it. Jack Welch's success in merging Lean Six Sigma with ISO9000 for GE (Slater & Prichard, 1998; Watson, 2001), as tools, techniques, and philosophies are shared between the three methodologies. Kaizen, shown in Figure 8, is about improving a methodology and then improving a problem (Manos, 2007; Singh & Singh, 2009).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the analysis and implementation of Lean Six Sigma to a mundane task afford one to gain valuable knowledge that may not be possible in the industry. Unlike in industry, failure at home does not result in financial loss or company collapse, making it more rewarding when critically examining the failure. The literature review concluded that the OM frameworks should not be used as how-to guides but as tools in a toolbox. The nappy-changing procedures have undergone enhancements via efficient OM techniques. To ensure the continuity of these improvements, forthcoming Kaizens will be executed for the laundry process, coupled with the inclusion of visual cues, such as alarms aligned with the lower control limits and replenishment activities aimed at reaching the upper control limits. The approach will be predicated on a well-considered analysis of the problem statement to attain these subsequent procedural objectives.

References:

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Heyde, C. C., & Seneta, E. (2001). Statisticians of the centuries. Springer Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0179-0

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Leotsakos, A., Zheng, H., Croteau, R., Loeb, J. M., Sherman, H., Hoffman, C., Morganstein, L., O'leary, D., Bruneau, C., & Lee, P. (2014). Standardization in patient safety: the WHO High 5s project. International journal for quality in health care, 26(2), 109-116.

Manos, A. (2007, Feb 2007). The Benefits of Kaizen and Kaizen Events. Quality Progress, 40(2), 47-48. https://0-search.proquest.com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/magazines/benefits-kaizen-events/docview/214768622/se-2?accountid=14888

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Appendix

Index of Figures

Figure 1 - 3 level of the household and process flow of nappy-changing.

Figure 2 - Value Stream of Nappy-Changing Station

Figure 3 - Time series chart of the 8-day analysis

Figure 4 - 5 Pole Analysis of nappy brands

Figure 5 - The 5S Cycle

Figure 6 - DMAIC Process and Tools

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Index of Tables

Table 1 - Record per day of Average change time and number of nappies

Table 2 - Checklist of System Characteristics (Kovach et al., 2005, table 1 p5)