TEAM LEADER ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

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The teaching objectives for this section are to:

1.     Explain why the team leader is the right person to do troubleshooting for the area.

2.     Explain how a fixed-position, line-stopping system works.

3.     Identify the main role of the Group Leader as working on improvement goals for the year.

TOYOTA WORK GROUPS AT THE HEART OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

Figure 1. Toyota Work Groups

The Team Leader has an advantage over the Group Leader. The Team Leader has performed every job in their area, in their group for long periods of time, so Team Leaders are experts on doing the work. See Figure 1. The Group Leader might have actually been a Team Leader and Team Member at some point, and in other cases the person is hired from outside with a degree, so they don't have that level of experience. So the Team Leader knows the job, and that really helps for problem solving, for troubleshooting. When the andon light goes on, the first thing you want to do is troubleshoot. You run up to the line, and ask, “What is the problem?”

You want to quickly identify the problem because in a Toyota plant the line is still running, and the car is still moving down the line--while that light is on--until the car moves into the next zone of the next worker, and then the line automatically stops. Now it won't stop if the Team Leader pulls the cord a second time; the Team Leader has the right to override the line stopping, and you might see a light come on, and the line actually doesn't stop and that's the reason why. 

The Team Leader noticed a problem that can be contained without stopping the line, and maybe a repair is needed, and the Team Leader walks with the car and does the repair. A recording happens --the time and place--whenever the line stops or the andon light comes on; the record provides a basis for improvement at the end of the day. Do you have several line stops? What are the reasons? Let's work on that problem. So you start with containment, and then you move to actually solving--not all the problems, not every single problem that happens that day but-- at least one or two of the bigger problems, and that's called Continuous Improvement, and the andon light is a great tool for that.  

Now the Team Leader has to have first of all, the ability to quickly understand the problem, and if they've done the job, they will understand it quickly; they'll ask a worker who's a peer, and then they must have the maturity and judgment to figure out how to contain the problem and to decide whether they should let the line stop. For example, a problem might have occurred on 15 other units that have already passed that station. That possibility would be a reason to stop the line and check all those units.

This is the work group; in the meantime if the Team Leader is dealing with the people on the line, what is the Group Leader doing? The Group Leader, when things are working well--which is not all the time--and the line is relatively stable, the Team Leaders are doing their jobs; then the Group Leader has time to work on improvement activities. The Group Leader has a whole set of objectives for the year, and we'll talk about that in the last phase of this course. Hoshin Kanri is the method of getting goals down to the shop floor level. So these are my improvement goals, and I have to record data, and I have to get the board set up for my meeting, and I have to work on the improvement project, and I also have to communicate with other people if we have a line stop. So there are things the Group Leader can do because he or she is not tied to the line like the team members or the Team Leaders. On a bad day two team leaders may call in sick, and that might have included a Team Leader, and then the Kaizen activities go on hold during the day. It's tougher to communicate with other groups and it's not a good situation, but it happens more than team members would like. 

On a really bad day machine maintenance may be required. The ideal situation is to have offline Team Leaders working on the job, and their job is to respond to the andon light; they are making quality checks; they are collecting data; they also have Kaizen projects; they are relieving people who need relief, and they have extensive skills; they've been trained in problem solving, and they have a problem solving project that includes each team member. Now in a really good situation, you might have only two Team Leaders offline and two Team Leaders working jobs, and two Team Leaders may be enough to respond to the andon light and do what needs to be done offline, and then you rotate them. So sometimes they're working on jobs, and sometimes they're offline and still in full-time team leader roles. When they are intimate with the work it is the ideal situation for making improvement happen. 

So this is what I call the heart of Continuous Improvement and that's pretty serious. 

Most of us care about how our heart works, and yet this heart has been ripped out of most organizations, and it's very rare that I see Continuous Improvement. So you take it pretty seriously if somehow you lost your heart, or it stopped working, but these organizations just go along their daily business and don't seem to notice. So if you remove Work Groups, you don't have Continuous Improvement. You have periodic improvement usually where a special project has been assigned by Managers and some Specialist from Engineering. Or someone from the black belt organization comes out and leads the project, and then they leave and go back to doing their work. So a well-trained, well-developed Group Leader and Team Leader practicing self-development as I described-- are essential elements if you are serious about Continuous Improvement. Again Group Leaders and Team Leaders are missing from most organization because they are considered overhead, indirect labor.

Organizations are often judged by the ratio of direct and indirect labor. More than once I've been in a situation where--I remember one plant--it was crazy. We did a Kaizen workshop that week; we had five people working on the job; we took two people out of the job because the job was so inefficient, and we balanced it out, and then we suggested to the management that they work on Kaizen because the entire plant required work. There was plenty to do. First of all, the Plant Manager was upset that we had improved productivity, because by improving productivity and reducing two of the workers, the result was his direct, indirect labor measures looked bad. He had fewer people on the line in production, and he still had the same amount of indirect labor, and the CEO of this company, who is a mathematician, thought indirect to direct labour was one of the best measures of efficiency that had ever been invented. So the last thing the Plant Manager would want to do is to be more productive because you're going to get in trouble for it?I'm serious; this is a real case. So we were dealing with that and it didn't go well, so we ended up not working with them, but it helps if you have your measures kind of straightened out in some semi-rational way. 

Figure 2. The Andon Process

So Bruce asked, “Who and what determines when the line actually stops after the andon light is pulled? See Figure 2. Is there a buffer allowance as part of the standard for the andon process? The answer--that's actually a good question--the answer to the first question of who determines the line stopping is the Team Leader. If the Team Leader is responding to that andon, whoever responds to the andon makes a decision and Toyota calls this a fixed position line-stopping system. That term means this: The car moves to a fixed position, and the car enters the zone of the next process, the next assembly worker. Physically, when it reaches that zone, it triggers a photoelectric light beam, and--if that light is yellow and if the andon has been pulled--the light turns yellow. If the light is yellow and that car breaks that beam, the line shuts down automatically, so nobody has to make the decision. 

The equipment, the computers, make the decision. So that's actually by design; they don't want people to decide whether they should stop the line; they want people to decide whether they should prevent the line from stopping. The way to prevent the line from stopping is by pulling the cord a second time, and whoever responds to that andon light has to decide whether to pull the cord a second time.

So the Team Leader or the Team Member who pulls the cord is no longer responsible; their only responsibility is to call attention to a problem. Now they pull the cord and they go back to work, if they can. Often, for example, if they see parts are running down the line, they can still work. So they're still working and producing, and now they are waiting for the Team Leader or Group Leader to come over, and they will point to where the parts are running low. Then that person decides if there is still time to pull the cord and prevent the line from stopping; if I stop, the decision has been made. The reason they would pull the cord and prevent the line from stopping is if they're confident that they can solve the problem without the line stopping, and it hasn't affected other downstream units. 

One-Minute Review

·        The Team Leader has an advantage over the Group Leader in that he or she has performed all of the jobs in their area.

·        This really helps when an andon light is triggered because the Team Leader or Group Leader is expected to troubleshoot.

·        The line is still running when the andon light goes on, until it reaches the next zone where the line will stop automatically.

·        This is called a fixed-position, line-stopping system.

·        The Team Leader can pull the cord a second time and prevent the line from stopping.

·        The ideal is to have two leaders off line assisting in the improvement projects.

·        The Group Leader has time to work on improvement activities and he or she has improvement goals for the year.

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 All 75 learning articles are crafted together in the book, Developing Lean Leaders at All Levels: A Practical Guide, authored by Jeff Liker with George Trachilis. https://www.amazon.com/Developing-Lean-Leaders-All-Levels/dp/B00RDKTEX4

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George Trachilis (left) and Jeff Liker receive the Shingo Research Award in Washington, D.C. (2016)

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