Tools to make any organization more efficient

The Tools

For many years, we have been working with and on becoming more #efficient. The few times the world has seen inventions that have created quantum leaps of improvement, has resulted in employees who gets scared of losing their jobs.

For 140 years ago, there were a big strike, when the first machines were replacing manual work. The employees in factories were sure that most of them, would be fired. In the 1980s, everyone feared for their jobs, when office automation machines (computers) came and replaced punch cards etc.

Now we fear artificial intelligence!

But it is not the few great inventions that have created the overall improvements. It is the many ongoing small improvements. The ones that don't cost anything and that everyone can work together to create.

Japan is a small country and have always stood in the shadow of big brother China. In addition, they were squeezed industrially by the United States. Therefore, there was a need for improvement. And 100 years ago, several efficiency concepts and tools were defined by the Japanese.

We in the West have tried and are trying to copy those tools.

Misunderstanding of those tools:

However, we in the West have been slow to understand the culture and the meaning of how these tools should be used. Just think about:

? #TPS, which is often translated into the Toyota Production System. Books have even been written. Which has been interpreted as a management philosophy. From the top down in an organization. In other words, managers and experts must come and analyze and find solutions for everything. But few know, that TPS stands for Thinking People System. In other words, the Japanese approach is that it is the employees who must get to know the tools and drive the improvements.

? #TPM, which the Japanese created in the year 1924, has also been "translated" by the West to mean that we must have reliable and stable machines and that it is primarily the maintenance department that drives this. Again, we have not understood the culture and meaning of this. TPM stands for Total Productive Maintenance. Total because it applies to the maintenance of people, methods, environment, goals, materials, and machines. It's about the whole company. And it includes leadership.

? #Lean Culture is often something that production companies have adopted. In several companies there are one or few Lean experts or CI-managers. This is again a misconception of/from the West. For the Japanese, a LEAN culture is a KAIZEN culture. Everyone in the company works to continuously make things better.

? #Motorola created Six Sigma. They were the first to introduce belts as an expression of competency levels in six sigma. Again, the West has misunderstood the Americans.

#SixSigma is based on teamwork and that everyone is involved. Yes, the focus is on variation in the processes and #measurement, but involvement is broad. Everyone must have the knowledge of what Six Sigma is.

What is also interesting is that, in the northern part of the world, we have prioritized #LEAN first. I often encounter, "Well, it came first and it's for everyone". The Lean concept is the newest! – invented by 2 authors in year 1992. Next to Lean, Six Sigma is chosen. Few focus on TPM.

This is why TPM is important:

If we go to the USA, Asia or just south of Hamburg, TPM is the most widespread tools. There is a very good reason for that.

In many quality houses and models, the foundation of the "houses" are based on standards and stability (Danish drawing). Usually, we build a house from scratch (foundation).

This means that the basis for all #improvements is that we have stability and standard #processes. Which tool is used for this? Yes, guessed right. It is TPM. As used properly, contains both LEAN and Six Sigma tools.

TPM is about stabilizing and standardizing the processes, the people, the machines, the materials, the working environment, and the goals. This means that we have reliability and predictability of how our company works.

What your organization needs:

Then we can become a “100-meter” champion in LEAN and Six Sigma. Or have competence lifted in our company, so that all 3 toolboxes are implemented.

Precisely the combination of working to create stability/reliability (TPM) - Flow/reduce lead times (Lean) and Quality/reduce variations (Six Sigma) is the perfect approach. You can be sure that if you are challenged in one of the areas, the other 2 are present too.

The Japanese call it for #MURI – #MUDA – #MURA.

Competence levels

Six Sigma and Motorola were the first to introduce belt levels. This has since spread to Lean. This with the same belts.

The belts are built around Bloom's taxonomy. Bloom was the first to divide learning into levels. He divided it into Qualifications (#knowledge – understanding); Competences (apply – analysis) and Creativity (design – teach). The belts are White (Knowledge); Yellow (understanding – apply); Green (apply – analysis) and Black (design – teach).

A company that wants a continuous improvement culture should have 100% White Belt; 30% Yellow belt; 10% Green Belt and 1% with Black Belt.

We have made it easier to implement TPM. We offer TPM in all 4 belt levels. We recommend to begin with TPM Yellow Belt. Furthermore, our training is structured so that everyone in a company can use TPM in their department (Booking, Sales, inventory etc.).

Hope to have inspired you. Please feel free to contact my on [email protected]

Have a great summer, Torben

www.c-value.dk