Leader Standard Work Archives

Organizing for Kaizen: Chronos and Kairos Time

Finding time for Kaizen. That is a question is regularly get. Continual improvement sounds very interesting and promising as a concept, but when it gets practical, many organizations struggle to find a way to make it practical for themselves. They can’t see themselves sacrificing valuable time to improvement, as productivity will suffer. Or they expect Kaizen to happen all by itself. And when they find out that it isn’t happening, they dismiss the topic, and state that it doesn’t work in their environment and culture. Or they invest the task of Kaizen with a special group of elite improvement agents and find out that change is slow and produces little returns, after which the group is dismantled after the first financial pressure presents itself. So how do we need to organize for Kaizen? (more…)

How Many S’s in 5S?

5S is a well-known method. It is used in creating, standardizing and maintaining a well-organized workplace. The 5S’s thereby refer to the five steps in the method, i.e., sort out, set in order (or: straighten), shine (or: sweep), standardize and sustain (or: self-discipline). But sometimes you see discussions about whether it should be 3S, 4S, 5S or even 6S. A post about the number of S’s and what it may tell you. (more…)

Anchoring Improvement: Six Lessons from the Sea

In my work with companies trying to transform into a Lean company, it continues to strike me how difficult they find it to sustain, or anchor, improvements in their daily work habits. The improvements that were suggested are well-meant, on-target, but still, they don’t seem to stick. I often see that the teams developing the suggestions as well as the organization as a whole are not always conscious of the context required in which change can truly root. Because of this, improved standards are quickly compromised, the organization returns to its previous habits and, as a result, performance doesn’t improve. It may even lead to increased skepticism towards future initiatives making it increasingly difficult to improve. What can organizations do about this? When talking about anchoring change, it is maybe interesting to try and learn from the captains and mates that actually anchor ships: six lessons from the sea. (more…)

Delivering upon the Promise of Kanban

Kanban implementations are often disappointing and short lived. Companies are promised better service, lower inventories and level demand. But more often the system is abandoned after a short period as it has turned the shop floor into chaos… What went wrong? (more…)

Lean Evolution: Experiencing the Effects of Lean

Over the last year I have worked with a client on introducing, developing and securing Lean Management on various locations in the Netherlands and abroad. Recently, a more formal evaluation with top management and the management of the involved locations took place. It’s always interesting then, to hear how Lean Management is actually experienced across an organization. Through this blog post I thought it would be nice to share some of these experiences with my readers. Lean Management is sometimes interpreted as only a technique, although I think that in the end it involves a complete turnaround in the way people think and act with consequences for the associates, managers, the mutual relations and collaboration, processes and problem-solving, performance and customers. (more…)