If you've been following this blog or go back through past posts you'll recall discussions about having a five year plan to embed lean in the culture here at Genoa Design. Last Friday we used one of our Fluent Consortium days and invited David Haire, Vice President Best Practices and Lean Management, Atlantic Canada for the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association to assist us in finalizing the plan. We also invited Project Managers at Genoa for input. Darren, our VP Operations took a break from enjoying his new RV at Gushues Pond Park to join us also.
We strayed from the agenda often (we need to establish some rules around conducting meetings) but finally managed to clear up some items and confirm through the team that we were on the right track. During a meeting with Leonard on Monday we finalized key items including our goal, the project charter, deliverables, principles, and how all of the "to do's" would fit in our five year plan which you may recall are named from the five s's.
Here's the goal, deliverables, and principles:
Lean Project Goal
Genoa’s mission statement has as its primary objective, to “apply lean principles to projects”. A strategic plan to embed lean in Genoa’s culture is necessary to achieve this company commitment to employees and customers. The goal then, is to embed the lean culture in the company to meet and sustain the mission statement.
Project Deliverables
-Strategic plan for lean progression and sustainability
-Employee training and lean skills development plan
-Improved communications throughout Genoa Design
-Employee teams that are empowered to drive improvement
-Visual display of lean strategy and measurable project performance
Project Principles (our version of the lean principles you'll find in any of the lean literature)
-A business approach that defines value from the perspective of the customer
-Manage the business by defining value streams and continuously improve their performance
-Develop a production process that creates flow
-Determine a rate of production that will allow management of projects based on takt time
-Pursue perfection
On another note, we also finalized our date to host the next Fluent Consortium meeting which will take place in a couple of weeks. Leonard and I have held many discussions on how to get maximum value out of the consortium. Both from the 10 consulting days that comes with membership and value from the members themselves and the relationships built through the group. In my previous life, I represented Canada Post as a consortium member and was always an advocate of specific lean projects and reporting on and learning from lean project progress. That is, tools used, methods, solutions, mistakes, etc.
Following much discussion on this subject, Leonard and I agreed that at the meeting we host we will share these things with our guests so that it's more about them learning than us receiving feedback. That way every member benefits equally rather than the host gaining the most benefit. Our feedback will be from members who will help us build on what we've done and what we're doing and how we can help them build.
That all said, this weekend marks Canada Day. For those of you outside our country, July 1st, 1867 is when British Colonies north of the USA united under the British North America Act to become the Dominion of Canada. It was called Dominion Day until 1982. Not all of the current provinces joined in 1867, there were a few stragglers, the last being our province of Newfoundland joining in 1949.
So, on Sunday, hoist a glass of your favorite tipple and join Canadians in celebrating our 140th year.
Ken Hogan
Lean Guy at Genoa
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Lean Lessons at Nor-Shipping 2007
I have just finished a week in Oslo, Norway, attending Nor-Shipping 2007. I have always known that "Lean" has global significance and relevance, but I learned this week that it also faces the same casual disregard from many companies, as it does in North America. My take-aways from the show:
Competitive Advantage
As I explained our service to exhibiting companies at the show (our service - providing production design and manufacturing deliverables to shipyards) I found myself wanting to speak about the one point which may separate us from the typical marine design office, of which there are many around the world. My focal point, other than the fact that we specialize in production design and not initial design, was Lean. I explained that by being a subscriber to the philosophy of Lean, and trying to operate our business by these principles, we not only seek to continually improve our process and strip waste, but we can also pass this knowledge onto customers, which can result in savings for them.
Value-Added Service
As we make headway with improvements, we are anxious to share our results and lessons with customers. There is always something to learn, especially through failure, but we are all anxious to avoid mistakes. A great way to avoid mistakes is to learn through someone else's. When we learn these lessons vicariously, we eliminate the risk. Of course, this means that by adopting successful processes as proven by another party, we can experience success with minimal investment in addition to minimal risk. To be honest, Genoa has willingly volunteered to be a guinea pig. The risk, by our own measure, is minimal since we adopt new processes and measures under carefully planned execution, using the principles of Lean. However, not everyone understands and has faith in Lean principles like we do, and certainly not everyone is willing to change without a proven track record. It is the "Devil-you-know, vs the Devil-you-don't" syndrome. With this perspective, we have a lot to offer in added-value. I would also add, that the best lessons learned are through our own mistakes. It hurts, but it sticks.
Ice-Breaker
This week I often talked about Lean, rather than stick to a "sales pitch". Not only was I more comfortable myself in this approach, but all parties involved in the conversation were more comfortable and sometimes opened up into a sincere chat about business, process, troubles and success. These types of conversation are always valuable and enjoyable, and sometimes lead to valuable insight and market intelligence. One just has to be careful not to waste peoples' time at a busy trade fair....in other words keep the trade fair a Lean process within itself.
Casual Disregard
My last comment concerns people's awareness of Lean. After a couple of days at Nor-Shipping, it was evident that I was doing more sharing about Lean than receiving. I was not annoyed with this, but I was concerned. Third day into the show, and while walking out of the hotel, I saw one of the hotel conference rooms in use, with little kits of lego scattered around the room and throughout the tables. I then noticed the title on the white board "Using TPS To Increase Shareholder Value". It was Ernst and Young; obviously undergoing an introductory Lean course. I was thrilled! I felt like barging into the room and asking them a thousand questions! It occurred to me that Lean must be about sharing in both directions. This empahasized for me the importance of our Lean Consortium, where the environment is all about mutual sharing and helping one another. The only way to ensure this continues is to work on increasing awareness. Trying to practice Lean by oneself will not work. Lean involves analysis and specific measures and tools to achive results, but one of the most important aspects of it all is communal brainstorming and sharing of ideas. Whether internally within the company, or externally between companies, the tools and ideas we bring back from any session of facilitated and careful brainstorming and problem solving, are of tremendous value. Without sharing and communication, Lean is nothing more than micro-management. Just to bring it back to the top....when people ask me if I am concerned about sharing and talking about Lean, whether I may be giving away a competitive advantage, I can now respond unquestionably that it is the communication and sharing that will help us continue. If we don't share and communicate internally and externally, Lean will die at Genoa.
I think I had a good show!
Competitive Advantage
As I explained our service to exhibiting companies at the show (our service - providing production design and manufacturing deliverables to shipyards) I found myself wanting to speak about the one point which may separate us from the typical marine design office, of which there are many around the world. My focal point, other than the fact that we specialize in production design and not initial design, was Lean. I explained that by being a subscriber to the philosophy of Lean, and trying to operate our business by these principles, we not only seek to continually improve our process and strip waste, but we can also pass this knowledge onto customers, which can result in savings for them.
Value-Added Service
As we make headway with improvements, we are anxious to share our results and lessons with customers. There is always something to learn, especially through failure, but we are all anxious to avoid mistakes. A great way to avoid mistakes is to learn through someone else's. When we learn these lessons vicariously, we eliminate the risk. Of course, this means that by adopting successful processes as proven by another party, we can experience success with minimal investment in addition to minimal risk. To be honest, Genoa has willingly volunteered to be a guinea pig. The risk, by our own measure, is minimal since we adopt new processes and measures under carefully planned execution, using the principles of Lean. However, not everyone understands and has faith in Lean principles like we do, and certainly not everyone is willing to change without a proven track record. It is the "Devil-you-know, vs the Devil-you-don't" syndrome. With this perspective, we have a lot to offer in added-value. I would also add, that the best lessons learned are through our own mistakes. It hurts, but it sticks.
Ice-Breaker
This week I often talked about Lean, rather than stick to a "sales pitch". Not only was I more comfortable myself in this approach, but all parties involved in the conversation were more comfortable and sometimes opened up into a sincere chat about business, process, troubles and success. These types of conversation are always valuable and enjoyable, and sometimes lead to valuable insight and market intelligence. One just has to be careful not to waste peoples' time at a busy trade fair....in other words keep the trade fair a Lean process within itself.
Casual Disregard
My last comment concerns people's awareness of Lean. After a couple of days at Nor-Shipping, it was evident that I was doing more sharing about Lean than receiving. I was not annoyed with this, but I was concerned. Third day into the show, and while walking out of the hotel, I saw one of the hotel conference rooms in use, with little kits of lego scattered around the room and throughout the tables. I then noticed the title on the white board "Using TPS To Increase Shareholder Value". It was Ernst and Young; obviously undergoing an introductory Lean course. I was thrilled! I felt like barging into the room and asking them a thousand questions! It occurred to me that Lean must be about sharing in both directions. This empahasized for me the importance of our Lean Consortium, where the environment is all about mutual sharing and helping one another. The only way to ensure this continues is to work on increasing awareness. Trying to practice Lean by oneself will not work. Lean involves analysis and specific measures and tools to achive results, but one of the most important aspects of it all is communal brainstorming and sharing of ideas. Whether internally within the company, or externally between companies, the tools and ideas we bring back from any session of facilitated and careful brainstorming and problem solving, are of tremendous value. Without sharing and communication, Lean is nothing more than micro-management. Just to bring it back to the top....when people ask me if I am concerned about sharing and talking about Lean, whether I may be giving away a competitive advantage, I can now respond unquestionably that it is the communication and sharing that will help us continue. If we don't share and communicate internally and externally, Lean will die at Genoa.
I think I had a good show!
Thursday, June 14, 2007
It's Testing Time!
I've mentioned a few times over the past weeks that we've been collecting data for the purpose of establishing an efficient bidding process as well as determining a production pace. Well, I've just finished the collection and assembly of all of the data in an excel file. (For those of you in the office it can be viewed on Genoa's network in the lean folder - I'll email the path to you).
To give you an idea of how much data that is, we've entered data from 18 projects dating back several years. That's data from every unit from each of these projects, roughly 200 units. There were also entrys not associated with units such as quality control and overall project management. Here's a summary of the data entered for each unit:
Project name and number
Unit description or number
Unit type (Bow, midbody, strn etc)
Number of Parts ( 5 categories)
Weight of parts (2 categories)
Unit Volume (3 -4 categories; l, w, h, area)
Hours worked per unit ( regular and overtime)
Hours worked by design function (modelling, assembly, nesting etc.)
Hours worked came from financial reports that Leonard and Darren had the foresight to set up, collecting hours by unit by design function. Parts and weight came out of reports ran from Ship Constructor. Volume information was calculated by opening up each individual unit in Ship Constructor and calculating volume. This volume information isn't readily availble just by opening a drawing so getting it was tedious to say the least. Much less tedious though because of the highly skilled Darren Letto.
Without counting them all that's over 3000 data entries not including the formulas. Very exiting stuff. After it was all entered, it had to be whittled down to manageable levels for analysis, so some combining of units was necessary and some data had to be thrown out because of it's questionable reliability.
So, what now? Well, I think we're ready for a test. Leonard is in Norway (maybe we'll see a blog post from there) so we haven't discussed this but the next step is to run a project bid using the data collected and compare it to what he comes up with using his current method. For now, we'll also use the data to run a project bid on a project that's already been completed to see how it compares to the actual hours worked.
More to come on that later but now I must mention that I'll be attending a dinner tonight where Genoa is being honored as the provincial recipient of the CBDC Business "Award of Distinction" for 2007 by the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Community Business Development Corporations. Leonard doesn't boast about these things so I won't either but I thought you all should know.
Congratulations Genoa, add it to your list of distinctions...and Darren, good luck with the speech.
Ken Hogan
Lean Guy at Genoa
To give you an idea of how much data that is, we've entered data from 18 projects dating back several years. That's data from every unit from each of these projects, roughly 200 units. There were also entrys not associated with units such as quality control and overall project management. Here's a summary of the data entered for each unit:
Project name and number
Unit description or number
Unit type (Bow, midbody, strn etc)
Number of Parts ( 5 categories)
Weight of parts (2 categories)
Unit Volume (3 -4 categories; l, w, h, area)
Hours worked per unit ( regular and overtime)
Hours worked by design function (modelling, assembly, nesting etc.)
Hours worked came from financial reports that Leonard and Darren had the foresight to set up, collecting hours by unit by design function. Parts and weight came out of reports ran from Ship Constructor. Volume information was calculated by opening up each individual unit in Ship Constructor and calculating volume. This volume information isn't readily availble just by opening a drawing so getting it was tedious to say the least. Much less tedious though because of the highly skilled Darren Letto.
Without counting them all that's over 3000 data entries not including the formulas. Very exiting stuff. After it was all entered, it had to be whittled down to manageable levels for analysis, so some combining of units was necessary and some data had to be thrown out because of it's questionable reliability.
So, what now? Well, I think we're ready for a test. Leonard is in Norway (maybe we'll see a blog post from there) so we haven't discussed this but the next step is to run a project bid using the data collected and compare it to what he comes up with using his current method. For now, we'll also use the data to run a project bid on a project that's already been completed to see how it compares to the actual hours worked.
More to come on that later but now I must mention that I'll be attending a dinner tonight where Genoa is being honored as the provincial recipient of the CBDC Business "Award of Distinction" for 2007 by the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Community Business Development Corporations. Leonard doesn't boast about these things so I won't either but I thought you all should know.
Congratulations Genoa, add it to your list of distinctions...and Darren, good luck with the speech.
Ken Hogan
Lean Guy at Genoa
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Genoa's Lean Plan and Lord Stanley's Cup!!
During my last few days here we've spent a lot of time talking about our long term objectives related to lean and how they fit with an overall plan. A few blogs back I talked about our decision to name the five successive years of this journey and introduced the committment Genoa is making here. Let me tell you that this is a significant step and a very patient vision of the company's long term confidence in the power of lean. For me, this is a WOW!!
Because the 115 year old Stanley Cup was won last night by the Anaheim Ducks I can't help but use a hockey analogy to describe how significant this vision is:...... Anaheim Ducks GM Brian Burke, and, ironically Brian Murray who is the runner-up Ottawa Senators head coach, put together a plan a number of years ago to draft tough, big, skilled, Canadian hockey players (19 Canadians on their roster). They believed this was the formula to a Stanley Cup. For those readers outside Canada who don't know waht the Stanley Cup is; it's the holy grail of the hockey world. http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/silver_vrtro.htm In Canada, hoisting the Stanley Cup is akin to ...well nothing really...but I did watch many men grin uncontrollably, giggle, and cry last night when they lifted it above their heads. For the lesser sports ... please forgive me for that, I'm Canadian... it's golfs Masters (Green Jacket), baseballs World Series (The Commissioners Trophy), footballs Super Bowl (Vince Lombardi Trophy), soccers World Cup (FIFA World Cup), ...you get the picture.
The formula for Burke and his team was a long term, patient approach, that involved many components including, leadership, a system of plays to execute, teamwork, training and development, a long term plan, discipline, and specific goals.
So why is Genoas long term plan a WOW! For me, as a lean professional, this vision is a company that "gets it". Too many companies approach lean with a view to get out cost as the only objective. Lean is not a quick fix, it's a way of running the business.
This past week we discussed value from customers perspective, training and development plans, communication strategy, production rates, human resource strategy, improvement teams, among other topics. Out of this discussion, we have brainstormed a list of the to do's necessary to piece together the five year plan. Incidently, lean is such a broad discipline, there is a lean tool that organizes the approach to all of these topics.
Now we need to meet to categorize this list, break up the to do's in an overall strategy and spread them out over the five year plan.
At the end, will there be a Stanley Cup. I doubt it because nothing fits in that category in terms of accomplishments, but there will be a few Green Jackets and Commisioners Trophies along the way. Please forgive me for that too.
Ken Hogan
Lean Guy at Genoa
Because the 115 year old Stanley Cup was won last night by the Anaheim Ducks I can't help but use a hockey analogy to describe how significant this vision is:...... Anaheim Ducks GM Brian Burke, and, ironically Brian Murray who is the runner-up Ottawa Senators head coach, put together a plan a number of years ago to draft tough, big, skilled, Canadian hockey players (19 Canadians on their roster). They believed this was the formula to a Stanley Cup. For those readers outside Canada who don't know waht the Stanley Cup is; it's the holy grail of the hockey world. http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/silver_vrtro.htm In Canada, hoisting the Stanley Cup is akin to ...well nothing really...but I did watch many men grin uncontrollably, giggle, and cry last night when they lifted it above their heads. For the lesser sports ... please forgive me for that, I'm Canadian... it's golfs Masters (Green Jacket), baseballs World Series (The Commissioners Trophy), footballs Super Bowl (Vince Lombardi Trophy), soccers World Cup (FIFA World Cup), ...you get the picture.
The formula for Burke and his team was a long term, patient approach, that involved many components including, leadership, a system of plays to execute, teamwork, training and development, a long term plan, discipline, and specific goals.
So why is Genoas long term plan a WOW! For me, as a lean professional, this vision is a company that "gets it". Too many companies approach lean with a view to get out cost as the only objective. Lean is not a quick fix, it's a way of running the business.
This past week we discussed value from customers perspective, training and development plans, communication strategy, production rates, human resource strategy, improvement teams, among other topics. Out of this discussion, we have brainstormed a list of the to do's necessary to piece together the five year plan. Incidently, lean is such a broad discipline, there is a lean tool that organizes the approach to all of these topics.
Now we need to meet to categorize this list, break up the to do's in an overall strategy and spread them out over the five year plan.
At the end, will there be a Stanley Cup. I doubt it because nothing fits in that category in terms of accomplishments, but there will be a few Green Jackets and Commisioners Trophies along the way. Please forgive me for that too.
Ken Hogan
Lean Guy at Genoa
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Project Plan - Project Charter - Project Scope - Communications Plan
I'm going to steal some other ideas from Ken, "The Lean Guy", and comment on them.
Ken has been working here at Genoa for approximately six or eight weeks now, and the focus for the last six of those weeks has been on an analysis of our historical data, in order to try to draw a relationship between our efforts and the particulars of the vessels we complete. The first couple of weeks were spent on some high level planning, determining that we would develop a five year program, and then communicating this intention to the everyone here at Genoa. I believe everyone was pleased that we were starting over in our Lean journey, and intending to change to approach as a more gradual and planned and step by step process, rather that the Tasmanian Devil Kaizen "All Hell Breaks Loose" approach, which tended to lack a plan for sustainment.
Ken mentioned yesterday evening that if he were staff here at Genoa, he would perceive Ken's efforts as hiding in a hole and doing detailed analysis and research, with no results or action to show to date. In order words, from staff perspective here at Genoa..."Here we go again".
This is a wakeup call.
I believe its time for some communication.
I believe its time for some action.
Ken has made progress with his analysis and determination of relationships between parts and volume and vessel type and hours and labour and takt time. I have made progress with a plan, and have a better idea how I would like to see the first two years of our 5 Year Lean program, and specifically the first year (being Genoa Seiri) will map out and what progress we can expect.
We have also finished some Kick-Off type project meetings, and the emphasis was on communications. Lessons Learned centred around poor communications plans.
I also recently attended the Annual International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) awards banquet in St. John's and listened to numerous communicators speak. Also listened to the "Communicator of the Year" speak...and guess what they talked about?
We have not communicatoed our intent to the staff lately. We have not communicated our most recent plan. In fact, we do not have a communications plan for our Lean Project?
I had to ask myself again why I have not handled this project like every other technical project that enters our shop?
Where was the Kick-Off?
Where is the scope document?
The Charter?
The Comm Plan?
In Scope? Out of Scope?
Project Goal? Can I define it clearly?
Time to regroup quickly and pull this all together before we launch into this project too fast, too far and too half-hazardly.
A meeting with Ken yesterday reinforced the need for all this.
Lets bring the goals forward into a visual format where everyone can see whats next, whats coming next year, and what the final expectation is. Lets draw up the charter, the scope document, the communications plan. Lets handle this project like every other that we start.
Refer to PIMBOK.
Refer to IABC for a perspective on communications.
Plan to follow....
Ken has been working here at Genoa for approximately six or eight weeks now, and the focus for the last six of those weeks has been on an analysis of our historical data, in order to try to draw a relationship between our efforts and the particulars of the vessels we complete. The first couple of weeks were spent on some high level planning, determining that we would develop a five year program, and then communicating this intention to the everyone here at Genoa. I believe everyone was pleased that we were starting over in our Lean journey, and intending to change to approach as a more gradual and planned and step by step process, rather that the Tasmanian Devil Kaizen "All Hell Breaks Loose" approach, which tended to lack a plan for sustainment.
Ken mentioned yesterday evening that if he were staff here at Genoa, he would perceive Ken's efforts as hiding in a hole and doing detailed analysis and research, with no results or action to show to date. In order words, from staff perspective here at Genoa..."Here we go again".
This is a wakeup call.
I believe its time for some communication.
I believe its time for some action.
Ken has made progress with his analysis and determination of relationships between parts and volume and vessel type and hours and labour and takt time. I have made progress with a plan, and have a better idea how I would like to see the first two years of our 5 Year Lean program, and specifically the first year (being Genoa Seiri) will map out and what progress we can expect.
We have also finished some Kick-Off type project meetings, and the emphasis was on communications. Lessons Learned centred around poor communications plans.
I also recently attended the Annual International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) awards banquet in St. John's and listened to numerous communicators speak. Also listened to the "Communicator of the Year" speak...and guess what they talked about?
We have not communicatoed our intent to the staff lately. We have not communicated our most recent plan. In fact, we do not have a communications plan for our Lean Project?
I had to ask myself again why I have not handled this project like every other technical project that enters our shop?
Where was the Kick-Off?
Where is the scope document?
The Charter?
The Comm Plan?
In Scope? Out of Scope?
Project Goal? Can I define it clearly?
Time to regroup quickly and pull this all together before we launch into this project too fast, too far and too half-hazardly.
A meeting with Ken yesterday reinforced the need for all this.
Lets bring the goals forward into a visual format where everyone can see whats next, whats coming next year, and what the final expectation is. Lets draw up the charter, the scope document, the communications plan. Lets handle this project like every other that we start.
Refer to PIMBOK.
Refer to IABC for a perspective on communications.
Plan to follow....
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Data Analysis - When enough data is enough?
An old boss of mine once referred to the pace of a project as "glacial speed". Sometimes I feel that's how were moving with this data collection process.
When is enough data enough? Well this is something I've always struggled with on improvement projects. The perfectionist in me says get every bit of data you can and keep getting it until you feel you have the answers to all the questions. One project I worked on, we analyzed a full year of machine throughput numbers and the distribution of each piece across a couple of thousand possible outputs. Millions of points of data (thank God for excel and import files). The lazy side of me says "it's good enough, move on". I have to recheck my patience when that happens.
The answer to the question of how much data is enough is really a method or approach. First, you need a data collection plan before you start. You have to answer a few simple questions starting with how your data will be displayed when you get it all. This basic question really helps you focus before completing the rest of the plan. In our case we decided to display the data we discussed previously in dot plots showing variation from the mean. That way we could explain away data outliers and come to a reasonable conclusion of what the rate of production capability really is.
Other questions to ask is what data is available and in what format. Old data may not be in the same format as is newer data. This was the case with our data collection, having several different collection formats that we needed to adjust for. You will aslo need to know where to get the data and if you plan to have others collect data you must be very clear in your requirements and maybe even run some test collection to ensure everyone is clear. You also need to address conditions that introduce variability in data such as proficiency of operators or process performance at the time. For example, in our case, some of the data we're using was collected before Kyran and others created lisp routines cutting out many key strokes.
The answer to the question then is.....develop a complete data collection plan and execute it. You will be sure to get the data you need in the right amounts. Don't skip steps and be patient in getting the right data you set out to get. It is the foundation for creating the future state map. Try creating the future state with bad data and see what you'll get.
Search some six sigma and lean sites to find more information on data collection planning and how to lay out a plan.
Lean Guy at Genoa
When is enough data enough? Well this is something I've always struggled with on improvement projects. The perfectionist in me says get every bit of data you can and keep getting it until you feel you have the answers to all the questions. One project I worked on, we analyzed a full year of machine throughput numbers and the distribution of each piece across a couple of thousand possible outputs. Millions of points of data (thank God for excel and import files). The lazy side of me says "it's good enough, move on". I have to recheck my patience when that happens.
The answer to the question of how much data is enough is really a method or approach. First, you need a data collection plan before you start. You have to answer a few simple questions starting with how your data will be displayed when you get it all. This basic question really helps you focus before completing the rest of the plan. In our case we decided to display the data we discussed previously in dot plots showing variation from the mean. That way we could explain away data outliers and come to a reasonable conclusion of what the rate of production capability really is.
Other questions to ask is what data is available and in what format. Old data may not be in the same format as is newer data. This was the case with our data collection, having several different collection formats that we needed to adjust for. You will aslo need to know where to get the data and if you plan to have others collect data you must be very clear in your requirements and maybe even run some test collection to ensure everyone is clear. You also need to address conditions that introduce variability in data such as proficiency of operators or process performance at the time. For example, in our case, some of the data we're using was collected before Kyran and others created lisp routines cutting out many key strokes.
The answer to the question then is.....develop a complete data collection plan and execute it. You will be sure to get the data you need in the right amounts. Don't skip steps and be patient in getting the right data you set out to get. It is the foundation for creating the future state map. Try creating the future state with bad data and see what you'll get.
Search some six sigma and lean sites to find more information on data collection planning and how to lay out a plan.
Lean Guy at Genoa
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Takt Time vs. Production Capability
The concept of takt time is important to understand. People use the word incorrectly all the time. Not particularly here at Genoa because it's hard to relate to takt in a project management environment so there hasn't been much talk of it, but it's used to describe everything from rate of production to cycle time to lead time. Takt will be used at Genoa eventually but first we need to determine production capability.
First it's important to realize that takt time is a measure of pace based on customer demand. In other words, at which rate is it necessary to produce in order to deliver on time to the customer.
Takt Time = Available working time / customer demand.
What we are currently seeking is the actual rate, or production capability, at which Genoa can produce. Using historical data we will know that we can model, assemble, nest and stiffen midbody's in a barge at a rate of 3.5 parts per hour (if that's the rate it turns out to be when the data is analyzed and verified). This is not sufficient if the customer needs Genoa to do this work at a faster rate.
When we first understand the production capability a customer will tell us what they want ie: A 160 ft boat that is 140 thousand cubic feet in volume has 8,600 parts. We can do this boat in 1700 hours all work included. That's roughly 5 parts per hour worked for everything. Now, if the client tells us they want all deliverables complete in 100 days we know we need to produce at a rate of 86 parts per day. We work 10 hour days so we we need two people, the second one only needs to produce at 36 parts per day in order to maintain pace and deliver on time. We can asign this second person to other work.
How can we do this and maintain visual indicators of pace? We already use MS Project to lay out the project tasks. We can calculate production rates by ship type, unit type, and volume. We can use these production rates to populate the project data in MS Project based on customer demand and the visual indicator of pace is simply whether or not we are on time using the project network diagram in MS Project. If everything is running as scheduled we are on pace if we are behind we know immediately and have to react to get back on track.
I was going to attach a file with data but I couldn't seem to attach it here.
Ken Hogan
Lean Guy at Genoa
First it's important to realize that takt time is a measure of pace based on customer demand. In other words, at which rate is it necessary to produce in order to deliver on time to the customer.
Takt Time = Available working time / customer demand.
What we are currently seeking is the actual rate, or production capability, at which Genoa can produce. Using historical data we will know that we can model, assemble, nest and stiffen midbody's in a barge at a rate of 3.5 parts per hour (if that's the rate it turns out to be when the data is analyzed and verified). This is not sufficient if the customer needs Genoa to do this work at a faster rate.
When we first understand the production capability a customer will tell us what they want ie: A 160 ft boat that is 140 thousand cubic feet in volume has 8,600 parts. We can do this boat in 1700 hours all work included. That's roughly 5 parts per hour worked for everything. Now, if the client tells us they want all deliverables complete in 100 days we know we need to produce at a rate of 86 parts per day. We work 10 hour days so we we need two people, the second one only needs to produce at 36 parts per day in order to maintain pace and deliver on time. We can asign this second person to other work.
How can we do this and maintain visual indicators of pace? We already use MS Project to lay out the project tasks. We can calculate production rates by ship type, unit type, and volume. We can use these production rates to populate the project data in MS Project based on customer demand and the visual indicator of pace is simply whether or not we are on time using the project network diagram in MS Project. If everything is running as scheduled we are on pace if we are behind we know immediately and have to react to get back on track.
I was going to attach a file with data but I couldn't seem to attach it here.
Ken Hogan
Lean Guy at Genoa
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)