Control Charts

The more I use them, the more I'm amazed at Control Charts. 
These simple, visual tools have been around for a long time.  And, I've observed, those with keen numeric skills have made them more and more complex. 

Yet the simple is good.  And handwritten is even better for communicating the state of a process to those involved in that process. 



Think about it.  It is a simple graph.  Time is plotted along the bottom.  It can be hours/shifts/days/months.  It doesn't matter what but the period needs to be appropriate for the data.  Then, each period, a person places a dot to measure the parameter in that period. 

The 3 horizontal lines are a mean or target level for the paramater and upper and lower control limits (UCL and LCL).  Typically, these lines are placed 2 standard deviations above and below the mean.

This recognizes that there is inherent varability in a process.  If the varability stays within bounds, the process is working.  If a point exceeds the bounds or shows a trend within the bounds, there is un-natural variablility. 

In the first case, we say the variation comes from common causes.  In the second, we call is special cause.  To mess with common causes is called "Tampering".  To ignore special causes is called "Neglect".  Don't tamper.  Don't neglect.

It's that simple.

Yet, the beauty of the control chart is not the dots or the lines or the statistics.  It is in the conversation the chart data provokes.  The chart focuses attention on the right thing...is the process stable?  If not, what causes the instability and how do we fix it so it stays stable, longer?  It allows the group to avoid finger pointing and talk about issues that matter. 

It happened again for me this morning.  It never gets old. 

If you are not using this simple tool, try it. 

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Seeing the Same Thing Differently

Confronted with a soul-suckingly deep pile of email in my in-box yesterday, I felt some level of despair.  I had to get through it but found the prospect extremenly discouraging.

When I recalled a trick I had read some years ago.  Rather than looking at the inbox with its default listing of most recent email first, resort the pile.  Sort it alphabetically by Subject.  Sort it by sender.  Reverse sort it by sender.  Anything.  Make the pile look different.

So I did.  And I quickly whittled the pile of 50+ emails down to the 10 that truly needed attention. 

And then I wondered: "Why is such a dumb little trick so effective?  I didn't alter the pile...I just rearranged it.  Why did is cease to be a despair-inducing exercise?"

I think it is just the new sequence.  Busting out of the chronological sequence into some other sequence, even one that doesn't make much sense.  It makes the inconsequential emails about available free kittens seem even more silly and more easily deleted. 

Which is also why it's good to look at any process backwards, rather than forwards.  You see new things.  And silly things which are so very deletable. 


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Kanban in a Resturaunt

For a couple of years now, my wife and I have enjoyed having lunch at McAlister's Deli, a line of resturaunts specializing in freshly prepared sandwiches, soups and salads served with exceptional levels of service.

A couple of weeks ago, we got a surprise while there. After our server brought us our food, she put a small red card on the table. "If you need a refill on your drinks, just flip this over," she said and walked away.

"This is a kanban card!" I exclaimed. My wife, a wonderfully patient woman, steeled herself once more for a monologue on pull systems and the beauty thereof.




Indeed, it was a pull system, in all its simple spendor but applied in a place not often expected to use such a tool.

The card is quite simple. If you are happy and don't need any attention, you leave the red side up, near the edge of your table. The server sees it and takes no action.


But once you are thirsty and need a refill (and those of you who have eaten with me realize this is often the case), you flip the card to green. Green means "go" and, in our experience, within 60 seconds a helpful server stops by, picks up the glass, confirms what drink you had, refills it, brings it back to the table and flips the card back to red.



It is just that simple.



Think about what this does for the customer. When you need service, you don't have to crane your neck, wondering if someone will stop by. Instead, you simply flip the card over and, soon, a person stops at the table. Conversation, the reason many eat out, continues uninterrupted. You finish sentences...you explore topics in depth... you don't wonder when or if you'll get another Diet Coke. In Lean terms, the customer gets more value.

Think as well what this does for McAlisters. The eye can move much faster than the foot. So, a simple scan by a server of a group of tables says, in seconds, who needs service and who wishes to be left alone. This allows a single server to handle more tables, more efficiently. Yeah, productivity.

All while providing added value to the customer.

At vitually no extra cost. All for a few laminated cards.

It is amazing what simple systems can do. Where can you apply this?



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Make mine sausage with extra cheese

My colleague April came up with an excellent illustration last week which I'd like to share.

While training some new associates on the use of kanban cards, she discovered some misunderstandings. Some felt that they needed to take the card, walk over to the supply crib, get the supplies and walk back to their workplace. They didn't grasp the use of the kanban post and the role of the water spider to come by at prescribed times, take the cards and replenish the supplies.

"Think of it this way," April started in. "You're at home and want some pizza. You have two options, right? You can get in your car, go to the pizza place and bring it home. Or you can call the pizza place and have it delivered."

Everyone nodded, their mouths salivating slightly for some tomato paste on thin crust.

"Well, the kanban card is like the pizza delivery guy. You place the card in the post and that's the 'order' to be delivered later."

Lights came on. The kanban card is the order. That's all I need to do.

April then used the opportunity to show waste: "Further, you don't want to make all those trips to the pizza joint. That's just wasting time and gas." Everyone nodded.

"And, you know the best part of our 'delivery' via kanban?" She had some puzzled looks and she knew she had the audience. "You don't have to tip the driver!"

She made the point, and made it memorable, with a clear, simple example from everyday life.

Feel free to use it!! And don't forget the bread sticks!

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Engaging Consumers to Fight Clutter

Is it possible to get untrained, uninitiated, unconnected people to participate in your efforts to deliver value? Consider this example that caught me totally by surprise in a very unexpected moment.

In October, I had the chance of a lifetime to take a 12 day vacation in Italy with my three sisters and our spouses. During our trip, we rented a house for a week in the not-too-touristy city of Lucca. Since we wanted breakfast and some other meals at the house, we had to figure out how to shop for groceries in a new city, not speaking any Italian.

Our spouses voted 4-0 that the Ely kids should make the first run to the grocery store. Once there, speaking no Italian, my sisters and I started to find the cereal, fruit, eggs, milk and chocolate...necessities each. In proper sisterly fashion, they dispatched me to find a shopping cart.

I observed other shoppers had carts but I could not see where to get one of my own. Finally, I noticed a covered rack of perfectly ordered carts in the parking lot. I went out to get one. And boy was I surprised by what I found.



The neat row of carts were cleverly linked together. Looking around for some visual clues, I saw some drawings which showed a one Euro coin (about $1.50) as the "key" to release the cart from the one ahead of it. My sister Anne came out looking for me. She fortunately had the right coin and plunked it into the small plastic gizmo mounted on the handle of the cart.



She pushed the red coin holder into the housing, the chain dropped and the cart popped loose.



We didn't exactly start singing opera but felt a little smarter. We did our shopping, were pleased my oldest sister's credit card was multi-lingual, loaded the groceries into our car and then wondered just what we were supposed to do with the cart. Pushing it back to the still-neat row of carts, I reversed the process, inserting the chain from the next cart into the plastic gizmo. Pop, out came the coin. And I finally realized what was going on. I thought "Wow, what a cool system!"

Rather than the messy, spread-out, disorganized pockets of carts we see in most US groceries, this simple system provided an incentive for shoppers to return the cart. And when shoppers do it right, the use of the cart is free. I simply had to "loan" a coin to the store for the time it took me to shop.

Interestingly, during the course of the week's stay in Lucca, we made other trips to the store and observed another social dimension of this system. We saw several shoppers accept the help to load their groceries into their car. In return, the helper took the cart back to the rack and pocketed the coin; effectively a tip for the help.

I subsequently learned one discount grocer operating in America has the same system for their Aldi Foods shopping carts.

Why do I mention this? Because well-conceived systems with visual tools and simple economic incentives can eliminate a lot of wasted effort. And if it is possible to do this in a grocery store parking lot, how much more inside our companies?? We have a lot of room for creativity.

Updated: I learned, via a comment, I was wrong in my assumption Aldi was an American-based store. It is owned by a German company. My mistake.

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