What is Value, anyway?

One of my fellow engineers recently shared this story and gave me permission to share with you. It speaks for itself.

I had an experience this weekend which really made the idea of customer-specified value clear to me. I thought I'd share it with you.

As some of you know, I recently discovered that the diamond in my engagement ring had a chip in it. So, my husband and I took it back to the point of purchase last week Sunday and we were informed that the stone would be replaced free of charge, no problem. Great! I couldn't wait to pick the ring up a week later (yesterday) and get on with it. I do, after all, wear it every day and well, I sort of missed it.

So I go in yesterday to pick it up and I'm told to go back to the service area to retrieve the ring. I do this and the lady behind the counter very cordially greets me and goes off to retrieve my ring. She returns and hands me my ring and I excitedly replace it on my finger. And then I notice that my ring looks nothing like it did before. The diamond used to sit up much higher and frankly looked a lot bigger. This ring that I now have on my finger looks much smaller and a lot less attractive. It looks like someone took a hammer to it and squashed it down.

So, I told the woman this and she looked confused but then called the person who actually did the work. And he told me that "this setting is a lot more durable and less likely to wear". He added "You're going to like this a lot better."

For the record, I don't like it better. I hate it. It looks nothing like my ring and I have the wedding pictures to prove it :)

And the light went on. He incorrectly specified value rather than asking his customer to define it. The value of the ring, to me, is the aesthetic look of it. It is NOT its durability. When women talk about our diamonds we do not discuss their durability. We do not discuss how likely the ring is to wear and whether or not the ring will hold up during our next home improvement project. We talk about how sparkly they are and how large they are and how pretty they are. And since we are by and large the customers (directly or indirectly) of these rings, should they not be designed with our desires in mind?

So now I enter phase 2 of my ring saga where I must decide whether to trust the store with a further modification of my ring or whether I take it to a jeweler in my home town who can do absolutely anything and will, I know, actually listen to me!

Who decides “value”? The customer. Who delivers value? We do. How does this define waste? In terms of what the customer things value is.

Worth remembering.

Upside Down Visuals

Circuitously, I ended up shopping for shampoo recently. Actually, I was shopping for a shampoo bottle, not shampoo. My wife had found a deal on shampoo but it came in a big batch, a huge bottle. I wanted to find a smaller bottle to put in the shower.

As I wandered down the aisle, a fully clueless male clearly out of my element, I noticed some bottles were right side up, others upside down.

I decided I’d like one of the upside down bottles…it would keep the shampoo closer to the opening…less “waste of waiting” you know. I reached for one bottle…oops, the label said “conditioner” not shampoo.


I kept looking…and then it hit me. Sometime in the last decade, multiple manufacturers decided all shampoo would be in right side up bottles, while all conditioners would be in upside down bottles. BRILLIANT! A wonderful visual tool for a place when many people have impaired vision…no glasses, no contacts, not awake yet…the reasons are many.

Which got me thinking…what a great way for simple A-B differentiation of tools, supplies and other needed items. Upside down, right side up. Add color to the mix and it is even more useful. I’m looking for opportunities.

Keep on learning.

Eight Reasons for Buffer Inventory

Why have any Work-In-Process Inventory? Why have any intermediate subcomponents in your system?

1. It is a shock absorber for uncertainty.
   
2. It shows you where flow ends…thus you must do pull.
   
3. It shows you where you sense variability in your process.
   
4. It insulates you from vendors who don’t deliver on time.
   
5. It provides a tool for managing your entire process by observing buffer quanitities.
   
6. It gives you a quantitative way to see changes in customer demand.
   
7. It forces you to “declare” your process steps to others, making the process more transparent and visible.
   
8. It allows you to measure your progress to the degree you can decrease buffer inventory sizes as a proportion of your total inventory.
   

WIP, in itself is not a waste. Too much of it is a waste. And paying attention to it is central.

Keep learning.

Just what DO you do, while in Gemba?

The more I learn about Standard Work, the more I learn what I don’t know. Like peeling an onion, just to see another layer underneath, so working through Standard Work is an unending process for me.

Today’s observation. I’ve written quite a bit about "going to gemba", physically getting to the place where work is done to see for myself what is happening. And I’m now implementing my own standard work for the trip to gemba.

In each of several work areas, I have particular concerns. For me, as a leader and manager, I have to take specific actions to communicate to others my concerns. My objective, after all, is to engage others in addressing these concerns; I can’t operate under the illusion I will fix all problems. So, standard work for me is a) to go to the work place and b) take specific actions to reinforce action on the key concerns.

For example, in one work area, we have had issues scheduling daily work assignments. We now have a simple white board at the place of the morning start-up meeting. Yet, to make this more standard, I go to the board once each week and write encouraging comments on the board. In so doing, I want to communicate I see what is happening and encourage it to improve. I currently have four such activities to do weekly. I chart my done/not done on each. It is very humbling and alarming and encouraging...all at the same time.

At a deeper level (look out, onion), it is very arrogant of me to expect our team to do Standard Work if I am unwilling or unable to do Standard Work myself.

I have a long way to go. At least I know the road I am on.

Hoshin Kanri--a Surprise

Last week, I made a presentation to our local Lean network on Hoshin Kanri, the Lean system of strategic planning (you can look at the presentation here; I’ve also listed as a download on the sidebar). The group was attentive and gave good feedback.

But some of the feedback surprised me.

In our group are folks with a lot of Lean experience. They’ve been exposed to some of the best teachers in the field. Yet, these folks said they have been unfamiliar with Hoshin Kanri or unsure how to apply it. My attempts to make it a bit understandable seemed to help; which surprised me, since I’m a novice at the topic myself.

Which shows me one point; never assume you can’t make a contribution. In the effort to eliminate waste, to make organizations work well to deliver value quickly, we can never know everything. And each one can add to the understanding.

For me, when I try to teach something, I learn it better. I think most are the same way. Encourage those around you to teach; try to teach something yourself. Soon.

Waste gives birth to more Waste

Yesterday, I reviewed a large stack of invoices flowing through our company. In the midst of the pile, two caught my eye.

One particular vendor had two invoices. This vendor sells us some common, widely-available, commodity-like items. Each of the invoices had, along with the regular purchases, a single no-charge listing. One was for a T-shirt for a very popular NFL football team (size XL). On the other was a nice 2008 calendar. This triggered a memory of seeing a sleeve of Maxfli golf balls listed from the same vendor before.

Which got me wondering.

Is this vendor seeking to differentiate itself in a business where all of its competition sells pretty much the same stuff? By itself, that’s commendable. But, by giving away freebies, is it subtly enticing our company to NOT compare prices and service with other competitors? Look, I know the golf balls and the T-shirts are not free. I know we are paying for it, indirectly. It adds no value to our company, though it probably adds value to the golfers or football fans who benefit from the give-aways. Does it also drive waste for us, by paying too much for basic goods our company needs?

The realization triggered a direct review on my part of this vendor. You may want to poke around and do the same.

Standard Work for Managers = Go to Gemba

As many times as I've heard it, as many times as I've said it to others, I still have to relearn the lesson. Over and over.

Get to the workplace. Look. Listen.

It seems the culture of our supposedly modern managerial world is so driven by meetings and emails and reports to read and papers to sign we squeeze out what is truly important and transforming.

It it me afresh this week as I attempted to build into my routine a regular walk-through of each of our production areas. I made it standard work for me, as a manager/leader.

Like most aspects of standard work, it was not hard to do. It seemed routine. Yet, when I did the standard work of walking, looking at certain workplaces, greeting people by name, listening to their observations, good things happened. Very good things happened.

Further, how bogus is it for me to expect our production team to follow standard work in their processes if I don't follow standard work in mine? Yeah, embarassingly bogus.

I remind myself. If you need reminding too, consider your self reminded.

Wasting Attention

Kelly Forrister, a coach with David Allen of “Getting Things Done” fame, wrote recently on How much do you value your attention? She argued for the supreme value time has for each of us and how foolish we are to waste it. Specifically, she asked why we would hit “reply all” to an email when only one person needed the response. The response to all the others represented waste of their attention to open, read and process yet one more email.

Thus, I can contribute waste by asking someone to give up their attention to see something I pass along not worthy of their attention. I create muda with the simple click of a mouse.

Think about not wasting attention today in your email interactions.

And I truly hope I did not waste your attention with this post!

Blogging Update, plus links

Even though this space has been quiet for a while, I’ve been blogging quite a bit here during the fall.

I’ll be adding more items in Learning About Lean over the next few weeks. Mostly short, pithy items I hope get you thinking without wasting your time. I've also cleaned up the layout here, hope you like it.

Here’s a summary of my recent blogs on the IIE site:

Cut the batch size

What does standard work look like?

Waste not...even welding slag

It is the size of the scoop that matters

Yeah, but... (bad words to use)

Kanban the coffee!

I’ll add links here as well to those articles as they come up.

Where's Joe?

Where’s Joe?

I’ve not published in this space for a while. I should explain.

I’m on a blogging experiment and I welcome your input.

Early this fall, the Institute of Industrial Engineers contacted me and asked if I’d like to be one of a set of authors for their new blog. After some discussion, I decided to give it a go. There are six of us writing there, three on aspects of Lean and three others on related topics. You can see my blogs here and follow the links to see others. I’d suggest you utilize some sort of RSS feed to make it easier to know when something new is up. Full commenting facilities are there, so weigh in, please.

I only seem to have energy for one blog outlet at a time, so I’m going to run with this for a while, hoping to have more contact with the broader world of Industrial Engineering.

Let me know what you think!