Applying Lean in the kitchen:World record time unloading the dishwasher

New World record time unloading our dishwasher and placing all dishes, silverware, and cups away: 1 minute and 30 seconds on 1/28/09.

It's fun to set world records. Guinness may not care but it's cool to turn work into a game which helps draw the kids into it. My youngest son and I have a two person unloading record of two minutes and forty six seconds but we should be able to smash based on what we have learned about standardized work. Here's a few lesson we learned:

• We load our plates and bowls on the bottom rack.
• When the dishes are clean, we can take the entire bottom rack out and set it on the counter for faster unloading.
• Turning the silverware caddy around 180 degrees makes the unloading easier and faster.
• Cups and large spoons are loaded in the top of the rack.
• Placing similar cups in the same rack row makes for faster collection and stacking.

The kitchen work is getting simpler and easier because we eliminating the variability of how the dishes are loaded. The process is not perfect but it is getting better little by little. In fact, I am seeing more improvements everyday as we are moving slowly and building "kitchen consensus".

What have you improved today?

Dan Lafever, Kaizeneer

Applying Lean to the kitchen; Fewer dishes, less work!

I have been using flow to reduce the work for dishes and reduce the number of utensils used in a day. Collecting some data, I determined that we were using around 21 cups a day as a family of six. In other words, we were using reusable cups like they were disposable. Also, the dishes piled up in the sink in a batch and queue system all the time making more work for my wife and I after a hard days work. So, kaizen to the rescue.

• The device below is a small cup holder I made out of a shoebox to "meter" the cup use to reduce one and done usage.
  
• In the morning everyone gets a cup-upside down means it clean so they get a fresh one everyday.
  
• The cup is flipped over when it’s first used and remains upright and used all day.



• Each hole has the initial of the persons name next to it for each person’s home position.



• The rubber band has their name on it and they can put it on so if they take the cup away it won’t get mixed up with the others.

This improvement alone has reduced the number of dishes used by a significant amount and we're down to about one washer load a day. So, we're using fewer dishes, less water to wash, less dishwasher detergent, and less energy because we are doing fewer loads. The other nice benefit is that we are seeing a cleaner kitchen and with the next kaizen I will show you, the kids are doing more of the work.

What have you improved today?

Dan Lafever, Kaizeneer