And there’s only so much low hanging fruit, too. Is the process being followed? If yes, improve it. If not, follow it.Īll of these things yielded phenomenal results and the business strengthened in ways we never dreamed possible. Yet all the time I realized that I was driving the change from the top which is not the most effective approach nor sustainable.Is there a defined process that will allow us to achieve that standard? If not, create one!.Is there a standard? If not, create one!.I asked a set of simples questions every time I came to the line and found a problem (which was every time I came to the line): I turned off the “information systems” in the factory and watched lead-times plummet further from weeks to days as materials flowed faster with simple hand written kanbans. I then read every piece of literature on Lean that I could find. “5 Why’s” became our de facto problem solving methodology. The new structure started surfacing problems that could not be ignored. I became obsessed with reducing batch sizes, creating flow, and stopping to fix problems. When team members would store “problems” in boxes under the tables, I banned boxes on the line. When those “problems” moved to the table tops, I removed tables and other places where “problems” could be hidden. Next I read Learning to See, which was equally mind-blowing, so I proceeded to stop our factory for two weeks to rearrange the workflow from silos to cells and watched lead-times drop from months to weeks.
The process yielded over 350 pieces the first day! I was sold on this new way of working. I took a simple label sewing operation that had previously only yielded 120-140 pieces per day (embarrassing, I know) and redesigned the process so items would flow through one piece at a time. We started our lean journey at Wooden Ships in the spring of 2007 after I read The Toyota Way. The book so clearly described our flawed batch and queue production processes and then miraculously proposed a set of practices to remedy the situation. So I proceeded to run an experiment.
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