Reflections on Excellence

"Good morning , Suzuki San , how have you been "asked Miss P when she noticed him walking through the door .

" I am fine , Miss P , how about you . Today I have want to tell something that is not going to make you happy . I am really surprised why you and many others did not attend the Learning series on WHAT IS QUALITY conducted by my good friend KJ on the 19th May . Those who attended enjoyed the program and it gave a new outlook on the understanding of Quality .

I know what you will tell . That you were busy and though you tried you couldnt make it . I cant accept that Miss P . You must know that these are great opportunities for enhancing your knowledge levels , and all that you are going to spend is just 2 hours purposefully "

Miss P hung her head in shame . "I know Suzuki San , I dont have any reasons , I was trying to complete some work that I had and felt that I was too busy . But I do realise that when we have so much TIME to spend on trivialities and gossip etc... for a purposeful learning , we can always afford time . I will tell my apologies to KJ and ensure that I attend the programs in future without giving any reasons "

Suzuki San continued " I am not surprised by this lame reasoning , Miss P . I will see if I can ask KJ to conduct this program again in the near future . Atleast you go and tell others in the Industry to take advantage of this .

Have you heard of the concept of 3 BOX MODEL by Vijay Govindarajan . "

Miss P innocently asked " No , Suzuki San , is it something related to packaging ?"

Suzuki San who was so tensed up till now , burst out laughing .
"Miss P , you made me laugh now . I was so angry with you when I walked in . This is a MANAGEMENT CONCEPT proposed by a management guru called Vijay Govindarajan .

Prof.Vijay says that most of the Organizations are very myopic ( Senior management ) . They look at handling their current chores and responsibilities as a major task and invariably lost out on the future .

The 3 BOX MODEL is as follows .

BOX 1 - MANAGE THE PRESENT

Prof.Vijay says the present is something you will have to just manage . There may be very little control on what large changes you can achieve to give new directions to what is happening currently .

BOX 2 - SELECTIVELY FORGET THE PAST

Not all things that happened in the past are good or bad . However , certain mistakes and bad happenings need to be forgotten while retaining the ones that will be useful .

I will make an analogy of  driving a car . Just imagine if one keeps looking only at the rear view mirror and driving . Will he/she be able to drive forward . But at the same time do you drive only looking in front . No . We also keep looking at the rear view mirror ocassionally .

So the idea behind this is that , the good things of the past should be a reference only .

BOX 3 - CREATE THE FUTURE

You need to know where you want to be say 10 years from now . And to be WHAT YOU WANT TO BE 10 YEARS FROM NOW , there is no point in starting to act after 10 years , but NOW .

To be what you want to be in 10 years from now , you have to start planning and acting right now .

The moral of this concept is that and what I observed is that , WHAT KJ IS TRYING TO DISSEMINATE IN TERMS OF KNOWLEDGE IS NOT FOR YOU TO MANAGE THE PRESENT , BUT FOR YOU TO PREPARE YOURSELF TO CREATE THE FUTURE " .

So , stop giving stories like you were trying to finish some job , manage the present and all that , Miss P and look at using these opportunities so that you can be in better positions in the future . "

Miss P was almost in tears . "Suzuki San , I now understand fully what you conveyed . Yes , I do want to be a Managing Director in 10 years from , and I now realise that to be that in 10 years , unless I start using these opportunities now , I can never think of nearing such positions . So I am going to do one thing now .

I will selectively forget the past , my habit of saying that I was busy , and will look forward to attending KJ's next Learning series . Thanks a Lot , Suzuki San for this "

Suzuki San smiled . " you see , you got the concept right .

Now , I want tell you something . My other friend Mr.Eric Miller is in Zambia . He is a Management Consultant and a Lean Expert . He has done consultancy in many organisations in the Europe and has also worked as a Professor .

He is currently in Zambia and is volunteering his services for the Kaizen Institute of Zambia . I met him the other day and Eric sent me an article on Reflections of Excellence , which I felt will be immensely useful to all and hence have asked KJ to post it in the blog . Eric wishes to thank the authors Keith Mobley and agency Life Cycle Engineering for this article . Please read them and benefit . If you have any queries on lean , please email Eric on millereric450@gmail.com

Copy paste link or Click on the link details below :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/66cw9iiv4e7wrm4/Reflections-15-Laws-for-Continuous-Improvement%20May%202016.pdf?dl=0

Ok, Miss P , I am running late for a meeting now , Next week I will share about the Gemba program that happened in Sakiza Spinning in  Kitwe by the Kaizen Club of Zambia - Copperbelt Chapter "

Note 1 : Suzuki San , Miss P and her company are characters  developed by KJ and has no relevance to any particular person / processes/situation    . All mention are purely for illustration purpose of the central theme of the case and are personal opinions unless cited and shall have no recourse of consequences to author . Readers can use their practical inputs to alter any of the material that may be published . Readers are invited to express their views on this continuing case study series .

Note 2: Some of the readers have mentioned that they are unable to place their comments . Please click on the "No comments"  link , and make your comments and if you do not have any prior registration , you can choose anonymous and feel free to give details or not , though it will be nice if we can have your name details in the comments .

Episode 4 : Suzuki San continues with 5S

"Good afternoon , Suzuki San . I enjoyed the material on 5S that you gave last week . You said that you will give the Red tag format this week " said Miss P with expectations to learn more in her eyes . 

Suzuki San smiled and said , " yes , I thought you will forget . I have asked my friend Mr.KJ to upload it in a drop box so that any one can download the excel sheet on red paper and can use . The link is at the end of the blog page he will publish .

As the name goes , if you are not able to get a red sheet , you can use any color though generally Red color paper is used , so its called as the red tag. Mr.KJ has offered to give a couple of pictures in his organisation where they have red tagged and then taken action .

You can see that the Kaizen team at Specialised Systems  has spared no one , and has red tagged KJ's room as well . That is the beauty of Kaizen power , Miss P , the ability to accept constructive criticism and improve continuously .

Well , having said that , there are a few cardinal rules a Kaizen 5S team must know and follow " paused Suzuki San .

Miss P and her team , very eagerly kept looking at him wondering what he will tell next .

Suzuki San continued

" 1. You must be ruthless in your red tagging activity . Whatever is seen in a place without use for more than say 3 months , must be red tagged . Depending on the purpose , each company is free to decide this duration of non use , though .

2. You will notice that some of the inventory may be lying for years together , every one seeing it every day and doing nothing .

3. There was this company which had a successful red tag session happen , and then removed them due to an audit that was to happen , and again red tagged after the audit . This is not acceptable .

4. Yellow tag mess - A company decided to yellow tag , instead of red tag with the idea of those items as doubtful necessity , and when the exercise was completed , they found that all the items were yellow tagged . Moral is that there is no half way between red tagging and an item being doubtful of use . It should be mercilessly red tagged if not used .

5. Another company did a red tagging exercise and made adhesive red tag stickers at a cost of K 5 per sticker . One of the Kaizen members promptly red tagged the sticker bunch itself . Moral is that you must be very conservative in such a Kaizen exercise .

6.  And last but not the least , my friends DO NOT RED TAG PEOPLE , UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE RED TAGGED YOURSELF "

Every one burst out laughing at this , and Miss P was almost on tears with joy hearing these inputs . " Suzuki San , We cant thank you enough for these valuable inputs . Now I begin to understand , what you meant by being Excellent by doing simple things in practice , WoW , this is great and we cant wait to implement "

Suzuki San said humbly " You are welcome , I am also asking KJ to publish in his blog a presentation that he gave to his staff on these rules of 5S and red tagging . But that will be next week , See you then "

RED TAG SAMPLE LINK AS EXPLAINED BY SUZUKI SAN : 

This will open in a new window when you click Download at the right side top

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w9vrolvpuxznbgy/5S%20Red%20Tag%20template%20SSL.xls?dl=0


The Excel file has 3 red tag cards to fit an A4 sheet, and needs to be cut carefully to create 3 red tags .

Note 1 : The case study is developed by KJ and has no relevance to any particular processes/situation  that may be followed in the concerned industry , All names are fictitious and do not represent any individual or organisation . All mention are purely for illustration purpose of the central theme of the case and are personal opinions unless cited and shall have no recourse of consequences to author . Readers can use their practical inputs to alter any of the material that may be published . Readers are invited to express their views on this continuing case study series .

Note 2: Some of the readers have mentioned that they are unable to place their comments . Please click on the "No comments"  link , and make your comments and if you do not have any prior registration , you can choose anonymous and feel free to give details or not , though it will be nice if we can have your name details in the comments .

Episode 3 : Suzuki San explains 5S to Miss P

Suzuki San writes to Miss P this week :

Dear Miss P , Sorry  I had planned to come over this week , but I have some meetings in Lusaka . However , you may go through the mail and put it on your notice board for other staff to see and benefit .

Last week , We saw about managing simple things and started with Time management . This week I want to talk about 5S concept , which is very well known to you . So , I will devote only two articles to 5S and will ask any of those who have queries to comment on the blog KJ is maintaining as I have asked him to publish this as well .

5S is the name of a workplace organization method that uses a list of five Japanese words: seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke. Translated in English , the  list describes how to organize a work space for efficiency and effectiveness by identifying and storing the items used, maintaining the area and items, and sustaining the new order of change and doing simple things properly .  The decision-making process usually comes from a dialogue about standardization, which builds understanding among employees of how they should do the work.

 

There are five 5S phases: They can be translated from the Japanese as "sort", "straighten", "shine", "standardise", and "sustain".

Seiri

整理 (Sort)

• Remove unnecessary items and dispose of them properly
• Make work easier by eliminating obstacles
• Reduce chance of being disturbed with unnecessary items
• Prevent accumulation of unnecessary items
• Evaluate necessary items with regard to cost or other factors
• Remove all parts not in use
• Segregate unwanted material from the workplace
• Need fully skilled supervisor for checking on regular basis
• Don`t put unnecessary items at the workplace & define a red-tagged area to keep those unnecessary items

Seiton

整頓 (Systematic Arrangement)

• Can also be translated as "set in order", "straighten" or "streamline"
• Arrange all necessary items so they can be easily selected for use
• Prevent loss and waste of time
• Make it easy to find and pick up necessary items
• Ensure first-come-first-served basis
• Make workflow smooth and easy
• All above work should be done on regular basis

Seiso

清掃 (Shine)

• Can also be translated as "sweep", "sanitize", "shine", or "scrub"
• Clean your workplace completely
• Use cleaning as inspection
• Prevent machinery and equipment deterioration
• Keep workplace safe and easy to work
• Keep work place clean

Seiketsu

清潔 (Standardize)

• Standardize the best practices in the work area.
• Maintain high standards of housekeeping and workplace organization at all times.
• Maintain orderliness. Maintain everything in order and according to its standard.
• Everything in its right place.(Chilled food items  in chilled area, Dry ones in dry area.)
• Every process has a standard.

Shitsuke

躾 (Sustain)

• To keep in working order
• Also translates as "do without being told" (though this doesn't begin with S)
• Perform regular audits
• Training and Discipline
• Training is goal oriented process. Its resulting feedback is necessary monthly

 To conclude , Miss P , you would have seen the word "RED TAG" in the above material and you may be wondering what a RED TAG is . I will explain about this in the coming week . If anyone has any queries please post it as a comment on the blog , either myself or KJ will respond .  Bye for now. 

Regards

Suzuki

Reference :

1.    Wikipedia
2.    http://www.forestry.gov.my/negerisembilan/images/stories/Laporan/5s_circle.gif

A Case of Throughput efficiency

Miss Precious Quality (Miss. PQ) is a Quality manager at one of the big copper ore processing plant in Zambia . She has had no formal qualification in Quality management and has come up in her career by showing interest in these areas , and her boss thought that she would do a better job learning Quality on the job .

Miss PQ had learnt that efficiency is the output over input and had calculated the efficiency for each of the stages of production and had displayed it on the respective notice boards , to the pride of the departmental staff . It showed up something like this .

Incoming Ore purification : 93%

Stage 1 processing : 95%

Stage 2 purification : 97%

Copper ingot facility : 96%

Storage department : 98%

The outputs and inputs comprised of a matrix of variables that related to the function of the department . For example ,  the copper ingot facility had the molten copper poured into ingots for storage and transportation . There were process leakages in terms of how much the ingots were filled and any spillage . There was a variable related to the number of ingots produced in a month compared to a target set . 

The departments were very proud on their achievements of 90+ percentage points of efficiency . One day the CEO Mr. George  of the facility walked into the production floor with a Japanese consultant called Suzuki San . He introduced him to Miss. PQ and explained that the company had become a member of the newly formed Kaizen Club of Zambia and Suzuki San is representing an agency facilitating Kaizen activities in Zambia and was on a visit to the production facility . 

Miss.PQ thought this was one of her best moments in life , and took Suzuki San through the production facility explaining the stages and how best the departments were performing and showed proudly the efficiency calculations of each of the departments . After the tour , the team assembled in their board room for a feedback meeting and were eagerly waiting for Suzuki San to commend on their performance . 

Suzuki San rightly expressed his observations on the enthusiasm of the team and the way they were progressing in their improvement methods . Turning back to Miss PQ he then asked , “Miss Quality , I observe that you are very happy on the efficiency levels of each of the departments “ and Miss PQ responded “ Yeah , Suzuki San I am sure you saw the 90+ efficiency levels “ 

Suzuki San asked her “ Have you calculated your through put efficiency then “ 

Miss PQ  looked confused “ Suzuki San , I have never heard of that , is it not enough if individual departments show their efficiencies , Please explain throughput efficiency “ 

Suzuki San continued “ Miss PQ , Any production process shall have an input and an output and you have done it wisely by calculating the functional efficiencies of each of the stages , however you have to also calculate the throughput efficiency , which gives the overall process efficiency . Now we have your stagewise efficiencies . Throughput efficiency is simply the product of all the efficiencies in stages . So your production process has a throughput efficiency of

Throughput efficiency : 93% x 95% x 97% x 96% x 98%  =  80.62% 

Miss PQ got a shock of her life . “Are we doing so badly , Suzuki San “ . She almost broke down . 

Suzuki San kindly replied , “ No Miss PQ , the concept of Kaizen and Quality management, is that you must never be happy with your present levels of performance , but keep embarking continuously on how to improve your outputs for the same or lower levels of inputs . This is done by using lots of Quality and statistical tools and identify wastage and eliminate variations . Have you heard about Six sigma quality levels and various statistical tools “ 

“ Yes Suzuki San , I have heard of the word Six sigma , but not beyond that , would you be kind enough to tell something about it “ 

“ Yes for sure , but not now, Miss PQ , I will spend an hour with you and your team during my next visit . You can in the meanwhile try to find out more from websites and be aware of these ,OK”

“ Thanks a lot for these inputs , Suzuki San . This has been a good eye opener for us , and we will certainly adopt and learn more of how to continuously improve our process efficiencies and of course the Throughput efficiency “ 

Miss Precious Quality knew now that she was embarking into a new territory that will put her on the Roadmap to Quality movement in Zambia .

Note: The case study was developed by KJ and has no relevance to any particular processes that may be followed in the concerned industry , All names are fictitious and do not represent any individual or organisation . All mention are purely for illustration purpose of the central theme of the case . Readers are invited to express their views on this continuing case study series .