Waterspiders as continuous improvement innovators

water_beetleThe term Waterspider or water beetle (mizusumashi in Japanese) comes from the behavior of the insect known in the States as a whirligig, an aquatic animal that skitters around on the top of a pond quickly changing direction as it goes.  For a lean enterprise the role of material handlers, expediters, and support staff changes. In the Toyota Production System this is the common name for a person assigned to support a production operation, so that others may focus exclusively on value-added work. The waterspider delivers parts to the other associates in the cell or on the line so that they don’t need to stop to replenish their work stations.

Unlike a ‘floater’, a waterspider is assigned specific tasks, such as replenishing raw material inventories (via milk run), common area clean-up, communicate status, maintain visual metrics, etc… Waterspider duties usually don’t include tasks which take them away from the production area, or detract from their specific, assigned duties (the waterspider is not the ’5S’ person or a ‘fill in’). Think of the waterspider as the ‘race car pit crew’ for the production team, without which it would be impossible to win or even run the race.

Waterspiders quickly become experts in the withdrawal and production kanban system. They can ‘see’ more of the up and down stream flow in real time than most others, and because of this often making it possible to identify and eliminate errors. From recent experience the waterspiders often have a better grip on reality than their managers, planners, and engineers.

Non manufacturing examples abound in restaurants, hospitals, insurance claims processing; serving the folks that add the value isn’t just for manufacturing. In product and software development the role of the program manager is sometimes something like that of the waterspider, except bringing knowledge to the various development team members instead of parts.

Here are a few references:
Single piece flow at ConMed Linvatec
Improving Workflow With Water Spiders at University of Michigan Health System
Inventory management in electronics manufacturing: The Move To Lean
Lean in the Oil Fields

Have any examples you’d like to share?

 

 

 

By Lawrence Loucka | Leave a comment

Prepare for the recovery before it’s too late

Dave Jones and Pierre Loewe write in Chief Executive Magazine …

Discontinuities are big, foundational shifts which have the potential to fundamentally change the rules of the game. They occur when trends from different areas combine, resulting in game-changing, long-lasting modifications to the external landscape. If you can identify them earlier and exploit them better than your competitors, you will win. If you don’t, you will be left behind.

You need to assess how the current crisis has affected the discontinuities you were anticipating before the recession hit. Say that until recently, you thought that being “green” meant addressing your carbon footprint. But did you know that by the time we emerge from the recession, “green” will likely mean using efficiently multiple scarce resources, such as water? If your stakeholders are asking about your carbon footprint today, then tomorrow they’ll be asking about your water footprint. You need to get ahead of this opportunity – IBM and Toyota already have.

Lesson: Analyze how the recent events have changed the external landscape — impacted the discontinuities you had previously identified, or created new, unexpected ones.

 

 

 

By Lawrence Loucka | Leave a comment

Walmart Sustainable Product Index

Why do you think Walmart is asking these questions of their 100,000 suppliers? Can you answer these questions by October 1, 2009? How much staff time will it take to gather this data? If you aren’t a Walmart supplier don’t think for a second you are off the hook; when will your key customers start asking similar questions?

Energy and Climate: Reducing Energy Costs and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
1. Have you measured your corporate greenhouse gas emissions?
2. Have you opted to report your greenhouse gas emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)?
3. What is your total annual greenhouse gas emissions reported in the most recent year measured?
4. Have you set publicly available greenhouse gas reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?

Material Efficiency: Reducing Waste and Enhancing Quality
1. If measured, please report the total amount of solid waste generated from the facilities that produce your product(s) for Walmart for the most recent year measured.
2. Have you set publicly available solid waste reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?
3. If measured, please report total water use from facilities that produce your product(s) for Walmart for the most recent year measured.
4. Have you set publicly available water use reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets?

Natural Resources: Producing High Quality, Responsibly Sourced Raw Materials
1. Have you established publicly available sustainability purchasing guidelines for your direct suppliers that address issues such as environmental compliance, employment practices and product/ingredient safety?
2. Have you obtained 3rd party certifications for any of the products that you sell to Walmart?

People and Community: Ensuring Responsible and Ethical Production
1. Do you know the location of 100 percent of the facilities that produce your product(s)?
2. Before beginning a business relationship with a manufacturing facility, do you evaluate the quality of, and capacity for, production?
3. Do you have a process for managing social compliance at the manufacturing level?
4. Do you work with your supply base to resolve issues found during social compliance evaluations and also document specific corrections and improvements?
5. Do you invest in community development activities in the markets you source from and/or operate within?

Reference: http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/9277.aspx

 

 

 

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Simplified Systematic Network Planning – step 6

STEP 6: DETAIL AND DO
Step 6 details and implements the network plan selected in Step 5. If the purpose of the network planning project is simply to conduct and analysis and make a presentation, no actual changes will be planned. When actual changes will be made, the planner first prepares a Gantt chart of the implementation schedule in the Detail and Do worksheet

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The Gantt chart serves as a communication tool, outlining the tasks needed to change the network, the person(s) responsible for each task and the scheduled time for the task to be undertaken. Actual implementation is done by professionals in the field. But it is always good for the network planner to be involved in this process to track the changes, build credibility, and confirm the effectiveness of the recommendation.

Post implementation audits capture actual saving from changes to the network. The Detail and Do worksheet provides a section for the planner to measure the variances between the projected and actual savings and to explain them. This is especially important in understanding why the model did or did not result in the expected savings and provides useful lessons for future modeling efforts. In our example, fuel price increases eliminated half the projected savings. Given this impact the planners should probably include fuel price projections in future models of this type.

 

 

 

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Simplified Systematic Network Planning – step 5

STEP 5: EVALUATE ALTERNATIVES
In Step 5, the planner evaluates the network plans developed in Step 4 by running several alternative scenarios.

Evaluation takes two forms:

• Cost analysis – comparing relevant costs among scenarios and their network plans.
• Intangible analysis – for factors or considerations that cannot be easily modeled or measured in economic terms.

0907_LIA_pg31_1

Cost analysis is generally straightforward.

Modeling software typically computes each alternative’s difference from the baseline on each element of total cost. But when comparing alternatives, planners must decide whether to show all costs or only those that are affected by the proposed alternatives.

In the MTT example, as shown in the Alternatives Analysis Worksheet, the four alternative plans compare what the company’s historical costs would have been if 32 oz capacity had been added in one of four existing plants.

Madison’s costs (Alt IV) are highest. Vicksburg’s costs (Alt III) are the lowest, and would have saved about $739,000 per year over the current or baseline network, and saved about $1 million more per year than Madison. These savings easily justify the upgrade of a production line.

Note that the planners have dropped purchasing costs from the previous Step 4 cost summary since these costs are unaffected and the same for all plans. This action helps to accentuate the cost differences between the alternatives. (See line 5 of the Cost Summary section in the Alternatives Analysis Worksheet.)

Naturally we would like to implement the network plan with the lowest total cost. But intangible factors or considerations may also play a role. For MTT, annual costs differ by only four percent among the four alternatives. With such a small difference, costs alone should not decide which plan is best. When two or more plans yield similar costs, the best one is typically found by comparing such intangibles as:

• Ease of implementation
• Exposure to various risks
• Fit with organization structure
• Labor-related considerations
• Facilities-related considerations

To evaluate intangibles, SSNP uses the weighted-factor approach shown in the lower portion of the Alternatives Analysis Worksheet. The planners list relevant factors and management assigns weights reflecting their relative importance. By convention, SSNP assigns a weight of 10 to the most important factor. Next, those who will implement and operate the network discuss and rate the effectiveness of each alternative on each factor. SSNP uses the vowel-code convention of A, E, I, O, U and X, in descending order of effectiveness, where A=4, E=3, I=2, O=1, and U=0. A rating of “X” disqualifies a plan unless the objectionable feature can be fixed.

After all plans have been rated on all factors, the ratings’ numerical values are multiplied by the factor weights to arrive at total scores for each plan. The highest score indicates the best network plan from an intangibles perspective. Hopefully the highest scoring plan will also have the lowest total cost. But if not, this procedure will reveal the intangible benefits of the more costly network plans. When cost comparison results in a stand-off and does not indicate a clear winner, the weighted factor approach will help discover which plan is best and why.

In the example, Alternative II (Briansville) scores roughly 50 percent (84/54) better than the lowest cost Alternative III, Vicksburg. Briansville offers more capacity relief, easier implementation, and a better fit with the current organizational structure. For these reasons, MTT management selected Briansville for the 32 oz bottling line upgrade.

 

 

 

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