What is Zoning?

Zoning is a holistic system for ensuring that all items used in an enterprise can be engaged efficiently.

Why is it important?

• The Rational Reason - a well-organized enterprise that is “at-the-ready” to meet customer demand is an invaluable competitive advantage that can be achieved very inexpensively.

• The Emotional Reason – Zoning is the management system that enables and safeguards 5S, and 5S is an essential platform, for the engagement and continuous improvement needed to achieve and maintain excellence.

• The Tangible Reason – The direct value of Zoning is an improvement of overall performance by 1-2%. The systems it enables, such as 5S, Safety, Standardized Work, and Genchi Genbutsu improve overall performance by 8-12%.

When do you use Zoning?

Whenever you find it valuable to have a well-organized and at-the-ready workplace.

Who uses it?

Every member of the enterprise applies Zoning Principles.

How do you apply Zoning to an Enterprise?

1. Align Senior Leaders with the concept of Zoning.

2. Make Zoning an Imperative.

3. Establish Geographic Zones.

4. Set Maturity Based Milestones for the whole facility.

5. Initiate 5S and zone-specific projects.

6. Embed Zoning into daily life to ensure sustainment.

What are the Key Tools and Concepts?

• Every square meter in the facility is owned by someone.

• The enterprise is divided into Zones, and each Zone is owned by a Zone Steward.

• The entire facility moves through the process together from general overall standards, to specific, work center standards, with no use of pilot-implementations.

• Meeting Zoning Standards is an expectation of employment.

• 5S is the method used to animate Zoning.

• Zoning is sustained with the Relentlessness Techniques of Op-Ex.

View the full WWH here: Zoning_WWH_full_2024

What is the Origin of Lean Manufacturing?

• We see the roots of Lean in the writings of Ben Franklin. In his book, Poor Richard’s Almanac, he writes about the reduction of waste when he writes, “avoiding unnecessary costs could provide more profit than increasing sales”.
• Franklin’s thoughts are further developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor in his 1911 book, Principles of Scientific Management. Taylor outlined and named the process of “Proto-Lean”, calling it Scientific Management. He wrote, “Whenever a workman proposes an improvement, it should be the policy of the management to make a careful analysis of the new method, and if necessary, conduct a series of experiments to determine accurately the relative merit of the new suggestion and of the old standard. And whenever the new method is found to be markedly superior to the old, it should be adopted as the standard for the whole establishment."
• Shigeo Shingo read Taylor’s book and dedicated his life to the furtherance of Scientific Management. He and Kiichiro Toyoda refined Taylor’s philosophies in the textile and automotive industries. As time went on, the great engineer, Taichi Ohno, brought these methods together to form the philosophy known as “The Toyota Production System”.
• In 1988, we first see the term “Lean” in John Krafchik’s article, Triumph of the Lean Production System.
• Next, we see the term, “Lean Manufacturing” surface as the philosophy of Lean is detailed further by James Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos in the 1990 book ‘The Machine that Changed the World.’ Womack and Jones continued to clarify the Lean Philosophy in their 1996 book, Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation. In that book, they laid out five key principles, “Precisely specify value by specific product, identify the value stream for each product, make value flow without interruptions, let the customer pull value from the producer, and pursue perfection”. From that time on Lean Manufacturing was a mature business philosophy.

What is Lean?

• Let’s start by saying that Lean means many things to many people. It has its purists, its revisionists, its visionaries, and its charlatans. So, it is important to think of Lean as a general school of thought rather than a specific discipline.
• Since the dawn of time, the desire to manufacture things has been a very human trait.
• Almost no other creature makes things, and humans alone engage in mass production.
• We human beings have been continually improving things for eons. Each generation improves upon the last.
• The Term Lean Manufacturing or Lean was first defined by James Womack and Daniel T. Jones in the Book Lean Thinking – Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation – 1996. They defined Lean as “a way to do more and more with less and less - less human effort, less equipment, less time, and less space - while coming closer and closer to providing customers exactly what they want."
• We at Avanulo believe that Lean is a business philosophy that calls for process owners to relentlessly pursue the reduction of variation for the benefit of the customer.
• We also believe that people will naturally seek to improve their environment, work processes, and lives whether or not there is a formal system to help them do so, and that Lean Manufacturing is a school of thought and some tools, that help us to . . . “Improve the way we improve”. Lean is a Meta-Improvement System.
• Lastly, we believe that Lean Manufacturing is mostly tactical, local, and very human. It is not a generic strategy, but an augmentation to an organization’s generic strategy.

Why is Lean an important part of a Leader’s toolbox?

• Rational Reason – Lean provides an educational base, an integrated set of methods, and a vetted set of tools, for...

What is Commitment Lock?

• Commitment Lock is a simple, ancient, and powerful tool for ensuring individual alignment with a decision, plan, or action. It is comprised of two proven methods combined – Oath-Taking, and Public Square.
• Commitment Lock is a call for action posed in the form of a question to each person present at the time a decision is made.
• Commitment Lock, in its modern form, was revived by restaurant owners who used it to confirm reservations and persuade people to call them if their plans changed.
• Having seen this simple idea work so effectively, Avanulo used it to ensure compliance with safety standards and then, over time, extended its use to decision-making sessions from the shop floor to the boardroom.

Why is Commitment Lock valuable?

• Rational reason – Commitment Lock is supported by well-accepted concepts in psychology. When people make an active “I will” or “I Shall” commitment in public, they are much more likely to honor that commitment than when the commitment is private or passive.
• Emotional reason – The regular use of Commitment Lock builds a culture of professionalism that minimizes lip service and exposes sycophants.
• Tangible reason – When a decision is clear, and everyone commits to it, the chance of success doubles or triples.

When is Commitment Lock used?

• Commitment Lock is used when it is important to be certain that everyone involved will do their utmost to make a decision work.
• Commitment Lock is used after the decision is made and after the path forward is made clear with a Commitment Question.
• Commitment Lock is never used as a selection tool, to decide upon an option for a path forward based on who will commit to it.

How do you use Commitment Lock?

1. Confirm that the decision has been made and that you are on the eastern (right) side of the Decision Line in the Theory of the Decision Line Model (See TPL Show, Episode 5).

2. Write a Commitment Question, which begins with “will you”.

a. Include in that Commitment a call to action to support a clearly defined decision, plan, or step.

b. Determine withier the commitment is a Goal Implementation or an Implementation Intention.

i. A Goal Implementation is a commitment to bring about a desired state such as achieving one million dollars in sales – “We will increase sales to one million dollars this year”.

ii. An Implementation Intention is a commitment to do something when a certain condition is present such as, “if the raw materials come in late, then we will work on Saturday to finish the order on time”.

c. Make sure that the Commitment Statement is written in the form of a Question that one can answer, “I will”, or “I will not”.

3. Review the Commitment Question with all involved and make sure they fully understand it. Allow for discussion and modify the Question, if needed.

4. Starting with the lowest-ranking people and ending with the highest-ranking people, ask each individual whether or not they will commit to the decision.

a. If someone will not commit (which is rare because the decision has already been made and this is a commitment check), discuss and attempt to gain their commitment. If this proves impossible, after a reasonable period of time, close the session in one of three ways, but be very clear.

i. Have someone in authority over all present, simply declare what the path forward shall be.

ii. Set a date and time and defer the discussion until that time.

iii....

What are the Three Realms of Excellence?

• They are Leadership Aspirations that, when pursued, prepare and preserve an organization’s ability to achieve excellence.
• The Three Realms of Operational Excellence (Op-Ex) describe a condition of being that, at first, an organization strives to achieve, and then later to maintain, so that its pursuit of noble purpose, and the fulfillment of its vision are both conceivable and possible.
• The three Realms of Op-Ex provide an organization with the platform and strategic blueprint needed to implement a Learning Organization and achieve Excellence.

Why are the Three Realms of Excellence important?

• Rational reason – Recognizing the three realms, and pursuing them in order, is the only approach that results in a healthy, sustainable focus on excellence.
• Emotional reason – Whether or not you recognize them, the Three Realms exist. Ignoring them, or pursuing them out of order, leads a workforce to reject continuous improvement concepts, and resist the implementation of intentional culture.
• Tangible reason – When you recognize the Three Realms of Op-Ex, and then pursue them in proper order, the resulting intentional culture is much healthier, delivers far greater results, and is much more sustainable.

How does an organization leverage the Three Realms of Excellence?

1. Educate top Leaders about the Three Realms of Excellence and facilitate a deep and long discussion of them that answers three strategic questions. What is the definition of each in our organization and how do we measure them? Are we aligned about the importance of the Three Realms as an archetype for pursuing excellence? What is the current condition of each Realm, what will we do next to progress in each realm, and when will we achieve sufficient Evenness to implement an intentional culture?
2. Develop a plan with milestones and metrics for achieving your aspiration in each realm. Implement the 1440 Management System, Scrum, Agile, etc. Reduce your Gap of Knowledge (GoK) by implementing Genchi Genbutsu (Gemba Walks). Use Value Stream Maps and Kanbans to understand Flow and evenness in your organization.
3. Optimize your Organizational (Local) Evenness by freeing up your key players to Think, Plan, and Lead (TPL). Eliminate/streamline non-value-added uses of leadership time. Teach them the skills needed to be better leaders and problem solvers. Set the expectation that key players use the time saved to lead and problem-solve more and better.
4. Establish the reduction of Mura (Unevenness) as an essential leadership duty at all levels in your organization. Teach leaders the value of pursuing Evenness. Encourage them and expect them to pursue it. Establish Evenness metrics. Post them in the public square. Set goals. Assign stewards. Tally often.
5. Once the initial Mura goal is achieved, repeat the approach to reduce Muri (Overburden).
6. When ready, declare the organization sufficiently even to pursue Kaizen-At-The-Point-Of-Value and implement an Intentional Culture (Lean Concepts). Optimize the workplace infrastructure (Implement Zoning/5S). Optimize workflow. (Implement Standard Work). Lock it all in with Intentional Culture (Implement Kaizen).
7. Rinse and repeat (Conduct Hansei and begin again with Shoshin).

Key Tools

• Write us at info@tplshow.org for a free guide to the Three Realms of Excellence.
• You Can’t Kaizen Chaos by Danielle McGuiness, December 2014 -

What is Evenness?

• Evenness is a constancy of flow or condition that results in a beneficial outcome.
• In Business, Evenness is a state in which those involved in a process, or invested in an outcome, can count on inputs, processing, and outputs that are regular, consistent, and predictable.
• Evenness is also a matter of perspective. What some perceive as an Even output at one point in a process can be preceded or followed by frenzied or erratic flow. So often, Evenness is a local point of view.
• There are two types of Evenness. Enterprise Evenness is the degree to which an organization’s Values Streams are Even. One of the best metrics for Enterprise Evenness is Forecast Accuracy. Local Evenness is the degree to which Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), or important conditions, are Even from the perspective of those who work in a particular process, system, department, etc.

Why is Evenness important?

• Rational Reason – when you have a high degree of Evenness in a process, you can predict the outcome. What you can predict, you can control, and what you can control, you can improve. So, Evenness provides a platform for optimization.
• Emotional Reason – Evenness reduces surprises and the need to react to them. Evenness reduces stress, anxiety, and fatigue. In other words, it reduces Overburden, which is called Muri in Lean Manufacturing. It enables the customer of the process (internal and external) to benefit from the Certainty of on-time delivery that meets quality specs.
• Tangible Reason – A high degree of Evenness allows those working the process to fine-tune it because they seldom fight fires. This transition from firefighting to fine-tuning drives variation and waste out of the process while increasing velocity and quality. Evenness is a key competitive advantage that is free in that it costs only the will to keep working on it. Perhaps most importantly, when people see that their leaders relentlessly strive for Evenness, they are inspired to action.

How does an organization use Evenness as a Rally Point in Uncertain Times?

1. Listen to Episode 12 of the TPL Show – Part One of Leveraging the Benefit of Evenness – What is Evenness?
2. Declare the situation openly and use a formal set of written Talking Points as a guide. Brief leaders on the situation, and then cascade and reinforce your message throughout the organization. Describe the situation clearly in simple language. Describe the impact on the process, on those who work it (suppliers & employees), and on the customer. Use tangible descriptions, relatable examples, realistic timelines, and numbers as much as possible.
3. Clarify everyone’s role. Be very specific about how it is different than during “normal” times. Clearly indicate who will lead what, even if it seems painfully obvious. Spell it all out in detail, and set the expectation that everyone must be ready to help and must be flexible, cooperative, and engaged in positive ways.
4. Create an organization-wide Help Chain for this issue.
5. Establish an Obeya Room using the 11 principles of Obeya.
6. Identify all the actual and potential interruptions to flow. Rank them – use FMEA. Devise plans and backup plans – Use Potential Problem Analysis. Carefully determine the generic strategy for each plan. Is it Kaizen, or Kaikaku?
7. Significantly increase your presence at the Gemba, keep awareness high, react thoughtfully, and be ready to reset and reshuffle as the situation unfolds.

What are the 11 Principles of Obeya?

Mindset

• People come together in the Obeya to respectfully see, learn & act on

What

is Evenness?

• Evenness is a constancy of flow or condition that results in a beneficial outcome.
• In Business, Evenness is a state in which those involved in a process, or invested in an outcome, can count on regular, consistent, and predictable inputs, processing, and outputs.
• Evenness is also a matter of perspective. What some perceive as an even output at one point in a process can be preceded or followed by frenzied or erratic flow. So often, Evenness is a local point of view.
• There are two types of Evenness. Enterprise Evenness is the degree to which an organization’s Values Streams are Even. One of the best metrics for Enterprise Evenness is Forecast Accuracy. Local Evenness is the degree to which key performance indicators or important conditions are Even from the perspective of those who work in a particular process, system, department, etc. Local Evenness is also called Organizational Evenness.

Why is Evenness important?

• Rational reason – when you have a high degree of Evenness in a process, you can predict the outcome. What you can predict, you can control, and what you can control, you can improve. So, Evenness provides a platform for optimization.
• Emotional reason – Evenness reduces surprises and the need to react to them. Evenness reduces stress, anxiety, and fatigue. In other words, it reduces Overburden, which is called Muri in Lean Manufacturing. It enables the customer of the process (internal and external) to benefit from the certainty of on-time delivery that meets quality specs.
• Tangible reason – A high degree of Evenness allows those working the process to fine-tune it because they seldom fight fires. This transition from firefighting to fine-tuning drives variation and waste out of the process while increasing velocity and quality. Evenness is a key competitive advantage that is free in that it costs only the will to keep working on it. Perhaps most importantly, when the people see that their leaders relentlessly strive for Evenness, they are inspired to action.

How does an organization foster Evenness?

1. Teach Leaders the concept of Evenness and establish the relentless pursuit of Evenness as an essential leadership duty.
2. With input from leaders, establish the Hierarchy of Evenness.
3. Identify and develop the key metrics of Evenness in your organization.
4. Commission leaders to teach the people in their charge about the concept of Evenness, the organization’s Hierarchy of Evenness, and the organization’s Evenness Metrics.
5. Pick your organization's most pressing point of Unevenness (Mura) and try to reduce it. Don’t whack the mole at the entrance of its hole (symptom), follow that mole’s hole back to the nest (root cause), and remember that you can almost never solve an Unevenness issue where it is occurring (showing up). Map the Process using the Evenness Metrics – A VSM works best for this. Identify the focus for improvement using the Evenness Metrics.
6. Have the next point of unevenness lined up and be ready to attack it so that you are relentlessly seeking more and more Evenness. Even a little more Evenness is worth it, and even if you fail, the engagement you get from your people as they see you fight to make work more even for them will pay off ten-fold.

Key Tools

• Write us at info@tplshow.org for a free guide on Leveraging the Benefits of Evenness.

What is a Help Chain?

A Help Chain is a structured, and highly visual, accountability system used to communicate and restore interruptions to flow.

Why are Help Chains important?

• Rational Reason - They ensure that everyone knows when an interruption to flow occurs and who is accountable to restore it.
• Emotional Reason – Alignment is much easier when restoring flow is identified as an organizational priority, and when addressing interruptions to flow is led in a predetermined, clear, and systematic way.
• Tangible Reason – Having a Help Chain makes it much easier for organizations to identify and eliminate the root causes of interruptions to flow (downtime). Organizations that apply Help Chains have 50% less downtime than those that do not.

How do you use help Chains?

Step 1 - Understand the concepts behind Help Chains.

• Learn about the Visual Workplace by reading Visual Workplace – Visual Thinking by Gwendolyn D. Galsworth & the 5 Pillars of the Visual Workplace by Hiroyuki Hirano.
• Learn about Andon - https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/guide-to-andon-in-lean-manufacturing.
• Learn about Reverse Cascades – Avanulo Blue Paper #562 – Everything you need to implement Help Chains - write us at info@tplshow.org.

Step 2 - Publish a simple, clear, and relevant definition for downtime (an interruption to flow) for your organization.

Step 3 - Identify the Bottleneck and major pinch points in your process that will benefit from Help Chains.

Step 4 - Design the Escalation Protocol for your organization.

Step 5 - Design and install the Andons for each place that will have a Help Chain.

Step 6 - Train everyone in the concept of Help Chains, Your organization’s definitions and protocols, and your Andons.

Step 7 - Implement the Help Chain System. Practice using it. Adjust as you go.

Step 8 - Do a Process Check after 30 days and adjust as appropriate.

Step 9 - Schedule and hold a Process Check every quarter.

Key Tools

• Show Notes and Transcript – https://www.dropbox.com/s/6kyvvs437hkmbfp/Transcript%20for%20Episode%2011%20-%20Help%20Chains%20and%20How%20to%20Use%20Them%20v2.pdf?dl=0
• Write us at info@tplshow.org for our free guide - Everything you need to implement Help Chains (Avanulo Blue Paper #562)
• Book - “Visual Workplace. Visual thinking”, by Gwendolyn Galsworth
• Book - :”The Five Pillars of the Visual Workplace”, by Hiroyuki Hirano
• A good, concise article about Andons - https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/guide-to-andon-in-lean-manufacturing

What is Alignment?

• Alignment is a relationship to decisions.
• It's an approach to decisions that leads you to own decisions as if they were yours.
• Alignment is the most powerful relationship you can have to a decision.
• Alignment is a choice.
• It's also a commitment to have a decision work.
• If you're aligned, then you both own the decision like it's yours and you're committed to making the decision work.
• Also, alignment is not a one-time thing. It must be sustained over time. It's an ongoing commitment, an attitude, a state of mind.

Why is Alignment, especially, Executive Team Alignment important?

• Rational reason – when a group or team is aligned, it can get more done, with less effort than similar teams that are not aligned.
• Emotional reason – when a group is aligned, drama and dysfunction are reduced, people are happier and more fulfilled, and dedication and engagement go way up.
• Tangible reason – organizations that are aligned are 300-400% more profitable than those that are not.

How does an organization ensure Alignment?

1. Teach everyone what alignment is and the benefit of alignment.
2. Implement tools that support alignment, an effective and formal decision-making tools are a must, but there are others – see key tools below.
3. Practice getting and staying aligned as you decide and implement at work.
4. Reflect upon recent decisions and implementations with respect to alignment. Did we align? Did we stay aligned? How can we do it better next time?
5. Keep this process evergreen. Talk about it all the time. Retrain. Reflect a lot.

Key Tools

• Write us at info@tplshow.org for a free guide on how to achieve and maintain executive and organizational alignment.
• The Transformational Power of Executive Team Alignment by Miles Kiersen.
• Full Show Notes & Transcript https://www.dropbox.com/s/3v80vqurorf779h/Show%20Notes%20and%20Transcript%20for%20episode%209%20-%20the%20Power%20of%20Alignment.pdf?dl=0