Synopsis
Go with me to the work area (Gemba) and observe the details of your process to identify improvement opportunities, such as excessive waiting, motion, transportation, inventory wastes, and latent safety and quality risks. Then, we help you prioritize your observations to choose which opportunities to pursue. Lean tools like standard work, visual management, and 5S to implement change are discussed. Finally, you learn how to monitor and sustain your improvements. See how to develop a continuous flow of improvements. This process keeps identifying new opportunities daily or weekly, depending only on the degree to which you are willing to implement the step-by-step process.
Special features are included to give you advanced skills in overcoming resistance to change. You will become a hero at work by learning to set up an awesome daily meeting agenda, including SQDIP and countermeasure boards that track and resolve all those daily interruptions to your workflow. You will be inspired by the case study where Observe Analyze Improve saved 100,000 annual labor hours of non-value-adding work.
"Thank you, Steve. Your efforts and dedication to developing and launching Observe Analyze Improve have been great. Your initial work has already established a precedent for autonomous improvement. Media, Seeds, and Buffer now have capable practitioners who are vocal advocates. More importantly, this effort yields tangible results, including implementing the filter cart and tote tubing brace. Keep up the good work." Senior Manager
In the Call to Action, you will be offered one-to-one consulting help to implement these concepts and develop leaders to advance your improvement journey.
About the Author
Stephen Wilkinson is a Certified Lean Practitioner with an MBA and BS in Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
His improvement career started as an Army Airborne Combat Engineer, where he turned around the failing performance of the Brigade motor pool maintenance.
After serving 4 years with the Army, he took an assignment as the Pringles Potato Chip lab and Pampers production manager at P&G.
At Gillette, he managed projects at increasing leadership levels in Industrial Engineering and co-led the lean transformation of the Gillette facility.
As a senior IE, he led improvements at Amgen in RI. The leaders at Amgen entrusted Steve with his most significant projects: improving production cycle time and developing the breakthrough "Observe Analyze Improve," eliminating 100,000 labor hours of non-value-adding effort. He authored corporate playbooks on leading Kaizens, Standard Work, and How to Observe Your Process for Improvement Opportunities.
After training 1,200 professionals, saving millions of dollars, and implementing hundreds of improvements, he now resides in Florida and serves as a lean consultant at https://www.RapidLeanCoach.com. Steve can be reached for help with your organization at RapidLeanCoach@gmail.com.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
