By: Gary Peterson

Gary Peterson — Mon, 22 May 2017 17:40:54 +0000

Brilliant, Bruce! We’ll borrow this for our internal conversations and training.

By: Tom Gormley

Tom Gormley — Wed, 17 May 2017 19:35:28 +0000

Thanks Bruce for your experienced view on the biggest waste of all — seeing waste and not doing anything about it. Perhaps Shingo never experienced that at Toyota. Although problems and waste may persist despite efforts to improve, I think the case you’re talking about is when there’s been no effort. I agree – it’s frustrating and we see it all the time in healthcare. In healthcare there’s enormous waste and opportunity, which when you bounce it against an often slow-changing culture and scarce, stressed out resources, it seems we have to learn to be satisfied with a few, small wins. I’m curious as to your perspective – can we succeed with this approach if success is defined as let’s say — transformation in 5 or 10 years to “everyone, every day continuous improvement”?

By: Sid Joynson

Sid Joynson — Mon, 15 May 2017 15:19:40 +0000

When lean thinking was being extracted from TPS not enough emphasis was given to Shigeo Shingo’s original thinking on the structure of productive activities. This created a serious flaw in lean thinking. —
In 1989 I had a one hour session by myself with Shingo and his interpreter. The major part of the time was Shingo explaining his concept that the production mechanism should be seen as a network of two flows; Processes and Operations. My reason for asking him about this subject was the fact that the same two pages on this subject appear in all his books. When I asked him how important this concept was he said it was fundamental that these concepts and their relationships were understood in order to make effective improvements in productive activities. The comments below are based on the notes I took at the time and my subsequent experiences.—-
He explained; Production is a network of two activity flows. Processes and Operations. —-
Processes. These are the sequence/flow of events that products and services pass through on their journey from raw material/information to being finished items. —
I.e. Storage —Transportation — Storage/delay —transformation — storage/delay —- transportation. Repeat —
Within the process flow there are two types of storage/delay; Lot Delay and Process Delay. —
Lot Delay. An item is delayed while the rest of the lot/batch is produced.
Solution —One piece flow. —
Process Delay. An item is delayed while it waits for previous items to be processed through the next machine/activity. Solution — Synchronise cycle times. —-
Operations This is the sequence/flow of activities conducted by people, machinery and systems on the raw materials/information and products at each process stage. —-
I.e. Set-up — Essential motion — Auxiliary motion — Marginal allowances. Repeat—S.E.A.M
(Essential motions are those that produce what the customer requires; are valuable to them. i.e. P.S.E. P — Product- the physical item. S — Service to support the product. E — Experiences the customer enjoys acquiring, using and maintaining the product/service). —-
If you see processes as the vertical flow and the operational one as a horizontal flow along from each process stage you can see his network. —-
What then becomes obvious is that only the essential step of the transformation process is valuable to the customer, everything else is waste and is a candidate for elimination. —
The fundamental rule is to improve the process before the operation. Don’t improve transportation eliminate it. —
The ultimate goal is one piece flow with synchronised cycle times that represent customer demand rate. —-
When you see all these elements you can appreciate Shingo’s genius for simplicity. They should be the basic principles for all lean thinking and waste elimination activities.—
When you understand Shingo’s network, which I understand came from it his work with and studies of the activities at Toyota Motors, it becomes easy to see the waste in any system.

Comments on: Reflecting on Waste

By: Gary Peterson

By: Tom Gormley

By: Sid Joynson