Principle 11. Respect your partners and suppliers, make them difficult and help them improve.
You can be as digital as you want, but if your partners live in paper, the effect will be limited. Here, as in systems constraint theory, chain strength is determined by the weakest link.
It is necessary to create conditions for partners to grow and help them to demonstrate their high efficiency.
Section IV. Permanent solution of fundamental problems stimulates continuous learning.
Principle 12. To understand the situation, you need to see everything with your own eyes (genti genbutsu).
How often have I seen stories where TOPs trusted their managers and reports on the computer? Here is a practical example. The founder of the company was from the production. Weekly he went to the production. And in the end, people understood that their work was important, motivated, and he had reliable information.
But his successor had a classical management education. He formed a team of managers, a system of reports. But what do employees want? To keep them safe and stable. That’s normal. However, with each step, from each leader the information becomes more distorted, and as a result, a distorted view of the situation is formed at the very top, which means that decisions are made based on the erroneous opinion. This is, for example, one of the main problems of public administration.
If this rule is combined with high-quality, automated data collection, transparent analytics, this problem can be avoided.
As a result, solving problems and improving processes, you need to see what is happening and personally check the data, rather than theorize, listening to other people or looking at the computer monitor. Thinking and reasoning must be based on data that are verified and sure. Even company executives and business executives must see the problem for themselves, only then will the understanding of the situation be genuine, not superficial.
Principle 13. Take your decision slowly, on the basis of consensus, weighing all possible options; when implementing it, do not delay (nemavasi).
It can also be called «think slowly, decide quickly». One of the basics of management is the need to evaluate alternatives. Making decisions based on one opinion is too dangerous and risky. If this is sometimes the only development option for young companies, the further, the more often it is necessary to use consensus, and this requires the development of the issue and several people with different opinions and psychotypes. On this, among other things, the concept of Adizes is based – one person cannot combine all the necessary competencies, you need a versatile team. To that end, it was necessary to learn to discuss views openly and to overcome conflicts.
As a result, one cannot make a clear decision on the way forward without weighing all the alternatives. In this case, there are less risks and the desire to go back and redo. And when a decision has already been made, you need to act. For example, when Toyota was developing her Prius, she worked very hard on possible variations of the hybrid approach. However, by assessing possible alternatives, they focused on one option and promoted it only, it became the de facto standard worldwide.
Nemavashi is a process of joint discussion of problems and potential solutions in which everyone participates. His job is to gather all the ideas and develop a consensus on where to go next. While such a process is time-consuming, it helps to broaden the search for solutions and to prepare the ground for rapid implementation.
Principle 14. Become a learning entity through tireless introspection (Hansei) and continuous improvement (Kaizen).
Do you think it’s possible to optimize everything? Right, in the beginning, we said that goals, objectives, technologies, products can change, and that means we need to constantly improve.
What are the approaches? You can hire consulting agencies, you can initiate regular modernization and restructuring. But with this approach, people will pretty quickly become disappointed in all this, and a culture of inert to any changes will begin to form: people will have in mind the idea that it will pass.
The Japanese prefer to follow the path of constant development in small steps, initiating changes from the performers. Additionally, for example, in digitalization – you can initiate a giant program of digital transformation, invest huge resources, and the output does not get effect.
It is better to start with the small stages of digitalization, and then, when the competencies and the conscious understanding of the need for global digitalization are formed, begin to implement global systems.
In the first book, I already gave examples of both cases: a failed implementation experience at once A total and expensive asset management system and a successful experience of using free Google tools to organize production. It’s not necessarily the right path, but I’m a proponent of that evolution.
To realize this principle, it is necessary to:
– once the process has stabilized, use tools for continuous improvement;
– create such a process that almost does not require reserves. This will immediately identify the loss of time and resources and do not start the «disease». When losses are obvious to all, they can be eliminated through continuous improvement (Kaizen);
– collect and preserve company knowledge, prevent staff turnover (i.e., understand the nature of motivation), monitor the progressive promotion of employees and preserve the accumulated experience;
– at the completion of projects, including implementation, carry out gap analysis (hansey) and openly talk about them. Following the analysis – implement changes in business processes;
– standardize the best techniques and techniques instead of inventing a wheel every time a manager changes, that is, describing business processes.
Muda, Mura, Muri and Loss Types
Mud, moody, moody are strange words, aren’t they? The essence is simple.
Let’s look at these basic concepts.
Muda is two kinds of loss:
1. Actions that do not create value but are unavoidable. For example, transportation, paperwork – it is impossible to remove them from the process, but it is necessary to strive to reduce, say, automation of preparation of mandatory reporting. In my experience, with the help of ordinary Exel, I was able to reduce the labor cost of a mandatory and unnecessary report from 8 hours per month to 30 minutes.
2. Actions that do not create value at all and should be excluded from the process completely. For example, waiting, stocks, marriage, etc.
Mura is uneven. If demand is uneven, queues are formed, execution time increases. Additional materials and supplies are required to meet peak demand. Working in emergency mode tires people and reduces their efficiency and quality of work.
All this also generates losses – marriage, waiting, excess supplies, the need to redo.
Moody is an overload of people or equipment.
We make machines or people work to the limit. Overloading people threatens their safety and causes quality problems. Overloading equipment leads to accidents and defects, which in the end also leads to losses.
These three «M» represent a single system.
Often the root of the problems – «Mura», as unevenness leads to overload «Muri», which in turn causes many other losses («Muda»).
3M: Muda, Mura and muri
Let me remind you that the goal of digitalization, automation and transformation is to reduce losses, mainly in working with information. Additionally, before we initiate any project, we need to understand what losses we want to eliminate.
1. Overproduction
The most common problem, which is the cause of most others. Remember the example in systems restriction theory where the sales department sold more than it could produce? Or when we make five copies of documents, when you only need one? All this is overproduction. This leads to overburdening of units, and high stocks of unfinished production or finished products in warehouses, which also increases the number of rejects.
Reasons – large batches production and unexplored demand, long retraining / restructuring.
Planning systems and deep market intelligence through big data collection can help.
2. Waiting
This is all the time during which people or equipment expect resources, technological operation, data, unnecessary coordination. The e-workflow projects are also designed to address these losses. It is only in such projects often forget to do rewrite processes, and then the electronic workflow begins to complicate the life of employees.
The reasons for the occurrence – a violation in the logistics system. For example, the boss left, and documents can only be signed manually. Or equipment failure, lack of guidance from management, lack of planning.
3. Inventories
Many buyers like to buy large batches to get a discount, even if they do not need so much material yet. Excessive stockpiles freeze money in themselves, plus all this must be stored somewhere, large warehouses are required. In addition, in the warehouse may be defective raw materials. In this type of losses hide the problems of production planning and uneven processes.
The reasons for the appearance – uneven production and poorly established relations with suppliers of materials, do not take into account the demand for products or raw materials.
Example: storage of large quantities of materials needed for production during six months, excluding warehouse maintenance costs, or production of New Year’s goods without seasonal demand.
