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Toyota Supermarket
I was sharing a story with a recent Lean Academy group on how Taichii Ohno used to spend hours on the shop floor observing the process, and identifying waste.
Ohno coined the Seven wastes, which we all know and love. By the way, these were actually referred to as the Flow Wastes and despite numerous reincarnations were never the 8 wastes or the 9!
However he was most acerbic about the Waste of Motion.
Ohno saw this the waste of human movement, or activity and saw on so many occasions in his factories how people would want to look busy rather than actually being busy adding value.
Added value is simply defined from the Toyota perspective of transforming information or materials into a product or service which the customer would be happy to pay for. This definition was embedded into my cerebellum by none other than the legendary Shingijutsu back in the early nineties.
Ohno commented that no one want to look idle, so as a result, people perfected ways of looking busy.
Ohno uses an example of one of his times observing a machine shop, where fitter fabricators would make their component parts and would be forever sharpening their tools, as the flow of work meant there was uneven delivery of parts, so people didn’t want to be standing around.
The waste of motion is one of the least obvious wastes, but the advice I gave my students is to put a video recorder up overlooking their factory, and run it for an hour during the production shift.
[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container][fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding=”” dimension_margin=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_imageframe image_id=”479″ style_type=”none” stylecolor=”” hover_type=”none” bordersize=”” bordercolor=”” borderradius=”” align=”none” lightbox=”no” gallery_id=”” lightbox_image=”” alt=”” link=”” linktarget=”_self” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=””]https://leantomatoes.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/3d643-tps-sign.jpg?w=300&h=64[/fusion_imageframe][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container][fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat=”no-repeat” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=””][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ spacing=”” center_content=”no” link=”” target=”_self” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” class=”” id=”” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat=”no-repeat” hover_type=”none” border_size=”0″ border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_position=”all” padding=”” dimension_margin=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=”” last=”no”][fusion_text]This records just exactly what activities the employees are undertaking during the working day and is often quite revealing. I visit many Gembas during my travels, and trust me, I witness a lot of people walking around looking for either materials, tools and equipment and information in relation to the job in hand.
Last week I visited one of the factories, owned by one of my participants, and he had taken this to heart. He stayed that he’d been to many Lean presentations and was sceptical about the snake oil of you could achieve a 30% improvement in productivity through Lean.
However, he took me through their Gemba and already I could see the first flush of Lean with some good 5S, and the. He shepherded me up to the boardroom and he had a little surprise for me. He had actually taken my advice and had set up a video and after reviewing the content, he concluded that in the 10 minute video, he only saw about 3 minutes of working!
He has now shown this to his entire team, and has set them the challenge to reduce waste of motion, as this is often the biggest productivity winner of these classic waste.
Congratulations to the guys in Tauranga, this was a great example of using simple analysis using a video, to really identify where there was a problem!
I know they will be working hard to fix these opportunities, and of course there is no blame on this one, this was not a draconian measure to entrap staff…far from it!
I’m sure Taichii Ohno would have approved. I’ m also sure that he would have scolded the managers in front of the staff as to why they hadn’t done this sooner, as they didn’t spend enough time at Gemba.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Diary of a Kaizen Warrior 