If you have been following our case stories on how to add ZING to your innovation, we have one more.
If you missed our previous posts, you can read them at:
Case Study #3 - Removing Physical and Mental Roadblocks
How to improve delivery performance?
The problem that Pradeep Kumar, a Master Black Belt with over a decade of experience in Operational Excellence and Lean Six Sigma projects, faced was how to improve delivery performance at a press component manufacturer catering to the automotive industry. After studying their operations, he discovered that they needed to improve how they scheduled their dispatches.
Empowering the team
One
of the key actions to be taken in this project was very simple, improve the work place organization in the dispatch area. The dispatch area was completely chaotic and the
team members had several reasons why the place could not be better
organized. The reasons (excuses) ranged
from lack of space, erratic schedules from the customer, lack of empty bins
provided by the customer, speed of inspection not matching that of the
production and so on and so on.
It looked like there was no way this team could make a change, as they seemed stuck. The current, chaotic way, wherein everyone
was busy, running helter-skelter made people look busy and hardworking; and in
their minds they simply could not imagine a better way of working.
It was necessary to figure out a way
for the team to believe in a change and be accountable for the result. Pradeep gave
the team a pep talk to help them to see and believe that with some creative
thinking they could find a better way. He provided them a time frame for working on the change and he left them
alone to come up with a plan of action.
A tool that we find very useful for solving a complex problem such as this one is to ask the right question. For example, how might we reorganize our space to deliver our product more efficiently?
If you would like to learn more, here is a card from our tool chest. You can also read our white paper, To Properly Solve The Problem, Ask The Right Question or watch our slightly irreverant video.
Reorganizing the Work Place
Pradeep was pleasantly surprised to see the changes the team had made in organizing the
work place. In particular, the way they
organized the fabrication of a large steel platform that created the area of inspection
of parts. This platform helped to
provide a better use of floor space.
The Beginning of Improving the Delivery
This change not only improved the dispatch area appearance remarkably,
but it also made a better use of space overall. Just this change, improved delivery performance. This was just the beginning of
positive change in the factory, not just of the processes but more importantly the mind-sets
of the people.
Reduce the Window of Waste, Creating the Rhythm of Pull and this case study are just a few examples of how creative thinking and innovation add zing to process excellence projects. In today's fast changing and global environments, we believe it's a must for all projects to formally include innovation. While both newness and improvement are important, and can be deployed independently, it is clear that newness enhances improvement with better outcomes.
Do you have an example of how formally including innovative thinking improved a process? Tell us about it in our comments box or join us in our Linkedin group, Innovative Brains.