Dr. Deming and Value Stream Mapping:

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) has become an essential part of Lean. There have been several books written specifically on this topic. VSMs are not widely spread at Toyota. VSM is a creation of Mike Rothers and John Shook. This was based on the “Material and Information Flow Maps” at Toyota. The VSM was created as a means to systematically roll out lean implementation, and looked at current and ideal states from a system standpoint. The intent was to give the “big picture view” that was missing from lean implementations. The Material and Information Flow maps were used by a few specialists at Toyota as part of line conversions, and these later were used to help suppliers view the production system as an end to end pull system ultimately ending with material delivery to Toyota.

Dr. Deming’s Flow Diagram:

Dr. Deming was invited to Japan by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) on July 15, 1950 to teach them about Quality Control. His teachings paved the way for a great change in regards to Quality in Japan. Dr. Deming taught the Japanese that production should be viewed as a system. The diagram below was taught first in August 1950 at a conference with top management at the Hotel de Yama on Mount Hakone in Japan.

Dr. Deming felt that his flow diagram was the spark in 1950 and onward that turned Japan around. It displayed production as a system to top management and engineers. He also viewed this as a type of diagram that showed the flow of materials and information. In his words;

To the make the flow diagram work, the flow of material and information from any part of the system must match the input requirements of the next stages. Thus, the aim in the flow diagram is for the material to come in at the front, and to emerge at the end as usable product or service. The flow diagram describes not only the flow of material, but also the flow of information needed to manage the system.

Source – “The New Economics For Industry, Government, Education” by Dr. Deming.

Dr. Deming described the diagram as a map for viewing the production system. He identified a feedback loop for continual improvement of products, services and continual learning, by keeping the consumer a part of the system.

Final Words:

It may be argued that Dr. Deming’s flow diagram is not similar to a Value Stream Map. However, I am positing that his lesson of seeing the system as a whole (end to end) laid the framework for the Material and Information Flow Maps. The first step of any implementation activity is to have a model of the system so that the cause and effect links in the system can be understood, first by theory and then by experiments. I will finish off with a funny Dr. Deming story;

One of Dr. Deming’s clients called him and said that he was having too many fires at his plant. Dr. Deming plotted the occurrences of fires on a control chart and determined that it was indeed a stable process.

“No, you are having just the right amount of fires,” he said, and then proceeded to explain the control chart to the client.

Source: Deming’s Profound Knowledge and Leadership, Carder and Monda.

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Eight Lessons from Programming – At the Gemba.

Eight Lessons from Programming – At the Gemba:

In today’s post, I will be writing about the eight lessons I learned from Programming. I enjoy programming, and developing customer centric programs. I have not pursued a formal education in programming, although I did learn FORTRAN and BASIC as part of my Engineering curriculum. Whatever I have learned, I learned with an attitude of “let’s wing it and see”.

Be Very Dissatisfied with Repetitive Activities:

Our everyday life is riddled with repetition. This is the operative model of a business. Design a product, and then make them again and again. This repetitive way of doing things can be sometimes very inefficient. The programmer should have a keen eye to recognize the repetitive non-value adding activities that can be easily automated. If you have to generate a report every week, let’s automate it so that it is generated every week with minimal effort from you.

There is Always a Better Way of Doing Things:

Along the same lines as the first lesson, you must realize that there is always a better way of doing things. The best is not here yet, nor will it ever be. This is the spirit of kaizen. Even when a process has been automated, there is still big room left for improvement. The biggest room certainly is the room for improvement.

Never Forget Making Models:

When a Lean Practitioner is looking at a system, creating a model is the first step. This model could be a mental model, a mathematical model or even a small scale physical model. This model can even be a basic flowchart. This is part of the Plan phase of PDCA. How do the components work with each other? How does the system interact with the environment? What happens when step A is followed by Step B? A good programmer should understand the system first before proceeding with creating programs. A good programmer is also a good Systems Thinker.

Keep Memory in Mind:

A good programmer knows that using up a lot of memory and not freeing up memory can cause the program to hang and sometimes crash. Memory Management is an important lesson. This is very much akin to the concept of Muri in Lean. Overburdening the resources has an adverse impact on productivity and quality, and it is not a sustainable model in the long run.

Walk in Their Shoes:

A good programmer should look at the program from the end user’s viewpoint. Put yourself in their shoes, and see if your program is easy to use or not. Programmers are sometimes very focused on adding as many features as possible, when the end user is requiring only a few features. There is some similarity with the use of lean or six sigma tools at the Gemba. If it is not easy to use, the end users will try to find a way around it. This brings us to the next lesson.

Listen to the Gemba:

One of the lessons I learned early in my career is that I am not the owner of the program I write. The person using the program is the owner. If I do not listen to the end user then my program is not going to be used. I do not make the program for me; I make it for the end user. Less can be more and more can be less. The probability of a program being successful is inversely proportional to the distance of gemba from the source of program creation.

Documentation:

I wrote at the beginning that I learned programming from a “winging it” attitude. However, I soon learned the importance of documentation. A good programmer relies on good documentation. The documentation should explain the logic of the program, the flow of the program, how it will be tested and qualified, how the program changes will be documented and how the bugs will be tracked. The simplest tool for documentation can be a checklist. My favorite view on using checklists is – not using a checklist for a project is like shopping without a shopping list. You buy several things that are not needed, and do not buy the things that you actually need.

Keep a Bugs List – Learn from Mistakes:

Bugs to a programmer are like problems on a factory floor to a lean practitioner- it depends on how you view them. For a lean practitioner, problems are like gold mine. They are all opportunities to improve. In this same line of thinking, bugs are also a programmer’s friends. You learn the most from making mistakes. No program is 100% bug free. Each bug is unique and provides a great lesson. The goal is to learn from them so that you do not repeat them.

Another important lesson is – ensure that fixing a problem does not cause new problems. A programmer is prone to the law of unintended consequences. Any change to a program should be tested from a system standpoint.

Final Words:

I will finish off with my favorite anecdote about programming:

When Apple introduced the IPod, they were very proud of its “shuffle” feature. There is no accurate way of truly randomizing songs. However, there are several algorithms that can generate a pretty good random order. Apple utilized such an algorithm. It was so good that the users started complaining because sometimes the same song was repeated, or the same artist was played repeatedly. That is not how random should be – the end users argued. Steve Jobs then asked his programmers to change the algorithm so that it is less random.

The Digital Music Service company, Spotify faced the same problem. As they explained on their blog;

“If you just heard a song from a particular artist, that doesn’t mean that the next song will be more likely from a different artist in a perfectly random order. However, the old saying says that the user is always right, so we decided to look into ways of changing our shuffling algorithm so that the users are happier. We learned that they don’t like perfect randomness.”

The perception of random for the end user meant that the songs are equally spaced from one another based on how similar they are. The end user did not want randomness in a theoretical sense. They wanted random from a human practical sense.

Spotify changed their algorithm in 2014. “Last year, we updated it with a new algorithm that is intended to feel more random to a human.”

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Be Like Coal At the Gemba.

Be Like Coal at the Gemba:

One of the lessons I learned as a child from my mother was about being like coal and not like paper. Her point was that coal may not be fast to catch fire, but once lit the coal will retain heat for a long time. Paper on the other hand, catches fire quickly and burns out. The lesson was about persistence and not jumping on the band wagon only to lose interest quickly – about making decisions with level headed thinking for the long term.

Coal is also good at filtering water (information). When you are asking or looking for information, you get information along with opinions. You should be able to filter out the opinions and be able to find the information to make good decisions.

Observe, Gather Data, Gain Consensus and Then Act for the Long Term:

Toyota is famous for observing, gathering data from the gemba, and getting consensus before acting. This is the type of thinking that Toyota enriches in its culture. All decisions are based on long term thinking, and this goal does not lend itself to quick decisions or acting on fads. This is the essence of being like coal – slow to get hot but stays hot for a long time.

Filter Information – Don’t Jump to Conclusions:

Any information that is out there is information coated with opinions. Coal (activated charcoal) is used for purifying water. Using this analogy, you should train yourself to discern fact from opinions. Lean Thinking encourages coming up with hypotheses and running experiments to validate your thinking. The act of filtering data to “purify” or distill information is akin to the ability of coal to purify data. This requires constant reminding and practice from your part.

Final Words:

I will finish this post with the three filter story about Socrates. Source – Unknown

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?”

“Hold on a minute,” Socrates replied. “Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

“Well, no,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and…”

“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now, let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?”

“Umm, no, on the contrary…”

“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about my friend, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left—the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?”

“No, not really.”

“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Dharma, Karma and Quality.

Dharma, Karma and Quality:

In today’s post I will be looking at the statement – quality is everyone’s responsibility. This is an interesting preachy statement. There are two questions that can be answered by this statement;

Who is responsible for quality?
What is everyone responsible for?

The first question (who is) is a wrong question to ask because it leads to blaming and never results in an improvement of current state. The second question is just too broad to answer. Everyone is surely responsible for more than just quality.

Dharma and Karma:

The best way to explain responsibility is by looking at “dharma”. “Dharma” is an ancient Sanskrit term, and goes back to about 1500 BC. The word was first explained in the ancient Indian script Rig Veda. This was explained as a means to achieve a sense of order in the world. The term loosely can be translated as “responsibility”, or “something that needs to be done from a sense of duty”. The main purpose of dharma is to preserve or uphold the order in a system. For example, the dharma of a plant is to bloom.

This brings me to the next word – “karma”. “Karma” is more commonly used in the English language, and everybody has some understanding of this word. The term actually means “action” in Sanskrit. The action can be in the past, present or in the future. However, every one of your actions has a consequence. This attaches the “cause and effect” meaning to the word “karma”. There are three types of karma identified in the Sanskrit texts;

Karma = action
Vikarma = wrong action
Akarma = no action (doing nothing is a form of action, and sometimes this is the right thing to do)

If everybody performs karma according to their dharma, then the system is sustained successfully.

Top Management – 85% or 100% Responsible?

The answer to the question, “who is responsible for quality” is sometimes answered as “Top Management”. Dr. Deming taught that “85% of all quality problems are management problems”. He is also supposed to have stated “85% of TQC’s (Total Quality Control program) success depends on the president.” This can be depicted as the chart below.

I have viewed this as – patient zero is in the board room.

Taiichi Ohno’s, the father of Toyota Production System, view on this was as follows;

“In reality, TQC’s success depends on the president’s resolution to assume 100% responsibility. The president should imagine him or herself taken hostage by TQC and become devoted to human quality control.”

Dr. Deming has also said that – Quality is made in the board room. However, he goes on to clarify this. Quality is everyone’s responsibility, but top management has the most leverage of all to make a meaningful impact with their decisions.

In this light, the answer to the question – “what is your responsibility?” is “You are responsible for what you can control.”

Top management’s dharma is to lay down the framework for the entire organization to grow. This involves strong vision, big and drastic improvements (innovation) and growth. Middle Management’s dharma is to enforce and reinforce the framework through maintaining the status quo while encouraging small improvements (kaizen) and developing people. The operator’s dharma is to aid middle management to maintain status quo while looking for opportunities for improvements. The push for maintaining status quo is to provide a temporary structure for the process so that it can be studied for improvements. The main goal is destruction of the status quo so that a new standard can be achieved. If the karma aligns with the dharma, then the organization will sustain itself, grow and be successful.

Final Words:

I have recently rediscovered Dr. Deming’s definition of quality – Quality is the pride of workmanship. I will use Dr. Deming to succinctly summarize this post.

“In a well organized system all the components work together to support each other. In a system that is well led and managed, everybody wins. This is what I taught Japanese top management and engineers beginning in 1950.”

I will finish off with a Zen monk story;

A monk was driving his car when a dog from nowhere crossed the road. Although the monk tried stopping his car, he ran over the dog, killing it. The monk stopped his car and parked it. He looked around and saw a temple across from the road. He went to the temple and knocked at the door. Another monk opened the door.

The first monk bowed his head and said “I am so sorry.”

He pointed to where the accident happened and continued; “My karma ran over your dogma over dharma”. (My car ran over your dog over there.)

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was To Be or Not To Be.

To Be or Not To Be:

In today’s post, I will be looking at the process of decision making and the use of a modified Pugh Chart to quantitatively conduct decision making.

The general process for decision making looks like something below;

What do I have to decide? What is it about?
What are my choices?
What are the pros and cons for each?
Act upon the decision and see if any further action is needed.

Decision Making is an Emotional Process:

As you go deeper into the decision making process, you can see that it gets more and more interesting. The neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio made the striking discovery that decision making is emotional in nature, and is rarely logical. He studied several patients who suffered injuries to their brains which impaired their emotions. Their reasoning capabilities were not impacted. They all had difficulty making decisions. The patients were all cognitively normal except that they had lost their ability to experience emotions, and this significantly impacted their ability to make decisions.

So at the point of decision, emotions are very important for choosing. In fact even with what we believe are logical decisions, the very point of choice is arguably always based on emotion.

Complexity in Decision Making:

As a leader in your organization, you are required to make decisions on a daily basis. The types of decisions can be broken down into three classes;

Surface – Simple situations requiring routine decisions
Shallow – Complicated situations requiring supervisorial or managerial level decisions
Deep – Complex situations requiring Upper management level decision making

This approach is adopted from Bennet and Bennet. The surface decisions are made on a daily basis, and do not have a high risk associated with them. The shallow decisions are more infrequent and have a medium level of risk associated with them. Finally, deep decisions are rare and have high risk associated with them.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, talks about a similar approach. He argues that there is no one-size-fits-all approach for decision making. In his opinion, there are two levels of decisions to be made. “Type 1 decisions” are those decisions that have critical consequences and are irreversible or nearly irreversible. He calls them “one-way doors”. He advises making Type 1 decisions carefully, slowly and with great thought and deliberation. The other kind is the “Type 2 decisions”. These are simple and easily reversible decisions. These decisions should be made much faster and frequently. A wise man knows the difference between the two.

To Include or to Exclude:

When you think about it, decision making is a process of deciding whether to include or exclude something. I came across a great article on this involving the custom of arranged marriages in India. The decision making process in an arranged marriage uses the approach of inclusion or exclusion. The two types of thinking are;

Inclusion – After careful thought, out of the 100 applicants choose the few that you think are most suitable for your child.
Exclusion – After careful thought, out of the 100 applicants eliminate the applicants that you think are not suitable for your child.

The counterintuitive outcome is that if you utilize the inclusion approach, you will select much fewer candidates. If you use the exclusion approach, you will retain a higher number of candidates, even though you are using eliminating criteria. Additionally, when the exclusion approach is used, you are highly likely to choose an “average” candidate. On the other hand, when the inclusion approach is used, you are highly likely to choose a candidate who is very strong in certain categories.

Quantitative Pugh Matrix Method:

My favorite tool for decision making is a version of the Pugh Matrix method. The steps for the Pugh Matrix are as follows;

Decide upon the categories that are most important for making the decision
Assign a weighted scale for each category
Choose a scale for each category. This can be 1 – 5, where 1 = worst and 5 = best
Score each category for the different options
Find the final weighted score for each option. The option with the highest weighted score wins.

As an example, let’s look at the highly complicated decision of where to go for dinner. The following categories maybe suitable for this example – food taste, service, pricing, dessert quality and drinks. The next step is to assign the weighted scale. The sum of all the weighted scales should add up to 1 (100%). I have shown this below.

The next step is to assign the scores (1 to 5) for each category for the different options (Restaurant A, Restaurant B, and Restaurant C). This is shown below.

The final step is to multiply each score with its associated weighted scale, and sum it all up. This is shown below.

This shows that Restaurant A is the best choice for me based on the initial categories I chose. This tool is applicable for all kinds of scenarios. I have attached the excel spreadsheet I used for the example here. Even in the Pugh matrix, some values carry an emotional component.

I will part with a teaching from the great Zen master Shunryu Suzuki.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Talking Trash.

Talking Trash:

In today’s post, I will be looking at how trash and waste are handled in Japan, and lessons in lean from this. There are not many public trash cans available in Japan. Yet, the cities in Japan are mostly clean. This is an interesting contrast when compared to America, where public trash cans are readily available in order to keep the streets clean.

The Lack of Trash Cans:

Japan has very limited space or land available for landfills. The main method of dealing with trash is incineration. It is estimated that about 80% of the garbage collected ends up in incinerators. In order to reduce garbage, Japanese officials in various towns and cities started implementing programs to increase recycling. This led to an interesting development. To aid recycling, the officials pushed the sorting to the source – the people. They introduced categories for sorting. Slowly the number of categories increased to double digit numbers. For example, the town of Kakimatsu in Shikoku has 44 different garbage categories. The sorting policies were strictly implemented, and those who did not comply were looked down upon. This led to public trash cans and garbage cans getting filled as part of people not wanting to sort. This may have led to the removal of several trash and garbage cans from the Japanese streets. The following is taken from the 2005 NYTimes article;

In Yokohama, after a few neighborhoods started sorting last year, some residents stopped throwing away their trash at home. Garbage bins at parks and convenience stores began filling up mysteriously with unsorted trash.

“So we stopped putting garbage bins in the parks,” said Masaki Fujihira, who oversees the promotion of trash sorting at Yokohama City’s family garbage division.

The garbage program is dealt with strictly. The peer pressure and the culture to fit in ensure that the program runs effectively. Additionally, there are “volunteers” who act as “leaders” and nudge the offenders to follow the program. It is encouraged that the trash bags are clear so that the trash is made visible. There is a cultural push to clean up after yourself and to be responsible.

Final Words:

Waste is a central theme in Lean. We are advised to eliminate waste in lean. There are many lessons that we can learn from the garbage program in Japan.

Everything should be based on a need- The program was put in place due to a lack of landfill space.
Tackle the problem at the source- The program put the responsibility at the source (the person throwing away the trash).
Auditing is an important aspect of any system (by your next customer or from an outside person)- For a system to sustain the auditing function is an important step.
Anticipate how the program can fail- the removal of public trash cans was done in response to people bringing trash from home and putting them in the public bins.
Any program requires people to participate in order to succeed.

As a side note, Toyota has been pursuing a zero landfill goal. As part of this, Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing of North America took away trash cans from its 1400 employees. This was described as a learning curve for the employees. The outcome of this move was that it created awareness about waste and a change in attitude.

The purging of the waste cans was a small but significant step toward Toyota’s zero-landfill goal. And Toyota has indeed achieved the goal (zero landfill is defined as diverting at least 95 percent of all waste away from landfills and into recycling or reuse). It was one thing to reach the goal at the TEMA offices in Erlanger, where most people work at desk jobs. Quite another to go zero landfill at its 12 manufacturing plants in North America, where they make cars, engines, auto parts and other things traditionally thought of as dirty manufacturing. Toyota has achieved that at all but two of its plants, and those two are 97 percent of the way there. (From the article)

The other side of this is the point-of-use approach used widely elsewhere in the USA. Philadelphia is introducing a bill to require trash cans within 10 feet from the entrance of any business that sells prepared food for consumption off-premises. This is being done as a means to tackle the waste problem in the city. These seemingly two different approaches to tackle trash are interesting to say the least. The point-of-use is also an important tool used in lean to ensure that the operator has everything he needs in his reach.

I will finish off with an anecdote about Walt Disney. It is said that the average distance between two trash cans in any parks operated by Disney is 30 feet. This is based on the “study” performed by Walt Disney himself. As part of the planning he did for his parks, he ate a hot dog and he found that he took 30 steps before he was all done. He came to the conclusion that to meet the customers’ needs, he needed a trash can every 30 steps. This way the customer did not have to hold onto the trash.

Always keep on learning…

If you enjoyed this post, you can read more here.

In case you missed it, my last post was Take Pride in Your Work – Ji Kotei Kanketsu.

Take Pride in Your Work – Ji Kotei Kanketsu:

As a Quality professional, I am always interested in how “Quality” is handled in the Toyota Production System. A “Quality model” that Toyota uses is “Ji Kotei Kanketsu” or JKK. “Ji” in Japanese means “self”, “kotei” means “process” and “kanketsu” means “completion”. Putting all the words together, JKK means “Completion of your own work”. JKK has also been translated as “taking pride in what you are doing”, “not passing defects along to the next process”, or “next process is your customer”. The idea that the next process is your customer was something that Kaoru Ishikawa, the Japanese Quality Master, talked about a lot as part of the Total Quality Control movement.

Customer First:

JKK was initiated by Toyota as a means to increase employee awareness about quality. Every process after your process depends on your level of quality. They are all your customers. The concept of JKK is present in all facets of Toyota. JKK starts with the Engineering group through the product design and specifications – the best possible design. This is followed by Purchasing – ensuring quality components from suppliers. This is then followed by Production – maintaining and controlling the standardized work. Finally, Sales and Marketing – early detection and resolution of any potential problems. The model below is taken from the Toyota website.

Toyota describes the EDER (Early Detection, Early Resolution) program as follows;

EDER is a communication system for quickly detecting quality issues, immediately resolving issues, and swiftly providing results of rectification and kaizen feedback to customers.

Toyota teaches JKK as part of kaizen, continuous improvement. By focusing on your process and looking at the weak points in the process, you are identifying areas for improvement. JKK is practiced by the following four steps;

First, clarify target and objective of task
Clarify detailed procedure of task
Clarify Ryohin jyoken (quality points)
Immediately contact your supervisor, if a problem and/or delay may occur (pull Andon) and repeat Kaizen.

The Big Picture:

There is a counterintuitive aspect to JKK. By focusing on your own operation, you are required to focus on the next process – to ensure that the next process is successful. Thus, JKK is instilling a big picture mindset – a system approach in the employees.

Final Words:

The concept of Jidoka, is embedded in JKK. The ability to stop the line to fix the problem is the basis of building in quality. JKK is ensuring Quality Assurance in everybody’s work. Quality is defined as meeting customer’s requirements. Thus, customer satisfaction is the outcome of quality. In this regard, every Quality professional can be viewed as a customer service personnel.

I will finish off with an anecdote from the late founder of Matsushita Electric Industries, Konosuke Matsushita.

Matsushita was having a conversation with a western executive, and the discussion led to customers and treating customers like kings.

“No, that is wrong”, Matsushita said. “The customer is a god. Because, a king is a human, and thus capable of making mistakes. But a god does not make mistakes!”

Source: The Shift to JIT, Ichiro Majima.

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Giving Time for Kaizen to Work.

Giving Time for Kaizen to Work:

In today’s post I will look at kaizen and the need to allow time for an improvement to work. I am sometimes at fault about needing things to work immediately. This is a form of instant gratification – the desire to experience the results immediately. There are mainly two forms of kaizen discussed in lean literature – kaizen (small improvements) and innovation (drastic change usually involving equipment or technology). There are also medium sized improvements, and most of the time these do not result in an improvement in productivity immediately.

Shigeo Shingo and Lillian Gilbreth:

Shigeo Shingo was a consultant trainer at Toyota, and he specialized in Industrial Engineering. Shingo has written several books regarding TPS. In his book, “Key Strategies for Plant Improvement” he talked about the importance of allowing time for improvement activities to work. He referenced the “tabletop experiments” by Lillian Gilbreth as part of this. Alan Robinson along with his wife Margaret, wrote a great paper on the tabletop experiments called “On the Tabletop Improvement Experiments of Japan”. This paper talked about the contributions of Lillian Gilbreth and how her training materials were extensively used by the Japanese, and eventually by Shingo as part of his training at Toyota.

Shingo’s thinking was that the operators need to be familiar with the operation to truly feel that they are easy to do. If the steps are not familiar they have to exert their mind to think of what to do next, and this leads to mental fatigue, and thus may not result in an improvement in productivity.

Shingo discussed two experiments (Lillian had created more experiments) in his book. In the first experiment, the operator was required to write “production engineering” on 15 cards. This was a familiar phrase for the operator, and the productivity remained stable – all the cards took about the same time. The second experiment required the operator to skip every other letter, thus he was to write “poutoegneig”. The only stipulation was that he could not look at his previous work. From a work load standpoint, the number of letters were now about halved, thus it should had been a lot easier. However, the operator took a lot more time than the first experiment initially since he had to exert more time to think. After seven trials, he was able to write the word faster since he grew familiar with the phrase. The fifteenth card took about half the time as the first experiment.

Final Words:

The more I learn about Lillian Gilbreth, the more admiration I have for her. I have written about her before. The improvements may not immediately result in an increase in productivity. It is important that you understand that as part of kaizen, a certain amount of time is needed for practice to truly result in the improvement. The challenge here is – the old ways appear easier since the operator is familiar with it. Thus he may oppose the change even if it might actually reduce the work content and reduces the non-value added activities. It might be beneficial to have a standard amount of time for “sticking with the kaizen” to try it out. Rely on your data collected at the Gemba.

I will finish off with a Zen story I like a lot. This story is about how we perceive our experiences;

A student went to see his meditation teacher and said, “My situation is horrible! I feel so distracted most of the time, or my legs ache, or I’m repeatedly falling asleep. It’s terrible.” Said the teacher matter-of-factly, “It will pass.”

A week later, the student returned to his teacher. “My meditation is wonderful! I feel so ecstatically joyous and alive!” The teacher told him, “It will pass.”

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was PDCA and the Roads to Rome.

PDCA and the Roads to Rome:

In today’s post, I will be trying to look at the concept of equifinality in relationship to the scientific method PDCA. In Systems Theory, the concept of equifinality is defined as reaching the same end, no matter what the starting point was. This is applicable only in an open system. An open system is a system that interacts with its environment (external). This could be in the form of information, material or energy.

I wanted to look at the repeatability of the PDCA process. PDCA stands for the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, and is the framework for the scientific method. If three different people, with different ways of thinking, are facing the same problem, can all three reach the same end goal using the PDCA process? This would imply that equifinality is possible. This concept is shown below. Point A is the initial condition, and point B is the final desired condition. The three different colored lines depicts the three different thinking styles (the different thinking styles indicates the different starting points).

Iterative Nature of PDCA:

The most important point about PDCA is the iterative nature of the cycle. Each cycle of PDCA leads to a new cycle that is more refined. The practitioner learns from each step of the PDCA cycle. The practitioner observes the effect of each step on the problem. Every action is an opportunity to observe the system more. The results of his experiments lead to more experiments, and yield a better understanding of multiple cause-effect chains in the system.

If the scientific method is followed properly, it is highly likely that the three different practitioners can ultimately reach the same destination. The number of iterations would vary from person to person due to different thinking styles. However, the iterative nature of the scientific method ensures that the each step corrects itself based on the feedback. This type of steering mechanism based on feedback loops is the basis of the PDCA process. This idea of multiple ways or methods to have the same final performance result is equifinality. This is akin to the saying “all roads lead to Rome”. This idea of “steering” is a fundamental concept of Cybernetics. I will be writing about this fascinating field in the future.

Final Words:

This post was inspired by the following thought – can a lean purist and a six sigma purist reach the same final answer to a problem if they pursued the iterative nature of the scientific method? There has been a lot of discussion about which method is better. The solution, in my opinion, is in being open and learning from the feedback loops from the problem at hand.

I will finish this post with a neat mathematical card trick that explains the idea of equifinality further. This trick is based on a principle called Kruskal Count.

The Effect:

The spectator is asked to shuffle the deck of cards to his heart’s content. Once the spectator is convinced that the deck is thoroughly shuffled, the magician explains the rules. The Ace is counted as 1, and all the face cards (Jack, Queen and King) are counted as 5. The number cards have the same values as the number on the card.

The spectator is asked to think of any number from 1 to 10. He is then directed to hold the cards face down, and then deal cards face up in a pile. He should deal the amount of cards equal to the number he chose in his mind. The spectator takes a note of the value of the final card dealt. The spectator is directed to deal those many cards face up on the already dealt cards.

This is repeated until the spectator has reached a card at which point there are not enough cards to deal. For example, the card was 8 of Hearts, and there are only six cards remaining. This card is his selected card. He then puts the face up cards on the table on top of the cards he has on his hand. They do all of this while you have your back turned. You easily find their selected card.

The Secret:

All roads lead to Rome. This trick has an over 80% success rate.

The secret is to repeat exactly what the spectator did. You also choose a random number between 1 and 10, and start dealing as described above. Just like the concept of equifinality, no matter which number you chose as your starting position, as you go through the process, you will choose the same set of cards at the end resulting in the same selected card! Try it for yourself. Here is a link to a good paper on this.

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was If the Learner Has Not Learned, Point at the Moon.

If the Learner Has Not Learned, Point at the Moon:

In today’s post I will be looking at the role of teaching in lean and I will try to look at the role of the student in learning. “If the learner has not learned, then the teacher has not taught.” This has come to be a common expression in Lean. This saying was introduced as part of Training Within Industry’s Job Instruction (JI) program. The original expression in the JI Program manual was “If the worker hasn’t learned, the instructor hasn’t taught.” The JI card carried the statement “If the learner hasn’t learned, the teacher hasn’t taught.”

My favorite record of this statement is from the 1942 November issue of “The Rotarian” magazine. The Albert E Wiggam’s article was titled “Foremen in 10 hours” and it talked about the Job Instruction Training program (JIT). According to the article, The purpose of the JI program was to enable the foremen to have the “show’em how” – the ability to pass the “know-how” to the new-comers in ten hours.

The implication in the statement “If the learner hasn’t learned…” is that the responsibility of the student’s learning rests solely with the instructor. It is my view that the student has the responsibility to be willing as well. My favorite quote regarding this comes from the most famous Japanese Samurai Miyamoto Musashi (1584 – 1645).

“Let the teacher be as a needle, the student as a thread.”

The student has to follow the teacher like a thread that follows the needle. This is a beautiful expression. The focus of the JI program is to show how to prepare the student and how to explain “the why” and “the how” of each step. It also focused on having the student repeat the operation, and to ensure that the instructor follows-up and provides the required feedback creating a closed learning loop.

“The Ackoff Model”:

My favorite model of Knowledge Management is the DIKUW model made popular by the famous Management Science professor Russell Ackoff. This is shown below:

The five components in the order of importance are;

Data – discrete packets or values. An example for this is just a set of numbers and nouns.
Information – data with context. Answers to questions such as Who, What, When, How many etc.
Knowledge – answer to the question How?
Understanding – answer to the question Why in a global level?
Wisdom – ability to understand the situation to know what to do and execution with results

I will be using this model to further explain my thoughts. Data, information and knowledge can be imparted, and are external to the student. However, understanding and wisdom cannot be imparted and are internal to the student. The teacher can only guide the student and it is the student’s responsibility to practice and learn on his own to achieve understanding and wisdom. Perhaps, the intent of the JI is to impart knowledge to the worker on how to properly perform the operation. But the understanding and wisdom to improve one’s work (kaizen thinking) should come from the operator.

The teacher has to ensure that the student has achieved knowledge, and the student has to ensure that he achieves understanding and wisdom.

My favorite expression describing the difference between knowledge and wisdom (inspired by Peter Drucker) is;

Knowledge is doing things right and wisdom is doing the right things.

The above expression indicates that knowledge has to do with being efficient, and wisdom has to do with being effective.

The Role of the Sensei:

“Sensei” is a Japanese word that has roots in Chinese and the literal meaning in Japanese is “lives (born) before”. Sensei has come to mean “Teacher”. The term is connected with martial arts training. There are four criteria that a sensei should possess;

Technical ability – understanding of the technical aspects of the subject and ability to keep on polishing/learning
Taking Responsibility – ensuring that the sensei passes along his knowledge so that the “chain” does not get broken
Ability to communicate – the sensei must be able to communicate his mastery to his students of all levels of aptitude
Understanding – the sensei should be understanding of his students

The Role of the Student:

There is a notion in Zen that “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear”. The implication here is that the student has to be ready first and pursuing learning, only then will the teacher appear. The student can learn from everything around him only if he is receptive to learning. The student has the responsibility to present himself with humility and determination to understand and practice the skill. The student must be eager to learn and willing to “forget” what he has learned before. My favorite account for this is an anecdote I have heard before:

A student went to a teacher and asked him “can you teach me how to meditate” and the teacher said “No. I might let you learn under me.”

My Final Words:

It is the responsibility of the teacher to help the student attain knowledge, and it is the responsibility of the student to reach wisdom from there. Both the teacher and student have to be willing to give and receive learning. The student has to surpass the teacher. The student cannot do this simply by copying the teacher. The student has to build upon the teacher’s teachings and find wisdom on his own, leapfrogging the teacher.

I will finish this off with a Zen story about pointing at the moon – don’t mistake the finger for the moon.

The Buddha says “my teaching is not a dogma or a doctrine, but no doubt some people will take it as such.” The Buddha goes on to say “I must state clearly that my teaching is a method to experience reality and not reality itself, just as a finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself. A thinking person makes use of the finger to see the moon. A person who only looks at the finger and mistakes it for the moon will never see the real moon.”

To see the moon you have to look beyond the finger.

Always keep on learning…

You may like my newer post on the cybernetic aspects of teaching and learning. If the teacher hasn’t learned, the teacher hasn’t taught.

In case you missed it, my last post was The Many Flavors of Kaizen.

Harish's Notebook – My notes… Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science.

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Author Archives: Harish

Dr. Deming and Value Stream Mapping:

Eight Lessons from Programming – At the Gemba:

Be Like Coal at the Gemba:

Dharma, Karma and Quality:

To Be or Not To Be:

Talking Trash:

Take Pride in Your Work – Ji Kotei Kanketsu:

Giving Time for Kaizen to Work:

PDCA and the Roads to Rome:

If the Learner Has Not Learned, Point at the Moon: