Monument, Dynamo and Suitcase:

There is a concept in Lean called a “Monument”. This refers to a large machine, equipment or something similar that cannot be changed right away and so you have to plan your processes around it. This generally impedes the flow and frequently becomes a hindrance to your lean initiatives. A monument is the opposite of the “flow” and “no waste” concepts of lean. Monuments do not always refer to an equipment or similar hardware. The worst kind of monument can sometimes be the culture or the mental models prevalent in the company. This results in the following excuses;

It might work in Japan but not here.
But we have to do it this way.
This is how we have always done it, and this is how I was taught.
How does cutting down inventory help with my production?

The Story of the Productivity Paradox – Computer and Dynamo:

Paul David, an economic historian wrote a wonderful paper in 1989 called “Computer And Dynamo: The Modern Productivity Paradox In A Not-Too Distant Mirror”. In the paper, he talked about the first productivity paradox involving steam engines and electrical engines. The steam engine was an outcome of the Industrial Revolution in England. All of the factories were using steam engines as a source of energy. The steam engine required all of the equipment to be clustered around it. This was the most efficient way of running equipment since there was only one major steam engine and all of the equipment ran from the steam power. The electric motor was an outcome of the technological innovations in America. Electricity was introduced to the factories as early as 1890. Everybody understood that electrical power is far more efficient than steam power. However, this did not result in an increase in productivity. The productivity remained fairly level even with the introduction of electrical power in to the factories. This was later termed as the “productivity paradox”.

The reason for the lack of increase in productivity was due to the factory layouts that were implemented for the steam engines. The Industrial Engineers replaced the steam engines with electrical engines. They did not rearrange the equipment to utilize the flexibility that was offered by the electric motor. They were constrained by their mental models. Even when new factories were built, they followed the layout that was being used with the steam engines. All of the equipment was clustered into one place hindering the flow. It is said that the factory layouts did not change for about 30 years when the old management was replaced with new management personnel. At this point, the layout was rearranged to follow the flow of materials, and this caused a spike in productivity. All of the engines had its own motor and this allowed the equipment to be spread apart from one another. Each operator was now in full control of his equipment. The monument was broken down since the management was not tied down to the old ways of thinking.

Final Words:

Everybody works from their own mental models. A company’s culture is a collection of these mental models at an equilibrium state. The Dynamo story teaches us the importance of learning from experiments and self-reflection. This is part of the “Check” face of the PDCA cycle. The feedback loop is the only way that one learns the best. I have heard that “we are going 70 miles per hour to get this done, and we do not have time to stop and change the tires.” We need to find time to step back and reflect. The system is trying to talk to you and we should heed its words. Sometimes we get caught up in the firefighting and we stay in that mode for a long time even though we keep fighting the same fires on a daily basis. The feeling of déjà-vu is an indication that we need to stop, step back and try to see the big picture. It is time to reflect.

I will finish off with a similar story about suitcases. I heard this first from my brother:

The “trunk” style of suitcases was the prominent form of luggage in the late 1800’s. People started traveling for leisure during the early 1900s which caused manufacturers to come up with new designs. These trunks were heavily built and weighed quite a lot. The term suitcase was introduced since these cases were used for holding suits. The suitcases became prominent in 1930s with the advent of commercial flights. Even at this time, they were not the light weight type that we have today. The addition of a wheel to the suitcase did not come till 1972. Up to that point, the suitcases were carried around by hand. The use of trolleys to transport luggage were seen as a sign of weakness. Even after the wheels were attached to the suitcases, it did not take off immediately. They were seen as mainly for stewardesses or women. Men were seen as wimpy if they used the wheel on the suitcase (talk about men-tal models!).

In about 1989 (after more than ten years of having wheels), a Northwest Airlines pilot named Bob Plath came up with a vertical case with extendable handles and two large wheels on the side. It took another 15 years to have a 360 degrees spinning wheel to be on the suitcase. Samsonite introduced this model in 2004.

The suitcase is a fairly straightforward design, and it took us about 70 years to achieve our present state.

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Dr. Deming and Value Stream Mapping.

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.

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.

Reflecting on Hansei:

In today’s post I will be looking at “Hansei”. “Hansei” is a Japanese word and has some significance in Toyota Production System. Generally I have seen this to be translated as “introspection” or “self-reflection”. I will be looking at Hansei from the Japanese culture standpoint and will try to add to the understanding of this concept.

Hansei in Japanese Culture:

The term “hansei” is related to the word “shame” in Japanese culture. However, the term does not have the undesirable emotion that we might associate with in the Western world. The term does not result in undermining oneself in the Japanese culture. The meaning speaks to making you aware that there is room for improvement and humility. There is a positive notation behind the term hansei. It is an action of criticizing oneself so that one understands the gap in their performance and thus corrects this in the future. In Japanese schools, the children are trained to perform hansei on a regular basis, generally daily. The following section is taken from the paper, “Condoned or Condemned: The Situational Affordance of Anger and Shame in the US and Japan” by Michael Boiger and Batja Mesquita;

Although shame is perceived as an unpleasant emotion in Japan, its negative valence is less pronounced than in the US (Romney, Moore, & Rusch, 1997)—possibly because it is considered conducive to self-improvement and perspective-taking (cf. Heine et al., 1999). Shame is encouraged in children: For instance, schools foster shame by the practice of hansei (critical self-reflection), a scheduled time to think about areas of self-improvement at the end of the school day (Lewis, 1995). Being aware of one’s shortcomings, and actively correcting them, affirms interdependence and helps individuals re-align with social norms and expectations.

When children do something bad, the parents say “hansei shinasai” or “do hansei”. Although this is done as part of scolding, the child is also made to realize that he can improve as an individual and this is a motivation for him to do so.

This is an opportunity for them to do the following in the correct order;

Feel really sorry about what they did (recognition of what you did)
Assume responsibility
Understand what went wrong
Correct their thinking, so that this does not repeat (desire to improve)

Through hansei we understand our shortcomings so that we can improve ourselves to be better. Kaizen (change for the better) can happen through hansei. Daily practice of hansei helps us to assume responsibility to see problems and keeps us open for improvements. Humility is one of the cherished virtues in the Eastern world. Daily hansei is an exercise to promote humility and be a life-long learner.

“Hansei Shimasu” is one of several forms of apology in the Japanese language. This is used when someone has done something pretty bad and is used to show sincere apology, deep regret and determination to not repeat the act.

In the adult life, hansei also includes an introspection of “what went right” along with “what went wrong / what could be improved”. At the end of projects, they hold “hansei-kai” – meetings to do hansei. The purpose is to learn from each other what went wrong, and what went right. These two perspectives allow an opportunity for everybody to learn. They learn from others mistakes, and they also learn from others about how to do things right – sort of a benchmarking process. There might be slightly more focus on what went wrong since they provide the real opportunity to learn.

Toyota and Hansei:

Toyota has become a learning organization and this is one of the reasons why Toyota has become so successful. Hansei has a strong role in being a learning organization. In Toyota, hansei is often viewed as a precursor to kaizen, and a pre-requisite to being a learning organization. This is best explained as below (taken from Toyota-Global website);

Hansei is both an intellectual and emotional introspection. The individual must recognize the gap between the current situation and the ideal, take responsibility for finding solutions, and commit to a course of action. The examination involves a review of successes and failures, to determine what works and what needs to be improved. Hansei leads to ideas for kaizen and yokoten, the sharing of best practices from one location to another.

“Yokoten” can be translated from Japanese as “horizontal deployment”. This is summarized in the graphic below:

Final Words:

It is true that hansei forces us to look at what went wrong. However, the intent is not to place the blame, the intent is to make the person aware of the problem, and make him motivated to address the problem and not repeat it. Hansei is seen as a good thing. In the process of doing research for this article, I came across a book in Japanese titled “How to deal with Americans who don’t do hansei?” 🙂 It is an interesting title for sure!

I will finish this post with an anecdote on road rage in Japan. (Source: Asia Pacific Memo).

Psychologists working for the National Police Academy in Japan have incorporated a personal inventory test in the curriculum of the officially certified driving schools. This inventory was adapted from the Minnesota Personality Inventory, which was developed as a means to evaluate military recruits during World War I.

The purpose of this test is not to fail anybody due to their specific traits. Nobody can fail this test. The purpose of the test is to make them aware of the traits so that they can do hansei. The point is to encourage self-reflection (hansei), according to psychologists at one testing company. They believe that self-reflection among student drivers will allow them to modify their behavior or take special precautions. Those who score high on the “sensitivity” scale may be expected to adopt a zen-like attitude of tolerance and not assume that the acts of other drivers are provocations. Those who score low on the “emotional stability” scale are exhorted to focus on driving only.

There has been no evidence that this has worked. But this shows the cultural significance of hansei in Japan.

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was Improving the Understanding of Kaizen.

Improving the Understanding of Kaizen:

Kaizen is probably one of the most versatile terms in Lean. I have written several posts on kaizen. In today’s post, I will be looking at improving the understanding of kaizen. In Japanese, the word “kaizen” means to change for the better. Kaizen has come to mean several things – from “continuous improvement” to “kaizen events”. I will be sticking with the idea of change for the better.

From a philosophical standpoint, kaizen can happen two ways;

Problem solving kaizen – improvement through solving a problem
Kaizen – improvement through making things better

1 – Problem Solving Kaizen:

In the lean world, a problem is always defined as a deviation from the established standard. It is the gap between the current state (what it is now) and the ideal state (what it should be = established standard). As part of solving the problem, you may find a better way to surpass the established standard to a better state. This is shown below:

If you stop at just reaching the established standard, you may have solved the problem, but you have not made it better. Once you go higher, you have made an improvement.

2 – Kaizen – Making Things Better:

The established standard is never the best state. It is simply the state that was determined to be the acceptable standard. If we are at that level, we can expect to be performing as intended.

Improving from the state of current standard is actually a hard task. From a production standpoint, the current state matches the established standard. However, your desired standard is higher than the established standard. This very much depends upon you and this is a hard skill to master. The extent of the kaizen depends upon the gap between the established standard and your desired standard. You can achieve this only through the belief that the current established standard is not acceptable.

This type of kaizen can be achieved by;

Developing an attitude that the established standard is not acceptable.
Going to the Gemba (the actual workplace). Gemba is your teacher.
Understanding the current standard.
Looking for waste and putting countermeasures in place.
Developing others to practice steps 1 through 4.

There are several stories about Taiichi Ohno (the founder of Toyota Production System) drawing a chalk circle on the floor and asking the supervisor to stand in the circle and observe. The supervisor would stand in the circle for hours until Ohno was satisfied that the supervisor is able to see the wastes.

No task is 100% value added and free of waste. In Japanese, the term for waste is “muda”. Muda means “no value” (mu = no, da = value). Thus, muda represents non-value adding tasks. This itself has a deeper meaning. A component that is produced from a CNC machine has value. However, if the component that is produced is not needed right now by the next station, then it does not have any value. Thus, this excess inventory is identified as a form of waste in lean.

Final Words:

I have seen that the best kind of kaizen comes when you are either very lazy or very dissatisfied with something. Both of these paths lead to “there must be a better way of doing this”.

I will finish off with a story about my four year old nephew, Aaron, and how he did some problem solving on his own.

My brother has an Ipad that he allows my nephew to play games on. One day my brother and sister-in-law realized that Aaron had been watching Disney cartoons on the YouTube app. Aaron was three at the time and did not truly know how to spell words. They were surprised that he was able to find the cartoons on his own.

My brother and my sister-in-law could not figure out how Aaron was able to find the Disney cartoons on YouTube since he could not type any words to search. Aaron was not in the mood to explain how he did it either. My brother decided to watch Aaron the next time he was playing on the Ipad. Finally my brother understood what was going on. Aaron was clicking on the microphone button on the keyboard and saying the words aloud. Aaron had figured out that he could use the microphone to search. Aaron had solved the problem all by himself.

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was The Idea of Wa in Nemawashi.

The Idea of Wa in Nemawashi:

In today’s post, I will be looking at Nemawashi and the idea of “Wa”. “Nemawashi” literally means to “dig around the roots” so that you can successfully transplant a plant from one location to the other. Nemawashi is considered to be an important part of Hoshin Kanri (Policy Deployment) as a means to get group consensus. Toyota puts great emphasis on building consensus. In fact, Toyota defines “Genchi Genbutsu” as “go to the source to find the facts to make correct decisions, build consensus and achieve goals at our best speed.”

Why is building consensus such an important thing? One logical answer is that if you do not have consensus then you do not have buy-in from everybody, and your goals will not be achieved. My best understanding is that this is all about “Wa”. “Wa” can be translated from Japanese as “group harmony”. This is a very important cultural concept for the Japanese. The idea of “wa” is so important to them that the term “wa-fu” means “Japanese-Style”.

Dig Around the Roots:

The idea of nemawashi comes from the world of gardening. The gardener transplants a plant with great care. This would mean that the dirt around each root is carefully moved so that the act of transplanting does not shock the plant. This is an act of care and attention.

Nemawashi serves the most important role of not disrupting harmony in the organization. Nemawashi is a process of building consensus. The main idea of nemawashi is to get buy-in from everybody involved and this can be often done “before” the idea is formally introduced in a larger group setting. This can be done as a one-on-one casual chat over lunch or playing golf, or as an informal sub-group meeting with 2 or 3 people. These kinds of conversations are open and allows for the voices of both parties to be heard. The proposal can be polished based on the initial feedback so that when it is officially presented, it does not get rejected. A good nemawashi would have feedback from all of the key influencers before the idea is introduced in a formal group setting. A good nemawashi goes through several iterations so that each feedback, concern or hesitation, is carefully addressed. Sometimes one has to go back to the drawing board based on the strong opposition from a key-player. All of this is done before the idea is formally introduced. The “roots are loosened” through this process so that the idea (plant) can be safely transferred to be deployed. The nemawashi process can be a lengthy process since each person making the decision is given a chance to separately weigh in, and the appropriate modifications are made and consensus is again obtained.

It is interesting to note that in the Japanese culture, there are few surprises allowed in a meeting. This is against the idea of wa. The meeting is conducted to formally agree on things that are already informally agreed upon, and to report/share statuses. The key players in the meeting are already made aware of all the important matters in advance of the meeting. This clearly shows the respect for wa. In contrast, in the western world, the meeting is a means for people to talk about things and sometimes debate. This approach in the Japanese world would make everybody uncomfortable since they are debating in the open and the harmony is disrupted. All the discussion and debate is done offline in a much smaller group setting. This way nobody has to publically concede or compromise.

One of the systems used to document the nemawashi process is the Ringi system that uses an A3 size document. This document clearly states the purpose of the project, the current state, the ideal state, the proposed countermeasures, the cost information etc. All of this is contained in the A3 size paper. This is not the same as the A3 thinking in Lean. The Ringi system is simply a proposal approval system. This is also referred to as Ringi-sho system.

Final Words:

My purpose for today’s post was to give some background on the concept of nemawashi and to explain the philosophical and cultural importance of nemawashi in Japan. The concept of nemawashi is strongly rooted in the concept of wa – group harmony. I will finish this post with an interesting anecdote (in his words) from Don George at National Geographic that further explains the idea of wa.

In my lecture I’d recounted one experience I had at the very beginning of the trip after checking into our hotel in Kyoto. I was in the lobby elevator, headed for my room on the ninth floor, when two beautiful kimono-clad Japanese women entered and pressed the button for the fifth floor. As the elevator rose, we exchanged pleasantries in Japanese. When it stopped on their floor and the door opened, they both bowed to me and one said, “O saki ni, shitsurei shimasu”—essentially, “Excuse me for leaving the elevator before you.”

My unspoken reaction at the time had been, “Well, since your room is on the fifth floor and mine is on the ninth, you really don’t need to apologize for getting out before me.” But of course, that was beside the point. We were sharing the experience of being in the elevator together, and they were breaking that happy harmony by departing before I did. And so in consideration of that, it was only proper to apologize.

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was The Goal of Lean.

The Goal of Lean:

I was talking to my friend at work, who I consider to be very knowledgeable and wise. He told me something that I have not heard before.

“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better, and your better is best.”

I looked this up, and I saw that this quote is attributed to St. Jerome (347-420 A.D). This succinctly summarizes the idea of kaizen. Kaizen is Japanese for “change for the better”. It is not asking you to change from good to best, overnight. It is asking you to change from good to better, and then from better to best. The advice of “never let it rest” indicates that it is an ongoing process. The best is always yet to come.

It is a Journey:

I have often heard about lean being a journey and not a destination. This means that you are not to look at lean as an end goal. It is about improving little by little and is never ending. It is an ongoing journey where your goal is to simply improve from the day before. Counter-intuitively the goal of lean is not to set a goal that is attained and to stop doing lean. The goal of lean is to just do lean.

In this regard, lean does not talk about setting goals. It focuses on creating a self-sustaining system – a never-stopping engine that keeps moving towards the ideal state. Lean is based on long term thinking, and in reality it never reaches the ideal state. However, the ideal state (true north) gives lean a direction to move towards.

I have written about “continuous improvement = kaizen + wisdom”. Instead of setting goals, we should focus on developing our people so that they are engaged in the continuous improvement philosophy. We should focus on setting up processes to ensure kaizen – working smarter and not harder. Develop your people to be aware of waste, and challenge them to improve their processes from where it was yesterday. This single system ensures that your organization keeps on moving towards the ideal state, referred to as True North by Toyota.

It is your job to lay the framework to make them good. Then it becomes their job to make it better. Finally it is both of your jobs to make it the best.

The Story of the Boy and the Jelly Beans:

I will finish this post with a modified version of a story I read a while back:

Once a boy went to a grocery store with his mother. The boy was very well behaved. The shopkeeper was very impressed with his gentle nature. He looked at the boy and pointed towards the glass jar of jelly beans and said.

“Dear child, you can take a handful of jelly beans out of this jar.”

The boy was very fond of jelly beans. He was very happy. He reached in the jar and grabbed a handful. He thanked the shopkeeper politely.

The next week, the boy again returned with his mother. He was again very well behaved. This time too, the shopkeeper invited the boy to take a handful of jelly beans. This time the boy hesitated and looked at his mother. His mother also said, “Take the sweets dear.” The young boy still did not do anything. He simply pointed at his mother. His mother thought that he was being shy and grabbed a handful for the child, and gave the handful to him. The child started smiling again, and thanked the shopkeeper.

Another week went by, and the boy returned to the shop with his mother again. The shopkeeper saw him and offered the jelly beans again. This time too, the boy did nothing. His mother offered to grab a handful. The boy stood still and then shook his head. Seeing this, the shopkeeper offered to grab a handful, and the boy slowly put out both his hands. The shopkeeper gave him a handful of jelly beans. The boy was again smiling and thanked the shopkeeper.

His mother was very curious about the boy’s behavior since she knew how much he loved jelly beans. When they got home, his mother asked him to explain his behavior over the weeks.

“The first time I grabbed a handful, and held your hand I realized that your hand is much larger than mine. I knew I would get more if you grabbed a handful.”

“This time, I saw that the shopkeeper had a larger hand than yours. So I waited until, he would give me a handful. See how much more jelly beans I got?”

Always keep on learning…

In case you missed it, my last post was The Mother of Modern Management.

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

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Category Archives: Philosophy

Monument, Dynamo and Suitcase:

Eight Lessons from Programming – At the Gemba:

Be Like Coal at the Gemba:

Dharma, Karma and Quality:

To Be or Not To Be:

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

Reflecting on Hansei:

Improving the Understanding of Kaizen:

The Idea of Wa in Nemawashi:

The Goal of Lean: