I am a Camera

The essence of the Toyota Production System is based on two pillars: JIT (LEAN)   - the elimination of all non-value adding wastes: excess inventory, motion, waiting, defects, overproduction, incorrect processing, and transportation and “Respect for People”: Jidoka (empowering all workers to get to the root cause of problems by stopping the line), developing people to their fullest capabilities, asking people to implement their creative ideas (Quick and Easy Kaizen) and using standardized work (every process is performed consistently in the best possible way.)  But, how do you get started and how do you sustain your improvement efforts?

What I like to do, whenever, I visit a company is to walk around as if I was a camera looking to take pictures of waste.  I use my eyes as the lens and my mind as the shutter.  Ask I walk, I look and snap my eyes every time I see a waste.  If I see a person I snap my eyes and then record my observation by putting a check mark on a column: 1. The person was just waiting, 2. The person was working but not adding value (value is only what the customer should pay for like tightening a bolt), 3. The person was adding value, 4. The person was walking, moving things around, 5. The person was inspecting, or 6. The person was doing rework.

After the walk, looking at as many people as I can, I then add up the check marks in each column and then show the percentage of time spent on each activity.   Doing this simple walk will show you what percentage of work is value adding and what percentage of work is non-value adding.  You would be lucky to find more than 5% of the time are people actually adding value.  This is a great way to start your Lean efforts.  When you see the small amount of time spent on value adding activities, your team can begin to find out ways to improve the value-adding ratio.  The best way to do this is by just asking people to come up with ideas to improve everyday.