When is Continuous Improvement not an Improvement?
We need a breakthrough!
Sometimes it seems that organisations can put all of the “ingredients” in place to create a lean, continuous improvement culture to drive them towards operational excellence, yet it somehow doesn’t all come together.
I was introduced to the recently appointed Manufacturing Director of a well-known bed maker. We discovered that we shared similar automotive experiences, and he started telling me of his frustration with the progress of lean within the organisation. They had a CI manager, many of the managers knew about lean, they held regular meetings to discuss “improvement projects” and yet there seemed to be very little actual improvement.
The director had ideas to change things. He wanted to challenge the managers to actually deliver and also to involve the shop floor in the process. He also wanted to challenge their current ways of doing things and demonstrate what was possible with a different approach. In short, he needed a breakthrough to shift the organisation’s mindset.
After some discussion, we concluded that the right approach was to run a “Rapid Improvement Event” with an ambitious target of achieving a 10% productivity improvement over a one-week period.
What is a Rapid Improvement Event? The Theory
A Rapid Improvement Event, RIE for short (often called a Kaizen Event), is an intense, focussed period of improvement activity aimed at delivering a demonstrable improvement rather than just talking about it or diagnosing and planning for subsequent implementation.
An RIE will involve all of those necessary to make the change, from the front-line staff who really understand the work, support staff who make be needed to support analysis or make changes happen (e.g. planners, finance, facilities teams, quality), up to managers who have the authority to sanction change and remove any obstacles to the team’s progress. Supporting the actions for the RIE needs to be top priority for that time period.
The RIE typically follows a standard structure as illustrated in the diagram below and usually runs over 5 days. There’s nothing particularly special about this; I’ve run events of 3 days, 5 half days or longer than a week. It just seems that a week is a nice timeframe to tackle a meaty enough topic and actually achieve something rather than just talking about it.
With this in mind, it’s important to set a realistic scope for the RIE in terms of the area of the business to be looked at (for example, one team or production cell) and the nature of the change to be considered. This must be big enough to be a noticeable “step change” and yet be achievable within the timescale of the event. It may require some preliminary work to ensure this is achieved. Often this is no more than briefing the team members on what is or may be required, or there may be some preliminary analysis or thinking that will be helpful. In some cases I have surveyed customers to provide an input to the even where inviting the customer group would be inappropriate.
The steps of a typical RIE are as follows:
1. Set the scene: describe the purpose and structure of the event, agree how the team will work and so on.
2. Explain lean principles: for those new to lean, a simple explanation of key principles (e.g. identifying value, establishing flow, finding and eliminating waste, finding the root causes of problems) can help them get into the right “mindset” for the event.
3. Study the current process: with a focus to “Go and See” where the work is actually happening, the team will observe the current process to identify possible areas for improvement, then dig a bit deeper to really understand what’s going on. For example, a process map may help understand the logic of the process, a “spaghetti diagram” – tracing the movement of people or materials – can show poor flow and unnecessary movement, data analysis can quantify the issues observed and so on.
4. Create a vision for the future: based on their understanding of the current process and lean principles, perhaps inspired by examples from other organisations, the team will come up with a “vision for the future”. What would their ideal operation look like if all of the opportunities were realised.
5. Define a Target Condition: not all of the aspects of the vision will be achieved quickly for a variety of reasons. The next step is to define what can realistically be achieved within the timescale of the event. Other items will have to wait until later. Prioritisation methods can be helpful here, as can creating a logical “roadmap” for working towards the vision.
6. Plan for action then do it: agree what steps need to be carried out to be ready to trial the new process, then carry them out as quickly as possible. Where necessary, brief all operators on the new process so they are ready to start to use it.
7. Trial the new process: run the new process. Identify and resolve any “bugs” to get it working smoothly.
8. Report back and celebrate success: at the end of the RIE, the event will typically report back to the wider organisation on what was done, what has been achieved and what will happen next.
It is good at this stage to acknowledge that achievement and celebrate the team’s success in an appropriate way. This builds towards some key habits of high performing teams; focussing on achievement, pausing to reflect on progress and learning about what went well and how it can be repeated. It also builds morale and motivation to work on the next improvement.
What happened in our RIE? The practice.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice there is.Yogi Berra, American baseball catcher, manager and coach
For the RIE with this client, we had previously briefed the Manufacturing Director’s management team on the plans and also held a lean leadership workshop to help them reflect on their role in the organisation and the process
While there was initially some reluctance as they thought they already “knew this stuff”, they were really ready to try doing things differently, so we were feeling very positive about the RIE itself.
Reflecting on the desire for this to be very different to what the team were currently doing, we decided to break from the standard structure and omit the basic introduction to lean thinking and get straight to action. An obvious demonstration of a different approach.
The captured ideas after sorting and grouping
Instead, following the briefest of introductions, we equipped every team member with a pack of sticky notes and a pen and observe the chosen production cell – which made the top part of a mattress – with a simple question; “what do you notice?” A key principle here is to study the actual work and not what is remembered or shown by data, thus avoiding any unconscious bias or assumption. We were confident that the team would spot lots of opportunities.
We were not disappointed. After the designated 30 minutes, we already had a wall filled with sticky notes. Everyone in the team was buzzing and keen to get on with taking action on what they had scene. Our role here was simply to tame that enthusiasm slightly and help the team take a more structured approach to ensure that the ideas they had would be effective.
We guided the team to group the sticky notes according to theme and, before long, had identified four key areas.
Matching capacity and demand (potential to reduce the number of machines)
Poor flow and use of space
Excessive Work-in-Progress
Defective materials from suppliers causing quality issues
The team was then divided into four, based on interest and relevant skill/experience, to ensure that each group had what was needed to make progress.
Part of detailed analysis of process flow
I could go into a lot more detail about what happened in each of those areas, but that’s probably more than is needed here. Suffice it to say that each sub-team studied their “chosen area” in more detail:
observing to understand more deeply
analysing data where required
applying structured problem-solving approaches to get to underlying causes
introducing other lean theory and tools (e.g. KanBan) as required.
Plan to achieve layout changes during RIE week and following days
By the middle of the third day plans were already well-advanced. On Day 4, machines were moved to improve flow, new operating rules had been defined and all shifts had been fully briefed on the changes and they were ready to try out the new procedures. By the final day, the basics of the new methods had been demonstrated and some minor niggles resolved. There were plans to complete other activities over the following few days with a few longer-term actions to be completed in the weeks that followed.
It's worth noting that the disruption to production was minimal. Planning ahead of the event ensured that the necessary staff were released from their day-to-day roles for the week. Careful planning of the machine moves allowed the key changes to be made to allow the new process to be trialled with only short stoppages in specific areas of the cell and agreeing to defer more disruptive changes to non-working time over the weekend.
The team was excited to present results back to the Managing Director and Manufacturing Director in the closing session, with the (slightly nervous) operators doing most of the presenting.
“That’s the best 30 minutes I’ve had in all my time [here].”
MD after team feedback presentation
And the results?
Based on the new process using a reduced number of machines, an immediate productivity gain of 10% was achieved due to improved flow and reduced scrap. This delivered an annual saving of over £50,000. Over the following weeks, these figures rose to over 20% and £100,000 p.a.
A significant floor area was freed up due to reduced WIP (cordoned off “for future development” to prevent others using it as a dumping ground) and some operators were released to undertake other improvement work.
Perhaps more importantly, the event had engaged everyone in making the change, in particular the shop floor team members felt a sense of ownership for the changes introduced rather than them being “imposed by management”. And, best of all, they were ready to drive more improvements.
“I thought it was going to be so boring, sitting in a room. I’ve had my best week ever, loved it, got things done that we’ve wanted for years.”
Machine operator from the RIE team
Not a bad result for 5 days work!
Key Learning Points
For me, there are three key learning points.
1. If you need a breakthrough, try something really different to what isn’t working.
In this case, we used a RIE format to break the meeting cycle and jumped straight into action on Day 1 rather than starting with theory to get the right focus
2. Trust the ability, interest and will of the team
As we showed, even those with no specific lean/CI knowledge will spot things that can be improved and be willing to take action on them. Often operators will know instinctively what is needed. All they may need is the opportunity and a “good question” to get them started.
3. With the right focus and people, a lot can be achieved in a short time
Many people cite lack of time as a reason not to make improvements. While a RIE does require an intense period of commitment from a group of people, the benefit can far outweigh the input required.
This isn’t Continuous Improvement!
Of course, a Rapid Improvement Event isn’t really continuous improvement. The normal use of the Japanese word “kaizen” is in the sense of a lot of small day-to-day improvements rather than the “step change” described in this article.
And there is a danger that this type of improvement activity becomes the main, or even only, way improvement activity happens. Its true place, as highlighted in this article, is to be used where a “breakthrough” is required as a special case when the routine CI activity isn’t delivering the results needed.
One of the things I always introduce as part of the RIE process is the idea that it can be a “launchpad” for continuous improvement in an area.
Firstly, it delivers measurable performance improvement to demonstrate what is possible and inspire further efforts.
Secondly, it introduces the idea of a “top down + bottom up” approach to making improvements, a key element of a CI culture.
Teams are encouraged to implement a PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Adjust) approach with the new process to reveal where further, incremental improvements can be made. Equally, there may be more ideas than can be actioned within the RIE week. These can both form the start of regular continuous improvement activity in a team that is now focussed on delivering improvement and is equipped with the process skills and confidence to make it happen.
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