Just-In-Time | it just makes sense

About fifteen years ago I moved from Central Europe to the USA. Back then many things were different between these two places (not anymore, though). I almost felt like I was on another planet. I was so excited about the New World I was discovering that everything seemed better to me than what I remembered from back home. It wasn’t until much later that I started noticing some things that were actually better in my old Poland.

One of them was the way food… felt to me. At first buying a ready made plate of potatoes, steak and green beans nicely placed in 3 dents was really amazing to me. I wrote to my parents that in America people don’t have to spend time cooking because everything is ready made. All you have to do is take it out of the freezer, remove plastic foil and stick it in the microwave oven for a few minutes. But soon I realized that the food just isn’t as good as what my dad would make. Somehow the idea of buying fresh produce and meat and spending an hour or two preparing it right before the meal makes much more sense to me now. It tastes better, its more healthy and costs less.

There is no question that one of the main reasons why I (and anybody who has ever visited my parents’ home) love my dad’s food is because he is a talented cook. But he doesn’t use magic to turn raw veggies and dead corps into a tasty, irresistible dish. He knows what material to use and how to process it. He also uses the Just-In-Time system.

You might ask: “What does food preparation have to do with Lean Philosophy?” Ok, I agree that cars and many other commodities don’t have to taste good and so probably they don’t have to be made out of fresh, straight from the steel mill material (although in some cases it does matter how long ago a piece of metal came out of the oven). As I have mentioned – my dad’s meals are not only better and healthier. They also cost less. Before that whitish/yellowish thing on the paper plate comes out of the microwave oven, it must go through a lot of processes, many hands must move it from place to place, I imagine – some things need to be added to it (the names of those things just don’t sound tasty to me) and – what probably costs the most – the so called “potatoes” spend a lot of time just sitting and being moved from freezer to freezer in the factory, the warehouse,  the truck and yet another in the store where I purchased it, until I finally put it in my own freezer (paying for the electricity to keep it cold right up until I eat it). It would be interesting to find out what percentage of the time between the moment the potato was dug out of the ground to the time it appeared on my table the vegetable spent just sitting and waiting. My guess is – much more than 90% of the time. I have to pay for all that time even though not even one second of it represents any real value to me. As a matter of fact – the potatoes would be much more valuable to me if they didn’t have to be mixed with some nasty preservatives in order to stay fresh looking.

Even though cars, toys, houses and many other products don’t have to be kept in freezers – every minute they spend laying and waiting costs much more than it seems. Waiting is waste. Laying and acquiring dust is Muda. Toyota System or Lean Manufacturing system’s aim is to eliminate Muda by creating an environment that allows the material to flow through the production without stopping for too long (or in the ideal world of Lean – without stopping at all).

The best way to achieve this goal is by organizing the production process into cells, where individual workers constantly add to the value of the product carrying it through the successive processes of production. Then, Kanbans need to be placed between those cells, or work stations. When the Kanban is empty – one piece of the product is made and put in the Kanban just in time when it is needed. It is then immediately taken out of the Kanban and more value is added to it. Eventually the customer receives the product (no sooner and no later than she needs it) and pays for it. Part of the price goes to the workers, part pays for the material and part is the profit. Not a dime goes into covering the costs of pointless, wasteful sitting and waiting. Ok – so a big chunk of the price is tax, but even the Japanese have not been able to avoid this stinkiest of all Mudas.

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Kaizen | Continuous Improvement

During the exciting days of learning about and implementing the Toyota System I asked one of our youngest workers – Lukas, what he would change in our production plant if he owned it. His reply was: “I’ve never thought about it.” But he started looking around and thinking about it. I know this because a few days later he shared his first idea of a small but significant improvement. About once a month our cars were loaded on a container and shipped out.  Our forklift would lift three cars held together by specially designed metal construction, with 3 workers on each side making sure the cars were safe. The most dangerous part was the place between the gate of our building and the container which was standing outside.  Lukas stated the obvious: “The reason why seven people are needed to carry the cars out of the building instead of just one instead of one  is because of that step and the bad quality pavement right outside. If we fix it – only the forklift operator will be needed to take the cars out of the building.”

We fixed the problem (with very low costs) and from then on our monthly shipments were less costly and, who knows – we might have avoided some nasty accident which we were just asking for with the uneven pavement . This is how the era of Kaizen began in our company. From that point forward our production plant was not run with 3 heads and 60+ hands, but with 30+ heads (and at least one extra pair of hands that no longer avoided getting dirty – yes the Toyota System totally changed my attitude about my role as a manager).

You can imagine what implementation of this improvement must have meant for Lukas. I think it changed that young worker even more than the question “So, what would you change?”. After that experience he started treating the company as his own home and he got to the point that he had ideas for improvement on a daily basis. Others started joining him and gradually our work stations were becoming less dangerous, more pleasant and more efficient. The whole production process now makes much more sense than before and it just feels like a more friendly place. How nice it is to know that next week things will make even more sense and our workers will work not harder but smarter and perhaps safer. Probably the greatest outcome of Kaizen is that the workers are happier because our plant is no longer a battle field between the management and the workers but they feel appreciated and have the appropriate sense of pride in the difference they make.

Kaizen, which in Japanese means good (zen) change (kai) is a philosophy that motivates people to constantly improve their surroundings. I personally find the idea not only inspiring but also inspired. I grew up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. The Communistic system discouraged people from making improvements and so people seemed to have gradually lost their natural tendency to try to make things better. As a result I grew up in a pretty gray and very stagnant environment. Then a simple electrician and a few other workers in some shipyard decided to change a few things (who gave them that faith that their efforts might actually destroy the Communistic system?!). Their determination led to a total change of the political and economic system which gave way to progress. Now – two decades later – everything around me is in constant movement. Pretty much everything is improving. People are happier – they seem to be more confident in their own abilities. Many of them are the same people who back then – during Communism, would just go through the motions but now, they are new creatures. Actually – they are more creators than creatures. As Steven R. Covey put it: they act instead of being acted upon.

What needed to happen to make similar changes in our production plant? Only two things: The workers needed to be asked to share their ideas for improvements and they had to feel that their ideas were welcomed. The worse thing that we as managers could do would be to say: “If your idea is so simple – why didn’t you share it before? We have wasted so much money for so many years because you didn’t care to share this simple solution?!” Imagine how you would feel if this was the response to your suggestion? I know I would have a hard time sharing any improvement ideas in the future.

Kaizen and the idea of Continuous Improvement do not suggest that everybody should all of a sudden become managers or that anybody can start doing things in his or her way. Order and structure are very important elements of any organization. What my experience with the Toyota System and Kaizen Philosophy taught me is that empowering the workers doesn’t have to lead to chaos but if done properly will lead to greater efficiency. Individual workers know more about their particular parts of the production process than anything else. Each one of them is a creative individual. Ignoring their knowledge and experience and not allowing them to use their natural, creative potential is waste or “big muda” as my boss would say.

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