American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case Studies

Cloud computing is seeing tremendous growth in many sectors and is being driven by companies such as Amazon, IBM, Alibaba, and Google. Because of the work from home situation, many of us have found ourselves in, the expected growth in this sector is expected to be 25% a year. Here are six advantages of cloud computing for manufacturers.

Because cloud computing simplifies the delivery of goods and services over the internet, product delivery becomes easier. 3D printing is a perfect example of an industry that is benefiting from cloud delivery.

No longer do companies have to purchase 3D printing systems. They can develop prototypes in CAD, upload those drawings to a 3D printing company, and take advantage of their 3D printing expertise. As a small company, you don’t have to make the investment to benefit from rapid prototype parts, etc.

Especially since many employees are working from home, cloud collaboration tools make it easy for companies to develop new products remotely.

Engineers and designers can access services, applications, data, and design software from anywhere at any time. These distributed services help reduce the lead time for new product development, which can allow companies to pivot quickly if required.

Several weeks ago, I interviewed a company that uses cloud computing to monitor sensors and switches on all kinds of production machinery. The company is a Factory Wiz. The information their services provide allows business owners to make better decisions regarding their business. Great examples of how cloud computing will benefit manufacturers.

Supply chains for manufacturers can be quite complicated and volatile. Imagine trying to get exercise equipment from China during a pandemic. Or an appliance from South Korea. These items have been sold out for months.

Using cloud computing, you can establish real-time connections, and applied with other technologies like RFID tags, you can know the exact location of anything within your supply chain.

Because cloud services can aggregate customer data from many different channels, manufacturers can develop a better picture of their customer base and their needs.

Most CRM tools are cloud-based and provide manufacturers the ability to quickly identify and service customers when they contact you. Because they are cloud-based, they are more secure as well.

This is a relatively new service offering known as Desktop as a Service or DaaS. Employees only need a screen with some basic hardware, and the software is provided by cloud-based services.

Users only pay for cloud usage, eliminating the cost of expensive hardware and continual software updates.

These are all examples of the advantages of cloud computing for manufacturers!

As always, it’s an honor to serve you, and I hope this helps you and your organization get a little better today.

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Over the thirty years that I have been honored to work with companies, I have seen fantastic, mind-blowing results from Lean efforts. I have also seen companies lose interest after a short time. They treat their Lean innovation like a Book of the Month Club or get frustrated from a lack of results. Some organizations become paralyzed and never begin their Lean Innovation. To me, that is the worst situation of all.

I would like to share some gotchas I have seen.

1. Companies make their Lean Innovation more complicated than it needs to be. They gather too much data. They struggle with analysis paralysis. They confuse the workforce with Lean terminology. None of this helps the company improve. Use a simple roadmap for success.
2. They put the success of the innovation in the hands of a few individuals. Leadership hands the effort to a few “Lean coordinators” and expects them to affect the bottom line. How can you drive real culture change if everything is left to a few people? There won’t be engagement if they involve only a few employees in the innovation.
3. The number of Kaizen or Rapid Improvement Events (RIE’s) conducted is a Key Performance Indicator. This can lead to RIE fatigue. We schedule people into events they know nothing about. They are included in events to “check the box” that they were in a Rapid Improvement Event.

To make your Lean transformation more successful I wrote a book called the Lean Game Plan which shares a four steps for a successful Lean transformation.

The first step is for leadership to agree upon what the True North is for the organization. This translates into a Lean Management System. They must agree upon a few Key Performance Indicators that measure the performance of the business.

I had a client whose mantra was to measure what matters. They went from measuring thirty KPI’s to about six. Guess what? They gained much more clarity in their business decision making and they made rapid gains in a short time.

Develop an Enterprise Value Stream map to identify waste opportunities which feed into your Lean Game Plan. Conduct waste walks and go to where the work is being done to learn.

Establish a Lean Game Plan that includes Lean activities scheduled a quarter at a time.

This should go without saying, but I’ve seen many organizations skip this step or try to take shortcuts. It is important to train everyone in the organization on basic lean concepts. You aren’t trying to make them experts but expose them to Lean concepts. This helps provide a background they can rely on when they take part in RIE’s.

Using Value Stream Mapping as your backbone, identify waste in your processes. Focus on removing the waste using Rapid Improvement Events or Kaizen. Schedule the events a quarter at a time and make sure they occur.

Ensure teams have a report out after every event. Video the report-out in case members of leadership can’t attend in person. They can watch the recording and provide positive feedback to the participants after the report out. That feedback is a key ingredient for generating employee engagement and culture change.

Review your RIE library quarterly. After you have been conducting RIE’s for a while, you will develop a library of events that are complete.

Have a monthly meeting to review the events, formally close events, and ensure you are sustaining the gains. If you are not seeing improvement to your KPI’s after two quarters, don’t be afraid to make changes. Sports teams often make half-time course-corrections and your company should do the same!

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I’m sure preparing for 2021 is on the minds of many organizations this time of year. Given the strange year it has been, I’m sure we all want to move on from 2020. I have seen companies “decide” they want to implement Lean in the next year when they do their annual planning. What I rarely hear is we need to develop a culture that supports Lean efforts. To get you thinking along those lines, here are some elements of a lean culture.

Any successful business or cultural transformation starts at the top. The same is true when trying to develop a Lean culture. One of the first things the leadership team needs to establish is the True North for the company. If it already exists, great. Then move on to the next step, which is to establish a Lean management system.

A lean management system supports the True North of the company and becomes the “rules of engagement.” The Lean management system provides the elements the organization views as important to their success. I often present the Lean management system as a house. Regardless, it is an extremely important part of a Lean transformation.

Having a servant leadership mindset are other elements of a Lean culture. “Inverting the triangle” refers leaders supporting those below them in the organization instead of a more command a control style of leadership.

As you develop your Lean Management System, it is important to focus on the customer. Successful Lean cultures are obsessive in supporting the needs of their customers. This is a cultural element that separates them from their competition.

Ensure you remain or become even more focused on the needs of the culture and communicate that throughout the organization- every day! Think of a company relentless about servicing the customer- Zappos. The founder passed away this weekend- but he took a business from $100,000 in sales and grew it where Amazon bought it for 1.2 Billion dollars. He built a culture focused on servicing the customer.

Companies with a Lean culture operate and communicate with mutual respect for everyone in the company. Many elements of a Lean transformation require people to get together in a room and problem solve or kaizen.

The problem-solving or kaizen activity requires employees to have frank and open discussions to make the company better. This is much easier to accomplish if everyone’s ideas are treated with mutual respect.

The core of a Lean culture is a focus on identifying and eliminating waste in processes. Great companies spend the time and money necessary to train everyone in the company on how to identify waste and the tools used to eliminate it.

If your culture follows a True North and has established a Lean management system, then training everyone is a great next step. Training everyone in the company on Lean methodologies will help you develop the elements of a Lean culture.

As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!

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There have been great strides in developing vaccines for COVID-19, with four different companies announcing vaccines that will be available soon. While that is great news, the logistics of producing 300M doses in the US, keeping them cold enough for distribution- as cold as -100 degrees Fahrenheit won’t happen overnight. That said, it’s important as a leader to lead for growth next year. Here are three tips to lead for growth in 2021.

If your business plan is based upon having physical locations, what steps can you take to increase the speed of your digital transformation? If you supply goods or services to industries that have been affected, are there complementary industries you can provide your goods and services to?

Since things appear a little clearer, gather your leadership team to develop the best case business plan for the next two years. Then develop a plan B and a Plan C business plan. Everything that I have read says there will be a phased approach to delivering the vaccine starting with health care workers, people at risk, then the public. I believe it will take until the last half of the year before things return to a semblance of the past. I’m a pretty optimistic person.

If you are like me, you are suffering from COVID fatigue. Many of your employees are being asked to work from home for the first time. The impromptu chatting with neighbors or in a break room has disappeared. Can you establish a morning coffee break employees can join? What about zoom cook-offs where employees can share home recipes and then show the completed meal?

Look for ways to remind people that their hard work isn’t going unnoticed. Can you provide gift cards for a meditation app? Can you purchase gift cards that can be used for a powerful massage gun like a Jawku which can relieve sore muscles from sitting all day on Zoom?

Peter Drucker said culture eats strategy for lunch. It is more important than ever to focus on generating or keeping a positive company culture as everyone adjusts pitches in to support your growth plans for the next two years.

If your staff is remote, there is no such thing as overcommunication. Your employees are concerned about the future. Share with them the business plan for the next two years. Let them know what the B and C plans look like.

Provide a forum where they can ask questions and have input into the business plan. The more they are heard, the more ownership they will take in making it happen. It’s a tremendous way to get them involved and engaged to lead for growth in 2021! 

As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!

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If you are like me, I'm sure you never stopped to think about where your turkey comes from- the turkey supply chain. As you can imagine it takes a large effort for the turkey to arrive at your local grocery store in time for Thanksgiving.

Here are some interesting facts about Thanksgiving in the United States.

The first celebration was held in 1621 and in 1863 Abraham Lincoln made it a National Holiday.

It's estimated 88% of Americans will eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

The interesting part is that over 220 million turkeys are sold in the United States annually. If you were to level that out, it is close to 1 million turkeys per working day.

As we know, it doesn't work like that. The high points for turkey consumption is Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. We consume 46 million at Thanksgiving, 22 million at Christmas, and 19 million at Easter. Imagine having to produce 46 million of something to be ready for a single day. This requires an amazing amount of pre-planning and logistics.

18% of all turkeys are produced in Minnesota, 14% in North Carolina, Arkansas, and Missouri are large producers as well. Did you ever wonder why you typically buy turkeys frozen but you can buy a chicken un-frozen any time you want? The reality is, that is the only way to make 46 million turkeys available to be consumed in one day. It also explains why Minnesota is such a large producer- they can just store the birds outside and they will freeze. Just kidding.

Turkeys are produced year-round and kept frozen. Turkeys that aren't sold for Thanksgiving can be sold for Christmas, etc. The suppliers do have to prepare about six months in advance to get the turkeys where they need to be. That's just the logistics side.

Turkeys reach their size in about 14-18 weeks, so about 4.5 months. This year has been especially complicated because of COVID19 and the concerns of spreading the virus in large family gatherings. Many families are forgoing large get-togethers because of concern for older more susceptible members of the family. This has altered the demand for turkey size.

Since smaller gatherings are happening, the request for smaller turkeys has gone from "give me the biggest turkey you have, to give me the smallest turkey you have." Turkey breast only options have also increased. These are better sized for 1-3 people.

This year also brings an increase in families trying to cook a turkey for the first time. Whole Foods is teaming up with Progressive Insurance to offer a $35 gift certificate to the first 1000 people who make a claim of a ruined turkey. This is why there is always Chinese food as an option.

Finally, I want to mention the Butterball turkey hotline which has been around for 30 years and receives about 100,000 calls per year. You can even access it through Alexa. If that isn't a sign of the times, I don't know what is.

I hope that you have a fantastic and safe Thanksgiving and until tomorrow, have a great one.

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Undertaking a business transformation is difficult. After all, who are the only people who like change? Wet babies. Depending upon where you start, it can take a lot of heavy lifting from many people in the organization. It’s easy to get caught up conducting “activities” on a weekly or monthly basis, which is why it’s important to slow down, reflect, and be grateful during your Lean journey.

Henry Ford recognized the value of bringing people together to accomplish work and make improvements so a business could last multiple generations. He realized the opportunity to work together, really work together toward a common True North was a success. Does your company have that same mindset?

Here are a few tips so your company can be grateful during your Lean journey.

1. Realize it’s not a set of tools

Many people think that undertaking a Lean business transformation is deploying a set of tools. I used to be that way as well. I was lucky enough to be part of a large Lean transformation in the late 1980s when I was a college student at the University of Cincinnati and co-oping at Huffy bicycle. 

At the time, we didn’t understand how a successful Lean transformation hinged on engaging employees and generating excitement in the organization. It wasn’t until I studied more, learned more consulting with companies, and saw greater benefits from getting everyone engaged that it clicked. Benefit from my experience, Lean implementations should focus on activating and engaging your workforce to make your company better.

2. Support their efforts

When you engage employees by having them take part in training, value stream mapping, and Rapid Improvement Events, make sure they have a report out at the end of the activity. Ensure that leaders in the organization are there to watch the report out.

Nothing will kill employee engagement quicker than presenting to an empty room. If leaders say the business transformation is important, then show up and support the hard work your employees have done during the 3-5 days of the Rapid Improvement Event.

3. Thank them

Now that you have shown up for the report out, thank the employees for their hard work. Realize they aren’t expert public speakers and it takes a lot of courage to stand in front of their leaders and present what they did.

Make sure the leadership team gives them huge congratulations and encouragement. Thank each participant individually if you can. Let them know how grateful you are for making the company better. Realize they your most powerful resource for building a successful company.

I know if you follow these three steps you will be grateful during your Lean journey.

As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!

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Staying with the theme of gratitude for this Thanksgiving week, I want to share some tips to develop a culture of gratitude. If you weren’t aware, there are science-based benefits of being grateful. Productivity increases, job satisfaction increases, as does your mental and physical well-being. Here are some actions to consider.

Any successful business or cultural transformation starts at the top. The same is true when trying to develop a culture of gratitude. When leaders in the company recognize minor acts that would otherwise go unnoticed, others in the organization will do the same.

Leaders the next layer down will begin doing the same and it creates a snowball effect. At first, it might seem odd, but like anything, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Eventually, it becomes more natural.

Similar to what I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, recognizing employees needs to be around a specific activity where the employee added value. Saying, “I want to thank Tom for showing up for work today,” doesn’t have the same weight as “I want to recognize Tom for his input on our project to reduce our customer lead time from 6 to 2 weeks.”

Try to thank someone daily. Yes, daily. It will be hard at first, but as you flex your gratitude muscle, it will get easier. Thanking people regularly is a lot more genuine than thanking them once a quarter or once a year during an annual review. 

One way for employees to show gratitude is for them to give back to others in the community. Maybe you allow them a longer lunch occasionally to serve meals on wheels. You might choose a local school and provide resources to teach coding or business. I know early in my career I taught Jr. Achievement in a local high school. The company I worked at supported my time off for that activity.

I know a company in San Fernando Valley that allows employees 24 paid hours a year to work with charities. This is a $15M a year company. It’s based upon what is important to you as a company.

I’ve seen companies with thank you walls where employees can leave large post-it notes on the wall thanking other employees. I’ve seen companies make thank-you notes available in break or lunchrooms so other employees can write hand-written notes and place them in a box. They share these over the company intranet on monitors throughout the company.

Brainstorm what works best for your company and culture and try it! You’ll soon develop a culture of gratitude.

As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!

More show notes are here

Here in the United States, we are beginning Thanksgiving week, which occurs this Thursday. Often this time of the year people are flying to visit family and friends. They are scurrying to prepare a large festive gathering for friends and family. The wonderful pandemic has put much of that activity on hold. I think it's even more important this year as leaders to show your employees gratitude and here are five ways you can that.

Since many employees won't be traveling to visit family and friends it is hard on them. Many employees look forward to the break to re-charge and enjoy friendships and spend time with family. I realize you can't take the place of the family but make sure you check in with each of your employees. Find out how they are doing besides whatever their work tasks are. They will appreciate you checking in with them.

No one could have predicted the pandemic and the changes that have occurred because of it. Working from home for extended periods of time. Not having a defined separation between home and work. Juggling parent duties and home school duties while trying to do their best work.

It has been a very strange and hard year for your employees. Acknowledge that fact. I'm sure, like myself, everyone has COVID fatigue. We're tired of hearing about it, talking about it, and having it interrupt our lives. When you check in with employees this week, acknowledge it has been a struggle for everyone.

Yes, it has been a struggle. Your employees look to you to provide leadership and guidance. Make sure that you provide positive words of encouragement, thankfulness, and guidance. Identify 1-2 positive things each employee has accomplished during the year so far. As you reach out to your employees, share with them these positive things. Then...

Everyone likes to hear their own name mentioned with accolades. Publicly show your employees gratitude by recognizing them and the tremendous strain they have overcome. Use the 1-2 positive things you identified above and publicly recognize them for those activities. Make it intentional and unique to each person.

Yes, these last two steps will take some time. It's worth it if you want to be a great leader. Realize they aren't there for you, you are there for them and they need your support more than ever.

All of the above activities mean nothing if you don't say "Thank You" to each of your employees. Those two small words mean so much to people. Especially when it comes from their leader. If Doug Conant who used to be the CEO of Campbell Soup can write 30,000 thank you notes over his career, I think you can take 5 seconds and thank your employees.

Ideally, do it individually when you check in with them this week. If that can't be accomplished, then thank the group, but individually thanking them is a great way to show your employees gratitude.

As always, it is an honor to serve you, and I hope that you and your company are getting better every day!

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One of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. These are keynotes from a conversation with Mike Stankus, Chief Revenue Officer at Paperless Parts.

Paperless Parts is a secure cloud-based quoting platform that allows collaboration and quoting quickly and easily. It resides outside your ERP system and provides enormous analytic capabilities measuring win/loss performance and other information for busy business owners.

These are some key points taken from my interview with Mike:

1.  Mike has been a sales leader in the technology space for the last 30 years. He has built companies to over $200 million in sales. He liked the mission and what he saw at paperless parts and joined the company.
2. Everyone we talk to is aware technology can improve their business. Companies we talk to want to automate their quoting and also use the platform to make better decisions.
3. Our client base ranges from mom and pop shops to shops that are hundreds of millions in sales.
4. W Machine works is a successful company that is using paperless parts to capture their tribal knowledge.
5. The primary thing companies are looking to do is turn around quotes faster with greater accuracy. Additional benefits include better collaboration using secure chat and tracking comments all along the process.
6. Data analytics is another key benefit customers are looking for. We track quote time and show customers a win rate by turnaround time, by material type, by the customer, by lot size.
7. Paperless parts makes the quoting user experience better by extracting dimensional information from the drawing or model and uses that to populate a quote.
8. Our mission is great. We are helping American manufacturers, many family-owned businesses improve their competitiveness

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Two weeks ago, on my podcast, I interviewed a consultant who was part of a team that generated “hundreds of millions of dollars” in savings within the oil and gas industry. Knowing the vast landscape and impossible places that many oil rigs are in, it makes sense oil and gas is at the forefront of IIoT adoption. Here’s what they are doing.

1.    Information Technology (IT)

Given that oil and gas companies are undergoing a digital transformation, it makes sense they are highly leveraging information technology. Advances in information technology let oil and gas companies capture real-time performance data from their assets.

Using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and developing digital twins within the IT arena let rig owners know immediately if their assets aren’t performing as they should.

In the example that Ben Griner gave on the podcast, he noted the client knew vibration was an element of concern when monitoring oil rigs. Using low power sensors that can send information to satellites allows these assets to share their performance information. 

Taking this information and using machine learning and digital twins the oil and gas supermajor can predict when preventive maintenance needs to occur. This provides huge savings in operational efficiency and performance gains. 

2.   Operational Technology

Information systems are the broad category of collecting, analyzing, and using data and turning it into information. Operational technology is the hardware and software that collects the information and notices when a change has occurred.

Oil and gas companies have recently begun integrating their OT and IT software and hardware. Like many other industries, they’ve adopted this model to prevent increased cyberattacks. 

These are multi-million dollar assets they are collecting data from and sending that information via satellite. OT security is extremely important. Which leads to the next industry 4.0 technique.

3.    Cybersecurity

The IIoT technology governs devices and information systems that transmit data over the network or are embedded with sensors, electronics, and software connectivity. 

Because the devices transfer data without human assistance, data is transferred automatically and frequently. This prevents all kinds of cybersecurity opportunities.  

Imagine having assets scattered all over the world in extreme conditions. Having sensors on those assets that upload information about their location, performance, output, vibration, etc., and uplinking that information to satellites.

Having an integrated risk management and a cybersecurity strategy that integrates IT, OT, and risk is key to putting oil and gas at the forefront of IIoT adoption.

As always, it’s an honor to serve you, and I hope this helps you and your organization get a little better today.

More show notes are here