A Picture is Worth More than a Thousand Words – It’s Priceless

Earlier this year, I received an email from someone I never met, asking about my approach to 5S – organizing a workspace to improve safety and productivity. He heard about me from another location in his company, who I helped six months earlier. Later that week, we were in a Zoom meeting, and he invited me to his factory in Oregon to see if I could help jump-start their 5S efforts.

Three weeks later, I was on a plane, heading to the west coast. I arrived early in the afternoon and met with Ben, my sponsor. We took a tour of the factory and strategized about my approach with the leadership team the next day. I saw many places where 5S and other Lean tools could help them out. People in the factory were engaged and appeared ready to take a first step on their continuous improvement journey.

That evening at dinner, Ben told me about past continuous improvement efforts. There weren’t many success stories shared. I was told one consultant had visited and said he couldn’t help them. I couldn’t understand how that was possible.

The next morning, Ben and I walked around the factory again. It helped ground me and remind me of the complexity of their processes. A little later, I attended the morning leadership walk around the factory. Although there were a dozen staff members attending, only one or two were engaged at any time. I took a risk and gave Roy, the facility manager, some feedback about how he might engage his staff more effectively. He took my feedback in stride (he didn’t kick me out of the plant, so that was a good sign).

After the leadership walk, Ben and I talked about what I had seen, and we prepared for the leadership review at lunch. We created a list of the top three areas that could use my help. There were unlimited opportunities for improvement at the facility.

At lunch, we crammed into a small conference room. There may have been a dozen people seated around a table designed for six. I introduced myself and thanked them for giving me the opportunity to visit and learn about their processes. I spoke about what I saw and where I thought I could help. I wasn’t getting much engagement from the leadership team and realized my words weren’t connecting with them. With a less than successful history of continuous improvement efforts at their factory, they were naturally skeptical.

That’s when it hit me – talk about the successful Kaizen event from their sister facility. I started describing the work I did with the team. We were able to reduce a critical changeover by many hours, leading to substantial savings for the company. The leadership team started asking some questions. Then, I asked Ben if he had the report out from the Kaizen. He projected it on the screen. Now the questions were flowing. People were amazed at the “before” and “after” photos. How did we do this? Is it still working? How might we apply a similar approach locally?

Next, Roy asked where I would start. I reviewed the three areas Ben and I had prioritized. Roy said those were good choices, but he preferred to start at the beginning of the process, where quality would be most affected. I was happy to oblige, as it was much more important to gain alignment than to worry about where to start. Ben agreed and now we were talking about when we could kick-off the first Kaizen event.

I said I would charter the event with Ben, and then we could review it for approval. From there, I would write a proposal and then, once receiving a purchase order, the work could begin. I normally like to think for 24 hours before writing my proposal. But speed was critical. After chartering with Ben, I found a quiet office to write my proposal for the Kaizen. Then, Ben and I met with Roy and we were met with enthusiastic approval. I left the facility with a purchase order. The following month, I ran their first “successful” Kaizen event. But that’s another story for another day.