Training in the Moment
Process Improvement Partners was invited to help a gummy vitamin manufacturer reduce their changeover time. Walking through the process with the sponsor, we felt that we could attain a sustainable 50% reduction in time, while improving the safety of the process and engaging the team with a winning attitude.
After the charter was developed, we identified the winning team of participants. This included people who work in the process, those who manage the process, and others who were quite interested in helping the team win.
First Day Skepticism
On the first day of the Kaizen, the team was joined by a group of others from management and support groups, who were very interested in what was about to happen. After some introductions, those in the room voiced their concerns about the ability of the team to reduce time in half without substantial capital investment or significant training. As I had been through many of these sessions before with continued success, I assured them we wouldn’t have to spend much money and we would be able to train everyone properly by the end of the week. After all, we only had a week to accomplish our goals. I told the team that every team before them was able to achieve the 50% goal and I knew they would too. Most in the room looked like they thought it wouldn’t be possible, but they were supportive of our efforts.
The average changeover time for the past year was 4 ½ hours, so our goal would be to safely complete the same type of changeover in 2 ¼ hours. After some training in Lean concepts, we walked out to the factory floor and observed the crew on shift complete a changeover. This changeover took 5 hours and 32 minutes, a full hour longer than our baseline. After the changeover was complete, I brought the team into the meeting room to share their observations and ideas for improvement to the changeover. At the end of a very long first day, the team had four prioritized improvement efforts to work on during the morning of the next day. We went out to dinner to unwind and continue the discussion. Even though it was a very long day, everyone seemed excited about what might be possible.
On the morning of day 2, the team started to make changes, based on their observations and ideas. The plan for day 2 was to implement as much as possible in the morning, and then the team would conduct the changeover in the afternoon. This time, the crew on shift would observe the team, rather than the other way around. Some basic organization, visualization, and minor equipment improvements were made before lunchtime. We were now ready to see what would happen.
The plan was to conduct the changeover after lunch and then review our results and ideas following the changeover. I knew this might make the day even longer than the first, but this was critical for team learning and new improvement ideas.
The team completed the day 2 changeover in 5 hours and 1 minute and looked really tired and uninterested in reviewing things in the meeting room. Undeterred, I brought them together and got their immediate feedback. One of the team members pointed out that while the individual team members had simpler and safer methods to do their work, there was no real coordination of effort between the six team members doing the work. This was a revelation, and he was energized to build something that we could try out the next day. The team was spent and went home to rest and hopefully relax a bit.
The next morning, there was a flurry of activity, as the team came together to develop ways to coordinate efforts across all people doing the work. A large white board was developed to track the activities of the team members and show status before the changeover was to start as well as during the changeover. It wasn’t completed before our next test, but we decided to start using it in the afternoon.
Using the new ideas from the morning, the team completed the changeover in 3 hours and 17 minutes. Even though they were still an hour away from their goal, they were extremely excited about what might be possible. None of them remembered completing a changeover of this complexity in less than 3 hours and 30 minutes. I told them that on day 4, we would be asking the crew, not the team, to try the new changeover procedure. This meant that we not only had to complete the improvements, but also have to train others in our new approach. Now the team was nervous. How would they train people who had never seen our new procedure in such a short amount of time? I assured them that we would be just fine. They all went home a bit skeptical, but energized.
Training in an Hour
The team came into the meeting room on day 4, wondering how they would be able to transfer all the changes to the crew to use that afternoon. I told them we would do it in a very simple process: “Tell, Show, Do.” This means each team member would be paired up with a crew member one hour before the changeover preparation was to begin. They would first tell their partner about the new procedure. Next, they would show how to do the procedure. Finally, they would have their partner demonstrate their understanding of the procedure. This technique would bring out questions and full understanding in a short amount of time. By describing the process early in the morning, the team could think about it as they were working on their improvements.
By lunchtime, all the major improvement work was complete. The board was upgraded to show status of each task for each of the six crew members in “swim lanes”. There was a timeline from two hours before the changeover was to start (preparation steps) to three hours from the changeover start, in 30-minute segments. The idea was to complete every preparation task before the line stopped running and every changeover task assigned in less than three hours across all six swim lanes. Every task had a red magnet on it, and when complete, it was to be switched with a green magnet. If one of the crew members was still red in their swim lane while another crew member was green, he or she could be asked to help the crew member who was behind.
We brought the team and the crew together just before the training was about to begin. We thanked them and told them the team was doing their best to make this the safest, easiest changeover possible, and they would be pairing up and showing them all of the new changes. We asked them to try everything in the new way, in as safe a manner as possible, and we would get their feedback following the changeover. If they thought anything was unsafe, they should determine a safe way to complete the task and we would make the appropriate changes afterwards.
The one-hour training started and everyone paired up and walked around discussing and trying the changes. The white board was placed prominently in front of the supervisor office, and everyone could see what was happening.
It’s OK to Ask for Help
After the training was complete, the two-hour changeover preparation began. This preparation was being done while the line was still running. Crew members had to watch the line as well as complete their preparation steps. Team members shadowed the crew members and coached them in the new procedure, but they were not allowed to do the work for them.
Back at the board, the team leader and shift coordinator were turning some of the red magnets green, as preparation tasks were completed. I walked up to the board and asked them what they were seeing. They weren’t really sure what I meant. I pointed out one of the swim lanes had many green magnets, meaning one of the crew members was an hour ahead of everyone else. One of the other swim lanes had all red magnets and was falling behind. I asked them what they thought they should do. They were unsure, so I pointed out that Green could help Red catch up. I left them, hoping they would take the initiative to get help for Red. Three minutes later, I noticed they hadn’t left the board to get help, and Green was getting further ahead of Red. I returned to the board and asked them if they were going to get help for Green. This time, they said they would. I left them but didn’t go far. I noticed they weren’t making any moves or approaching crew members to get help for Red. I went back to the board and said, “let’s go see Green and ask her to help Red.”
They grudgingly walked with me up to the mezzanine, where Green was working. I introduced myself to Green and told her she was doing great and was way ahead of schedule. Then I asked her if she would be willing to help Red, who was getting pretty far behind. She said she would be happy to, and walked with us to Red, who was appreciative to get help. The light bulb went off for the team leader and shift coordinator and they started to make more moves to drive Red tasks to Green.
Back at the board, every time a red magnet was switched to green, the team leader and shift coordinator would high-five each other. There was no way the team would fail now. One of our other team members found a large monitor and placed it in the window of the supervisor office and started a timer for everyone to see how long the changeover was taking.
As we approached the two-hour mark, it became apparent we might meet our goal. People started to get really excited and the shift coordinator was making all of the moves he could to ensure a win for the team. At two hours and five minutes there was a bunch of cheering and clapping. Everyone thought they were done. It was a false alarm, however, as the Quality Department had not yet signed off on the new product being produced. One of the team members went to the Quality Office to get a representative to look at the product and do the appropriate tests required. At two hours and ten minutes, all of the approvals were received. There was a roar of applause and a bunch of hugging all over the place. I doubt that has ever happened before in the plant.
We brought the team and the crew back into the meeting room to get their feedback. To a person, they didn’t think what we had done was possible, but now realized it was. They realized the importance of coordination, help, and coaching. The team decided they would train all of the other crews in this way, to ensure full understanding and buy-in.
On the day of the report-out, each team member admitted they didn’t think we would be able to reach our goals. It was hard for me not to say, “I told you so!” If I were to pick the most important changes they made, it would be the coordination and visualization of effort. Everyone knew who needed help and what they had to do to win.