I love your level of honesty so much, Ryan. It really also highlights the reiterative process of implementing LEAN. it's not happening over a year or two
Thankyou Leo, do not stop, keep persisting, it takes most companies a few years to get 100% engagement and consistently working on this everyday is key :)
The biggest challenge I’ve run into is taking a design that was not optimized for manufacturing and getting engineering to play nice and change the design. The complexity of customer and governmental approvals for design changes is maddening. Standard work and continuous improvement is great, but make sure you are working with the optimal design.
Great video, Ryan. I have a request/suggestion: It would be incredibly valuable (especially for someone like me just beginning my lean journey) if you made videos going into intricate detail on how you actually/literally execute these concepts. You do this a bit in other videos but you could go into further detail showing real SOP’s being written, what software you use, the chain of communication between employees from new idea, how to update an SOP, publishing it for all employees, how employees are notified of the change. Even if you did one video of one concept in intricate detail I think it would open people’s minds more on how lean works, how you think, how we need to think to get to your level. It might be a very long video but I don’t doubt that all of your subscribers would watch every second of it! Thanks!
I came to standard work through problem solving. When something was “wrong” asking the question “what should it be” usually. Gets an interesting response. And was almost never documented. Especially painful when working with 4 shifts and no real overlap….
Good question, a team lead from that department will assess the suggestion, once approved they will also approve the document once completed, Gemba Docs has this feature built in
Would love info on leader standard work; our leaders keep trying to use SOPs as a “rules for thee but not for me” manipulation tool, will hold others to them and change them willy nilly to pass the buck but will not use them personally or put enough thought and effort in to set others up to succeed with them. We tried to get them in the habit and seeing the benefit by creating a written standard problem solving process that lays out the PDCA cycle, but they find any excuse to skip it and jump straight back to following their gut and perpetuating their preconceived notions instead of observing and analyzing processes and thinking solutions through. It’s killing our whole lean effort, improvement projects keep dead ending, leaders undo progress inadvertently by rolling out half-solutions and refusing to review and follow updated processes, everyone is demoralized by their behavior as well.
Leadership is key to building a Lean Culture, get your leadership team to fully understand why its important, they need to truly believe in any systems they are asking their teams to follow. My advice is, Focus on your leadership team for now.
Have a look into Layered Process Audits. It drives a lot of leadership standard work (across all levels) w.r.t following standards and where improvements are needed where the results (for the customer) don't follow the expectations.
Hi Ryan. Love your channel. I watch all your videos. Quick question (I've been trying to figure this out for years): When documenting a new standard work process, do you document the new process immediately the first time you do it? Or do you play around with the process a few times first, tweak it, improve it as much as you possibly can for the moment... then after a few days (once you're satisfied) document it as standard work?
Hi, Thankyou for watching and great question, for us, once we identify a process that needs documented we go ahead and make the Standard Work. We do not waste too much time trying to make it perfect, although we usually find some process improvements during the process of identifying the steps in the process. The Standard Work will be/should be updated regularly once it is in place.
I love your level of honesty so much, Ryan. It really also highlights the reiterative process of implementing LEAN. it's not happening over a year or two
Thankyou Leo, do not stop, keep persisting, it takes most companies a few years to get 100% engagement and consistently working on this everyday is key :)
“Continuous improvement of the standard” such clear focus, thanks again Ryan! 😎
You're welcome :)
The biggest challenge I’ve run into is taking a design that was not optimized for manufacturing and getting engineering to play nice and change the design. The complexity of customer and governmental approvals for design changes is maddening. Standard work and continuous improvement is great, but make sure you are working with the optimal design.
Great point
Agreed longer term. But sometimes you’ve just got to make the most of what you have at the time.
Great video, Ryan. I have a request/suggestion: It would be incredibly valuable (especially for someone like me just beginning my lean journey) if you made videos going into intricate detail on how you actually/literally execute these concepts. You do this a bit in other videos but you could go into further detail showing real SOP’s being written, what software you use, the chain of communication between employees from new idea, how to update an SOP, publishing it for all employees, how employees are notified of the change. Even if you did one video of one concept in intricate detail I think it would open people’s minds more on how lean works, how you think, how we need to think to get to your level. It might be a very long video but I don’t doubt that all of your subscribers would watch every second of it!
Thanks!
Agree. I'd definitely value that content
Fantastic discussion as always 👍👍. "Documenting highlights the waste" is gold.
Thankyou, glad you enjoyed it Patrick
I came to standard work through problem solving. When something was “wrong” asking the question “what should it be” usually. Gets an interesting response. And was almost never documented. Especially painful when working with 4 shifts and no real overlap….
Brilliant. How do you approve a process change? How do you handle suggested improvements that you know are a bad idea.
Good question, a team lead from that department will assess the suggestion, once approved they will also approve the document once completed, Gemba Docs has this feature built in
SoP's should be essential for every business. Great podcast
For sure...thank you Deborah :)
Great questions of Ryan
Would love info on leader standard work; our leaders keep trying to use SOPs as a “rules for thee but not for me” manipulation tool, will hold others to them and change them willy nilly to pass the buck but will not use them personally or put enough thought and effort in to set others up to succeed with them. We tried to get them in the habit and seeing the benefit by creating a written standard problem solving process that lays out the PDCA cycle, but they find any excuse to skip it and jump straight back to following their gut and perpetuating their preconceived notions instead of observing and analyzing processes and thinking solutions through. It’s killing our whole lean effort, improvement projects keep dead ending, leaders undo progress inadvertently by rolling out half-solutions and refusing to review and follow updated processes, everyone is demoralized by their behavior as well.
Leadership is key to building a Lean Culture, get your leadership team to fully understand why its important, they need to truly believe in any systems they are asking their teams to follow. My advice is, Focus on your leadership team for now.
Have a look into Layered Process Audits. It drives a lot of leadership standard work (across all levels) w.r.t following standards and where improvements are needed where the results (for the customer) don't follow the expectations.
Hi Ryan. Love your channel. I watch all your videos. Quick question (I've been trying to figure this out for years):
When documenting a new standard work process, do you document the new process immediately the first time you do it?
Or do you play around with the process a few times first, tweak it, improve it as much as you possibly can for the moment... then after a few days (once you're satisfied) document it as standard work?
Hi, Thankyou for watching and great question, for us, once we identify a process that needs documented we go ahead and make the Standard Work.
We do not waste too much time trying to make it perfect, although we usually find some process improvements during the process of identifying the steps in the process.
The Standard Work will be/should be updated regularly once it is in place.
@@leanmadesimple That makes a lot of sense. I will try doing that. Thank you!
What is the balance for instructions (SOP) between to simple and over complicating the process. (what can you assume or not)
There's a fine line, we've made the mistake of over documenting in some departments, for us, we are keeping it simple for now.