Continuous Improvement

[David_Kaufman]

Does anyone have any experience with the Japanese concept of "kaizen"
or coninuous improvement? I'm particularly interested in how this has been or could be transferred from the industrial/manufacturing arena (such as Toyota) to the service/knowledge industry. Actually, to be even more precise, to a government agency.

In my opinion this would require a cultural shift and a long-term vision that I don't often see in the private sector, let alone a government entity.

This is one of those occasions where I'm not even sure of the questions to ask, so I look forward to tapping into the collective experience of the group.

David

[Robert_Bacal]

I've done work that might be what you are talking about in government. I prefer to refer to it as continuous improvement rather than Kaizen, for a number of reasons.

To answer your question (badly probably), the leaders of the specific work units need to be onboard, but the larger organization does not (it certainly helps a lot, but you can still accomplish a great deal on a "small" level.

I developed a process (which I'm sure is not unique) that I called dehassling the workplace, which was a faciliated process identifying and reviewing all the hassles (barriers to efficiency, effectiveness, etc), and then action planning on their removal or determining why they are there.

In effect it's agenda is continuous improvement, but I think it's best to ground things in the realities of the workplace, and workplace pains in the a** are things people relate to, and feel pain over.

--
Robert Bacal
Free Report - Informal Learning: Extending the impact of enterprise ideas and information" While training continues to play an essential part of organizational
life, most successful organizations know that corporate learning is no longer just about training.
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[Chris_Matts]

The timing of your question was quite soopky. More later.

The main expert in the software ( knowledge worker ) space is David Anderson, formerly of Microsoft and Corbis. He has developed an approach to implement Kaizen called Kanban. There is a high signal / low noise yahoo group on the subject. If interested, google "David Anderson Kanban" and read his blog. If you are interested, join the Yahoo group which has links to video and much information.

As for spooky. David is a friend of mine who is normally based in Seattle, and he was giving his Kanban presentation to my new team in London when your e:mail arrived.

Let me know if you need further pointers.

Regards

Chris

[Jan_Lelie]

Hi David, reader dear,

I don't know any solution, but i do have some experience in the field.

I've started my career in continuous improvement (kayzen, JIT, TQM, TOC, ERP, SMED, 6sigma, what ever) in manufacturing and logistics. It is rather simple to transfer it to other domains, using a model i've created, called the 4C-model. The model shows how 4 'C'-processes (Communicating, Confiding (or trusting), Committing and Co-operating) are connected to system variables (time, cost, agreements, priorities) and are linked to observables (delivery reliability, work in process and/or inventories, operational expenses, throughput) and feedback to the 4 C-processes. Usually I start with delivery reliability, then move to work in process, then throughput and the operational expenses will look after themselves. It works in manufacturing, service industries, governement. My method - of course - is facilitative: i've no idea on any particular solution, just work with the group.

I've checked the feasability, working for a large consulting firm in The Netherlands with a lot of governemental clients. It worked there too. I've explained it hunderds of times now - last week in fact - and most people are amazed how relatively simple it is and yet, are unable to apply it. The main reason is, the say to me: it is too confronting. In other words: it is a paradigm shift. A shift which i think is closely related to applying facilitative leadership. The problem is 'mental models', basically Agyris's: 'defensive routines'. (See: 'Strategy, Change and Defensive Routines). What stops the implementation of continuous improvement is that there exist double binds between management and workers and management and consultants and workers and consultants. The double bind is something like this:
A doesn't know how to improve (continuously) and B doesn't know how to improve.
A thinks that B thinks (s)he knows how to improve and B thinks that A thinks (s)he knows how to improve.
A thinks that B thinks that A knows how to improve and B thinks that A thinks that B knows how to improve.

In this situation, there is only one option: start to work together on improvement, but the moment your run into any problem, just something like '**** happens', both A and B try to stay 'at the save side', easing in, shift the blame or (not) being to out spoken. The 'correct' (for continuous improvement) intervention, by anybody in the system when a problem is encountered is 'I don't know, lets investigate'. But neither management, nor workers, nor consultants can say 'I don't know'. Lack of courage? Not professional?

(Dr. Deming phrases this differently: 'the main task of management is to drive out fear'. The problem is that most managers, still, use fear as their main instrument. Why do you think that we - on a global scale - are on war against terrorism? Because we're afraid AND most people tend to use fear as an instrument. But also on a local scale, administrators or politician cannot say 'i don't know'. Who will follow a leader who sais: 'i don't know, let's find out.' (that is the way i tend to work, by the way ;-) )

I don't know about a long term vision, i'm too much Weickian for that. In my view. there is no need for vision, evolution works without vision and that seems to work at optimal speed. Just a simple rule, like 'drive out fear', will do the trick. (Not that this is easy, mind you. But if it was easy, it wouldn't be fun).

The reason that CI started to be used in manufacturing is because there is a concrete need for continuous improvement: the learning curve. I think that governement agencies are also on that learning curve, only way, way behind. It all went according to plan, you'd haven't learned anything.

Kind regards,

Jan Lelie

[Jan_Lelie]

Hi Chris,

I've used kan bans too, optimal size is 1. The question is: 'when to release it?'.

Kind regards,

Jan Lelie

[Ned_Ruete]

David asked:
>
> Does anyone have any experience with the Japanese concept of "kaizen"
> or coninuous improvement? I'm particularly interested in how this has
> been or could be transferred from the industrial/manufacturing arena
> (such as Toyota) to the service/knowledge industry. Actually, to be
> even more precise, to a government agency.

David, there are many names for continuous improvement. Total Quality Management (TQM)is one of the earliest ones. The US Coast Guard started out with TQM that they purchased from a third party, then as they gained experience and built their own capability, it morphed into their own version which they called Quality Management. I haven't dealt with the Coast Guard for nearly ten years, but I'm sure they are still doing it after some fashion. The Quality Institutue (or whatever they are calling it now) moved about 10 years ago from Peta Luma to the grounds of the Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT. They would probably be a very good source of information on the government applications.

Motorola advanced the science when they decided that their manufacturing should achieve an exceptionally high level of quality which they called Six Sigma. The health care company that I just left used their own version of Six Sigma which they called "operational excellence" to make continuous improvement in the service/knowled industry.

The basic idea in each case is a cycle of improvement. In the Coast Guard they call it FADE - Focus on the problem, Analyze what is going on, Define a solution, Evaluate the effectiveness, and start over. In Operational Excellence/Six Sigma, it is called DMAIC: Define the problem, Measure what is going on, analyze how to fix it, Improve the process, and then make sure the process stays in Control so that the gains are maintained. Then Define a problem in another part of the process.

Kaizen, at least in Six Sigma speak, is a "quick" version of the cycle. Where DMAIC takes 90 to 180 days (longer when you are first starting out and don't have organizational support and understanding), Kaizen is intended to provide results in 60 days or less.

> In my opinion this would require a cultural shift and a long-term
> vision that I don't often see in the private sector, let alone a
> government entity.
>

You are very right. A linkage I made that as far as I know is unique to me is between change theory and TQM. Change theory says there is minor change and there is Major Change. TQM deals with minor change. The adoption of TQM is Major Change. For the most part, TQM people are incapable of understanding Major Change because they are so embued with minor change. Six Sigma does have a cycle called DMADV, where you Define a big problem, Measure, Analyze, then Define a whole new thing and Validate your design. But that does not begin to cover the many dimensions of change needed to make Major Change. For that you need ample doses of Action Research, Change Management, Transition Management, and SocioTechnical analysis.

Best of luck.

What have others experienced?

Ned Ruete
East Lyme, CT USA

[Mary_Jackson]

As I understand it, the distinction with Kaizen is that you focus on small improvements, which may be exactly what a governmental agency needs. They may feel so hemmed in by regulations that they can't change their big problems (and they may be right), but they can probably find some small positive changes that are within their control. They can target some small changes that they can make quickly, see the results, and look for other positive changes.

You could do something very physical with the participants moving through their space and identifying all of the things that they actually could change...then get them to decide what is in their control.

In what ways do they control time? How do people wait for them? How do they wait? How do they schedule things?

How do they control space? They might think they don't at all...but I bet there is something they could change.

What would happen if they made people more comfortable while waiting? What do people complain about?

Kanban is a supply chain method that says you keep a small quantity of material at hand and replace it frequently as it is used. Adopting Kanban is probably not Kaizen --- it's probably a pretty big thing.

[Robert_Bacal]

On 12 May 2008 at 16:53, Ned Ruete wrote:

> David, there are many names for continuous improvement. Total Quality
> Management (TQM)is one of the earliest ones.

Ned, I'm not sure it's relevant, but I think we need to guard our use of language. I don't see the two phrases above as meaning the same thing. They could. Or not.

that's one reason why I don't like the terms TQM, or Kaizen because they mean much more than continuous improvement, which can be parsed simply, concisely and meaningfully by anyone, and thus it's jargon free.


> Kaizen, at least in Six Sigma speak, is a "quick" version of the cycle.
> Where DMAIC takes 90 to 180 days (longer when you are first starting out and
> don't have organizational support and understanding), Kaizen is intended to
> provide results in 60 days or less.

I believe Kaizen - the concept predates Six sigma, so again, I'm not sure it matters, but I suspect we need to be clearer, and disciplined about our useages.

> . For the most part, TQM people are incapable of
> understanding Major Change because they are so embued with minor change.

The above strikes me as very strange. Could you explain a bit?

--
Robert Bacal
Free Adobe Report - Rapid E-Learning: Maturing Technology Brings
Balance and
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[James_Wiegel]

Might check out Management Sciences for Health -- Sylvie Vriesendorp -- they have an approach applied to government health ministries.

Jim Wiegel

[Allan_Mees]

I work in a large Financial Services Company in the UK and we have been deploying Toyota's approach 6 years. Our approach builds on the basic priciples and concepts of Taichii Ohno but does not use any of the Western translation of these principles into "tools". We don't do Kaizen, we don't do 5S manufacturing tools do not produce sustainable changes in transactional environments.

Our approach is based on the work of John Seddon http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/0.asp (http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/0.asp) John has been applying the Toyota approach to service companies and government departments for many years. I would recommend John's book 'Freedom From Command and Control - a better way to make the work' and his recently published book 'Systems Thinking in the Public Sector' where John argues passionately that - "governments have invested in the wrong things. Belief in targets, incentives and inspection; belief in economies of scale and shared back office services; belief in 'deliverology' these are all wrong headed ideas and yet they have underpinned the UK governments attempts to reform the public sector.
John advocates a Systems Thinking approach where individuals come first, waste is reduced and responsibility replaces blame."

I have been facilitating Lean Systems Thinking interventions using John Seddon's approach across all functional areas of our company with amazing results.

Allan

[Steven_May]

David, for the past three-four years the US Navy specifically Naval Sea Systems Command has worked to institute a concept called Lean/Six Sigma.
This incorporates the Lean process which is kaizan (as groups of informed and involved employees with the power to make the changes needed meeting specifically to design and implement the small changes to improve the processes used to produce product or service to the
customer) with the concepts of Six Sigma (metrics driven to monitor and measure sustainment). This combination has worked very well for the Navy with millions of dollars of cost avoidance etc identified to date.


I am not an expert in this process so cannot answer a lot of questions, however I have been involved in several of the kaizan events. These are led by a facilitator who is usually very knowledgeable of the Lean Six Sigma processes and knows the process being reviewed; and each event has a Lean/Six Sigma trained specialist in attendance to steer and guide the use of the tools during the 1 week event.

If you do a search on Lean/Six Sigma you should uncover some good information.

Steve May
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane) Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter Bldg 1, QMO 300 Highway 361 Crane, IN USA 47522-5001
Ph: +1 812.854.3446 Cell +1 812-296-1450
Fax: +1 812.854.4165
Email: steven.may@navy.mil (steven.may@navy.mil)

[Scott_Simmerman]

My experience with most of the quality improvement tools in American business is that tendency of so many people to simply say, "We already did that" or that, "We did that two years ago." Managers treat process improvement as a task to be accomplished and the box to be checked off so that they can get back to work.

So, for the past 15 years or so (I've been at this a long time), I have used the phrase "Continuous continuous improvement," which I attribute to the Department of Redundancy Department, as a stupidly simple way of reminding people that you cannot stop doing continuous improvement.

Kaizen as well as many of the other "programs" use specific tools for process improvement. Sometimes these are adaptable to an organization's culture and sometimes not. I remain amazed that large banks and other service organizations use programs around "Six Sigma" -- this really translates to some pretty UN-attainable goals. An error rate of 1 in 1000 is 4.6 sigma and one of 1 error in 10,000 is 5.2 sigma. Heck, 1 in 100,000 is only 5.8 sigma!!

Please tell me how a nurse in a fast-paced hospital making 1 error in 10,000 transactions and is still not meeting her SIX Sigma goal is going to be very happy -- and contrast this with a reality of maybe 1% or 2% error rates being excellent performance in such a situation.

I go the other direction. I use cartoons to get people to talk about what is not working smoothly amongst the current processes and procedures and what might be done to make an improvement. Square Wheels represent things that work but do not work well. And the Round Wheels of today will become the Square Wheels of tomorrow.

It is easy to facilitate a discussion of issues like this, since most people would like to make improvements if they are actively involved and engaged in the activity and it is done with them and not TO them. Big difference.

I hope that this is somewhat enlightening,

--

For the FUN of It!

Scott Simmerman - "The Square Wheels Guy"
Performance Management Company - 864-292-8700
3 Old Oak Drive Taylors, SC 29687
<mailto:Scott@SquareWheels.com (Scott@SquareWheels.com)>
Scott is on Skype as "SquareWheelsGuy"

[Ned_Ruete]

Robert asked for clarification:

> > . For the most part, TQM people are incapable of
> > understanding Major Change because they are so embued with minor change.
>
> The above strikes me as very strange. Could you explain a bit?
>
In my experience, continuous improvement people are used to following Deming's control charts and data collection and having everyone understand what needs to be done. Convincing people that they should manage by the data and the control charts cannot be done with just data and control charts.

It is frequent to hear in an organization that is in the early stages of adopting Six Sigma that "Not everything is a Six Sigma project. Sometimes we just need to do what we need to do." But how do you know you need to do it without the data? "From experience." But Deming said, "Experience alone without theory teaches managers nothing about what to do to improve quality or competitive position nor how to do it." Bridging that gap between empty experience and academic theory is a major change effort.

I have not found very many people who are trained in continuous improvement who have the broader understanding of all the dimensions and issues required to make a major change effort successful.

Ned

[Gary_Boettcher]

Ned,

Where does one go to obtain the training? Where do I learn more about it, how to teach it and if applicable to the group I'm working with obtain the appropriate materials for the organization?

Gary

[Ned_Ruete]

ahhh, there's the rub, and that's why we get paid the big bucks.

The most complete materials I have found were the proprietary methodology we used as Computer Sciences Corporation. It was 13 volumes.

But really, Major Change is based on the principles of facilitation. Which are that the people have to get involved at all levels of the change, or the change isn't going to work. Additionally, the managers have to learn to walk a new talk, old things have to be taken out to make room for the new things, change in technical systems have to be designed to produce the desired changes in the social systems or uninteneded changes in the social systems can result in people refusing to implement the technical systems, I could go on for pages.

The main thing is to do A LOT of reading in what works and what doesn't to make lasting, big change happen. Build your own sense of what things get in the way of change, what practices have to go away, what treasured management misconceptions have to be rethought, what forces in the force field that is holding the organization in place need to be reduced, strengthened, eliminated, or reversed.

Then put everything you learned on hold and find out the real answers from the actors in the situation. Do prework and facilitated sessions where you ask the people who do the work, the managers who manage the work, and the executives who want the improvements the same set of questions and a bunch more besides.

Some places to start:

_The Emerging Practice of Organizational Development_, Sikes, Drexler, and
Gant, eds.
_Introduction to Action Research_, Greenwood and Levin
_Managing New Office Technology_, Calvin Pava
_Information Technology and Organisational Change_, Ken Eason
_Reengineering the Corporation_, Hammer and Champy
_Reengineering Management_, James Champy
_Transitions_, _Managing Transitions_, and _The Way of Transition_, William
Bridges
_Managing in the Age of Change_, Ritvo, Litwin, and Butler eds.
_Managing at the Speed of Change_, Daryl Connor
_Organizational Transitions: Managing Complex Change_, Beckhard and Harris
_The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization_,
_The Fifth Discipline Field Book_, and _The Dance of Change_, Peter Senge
et.al.
_The Learning Company_, Pedler, Burgoyne, and Boydell
_Who Moved my Cheese?_, Spencer Johnson
_Where Two Worlds Touch_, Gloria Karpinsky
_Field Theory in Social Science_, Kurt Lewin
_Thriving on Chaos_, Tom Peters
_The Wisdom of Teams_,Katzenbach and Smith

See why a one week or even a one month course in continuous improvement or Six Sigma Black Belt doesn't prepare someone for the major change of actually implementing a continuous improvement process?

What do others think?

Ned Ruete
East Lyme, CT USA

[Jan_Lelie]

Listen list,

"The essence of quality is co-operating and nothing else" (After Dr Deming. He goes on: 'it is co-operating that made America big, not competition.'). Quality is not in the charts, it is in the relations. And relations are about trust (confidence), communicating, committment and co-operating. I've told this story before:

When i was production manager i only saw my quality manager when i had a problem. The problem was that he seemed to know i was having a problem before i knew and i was every day on the production floor. I asked him: 'Rob, how do you this. You always seem to know i'm having a quality problem before i do, and i never see you checking control charts'. He showed me.
We walked the production floor and suddenly he stopped. He went over to a woman soldering a power unit. He asked here how the power unit worked, and the woman explained how the wiring connected the different parts. Then she noticed had a mistake, corrected and went on explaining. Rob thanked her and we walked on. 'Now', he said, 'I had seen the mistake and could easily have asked her for her control chart and added a fault. But then she might try to hide other mistakes. By asking to explain the working, she noticed the error herself and will never maken it again.'. After a while, I understood that it was all about trust and not about control. The factory workers trusted Rob and therefor they called him when they had a problem they couldn't fix. I only noticed the end result: a quality manager who seemed to know problems before the appeared.

TQM-specialists (and JIT and six sigma and kayzen and ...) all make the same error of category: quality is not in the facts, but in the relations (and a distribution chart is just a poor way of measuring relations). The best book on the nature of quality is still 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' (R. Pirsig).

Kind regards

Jan Lelie

[Carlos_Salazar]

Buenos dias from Canada, Here is a good description of Kaizen in the blog of the International City Management Association posted yesterday.

http://icmaleanthinking.blogspot.com/ (http://icmaleanthinking.blogspot.com/)

Chao


Carlos Salazar, MCIP, RPP
Manager of Community Planning and Design
Municipality of Clarington
40 Temperance Street
Bowmanville, Ontario L1C 3A6

[Bill_Harris]

Lots of folks, especially Ned and Jan, perhaps, have chimed in with resources, and I think they've all presented good stimuli.

I have a thought, though, that it's both simpler and more profound than is often believed. I was part of such a profound change effort starting around 1981, and I saw what worked for us. Without boring you with those details, what it took was the shift in thinking several of you mentioned. After the initial thinking shift, it could perhaps have been seen as action research, augmented by a number of other bits of insight and theory.

As for the simpler bit, I'm a bit leary of claims that Technique A or Technique B is /the/ way to make it happen. I suspect that the culture shift is a lot more important than the particular flavor of process you pick. In fact, I wonder if you may be as well off inventing the process yourself to fit your people, your organizational needs, and your history.

As for the more profound bit, I think it's much more likely to succeed if you (as Scott mentioned) dig in for the rest of your lives and just make it happen. While you can talk about specific attributes of the Toyota process, I rather suspect the fundamental key even there is a different way of looking at things. Yes, it sounds a bit Zen (and Pirsig's book is worth reading, as Jan suggested), but I suspect if it's not part of who you are or who you become that you'll give up when it gets hard or when the executive changes. If you are that change you want to see, if you are curious and focused on learning and focused on the interplay of learning and acting, and if you seek outside stimuli to keep your thinking fresh, I suspect you'll get there. Or, rather, as I'm not sure there's a there there (to borrow a Dana Meadows turn of phrase), I suspect you'll achieve the change you wish to see.

Thoughts?

Bill
- --
Bill Harris
http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/ (http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/)
Facilitated Systems
Everett, WA 98208 USA
http://facilitatedsystems.com/ (http://facilitatedsystems.com/)

[Ned_Ruete]

Bill wrote
>
> As for the simpler bit, I'm a bit leary of claims that Technique A or
> Technique B is /the/ way to make it happen. I suspect that the culture
> shift is a lot more important than the particular flavor of process you
> pick. In fact, I wonder if you may be as well off inventing the process
> yourself to fit your people, your organizational needs, and your
> history.
>
> As for the more profound bit, I think it's much more likely to succeed
> if you (as Scott mentioned) dig in for the rest of your lives and just
> make it happen.

Bill is saying, much more clearly and eloquently, what I was trying to say when I said that after you get your own sense of what works you forget everything you read and ask the people what will work.

It's the culture shift, absolutely. Pure and simple. And profoundly. And there is a lot more to getting people to make that culture shift than there is to changing processes or systems. And because there are so many different people with different views of the culture and doing different things within the culture and to create the culture, you have to have a deep sense of all the different things that get in their way of changing how they view the culture and how they live the culture. And then you have to be ready to help them see all the artifacts of the culture that have to be changed for the new to work and to help them find their own ways of changing them.

Ned

[Gary_Boettcher]

Bill,

I am in complete agreement with you re: need for cultural change, and have experienced this need first hand. Unless the culture of the organization changes, even a visionary at the top cannot force a durable redesign. People tend to seek out replacements like themselves. Changing the culture of an organization is a long slow process, absent some catastrophic event, and even then it is not a sure thing.

American Airlines is a classic example. They narrowly escaped bankruptcy by entering into a new era of cooperative relationships with unionized labor only to be turned back upside down because of an unwillingness to change organizational cultural values. They went from number one in just about every service rating to dead last in most. Process has not helped them overcome cultural difficulties.


Gary

[James_Wiegel]

Gary,

Could you illustrate 1 or 2 of the specific cultural factors or values in this instance which were at work?