Lean IT- The essential elements of transformation.

Lean IT is an extension of Lean Principles, applied in an IT environment. The approach is a way of thinking and acting, focussing heavily on organizational culture. Lean IT is associated with the development and management of Information Technology products and services.

Lean Principles are concerned with:

         Increasing customer value

         Eliminating waste (work that does not add value)

         Management as a facilitator

         The involvement of all employees

         Continual improvement

         Preserving value with less work.

Many organizations have adopted Lean IT in order to increase customer satisfaction and to achieve greater strategic and financial value.

On Lean IT Summit Europe 2013, Mike Orzen , did a excellent presentation to the essential element of transformation for any company that want implement Lean IT.

 Mike basically shows , 10 elements to take in consideration ( bad & Good)

Please take a look of this video it is very interesting.

3D VSM- Other way to see the waste

The human brain works much better if the problem is easy to see on 3D, the reason is very simple our real world is on the 3 Dimension. Therefore the technique to create the VSM on 3D  (scale model) helps the Kaizen team to understand where the opportunities are and how the flows (Materials-Product, Information, and Process) are interconnected or in contraflow.

This picture shows the 3D- VSM all loops.

The team can visualize loop by loop and even the Supermarket and the Kanban process can be modeling on VSM Future.

Here is the example of loop # 2 , where a supermarket is needed for the future state.

Obviously this method do not avoid the current VSM process creation, that on my experience always recommend the use of  “Post-tips”, and normally this takes all the walls on the meeting room.

The 3D VSM is also used, on Process Development on the previous steps on 3P, before to create the Mockup lines.

Understanding the Correct Sequence to Kaizen - Why some Full automated equipment end up being inefficient and ineffective?

I have visited many different industries, and is very usual to see full automated equipment (Robots) with high inefficiency, those equipment were considered as the answer of all the problems, but the reality shows different negatives results as expected.

Taiichi Ohno always teaches about the Correct Sequence to Kaizen:

“ Manual work kaizen means thinking of better ways of using the existing equipment. Rather than buying new equipment (Robots) it is important to thing of how the work should be done.”

If you install a robot and think only, “this is convenient, it does my work for me “ then this is not an example of using the robot effectively. It is important to do kaizen on the robot as soon as you install it or to change the method to work well with the robot (Material supply, Information, Product flow, etc.).

Video.

Pictures;

The team must consider on cell design ,how the material must be replaced ? Before release to production, the robot will do the cycle very well however it will stop due lack of material.

The team must understand the real problem here , because even with robots there are some products that goes out without being packaged. Is the conveyor sped synchronized to the Takt Time?

Instead if you say, “We can do this if we could just buy a robot ,” and buy a robot without even knowing if there is a better method than the current one , then eventually you will not do kaizen at your genba unless you can buy a robot. That would be bad. But if you first see how well you can use the machines you have, and how you can use the existing equipment event better, then when you install the latest machines you can add on yours improvements.

I always advise built machines or robot mock up’s before to proceed with next action this is part of 3P.

The right pad to follow is do kaizen after kaizen; there are 3 types of kaizen:

a) Manual work Kaizen.

b) Equipment Kaizen.

c) Process Kaizen.

Do the kaizen to the manual work first. Once you know how make more improvements, but the machine you have is preventing this, then you can look at the right machine that will further improve productivity and quality.

When the latest machine is installed before you have the skill to do kaizen, the machine will end up running you. JJJ There is a correct sequence to kaizen.

The first step in kaizen is manual work kaizen. Manual work kaizen is the must important because as a result of manual work kaizen you will learn many things about changes you need to make to your equipment, or changes you need to make to your process as a result of change you make to your equipment.