Lean Culture Now!

                               Time is Money – Use it Wisely

To free up time, you need to learn how to manage each moment of your time to make the most of your day. Effective time management helps you choose what to work on and when. You need to stop busily working here, there, and everywhere (and not getting much done anywhere).

Set Goals

Start by setting goals to start managing time effectively. This will help you keep track of needs to be done and in what order.

Prioritization

Prioritizing what needs to be done is extremely important. You need to determine what is strategically important to achieving your goals. Just having a to-do list in most cases is only a collecting of things that need to be done. To work most efficiently you need to work on the most important, highest value tasks. Prioritizing your list will keep you focused on the important tasks and keep you from scrambling to complete critical projects prior to their deadlines.

Managing Interruptions

All managers have interruptions, but you need to develop a plan how to keep them to a minimum. There are types of unexpected issues, plus phone calls, employee questions, and requests for information.

A. Log your Interruptions

Person	Date / Time	Description of  Interruption	Important?	Urgent?	Handle Later

Keeping an interruptions log every day for a week or more will allow you to analyze where your time is being requested. You need to deal with important interruptions because they have an outcome that leads to the achievement of your goals. Urgent activities demand immediate attention, and are often associated with the achievement of someone else’s goals. Fit into your schedule the handle later issues.

B. Let Your Phone Help to Manage Interruptions

Use your voice mail to screen calls during the time of the day when you are focusing on a project. This will allow you to set the priority of returning calls and when it fits in your schedule. You may choose to plan phone time in your daily schedule.

C. Stop to Ask Questions

When a person interrupts you it is easy to get caught up in the “emotion” of the person who is interrupting, because they feel their request is really urgent. Stop and determine if this “crisis” needs your immediate attention or if it is an issue that could be handled later. Ask a few questions to assess the situation accurately and then react appropriately.

D. Learn to Say “No”

It is often acceptable to say “no” to when you are busy working on higher priority activities and especially if someone else can handle it, if it is not an important task, or can be done later.

E. Available and Unavailable Time

Let people know when you are available and when you are not. Make sure that people know that during your Unavailable Time they should only interrupt you if they have to.

F. Invitation Only Time

Schedule regular check-in times for the individuals you talk to most often. Request these people to keep an updated activities list that you will be discussing, to allow you to cover all activities at one time. You should also keep a similar list.

Open door policies are good, but you need to limit the number of people you invite to your work area. You can plan to meet in their office or a conference room. This would allow you to excuse yourself after you accomplished your purpose. Note, it’s easier to get up and leave than it is to get people to leave your office once they’re seated and comfortable.

Using your time more efficiently will not only reduce stress and allow you to get more accomplished, it also opens the door for opportunities to gain knowledge on the latest techniques by taking advantage of education and training opportunities.

Jerry Yoder is an employee of Lean Enterprise Software Solutions

“Make Plans Now to Attend Classes”

Layered Process Audit Training (1 day class)

Training Dates and Locations:

     February 23 Bowling Green, KY

     March 7 Detroit, MI

     March 21 Fort Wayne, IN

     April 26 Ashville, NC

     May 16 Orlando, FL

     May 23 Detroit, MI

Learn how to implement or improve one of the most powerful shop floor tools that has been proven to increase customer satisfaction by improving product quality and reducing waste.  Layered Process Auditing is an effective way to drive process and facility culture changes that reduce scrap, warranty issues, and costs.

Our Quality expert will coach participants through the process of building a Layered Process Auditing System or improving an existing LPA program to be more effective.

Agenda:

      Review Layered Process Audit Overview and Concepts

      Identify Benefits and Roadblocks

      Define What Supports an Effective LPA Program

      Examine LPA Implementation Process Map

      Discuss the Leadership’s Responsibilities

      Identify High Risk Areas

      Discuss the Difference Between Process and Mistake Proof Questions and Audits

      Best Practice Audit Questions Examples

      Question Development - Breakout Session

      Identify Reporting Needs by Internal and External Customers

      Review How to Document an LPA Program

      Develop an LPA Audit Flow Diagram

      Determine the Organizational Structure

      Identify Training Needs for the Organization

      Learn Ways to Evaluate the Effectiveness of LPA

Enroll by Visiting: http://www.leanculturenow.com/Class_Registration.aspx

Class Name: LPA Implementation/ Improvement Training

Price: $495 per person includes training materials and lunch (room not included)

Registration confirmation, room reservation and logistic information will be sent to you upon receipt of class enrollment

Special room rates available for participants who register early for most locations.

Registrars, customers, and upper management are continuing to ask if their Layered Process Auditing System is effective.  Many companies are struggling to find meaningful ways to measure the success of their LPA program.

The following items tracked over time will demonstrate the results of your efforts:

• Number of customer rejections and complaints by month
• PPM
• Scrap cost
• Rework cost
• Warranty cost
• Total Cost of Quality
• Percentage of audits completed on time
• Number of non-recurring findings
• Response time for non-conformances
• Quality of containment activities (percentage not needing modified)
• Percentage of corrective actions approved by management
• Number of non-conformances escalated to your formal 8-D program and closed
• Operator’s opinion about the effectiveness of your LPA system

 

Many effective LPA programs will also deliver a culture shift in the areas of teamwork and quality throughout their facilities.

Management may notice: 

 

• A greater understanding of the processes by management
• Focus on the processes not the people
• Fewer blaming and judgmental statements made
• Decisions made based on analyzing data not on feelings
• Improved ability to contain problems
• Creative solutions to fix escape points
• Operators contributing solutions and improvement ideas

 

Using LPA Admin (the lean approach to layered process auditing) will:

• Greatly reduces the administrative time to manage the LPA system
• Allows auditors to receive automated audit notifications
• Stores and maintains audit checklist revision histories
• Allows auditors to record audit results
• Stores audit results including non-conformance, containment and corrective actions
• Maintains management approval of containment and corrective actions for each
• non-conformance, plus allows management to change these activities
• Allows management to be notified of non-conformances within minutes of the findings
• Ability to produces six preconfigured reports with time periods of a day to three years
• Allows management the ability to produce hundreds of custom audit reports
• Gives administrator the ability to add  3 custom type fields which may also be used to build unique reports (example: part number, machine number, spec level, etc.) 
• Manages up to 8 different audit systems (Process, Mistake Proofing, 5S, ISO 14001, and Safety in addition to 3 types you name such as Sarbanes-Oxley, security, maintenance, suppliers, etc.)
• This program is currently in four different languages: English/Spanish/German/French with the ability to add several other languages.
• All report headings are presented in the language the requesting computer is defaulted too
• All this is being done in Real Time

 

To gain additional information about LPA Admin please contact us at:

http://www.leanculturenow.com/Contact_Us.aspx

Jerry Yoder is an employee of Lean Enterprise Software Solutions

 

Companies of all sizes may choose to go high tech when doing layered process audits. Lean Enterprise Software Solutions announces that auditors using LPA-Admin can now complete audits in real time on the shop floor using tablets and touch screen phones. Save hundreds or thousands of dollars a year by reducing your paper and printing costs to complete layered process audits.

If your work environment is not safe or suitable to use this technology you may still greatly reduce paperwork by having your administrator date, sign and laminate your audit questions. Place these audits at a central location for your layer 1 auditors, such as supervisor offices. Auditors may easily pick up the audit and place them on a clipboard in order to complete the audit on the floor. The cost of replacing the laminated audit sheets is minimal and has proven to be the best practice low cost solution to eliminating paperwork.

Jerry Yoder is an employee of Lean Enterprise Software Solutions

Lean Enterprise Software Solutions announce a major expansion to the reporting capabilities of LPA Admin. These modifications are being delivered to our clients at no additional cost. These changes assist management in analyzing their LPA data at a much deeper level than before. The added features should increase the effectiveness of their LPA program and assist them in continually improving quality. The changes to LPA Admin include:

· Added four additional criteria to build Custom Reports

· Designed and built an additional reporting system called Dashboard that allows users to build and save custom dashboard(s) with only the data items that they are interested in reviewing

· Users control time period of Dashboard Reports

· Ability to convert Dashboard Reports to an Excel format to allow users to utilize the data for charting and graphing in their company’s custom format

Additional Custom Report Criteria

Auditors, Custom Field #1 (Machine #), Custom Field # 2 (Tooling #), and Custom Field #3 (Operator) have been added to the Custom Report Builder. Note: in this exhibit the Custom Fields have been chosen as Machine #, Tooling #, and Operator. The three Custom Fields may be uniquely named by each LPA Admin client. Possible Custom Fields may be Machine #, Tooling #, Part #, Jig #, Line, Cell, Operator #, Spec #, Router, Job Order … etc.

Custom Field Data

Management team must determine when they want the data entered into the Custom Fields before training their auditors. They have two different options and each will give them different reporting capabilities. Option 1: Only enter data in the custom fields when an auditor finds a non-conformance. This will allow management to create unique reports for the custom fields that have non-conformances. Option 2: Have the data entered in the custom fields for every audit by the auditor. This would allow one to create unique reports for the custom fields for audits with and without non-conformances. Example: Management wants the capability to know how many audits were done on machine # A-784 last month. This would require the data to be entered using Option 2.

Auditors simply need to enter the Custom Field data per management’s criteria when entering the other audit data before selecting Save Changes.

Additional Custom Report Capabilities

Management may now build the six different custom reports using the additional filter criteria: Auditors, Custom Field #1, Custom Field #2, and Custom Field #3. The report timeframe may range from a single day up to 3 years and is determined by selecting dates on the Begin and End calendars or by choosing a date range from the Date Range Quick List dropdown . Like all of our reports, the user has the option to export the report in a number of different formats, to retain the information in their computer files, or provide it to outside interested parties.

Added Dashboard Report

A new webpage called My Dashboard was added for each user of LPA Admin to allow them to see their data in a different format. A Dashboard sorts the data and lists it for only the Parameters one chooses. This webpage will welcome each person by name and the information they save under My Saved Dashboards are dashboards that only appear on their webpage. The report timeframe may range from a single day up to 3 years and is determined by selecting dates on the Begin and End calendars or by choosing a date range from the Date Range Quick List dropdown .

Building Custom Dashboard Reports

A Custom Dashboard Report may be easily built by choosing the criteria from the Parameters using the dropdown menu and then selecting the Show in Dashboard that they want listed on your Dashboard.

Then select the Dashboard Type either Audits Planned, Completed, Missed or Non-Conformance and Build Dashboard.

Dashboard Reports In Excel Format

Custom Dashboard may be converted to an Excel format that allows users to utilize the data for charting and graphing in their company’s custom format.

Saved Dashboard will look like this when saved in Excel

One can make changes in Excel such as highlighting areas of interest.

Example of making a chart from the data above.

For more information about LPA Admin and it’s capabilities contact us at http://www.leanculturenow.com/Contact_Us.aspx

Jerry Yoder is an employee of Lean Enterprise Software Solutions

The United States has been in a recession that started in December 2007.  Nearly every business has been affected.  Most management has made extremely difficult decisions to attempt to survive.

During previous recessions management would cut support staff by 10 to 15 percent and reduce production workers to match customer product demand.  This was not all bad, because it forced companies to trim out the least value added management and support staff. Unemployment would go up to 8 to 10% and productivity would go down or improve slightly.  When business picked up companies would call back their production workers and over time add management as needed to support their business activities.

This recession has been very different.  Some companies have reduced their support management and staff by 40 to 80 percent in addition to their production workers.  U.S. unemployment is at 10.2% and climbing, but productivity has increased by 9%.  Increased productivity is great when competing in our world marketplace.  However, many believe that unemployment will remain high during this recovery, which will negatively affect the time it takes for the U.S. to come out of this recession.

 

Management must walk the fine line on how to staff their organizations to deliver high quality products on time at low costs.  They must also meet non product customer requirements, which require staff time.  One should analyze the long term cost and benefits before adding fulltime management staff.

 

Hiring options to meet increased demand on management’s time:

1.    Part time (does not require benefits)

2.    Temporary staff – (Some benefits are included in contract)

3.    Contact people who have experience and specialized knowledge for projects (short term, no benefits, quick start up, high productivity)

4.    Fulltime employee (training required, available for other assignments, benefits and legacy costs)

 

Lean Enterprise Software Solutions has a number of talented individuals that have the experience to assist companies improve in many areas to compete in this world marketplace and contribute to your company’s profitability.  Many of our associates will require no upfront money commitment, but are willing to work for a contracted percentage basis of the project cost savings.

Visit our website and discover what many other companies already know: www.leanculturenow.com

Many companies are finding an increased number of non-conformances as they continually modify their audit questions to focus on the high risk processes in their facilities. This increases the opportunity to improve quality, but does not guarantee you progress. To really drive your organization to achieve single digit PPM and eventually Zero Defects your management team must have good problem solving skills. Identifying non-conformances is a great first step to show you what, where, and when your problems are occurring. The next step is to determine immediate corrective action. This is like step 3 of a Global 8-D process: Develop an Interim Containment Action. This action should protect the customer (internal or external) 100% from the effect of the problem. It should be verified, easy to implement, and cost effective. The auditor or area management must also determine if containment actions are required for product made prior to the finding to protect the customer from a quality spill. Many companies do not realize that the containment action (example: reject prior 8 hour of production) needs to be part of the corrective action. Receiving rejections for products that were made a short time prior to when the non-conformance was found is a good sign that your containment activities were not effective. Implementing the immediate corrective action and containment action must be well documented within the requirements in your Quality Management System. This may require writing a deviation to change the process for a period of time in addition to documenting your actions in your LPA tracking system. If a management person is unable to identify a suitable immediate corrective action, the best action may be to shut down the process and contain the product produced prior to the finding. Effective LPA programs require an upper level management person who has profound knowledge in the non-conformance process area to review and approval the corrective action and containment activities within a short period of time. Management may modify the corrective action or containment activities to improve the protection to keep the customer from receiving poor quality products. Validation of the final immediate corrective action and containment activities will be done by your customers. They will notify you if they receive a quality spill.

The total cost of quality is the combined sum of the costs in these areas:

Scrap

Rework

Use of excess materials (i.e. Off-cuts)

Equipment breakdowns

Preventive maintenance

Yield below quote

Productivity below quote

Customer rejections

Returned goods and return freight

Warranty

Quality department (wages, equipment, & overheads)

Lab department (wages, equipment & overheads)

All mistake-proofing devices

All measurement devices and gages

Dock audits

Third party audits

Data collection systems

An effective layered process audit program will improve the overall quality of your organization, while reducing your company’s Total Cost of Quality.