Establishing Standards

How Using Incentives Helps

Many years ago, when I was a lieutenant in the Army, I was responsible for a motor pool—a military word for a glorified lot where the unit parked its forty trucks when they weren’t in use.

Every Friday afternoon, my sergeants and I managed the cleanup of the motor pool. As I am sure you can imagine, the 18 and 19 year old soldiers were ready to start their weekend. They were less than enthusiastic about pushing brooms and picking up trash. Despite them being a great group of soldiers, they needed some close supervision to make sure they met the standard by quittin’ time.

That is, until someone came up with a stroke of genius. We decided to let the soldiers go as soon as the motor pool passed an inspection.

The first time we tried this, we ran into a problem that you might expect. ‘Clean’ meant one thing to me as the person responsible for the area and something else entirely to a teenager who was trying to get off work for a night on the town. So, we quickly set about establishing standards and making up a clear list of expectations about what ‘clean’ meant.

Very quickly, the motor pool started meeting the standard in less time. Eventually, on their own, this team of soldiers helped each other out and started using their free time during the week to get the motor pool spotless. Pretty soon, we were not doing any cleanup at all on Fridays, because it was kept clean all week long.

We, as the leaders, got the necessary result and the soldiers got something very desirable as well. Everybody won.

How does this story apply to establishing standards in Lean? Well, what if managers used some innovative thought in how they approached improvement targets? For example, let’s say a team made 10 go-carts a day in January, with a target of getting that up to 12 by the end of the year. In a traditional model, leadership might have a challenge trying to sell the idea that each person had to be more productive. In an incentive model, if the team knew that soon as they got to 12 a day they could go home early, I’d bet that the target would be reached well before December. Of course, the team would start with a new baseline the following January, and have another new improvement target.

There would certainly be some specific issues to address. You’d have to figure out who was eligible (i.e. what about the engineering team, or the materials team?) and answer a bunch of legal questions. You’d also have to set the rules about quality, backsliding, how it applies to a new hire brought on the team late in the year, and a bunch of other things. But, those are all just details to be worked out.

The point is that people always work harder and are more creative at problem solving if they have something to gain too. And they are more committed to following established standards if they see some of the benefit on a personal level.

Do you have experience with incentives? How well has it worked in your area?

© 2009-2011 by Velaction Continuous Improvement, LLC. All rights reserved.

Implementing Kaizen

How Late Should Kaizen Teams Work?

© 2009-2011 by Velaction Continuous Improvement, LLC. All rights reserved.

Internal Suppliers

Measuring the Support You Get

Whether you are in Lean manufacturing or in a Lean office, you will be relying on external and internal suppliers to support you – information technology (IT), materials, maintenance, the print shop, design engineering, tooling, accounting, etc.

The Problem:

These internal suppliers all have many jobs, but sometimes you believe that they don’t think supporting you is one of them.

Action to take:

Make a list of all the teams that support you—your internal suppliers—and write down how they help you. Now, think about all the ways their support is measured. If your company is like many, support won’t be a primary role for these teams, so you won’t see many measures in place.

If things aren’t going well, before you let your frustration get out of hand, remember that they do have their other primary jobs to do as well. Design engineers are rolling out new products, in addition to supporting your team with design changes. Manufacturing engineers have to figure out new tools and get ready for product releases, but they also have to respond to andon (warning) lights. Information technology folks have to update systems, manage backups, and keep the networks going—the act of writing programs for your improvement projects is extra work for them.

To measure how well these groups support your area, you will need the support of the person in charge. If you are not the boss, approach your manager and suggest to her that you want to put some metrics in place, and ask her to coordinate those measurements with the other groups. If your manager is not overly responsive to your request, you could talk to a trusted human resources rep, drop a note in the corporate suggestion box, or find that really bold coworker who will ask a question for you at a company meeting. The idea is to get the ball rolling on putting metrics in place for the support groups.

If the support teams, or internal suppliers, don’t agree to measurements, it doesn’t really matter. The great thing about suppliers is that you don’t really need their permission to measure them. If the support group chooses not to track relevant data, your team will just have to do it.

Work with your manager to post a metrics board for all the support groups that help you out, and track their performance. The data should be posted out in the open, so anyone who comes into the area can see it. A cautionary note: this should be done delicately and with your boss’s permission, since it has the potential to inflame poor relationships. Just remember, though, the poor relationship is the reason for this tactic, not the cause of it.

Posting metrics without an internal supplier’s cooperation should be used as a last resort, and with tact. As an example, suppose your company has an escalation policy when an andon light is turned on. At some point, a manufacturing engineer would probably be required to respond. They are always busy somewhere, so you might get late response or no support at all. Regardless, try to remain positive, even as you are starting to track their performance. Instead of saying that the engineers are unresponsive, say that they are so busy they can’t react in a timely manner. Don’t go down the path of bad-mouthing the people you need on your side.

Why this works:

Support teams get away with far worse service than any external vendor could. Imagine if your company hired a consultant who barely showed up or if a supplier frequently shipped late. Businesses are far more forgiving of internal suppliers than they are of contractors that they hire. Establishing metrics will likely clarify your expectations. Equally as important, though, they will transform an emotional issue (You’re not helping enough!) into a fact (You have only been on time 37.2 percent of the time.)

Most support groups take pride in their work. It doesn’t take long for conditions to improve when support groups see their numbers (that paint them in an unflattering light) posted in public places. Once performance improves, your boss can use the posted metrics as an opportunity to recognize the support team’s gains.

Posting metrics works for three reasons. First, it sends a message that you are serious about wanting good support. After all, you will be spending a lot of effort collecting and posting data. Second, it adds a little pressure – most people want to do well. Once metrics are posted (and remember, you are already being measured so you are not doing anything to them that you are not doing to yourself), people are often moved to action. Finally, many groups are not used to daily measures. Sometimes they benefit from a little assistance in getting accustomed to it.

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Thanks for reading.

This article was extracted from Whaddaya Mean I Gotta Be Lean? It comes from over 100 strategies on how to deal with some of the obstacles that teams face when implementing Lean.

© 2009-2011 by Velaction Continuous Improvement, LLC. All rights reserved.