5S and 7 wastes

I have been thinking about Lean lately, and run across some great (and basic) stuff by Gemba Academy. I'll let them do the talking:


(notice how they are influenced by one of my favorite books Presentation Zen, and how the show it on their otherwise messy bookself!)


(Notice how the bookshelf has transformed!)

Gemba also gives you ideas how to apply 5S in an office, and what the 7 wastes look like in the office environment. It all starts with building the foundation on 5S - if you do (continuously) not pay attention to sorting and being organized, how can you expect Kanban, one piece flow or other principles to work?

The Hazards of Leading Culture Change

I just received the latest ChangeThis newsletter including one manifesto on my favorite topic leading culture change. I decided to just quicly blog the manifesto as is (under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License).



"When great starts have poor endings, it can leave change pioneers disappointed, hard working organizers disheartened, and skeptics with proof they were correct all along. It makes the next initiative more challenging to launch and the next set of resistors more defiant. However, without needed change the organization risks losing its competitive advantage. Losing its edge makes it harder to attract and retain the best talent and resources, and in today’s economy, the death knell begins.

Planned change takes courage and tenacity. Even organizations with a burning platform, effective leaders, and well-crafted plans can sometimes miss the mark because they fail to recognize early signals that the seeds for derailment are being sown or they fail to realize the power of the signals they are sending via decisions that are unsupportive of the culture change commitment. Derailment is much more likely during periods of organizational anxiety from economic challenge, organizational shift (like a major merger or new competitor), or a change in senior leadership. However, these high profile hazards are easier to spot and therefore simpler to combat. It is the more subtle shifts that can do the most damage before their presence is even noticed.”

by Chip R. Bell & John R. Patterson. Their newest book is Take Their Breath Away: How Imaginative Service Creates Devoted Customers. They can be reached through taketheirbreathaway.com.

About stress and work life balance

This spring was extremely stressful for me. Mainly because of things not related to my work - but my high stress level naturally effected also my contribution at the office. I had difficulties to sleep, which led to poor concentration resulting to delays and forgetting things. I was even too tired to ride my bicycle. And that is alarming, since riding bicycle is my main method of relaxation. I went to see a doctor who told me to “Relax!” and offered sleeping pills, which I refused to take. Instead I slowed down and my stress level came down. At the same time many things started to get solved and my stress was gone.

I did some thinking about stress and work life balance and decided to blog about it now on the first day of my summer holiday. I actually blogged about the same topic last year. I hope I have learned something and don’t need to blog about stress again next year.

Let’s start with finding your stress level right now by completing a simple online test provided by Canadian Mental Health Association. They also provide resources for Coping with Stress.

Many of the blogs I follow regularly have had posts related to stress. John Spence wrote about How to have Much Less Stress and Much More Happiness, Matt May wrote about the power of The Quiet Mind in producing Eureka! type breakthrough insights. Zen Habits has several posts about stress – see for example 20 Ways to Eliminate Stress From Your Life, or type stress on their search box.

But remember: dealing with stress starts with you - nobody else can stop you form pushing too much but you.

To save time (and reduce stress), I will use material from our Corporate Responsibility Report to describe how we deal with Work life balance in the office. And I dare to say I provide these possibilities for my team and our company provides them for me.

Work Life Balance

Work-life balance means different things in different cultures. Our approach to the issue is designed to meet the needs of our employees around the world. Working patterns, activities and benefits vary by country according to local legislation, culture and common practices but can include:

• Flexible working hours
• Healthcare services and programs
• Employee assistance program
• Generous time-off plans
• Telecommuting
• Fitness facilities and support for sporting activities
• Social and cultural activities
• Taking advantage of local rules to provide access to tax efficient retirement saving, child care, computers, charitable giving

Our managers have a key role in supporting and enabling our employees to achieve both professional and personal goals. Being a flexible employer benefits both staff and the company. Moreover, our leadership development programs help to focus our managers in promoting innovative and flexible solutions for job satisfaction, job performance and overall quality of life.

But again, at the end it is up to you as an individual to take advantage of the possibilities provided.

Tomorrow I will fly to Finland for summer holidays with my family and will not update this blog until late August. Meanwhile you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook.

Please enjoy the summer and relax with your family and friends!

If you need something to read, check out Slowness by Milan Kundera, one of my favorite novelist. According to him There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.

Lean, Elegant and Excellent

I just experienced the most impressive company visit during my career. I have visited quite a few companies in several industries during the past 15 years, but none of them compares to NBK in Gifu, Japan. NBK originally started 450 years ago as a pot maker and has during the years evolved to a maker of metal parts such as pulleys, couplings and screws, with 410 employees generating US$ 80 million of revenue.

What made this visit so impressive is that they seem to fullfil all

• the 4P model of the Toyota Way


• the 14 principles of the Toyota Way - the subcategories of the 4P


• the 9 criteria for Achieving Business Excellence


• the 4 key elements of Elegance

I'm not going to list all those principles here, I have explained most of them earlier and will be blogging about Toyota Way later.

NBK has managed to create a true learning organization which operates according to lean principles producing high quality products with high customer and employee satisfaction and good profitability.

And they do this with

• no sales budget


• no cost budget


• no profitability target


• no HR department


• no Quality assurance department


• no maintenance department


• no bureacracy


• ...

Instead they had had culture where they put high emphasis on employee learning, job rotation, continuous improvement and meeting each customer's needs. Their Sushi Bar Concept describes how committed they are to meet their customers needs - to understand the rest you need to go and visit the factory.

SUSHI BAR CONCEPT

NBK's craftsmanship meets each customer's needs.

As our customer, we would deliver what you need, right when you need it, in just the amount you require. We at NBK have been polishing our skills in an effort to craft each individual product with precision and mastery, as embodied in the work of sushi bar chefs. We continually strive to respond to all customer needs. We do so by engaging in "one-by-one production," and inspecting every single product that we produce in order to ensure the highest quality possible, and by responding to customer orders anywhere, anytime, and for any quantity, even for an order of one.