Perfecting improvement

1 Go see You can deck out your back office with plenty of motivational posters, but it will never be as inspiring as a trip to the shopfloor. "The best thing I did when I arrived was to spend time on the shopfloor," explained Jarrod Dooley, who is 18 months into his role as the first full-time CI lead at SDC Trailers. "The gemba is so important. Understand the processes, understand your people and learn the frustrations... When you go out you'll get BMW – bitching moaning and whining – but it's important to get beyond it and see the genuine frustrations." 2 Get some early points on the board Once you know the main offenders, it's time to pick off the soft targets and boost your CI programme. Dooley explained: "Find the simple wins. Just things like painting the shopfloor so the guys can see when they're backing the trailer into marked bays – dents in doors have virtually disappeared. They've got a better working area and a better mindset." 3 Banish blame There are tropical snakes who'd give their right fang for a poison as deadly as blame. One bout of finger pointing is enough to paralyse your factory's productivity, Grant McPherson, site director at Jaguar Land Rover's Solihull plant, revealed. "When somebody falls over, instead of running over and saying, 'ha ha, you've fallen over, my day's going to be easy', you should be picking them up, dusting them off and asking what you can do to help. It sounds sugary sweet, but honestly you can spend an awful lot of time defending patches." 4 Don't let a toxic culture take hold... Every factory operates through a hidden cultural code, 'a way we do things around here', WMMC delegates heard. The shopfloor psyche is best highlighted by an experiment involving monkeys, explained Brian O'Hare director of transformation at Bombardier Aerospace. "The scientists put the monkeys in a room with a step ladder and a bunch of bananas at the top. The first monkey climbs up, only to find the scientists respond by hosing him and his friends down." Pretty quickly the apes learn that snacking results in a nasty soaking for all, so they stop any others from trying to climb the ladder, explained O'Hare. Every few minutes the scientists replace one of the original monkeys with a new one, he told delegates. Enthusiastic rookies who make for the ladder are given a brutal lesson by the wily veterans. "It came to a stage where the five monkeys in the room had never been soaked but they knew that when someone new arrived, you didn't let them go near the ladder." It's the hypnotic power of group culture over individual behaviour, he explained. "If those monkeys could talk and you asked them why they beat up a new monkey, they'd probably tell you, 'I don't know, it's just the way we do things around here'. Does that sound familiar?" 5 ... But if it does, go on a detox So, if our monkeys can be trained not to go up the ladder, then logic dictates they can be retrained to climb those steps again. All it takes is one renegade ape and a kind-hearted scientist. If Curious George gets to the bananas and isn't doused in water, the spell is broken. Site managers can speed the process by encouraging workers who challenge the norm, explained McPherson. The JLR chief gave the hypothetical example of a group of 10 team leaders asked to smarten up their work areas. "You'll get the excuse of no resource, no time, no money. Then one person does it. They clean it all up, get the paint tin out and make it look great. Wouldn't it be great if the other nine thought, 'wow, look what a great guy. I love what he's done and I'm going to do the same'? "What actually happens is they call that first guy a kiss arse. What's he doing? Who's he sucking up to?" The reaction is driven by fear and envy, explained McPherson. But by supporting the person brave enough to change, you can create a domino effect, he said. "If you can get the next one to borrow the paint tin, then the next does it and soon it just becomes normal. But you've got to get it going. Remove all that business about sucking up to the management." 6 Embrace good habits, eliminate bad ones Bad habits are endemic in many sites because management have simply tolerated them, WMMC delegates heard. "Are you avoiding the difficult conversations?" asked McPherson. "Recognise what you've been walking past for years and ask yourself what the impact is on quality, cost and delivery." Failure to address poor behaviour can have a caustic impact on team morale. McPherson added: "There are people in your business who are delivering the goods, but they do so by screaming, shouting and biting. To get better performance we have to improve behaviours." 7 A meeting a day Daily kaizen meetings are a key discipline in CI success. Regular sessions mean problems can be addressed early, recent performance reviewed and tasks for the day ahead identified. Sessions should be held at the start of shifts, with attendees restricted to a defined shopfloor team or cell. Bombardier's Brian O'Hare told delegates: "The one that makes most difference to us is the daily morning meeting, although it was pretty challenging to implement. At 8am the frontline teams talk about what's gone well and what's happening next. That cascades up the levels until at 10am the CEO is having a similar discussion with his team." Early resistance will dissipate as the daily meeting becomes immersed in the factory's culture, he added. 8 Don't settle for dust Many daily gemba meets will be held around a kaizen board. But if you spot a layer of dust beside the pretty blue and red performance graphs then challenge it, said Neil Trivedi, director of business process excellence at GKN. "The main thing to watch for is dust – it's the final barrier of resistance. Dust signifies the tool isn't being used. Why? It might be over-zealous management. The board isn't seen as belonging to the team, but a management board that's been put there with management information." 9 See the green The perfectionist boss is manufacturing's equivalent of the police stinger, capable of deflating employee morale faster than a burst tyre. Bombardier Aerospace coaches managers to praise good performance rather than obsess over small imperfections. "In the past, they'd review someone's performance and 80% would be perfect and there's a little red there, and they'd ask 'what happened there?'. Anybody on the receiving end knows that's demoralising," O'Hare told the audience. "A big part of engaging people is recognising what they've done well – seeing the green." 10 Pinch ideas with pride Borrowing ideas doesn't equate to industrial espionage. Top manufacturers don't succeed by operating in a silo. Bombardier Aerospace, like so many, credits the foundation of its Achieving Excellence System to Toyota's TPS. The key is to make time to go and see what your contemporaries are up to. Hopefully this article has whetted your appetite.