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No, Get Out ©2022, George J. Irwin. All rights reserved. Here's an example of how a Lean Six Sigma Practicioner can have a little fun while still getting important work done. All work and no play, you know. Black Belt Projects often require fieldwork. That's particularly true when testing improvements to make sure that they work. One such effort took place at a parts hub back in my home state of New Jersey. We'd picked this location for an initial implementation of a new method of stocking this location—not because it was convenient for me. There was also the advantage of a very supportive parts manager... once you got used to his particular sense of humor. "Hi, do you have..." "No, get out." "Hey, I'm looking for a..." "No, get out." Lest you think that this manager was not willing to provide parts, the opposite was true: he practically had the inventory of the center committed to memory, along with the hundred or so most used parts for every machine for which he stocked spares. Shout out a part number to him and he would immediately respond with what it was, into which machine it went, and whether he normally carried it, or should carry it if only those Idiots In Headquarters would let him do what he wanted. That was actually the point of the process improvement: use ordering data to tailor the inventory carried at each of the locations around the country, and empower the local teams to augment that list with a small percentage of additional items. But still, the standard answer to any query was "No, get out." And everyone, including us, was in on the joke. So... we flowcharted that process. As part of our work, we carried around what would now be called a rather rudimentary laptop computer, which had installed a relatively crude flowcharting program. Hey, it worked, and it was certainly better than the "portable" machines that were previous the state-of-the-art (leading to my complaint that putting a carry handle on something did not make it portable). With that tool, and a "bubble jet printer" we created a two box diagram: "No", with an arrow connected to "Get Out". We titled it "Parts Depot Process." And our smart, and smart-aleck, parts manager taped it on the wall right next to the parts ordering counter. This improved his process quite a bit, as he could now point to the flowchart whenever anyone had a question! What's the point here? Other than injecting a little levity into what is ordinarily not the most exciting practice out there, it also provided a chance to "look human" in front of customers—the people who came in looking for parts. This served us well when we expanded the process improvement actions to more locations... the teams knew we really were there to help, and thanks to the efficient Word of Mouth Process, they were ready for us when we arrived. ... |