KCOE Blog - Latest Posts
Date: 09 Jul, 2010
So, I’ve been leading this contest on twitter and facebook called “Quick OE Solution.” (I’ll post a link the all the questions and answers here, after the contest is complete). Basically, I write a short problem and look for a 1 or 2 word answer that fits within the operational excellence system. The goal of the contest is to simply get everyone familiar with the vocabulary. Some of the terms may be new, but many are also “buzz words” that have been used in manufacturing, healthcare, and other businesses. The fact is that the concepts behind these buzz words don’t work alone,...
It’s the first week of a pilot hall at local hospital. Our mission: implement daily meeting and problem solving to support a focused improvement effort spanning only 8 weeks. This was our chance to show the rest of the hospital what OE can do. Everyone (~30 people) was invited to participate in the daily meeting. How do you think attendance at the daily meeting was? Average attendance for the first week: 3-5 people. Were these three people engaged? Yes, very engaged. They were doing problem-solving sheets and asking questions every time David and I arrived in the lab to “check” the daily...
One of the most common “push backs” I encounter as an Operational Excellence coach is when we first introduce simple, individual, “five why” problem solving. I encourage my teams by telling them not to worry about solving problems; I tell them to just fill out problem solving sheets. Lots of them. Shortly, a top leader will take me aside and tell me that I really didn’t mean that…did I? Of course I did! Why would I want them to solve problems when the organization doesn’t have a simple, standard problem solving tool? How will we ever make quantum...
(This is the fourth installment from a speech given at SMC Business Councils a few weeks ago. You can see the previous installments by clicking this SMC Speech tag. The result will give you all the posts.) Around the time when Womack was publishing the first version of Lean Thinking, the seminal Toyota plant in North America, the one they built in Georgetown, Kentucky was celebrating its tenth anniversary. Some of its earliest leaders were moving on to different and new seasons and careers. Some of those early leaders went on to show organizations how to implement the Toyota Production...
(This is the third installment from a speech given at SMC Business Councils a few weeks ago. You can see all the installments by clicking this SMC Speech tag. The result will give you all the posts.) Where would one look for the things that we need to do to eliminate waste? Well, because Womack’s system was presumably extracted from Toyota, one has to look at the source. In droves, we flocked to see what Toyota was doing. And we saw a lot, didn’t we? We saw cellular manufacturing, we saw the artifacts of pull systems – kanbans, we saw a pull cord that triggered a light and...
Members of the KCOE Team recently traveled to South Africa to present the concepts of Operational Excellence to the Healthcare Managers of Western Cape. The presentation covered the underlying principles and concepts of Operational Excellence as they have been taught and coached by our team here in the United States. Medical services in South Africa are challenged by limited financial and physical resources and a government run bureaucracy with all the attributes of a command and control leadership. Managers are looking for alternative systems which can encourage employee empowerment,...
Question: My team is using problem solving? Do I need to solve ALL these problems? Answer: No. Too many problems? Once per month, utilize your balanced score card to isolate your TOP problems in safety, quality, productivity, human development and cost from the previous month. Recognize your top problems and attack these. About 30 Second Coaching Each week one of KCOE’s world class coaches will tackle an issue relating to operational excellence, lean implementation, or continuous improvement. You can become an expert by following this portion of OE Blog, following KCOE on Facebook...
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