At the September 24 Union County Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative Breakfast, State Representative David Burke emphasized the importance of process improvement to Ohio’s manufacturing competitiveness. 

Burke talked about reducing waste and improving flow to reduce manufacturing costs.  He described his experience touring area manufacturing plants and learning how they’re striving to cut costs by eliminating unnecessary process steps and reducing inventory levels.  We were delighted to hear our representative  promoting Lean as a priority! 

At the breakfast we also heard from State Senator Karen Gilmore and a representative from US Senator Mary Jo Kilroy’s office.  Health Care Reform and Cap and Trade were the more controversial federal legislative initiatives that were discussed.  They are controversial, in part, because of the increased burden they will place on business if passed.  In the case of Cap and Trade, the bill disproportionately affects the State of Ohio because of our manufacturing-based economy.  

To keep jobs here in Ohio, it is critical that our businesses take steps to compete with world-wide challengers.  The US Congress has a host of bills moving through the legislative process that, if passed, will further challenge our manufacturing companies with increased taxes and regulations.  If your company has not yet taken action to address internal waste and inefficiency, I hope you’re beginning to feel the urgency.  The challenges we currently face will pale in comparison to those that await us if these anti-business laws are enacted.

Traditional cost-control efforts such as limiting paper and office supply use are worthwhile, of course, but they don’t begin to address the deep-seeded wasteful activities that have become standard practice in many of our businesses.  As a business community, it’s time to proactively address our opportunities to improve.  We can’t afford to wait any longer.

I just watched a Guinness world record in egg tossing being beat on Fox News.  In case you had something better to do before church on Sunday morning of Labor Day Weekend, I’ll describe it. 

Allison Camerota and Clayton Morris took on Ashrita Furman and an unnamed assistant in side-by-side egg tossing.  The opportunity to see the world-record seeking team go head-to-head with the news anchors was an outstanding visual to explain the advantage of standard work.

A timer was set for 1 minute and the eggs started to fly.  Clayton Morris, donned with a rain poncho, was the catcher for the anchor team.  The contrast between the record-seeking team and the anchor team was so dramatic that it made for great TV….and a blog about standard work.

Furman’s assistant used a very consistent technique.  With minimum motion, he picked up one egg after another and tossed them to Furman.  His consistent technique resulted in a small distribution of location where the egg would be caught, making it easier to catch the eggs and reducing the chance that an egg would arrive out of his reach.  (Did I mention that Furman didn’t wear a poncho?)

At the next set of tables, the unpracticed, unprepared news anchors had eggs flying in all directions.  Allison’s tossing technique varied from throw to throw and Clayton didn’t have a chance.  I have no doubt that they were trying to be successful.  And if success were measured in spilled yolk, they would have won hands-down.

It was clear that the world-record winners had practiced and perfected their technique.  Just like world-class athletes use consistent techniques to achieve consistently excellent results, so did the egg throwers.

The result:  Furman caught 66 eggs…beating the world record of 40 by 65%!  Wow…that’s breakthrough improvement!   

So…if you’ve disregarded the power of standard work in your improvement efforts, I urge you to rethink that position.  Sure, it takes some work to develop the best technique to minimize motion and the other types of waste, but once found, the use of the best technique by everyone who does a job can make a marked difference in performance.

Back to the eggs.  In case you want to try this at home or work, you’ll need:

·         Two tables

·         Eggs

·         A receptacle for the eggs on each table.

·         Situate the thrower and catcher 16 feet 4 inches apart.

·         A timer set for 1 minute. 

The performance metric: 

·         The number of eggs that are placed in the catcher’s receptacle uncracked.

With world-class performance now defined as 66 eggs, the egg toss at the next company picnic could take on a whole new meaning.  In fact, I may use this as a training exercise…

This week Rob and I went to Orlando to a WCBF Lean Six Sigma conference.  We heard some great speakers, met some cool people and had the opportunity to hang out with one of our Green Belts from ECOT in Columbus, who presented her team’s project on a story board.  (Good job Brittny!)The subject of this BLOG is not the great stuff we learned from other practitioners, but observations we made while leaving Orlando.  Picture 5:30 AM on a Friday at the Orlando International Airport.  The shops are still closed and the open security lanes are limited.  From observing the schedule of operations, you’d think that very few flights would be departing before 7:00 AM.  Instead, when you try to book flights out of Orlando, there’s very little that departs in the evening and the bulk of flights leave in the early morning through early afternoon.  That would account for the lines.Not only were the lines long, but it seemed that the TSA staff was surprised by it.  OK - it could have been that we were there on the only Friday when lines are long at 5:30 AM, but do you really think so?  The Orlando airport uses the new security lane designations, a lane for Casual Travelers, a separate lane for Frequent Travelers and a special Expert Traveler lane.  At 5:30 AM everyone was being funneled through the same lane.  Then the TSA began opening lanes about 6:00 AM (no doubt when the morning shift started).  Because of the long lines, there was no effort made to use the special lane designations, it was merely an exercise in crowd control.  Like 4-H’ers directing their swine around the show ring, we were steered in groups to the next lane to be opened, then the next.  All special routing was abandoned in favor of spreading the herd out as quickly as possible.So, would I do anything differently?  Have the years of Lean and Six Sigma training paid off?  Here are the questions I would like to ask the TSA management:  How do you schedule your TSA agents?  Is it the same every day, or does it vary by volume of flights?  What procedures are used to start the day?  What passenger behaviors would you like to encourage / discourage?  How does your current system support the desired behaviors?How about measurement systems?  How do you measure your performance?  What characteristics does a “good” start-up have that a “bad” one does not?  How would you qualify last Friday morning - was that a “good” day?I guess the most frustrating thing about being herded in the lines was the apparent lack of  a system to accommodate traveler volume at the beginning of the day.  I suspect that TSA agent shifts are scheduled for convenience of management rather than to match customer travel patterns.  I also imagined arriving at the security lanes at 7:00 or 7:30 when the lanes are switching over to the special queues by traveler type.  How would you like to be the last family moving through the expert traveler lane being glared at by business people with laptop in hand and loafers neatly tucked in the gray bin?  (Or in our case being the traveler waiting for the mom with several children.)  Really - we’re nice people and we love kids - but there are some loafer-sliding expert travelers out there who aren’t so nice.Remind me to take a stop watch next time I go to the airport.  I think a little queuing simulation is in order!  And how great would it be to make the TSA agents wonder what I was up to???