How to Get Your Ideas Approved to Simplify Work

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Have you ever spent a large amount of time explaining your idea to your boss just to find they just can’t see the value of your idea? After awhile most people stop pitching ideas because they will just get rejected. By using this tried and tested formula you will have the power to get your boss to see the value of your improvement ideas. Thus, getting what you want to simplify your work day.

If you improve a process by taking out steps and save one minute per day you will save 4.3 hours per year at work. That is half of a shift! Now if you save one minute per day for 50 people at work that comes up to 215 hours saved per year for the company. Understanding that there is an investment of time and money to make improvements happen. You will want to show how fast your idea will give a pay back.

First you will want to add up the time spent working on the improvement in hours. If you spent money on the improvement, have one dollar equal one minute and add that to your time invested in hours. Take your hours saved per year and minus the time it takes to complete the improvement project. This will give you your total hours saved this year. It’s better to stay away from talking about money when talking with team members.

Now for the pay back calculation, take the time it takes to complete the improvement project and divide the time saved per month. To get the time saved per month divide your total time saved by 12. If your answer is a one that tells us that it will take one month before we actually start saving time.

This formula will give you leverage to get the time and money to make the changes you want at work. To make it easier to see, take a look at the formula. If you have any questions just gave me a call and let me know how I can help.

Blue Brook Consulting’s Tulsa Black Belt Certification Course

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Blue Brook Consulting is pleased to offer a Tulsa Black Belt Certification Course

Class: One on one

Location: Your location

Instructor: A certified Master Black Belt will facilitate the class.

 

Course:  This course provides you and/or your staff with the Lean Six Sigma knowledge and skills to become certified as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, thus improving your business focus and effectiveness. Classes are every Thursday for 16 weeks and content can be tailored to the customer needs.

A weekly schedule will give you the opportunity to study and implement a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt projects with mentoring in between sessions. Working on projects while training helps you better understand the benefits of Lean Six Sigma and gives you a faster return on your time and resources.

You will learn:

  • LSS Process (DMAIC)
  • Change Management
  • Project Management
  • Voice of the Customer
  • Visual Work Place
  • Learning to See LSS
  • Measurement System Analysis
  • Process Characterization
  • Graphical Analyze
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
  • Control Charts
  • Making Materials Flow
  • Creating Continuous Flow with group exercises following every subject, so you gain the best results on your project
  • How to create a Monte Carlo simulation to conduct what-if scenario analysis and solve problems that are very tedious analytically

Learning Objectives:

  • To understand the nature of a Lean Six Sigma culture and be able to contribute to its development.
  • To understand and apply Lean Six Sigma Tools and concepts, including the DMAIC roadmap, on your project for the purpose of improving Customer Satisfaction, Cost, Time, Complexity, and Profitability.
  • Develop an appreciation for the need and use of statistics in process improvement.
  • Be able to conduct a Measurement System Analysis (MSA) to determine the integrity of the data we are getting.
  • Ability to apply the concepts of Lean Six Sigma to both manufacturing and transactional processes.
  • To understand the difference between batch and queue philosophy and one-piece flow.
  • Be able to construct and interpret a confidence interval.
  • Know what a 2-sample hypothesis test is and be able to use statistical tests and Rules of Thumb to detect shifts in average and standard deviation.
  • Ability to select the appropriate control chart to use, know how to construct it, and able to recognize out-of-control symptoms.
  • Measure the results from your Lean Six Sigma project and understand strategies for holding the gains.  
  • Statistically designed experiments (DOE).

  

Got questions? Ready to sign up? Call Jerry Pykiet at 918-637-5800.

SIPOC

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Think about planning a party?

I would start with the customers first. Customers could be parents, Kids (Could be by name), neighbors, and friends. Then work on the quality outputs for the party with the specific customers in mind. One of the kids could have a birthday at the same time as your party and we need to know that info.

 

Outputs could be a chocolate cake, ends at 9pm, no cops are called for too much music, food, beer (temp, alcohol content, and brand), Other drinks and temperatures of the drinks, and more.

 

The process is the steps in which the party will happen. First 30 minutes is social, then you give a grand speech, then we eat, then we play specific games, and then we let folks go home.

 

Inputs would be all the things needed to have the party. Could be at your house or a hotel, need a pool, outdoor cooker, Chars, bar stools, tables… it would be a big list for a big party.

 

Then we need to decide on the specific suppliers. Walmart or no Walmart, Sams, Liqueur store, Ice, DJ. This helps to get the entire team that is involved on the same page.

 

This is all built around – DMAIC.

 

DMAIC is the process of doing an improvement project. It is also called the scientific method of problem-solving. Here are some of the important questions to ask during a project:

  • Define
    • Which processes have the highest priority for improvement?
    • What customer feedback supports this conclusion?
    • What is the objective and scope of your project?
    • What are the high-level inputs and outputs of your process?
    • Where is the data?
  • Measure
    • How is the process performed?
    • What are the key process performance measures for this project?
    • How does current performance compare to customer requirements?
    • How trustworthy is your measurement system?
    • What are the operational definitions of your performance measures?
    • What are the value added and non-value added activities in the process?
    • What is the state of workplace organization in the process?
    • How much time and money will your efforts save the company?
    • Where is the data?
  • Analyze
    • What are all the sources of variability in the process?
    • Which sources of variability do you control and how?
    • What are the key variables that affect the average and variation of the measures of performance?  How do you know this?
    • What are the relationships between the measures of performance (key process output variables or KPOVs) and the key input variables (KPIVs)?
    • Where is the data?
  • Improve
    • What settings for the inputs will improve and optimize the outputs?
    • How will you communicate to stakeholders?
    • Did you conduct a pilot implementation of your process improvements?
    • How much improvement can you expect, and how did you estimate this?
    • What could go wrong with a full-scale implementation?
    • How can we simplify the process and error-proof it?
    • How can we make the process more visual?
    • What is the state of workplace organization in the process?
    • What SOPs will you put in place to standardize the process?
    • Where is the data?
  • Control
    • How will you maintain the gains from your process improvements?
    • What is the plan for full-scale implementation?
    • Who will own the process once the project is completed?
    • How much time and money will your efforts save the company?
    • What have you learned that can be applied in other areas?
    • Where is the data?

Then we start thinking about the deliverables…

 

DMAIC phase deliverables

 

Note:  These are typical deliverables by Gate.  It is not an all-inclusive list, but a guide.

Define:

  • SMART goal(s)
  • Benchmark previous LSS projects
  • Scope identified
  • Voice of the Customer analysis
  • SIPOC (primary/secondary metrics identified)
  • Planned end date for overall project
  • Planned completion dates for each gate
  • Gate Approvers identified
  • Team members identified
  • Document in a project notebook

 

Measure:

  • Measurement System Analysis/Data Trustworthiness
  • Baseline values for metrics, revise goal if needed
  • Process Flow (may need 5S, before/after pictures)
  • Exec Summary created
  • Estimate savings, get Finance buy-in
  • Document in a project notebook

 

Analyze:

  • Cause & Effect Analysis or 5 Whys
  • Identify value-added and non-value-added activity
  • Quantify input-output relationships
  • Other graphical tools as needed (e.g., Pareto, histogram, run chart)
  • Document in a project notebook

 

Improve:

  • Test pilot solutions
  • Objective evidence of improvement (before and after, hypothesis test)
  • 5S
  • SOPs/Standardized Work Chart
  • Stakeholder communication plan
  • Full-scale implementation plan for solution
  • Mistake-proofing
  • Risk assessment
  • Document in a project notebook

 

Control:

  • Process Owner identified
  • Control plan (what to measure, how and how frequently to measure, contingencies when things go wrong)
  • Exec Summary updated
  • Report out to Champion/Finance on results
  • Document in a project notebook
  • Mark calendar to do a follow-up audit 6 months later

 

The questions you will have asked take most folks a year to get their heads around. the content of this post is too deep to go over in just one day contact us and we will be able to touch on each of them. 

What Should an Entrepreneur Know About LEAN Philosophy?

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When a new business acquaintance asks me: “How do you spend your time?” Sometimes, without thinking I simply spout out “Lean Six-Sigma!” If they have ever heard of the term, they look at me like I’m talking about advanced calculus or maybe I’m some kind of crazy nerd! (Well, the nerd part could be true!) Then I tell them that it’s not just a math thing… it’s a management philosophy that gives everyone associated with a company the freedom to improve their work and the environment where they do that work. You don’t need to be a Super Math Whiz to understand that if you take care of people they will take care of you in return with ROI.

In the business world you need to have a platform to communicate the direction that you are going and Lean Six-Sigma is one of the best. The problem is that it’s called Lean Six Sigma, which means nothing to many business people. So, if you tell them its name, they run the other way as fast as they can! (Sometimes literally, but usually just in their heads… I have seen both.)  If it was named “Freedom Philosophy” or “Philosophy to make your work easier” maybe they would listen. Regardless, any way you name it, the Lean Six Sigma philosophy is that you become more profitable when you create an environment where stakeholders feel safe and enjoy sharing their ideas.

You’re probably thinking that sounds pretty simple. Well it can be, but it does require a lot of discipline and follow through.  Walt Disney built an amusement park empire around a single thought “everyone leaves with a smile!” Of course this also requires building a business that has a great culture and an even better business philosophy.  Walt Disney had to develop a company culture (workplace attitude) that encouraged his stakeholders’ (employees’) desire to make sure nothing superseded making people happy. Walt Disney was successful at building a great culture, but he knew it would require a high level of commitment to the process, adequate resources, and lots of creative freedom for his employees/stakeholders, who he affectionately referred to as “Cast Members”.

People that are starting a business from nothing have a big mountain to climb. They must master operating every department of a business with the least amount of resources. The 10% that make it find ways to reduce or eliminate the waste and variation just on their own survival skills.

A startup should look into LEAN as a way of thinking before they even start the business. Learning how to listen to the voice of cash flow, voice of the process, and the voice of the customer early on will have a dramatic impact on your approach. Startups cannot afford to waste their resources. Focusing on things that the customer will not pay much for or don’t understand, will put you in the unsuccessful start up group faster than you can say “Back to the cubical I go!”

As a startup’s best ROI, I would recommend reaching out to folks that are actively practicing the art of continuous improvement. Most of the good LEAN Six Sigma people would be happy teach you how to be a LEAN Six Sigma thinker. Remember that it is just a way of thinking, a mindset, looking for ways to reduce waste and create innovation.