The 30-Inch View®

Efficient+Effective+Effort=Success

  A post at Slow Leadership caught my attention the other day:

“Why you should think seriously about being less efficient.”  Hmmm.

Though it may seem contradictory to what we know and understand in the world of lean and ergonomics, it makes total sense.  Being efficient is all about minimizing waste, increasing productivity, and decreasing costs (think: “How can I do this with less?”).  Being effective, however, is about finding the right solution and thinking outside of the box (think: “How can we do this better?”)  Now it should go without saying that you need both to be successful; but it’s about how you utilize your resources that counts.

As usual,the 80/20 rule can be applied to various functions within a company:

• Hourly employees, line managers/supervisors, line engineers, etc.:
  • 80% of the time this group should be encouraged to look for continuous improvement and efficiency gains; this can be done through team-based kaizen events.
  • 20% of the time this group should be encouraged to seek out new methods, tools, and processes; this can be done through involving them in clean-sheet design reviews.
• Plant management, leadership team, company executives, etc.:
  • 80% of the time this group should be looking for ways to innovate and to be more effective at what they do; this can be done through benchmarking with similar/different industries, market research, etc.
  • 20% of the time this group should be involved in continuous improvement initiatives; this is to ensure there remains a connection to what is currently being done.

Slow Leadership included a statement made by Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.com, on his thoughts about customer needs.  I thought I’d include a couple of other examples of Bezos’ colleagues (who, by the way, also made it onto this year’s Time 100 list who are models of how to be more effective, not just efficient:

• Indra Nooyi, Chariman and CEO of PepsiCo
  • Rather than just focus on how to be more effective in their traditional market (soft drinks and snack chips), Nooyi pushed for PepsiCo to become a “healthier brand”; purchase Quaker Oats and Tropicana in recent years and removing trans fat from its products well before other competitors.
  • PepsiCo’s international business grew 22% last year
• Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple
  • Rather than spending time, money, and resources making products people don’t want (think back to the days of the good ol’ walkman and discman), Jobs is king of marketability.  Knowing your customers’ wants and needs are far more important than building it fast or cheap.
  • Apple’s stock has increased over 70% of the past year.

If you’re still not convinced, let’s close with a quote from Thomas Leonard, founder of CoachVille: “When you're effective, you are able to accomplish the worthwhile goal you've chosen. When you're efficient, you quickly carry out actions. You won't be effective, however, unless those actions result in your achieving a meaningful goal.”

Are you efficient, effective or efficiently effective? It makes a difference.

A long weekend's nap...

As we go into this long weekend, many of us are hoping to enjoy the luxury of doing nothing, perhaps even find some time to get a little extra sleep. Sleep, or lack of it, can be a serious drain on productivity in the workplace and often presents a real safety risk according to an article at Usernomics.com.

One of the outcomes of developing WMSDs may be pain and discomfort experienced outside of work, specifically when trying to sleep. WMSDs have a continuum of hassle, discomfort then pain. Many times pain is addressed through anti-inflammatories or pain killers prescribed by health care providers. This only provides a temporary solution to the discomfort and pain, but is it addressing the root cause?

Unfortunately, health care providers do not often work closely with workplace personnel who better understand job demands. If the job a person is performing consists of awkward postures, high forces, repetitive tasks, or phyiscal stressors, these may be root causes to the pain and discomfort. Using tools like Phyical Demands Analysis or Descriptions can help health care providers determine whether specific workplace tasks may be contributing to pain and discomfort. Even better are risk assessments that determine whether workplace tasks are outside of population capabilities. Manual material handling, exposure to vibration, etc. should be assessed to see if the tasks exceed the capabilities of the work population. In turn, these high risk tasks can be controlled through engineering and workplace improvements. Which ultimately is addressing the root cause of the issue and will prevent pain and discomfort over the long run. And then maybe, just maybe, we can get the sleep we all deserve!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Leadership is about people, not assets.

The writings of Sun Tzu, which are collectively called The Art of War, are over 2,500 years old, and yet they are as applicable today as they were when they were first written. Throughout Sun Tzu's writings are the themes of leadership, engagement, communication, planning and preparation, and discipline.

Sun Tzu claims that to succeed in war, one should have full knowledge of one's own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of the enemy. Lack of either might result in defeat. The Art of War was written in a universal style that draws parallels between the challenges in business and those of war, specifically:

§         How are you collecting data and does it originate from both internal and external sources?

§         Do you have the right data on your dashboard or are you still largely relying on business intuition?

§         Can you discern any patterns, gain insight, and extract meaning from the data?

§         How is your organization incentivized to positively respond to and learn from the resultant information?

Modern businesses have deployed automation and information technologies that have led to vast amounts of data becoming available.  The true art is sieving through large amounts of data, extracting useful information and turning that information into actionable knowledge with an appreciation and understanding of the resultant outcome.

 

Sound leadership advice on where to start the journey towards business wisdom comes from the first chapter of Art of War.  Sun Tzu says, "If people are treated with benevolence, faithfulness and justice, then they will be of one mind and will be glad to serve," which shows that workers simply want to be treated fairly and have the faith of their co-workers and supervisors. Sun Tzu tells us that we first must know ourselves and there is no better way for leaders to learn than by getting out of the office and seeing what is really happening in your environment.

Once out of your office, leadership can adopt a consistent and straightforward continuous improvement approach to discern the root cause of successes or problems. 

Consistently ask these simple questions:

§         What was our plan?

§         What actually happened and did we follow the plan?

§         What went right first and how do we sustain that part?

§         What went wrong and ask ourselves why (5-why’s) this occurred?

§         Finally, how do we fix the problem and who is going to be responsible for verifying that it is fixed?

This simple leadership act can be a key to success or failure of your continuous improvement efforts and also serve as positive reinforcing behavior for employees to remain engaged.  This is an important lesson as durable gains in productivity and quality accrue only when your workforce is engaged in a continuous improvement culture. The true goal here is not just to transform manufacturing, but rather to create "thinking people" who are glad to serve and sustain the process. 

Without engaged employees, continuous improvement initiatives die on the vine.  Companies experiencing positive bottom-line effects from their efforts in continuous improvement are doing so because they have learned and adopted the tactics that Sun Tzu described long ago about tapping into a self-reinforcing cycle of respectful employee engagement.

Chart: Ackoff, R.L., "From Data to Wisdom", Journal of Applied Systems Analysis, Volume 16, 1989 p 3-9 

Friday Afternoon Quiz...

Test your knowledge of ergonomics. (Scroll down for the answers.)

1. How often should you adjust your work surface height when working at the computer for prolonged periods of time?

A. Never
B. Every few hours, when you feel your muscles need a break
C. Every 20 minutes
D. Every 2 minutes

2. True or False: Workstations that accommodate multiple shifts should be height adjustable.
     T  F

3. What situations would be appropriate for a sit/stand workstation (one that adjusts for seated and standing use)?

A. When the workstation is used for several hours or more per day
B. When the workstation is used only occasionally
C. When the workstation is used in a factory setting
D. All of the above

4. When typing at your computer, your monitor should be positioned:

A. To the right of your keyboard
B. To the left of your keyboard
C. Directly in front of your keyboard
D. Below your keyboard

5. The best position for your mouse is:

A. Next to your keyboard
B. Next to your computer monitor
C. Behind your keyboard
D. On top of your keyboard

6. True or False: Your work surfaces should be free from hard or sharp edges.
     T  F

7. True of False: The best keyboard trays maintain a flat surface (do not adjust in angle)
     T  F

8. Which of the following items should be within an easy arm's reach while at your desk?

A. Frequently accessed reference materials
B. Telephone
C. Source documents
D. All of the above

Answers:
1. B
2. True
3. A
4. C
5. A
6. True
7. False
8. D

Not happy with your score? Join our Office ergonomics webinar or check out some of our publications.

On the floor? Here's what to look for...

Jon Miller (Gemba Panta Rei) reminds us that "what you find on the floor tells you a lot". In fact, lean challenges aren't the only thing you'll find.

By opening your view to observe not only space (floor) and inanimate objects (wheels, Ohno circles, debris, etc.) but also to the people performing the tasks, you'll get a much better sense of the barriers to higher productivity. After all, people are the sole source of productivity.

What are you looking for?

• Excessive reaches
• Bending and twisting
• frequent movements that bring people out of their comfortable reach area (30 inches)

It will become evident that lack of casters on carts, materials stored on the floor, obstacles like equipment and debris, and no Ohno circles are often the root cause of their non-value added motions and exposure to injury risk factors (musculoskeletal disorders).

So, what are you waiting for...hit the floor!

Photo credit: 

Enterprise Transformation: Extending Lean beyond tools and events

Thanks to Ralph Bernstein at Lean Insider for his post detailing the improvement efforts going on at St. Joseph's Hospital in Parkersburg, West Virginia, owned by Signature Hospital Corporation.

Kudos to St. Joseph's for such an effective demonstration of the power of incremental improvement. Too often the "increments" are over looked or looked over in favor of the bigger bang - but it's the roll-up effect of the little things that is so powerful.

We know how good ergonomics engineering can provide dramatic improvements in takt time by attacking wasted motion even in baby steps. The real challenge, now that the demonstration is successful, is to take it system-wide; as we say - Fix Once, Repeat Many (FORM).

The reason it becomes the greater challenge is that Kaizen events on the factory or the patient floor and improvement projects conducted by experts are not enough. To sustain the gains, Signature must move the game from tools and projects to enterprise transformation. That will necessitate organizational leadership that supports and drives enterprise behaviors - and engages all staff in the cause.

We hope they are successful!

Keeping Score on Employee Engagement

Recently, Kevin Meyer (Evolving Excellence) offered that "people are more than a pair of hands. They have knowledge, creativity, experience and ideas. Even if that isn't represented on a P&L or balance sheet."

Kevin is right on point, people are the sole source of productivity in an organization (you could even say they are the soul of your company's competitive advantage). The key is having them engaged (is this term becoming overused?) or involved in improving/changing/optimizing their aspect of the business.

There is one way we've found to "keep score" when it comes to how well utilized your employees are. It's called the OSHA incident rate. High incident rates are an indication of how safe and efficient the workplace is. The lower the rate - the safer the environment - the more respect for employees is demonstrated.

This is very important stuff...consider some of these recent stats from a new report, "The State of Employee Engagement 2008", issued by global consultants BlessingWhite:

• Only 1 in 3 American workers are fully engaged
• 13% are "Crash & Burners", they are disillusioned and potentially exhausted and at risk for becoming disengaged
• 19% are completely disengaged, disconnected from organizational priorities and are not getting what they need from work...people in this group are likely to collect a paycheck and enjoy favorable job conditions but contribute minimally

Fujio Cho, Toyota's Chairman, said "Manufacturers treating workers as simply one of the 'three M's --men, machines, and material -- won't develop in terms of international competitiveness."

The problem is that while many companies have excellent tools to optimize the performance of machines, and ensure the the smooth flow of raw, in process, and finished materials in their plants and to their customers, they generally lack tools to help them understand, engage and then optimize the performance of people.

This knowledge gap creates a trying fit for people, the output of which could be a painful and punishing workplace -- tough to engage when what you are engaging in hurts you.

Concentrating on lowering metrics like the OSHA incident rate is a first step in driving your company towards real Lean.

photo credit: laffy4k

Ergonomics or Economics?

At first, this intriguing design, courtesy of the folks at Yanko Design (very cool site if you like new gadgets, cutting edge design, etc) caught our eye, but upon further reflection it might really be a good example of "getting caught in one's own headlights".

The idea of creating an adjustable lap desk using an airbladder is an interesting and simple concept and there may be demand for it in the marketplace. To label it "ergonomic" without justification is poor practice by the designer.

Just what problem does an adjustable lap top desk solve? Is it awkward posture of the wrist, long viewing distance when reading a book or computer screen, or a bent neck? Without a statement of the problem, the claims of the product benefit become somewhat empty.

The designer may have created the next great design concept (after the Chia Pet and the Clapper) but as far as ergonomics is concerned, it's probably another example of the misunderstanding and overuse of a concept stricltly for marketing purposes.

Interesting article from OH&S E-newsletter

Just in from Occupational Health & Safety's E-newsletter (5-7-08)

Rising gas prices are affecting more than the family budget. More pain at the pump results in more employee stress on the job, according to Wayne Hochwarter, the Jim Moran Professor of Management at Florida State University's College of Business.

"People concerned with the effects of gas prices were significantly less attentive on the job, less excited about going to work, less passionate and conscientious and more tense," Hochwarter said. "These people also reported more 'blues' on the job. Employees were simply unable to detach themselves from the stress caused by escalating gas prices as they walked through the doors at work."

Hochwarter gleaned the information by surveying more than 800 full-time employees this spring when gas prices hovered at about $3.50 per gallon. All of the people surveyed work in a wide range of occupations, primarily in the southeastern United States. All drove personal transportation to work and had an average commute of 15 miles each way.

Survey respondents said gas prices were foremost on their mind, including a disgruntled factory worker who wrote, "I spend more time at work trying to figure out what I need to give up to keep gas in my tank than thinking about how to do my job."

Hochwarter's research will be submitted for publication later this summer. Among his findings:

§        52 percent have reconsidered taking vacations or other recreational activities;

§        45 percent have had to cut back on debt-reduction payments, such as credit card payments;

§        nearly 30 percent considered the consequences of going without basics including food, clothing and medicine;

§        45 percent report that the escalating gas prices have "caused them to fall behind financially";

§        39 percent agreed with the statement "Gas prices have decreased my standard of living"; and

§        about 33 percent -- or one in three -- said they would quit their job for a comparable one nearer to home.

Hochwarter's discussions with employees confirm the study's results. Many employees report that gas prices rank as the No. 1 water-cooler discussion topic, ahead of family, sports or work, he said. He found little difference in responses among different ages, gender, work tenure and occupations.

"Several employees said they simply could not escape the media onslaught of bad news regarding the future of gas prices, and many reported their financial futures were looking bleaker and bleaker," Hochwarter said.

The Invisible Hand of Ergonomics

The other day, Mark Eaton was discussing some work he was doing with the National Patient Safety Agency, introducing the idea of designing environments to be safer and more productive.

His point couldn't be more accurate. The design of equipment, tools, and the layout of the workplace are often the difference between positive and negative work behaviors. As an employer, this is one sure way of influencing safe and effective work practices.

The key is ergonomics -- Designing the workplace and equipment to best fit the capabilities of the working population.

This includes the physical dimensions (ex. grip diameter, weight, reach, height, etc.) and the cognitive design for usability (ex. intuitive understanding of controls, presentation of information, design of controls).

Jamie Mallon, a Certified Professional Ergonomist and a Vice President here at Humantech likes to explain this concept as "an invisible hand". When the workplace and equipment are designed correctly, the invisible hand guides a person toward working in a safe and efficient manner, and makes it harder to work unsafely or ineffectively.

For example, placing a box of materials on a raised platform rather than on the floor automatically eliminates the need to bend and reach each time a widget is removed from the box. This one minor alteration in the work environment eliminates repeated exposure to poor lifting conditions, wasteful motions, and the additional time to reach.

Is the Invisible Hand working for you or against you?