From the other side of the table...

On my first job as a product development engineer for music systems, I was enthusiastic about work as any newbie would be. I had a senior colleague who had spent years developing music systems for the consumer goods industry. He was very successful at developing great music systems within the specified timeline.
Sometimes, he would sit on the other side of his desk and spend few minutes looking at his desk. He would also come to work on weekends and spend the entire by himself in the department. Often I asked him why he did that. He would reply that it gives him a new perspective of the project he was working on. He would go back in with fresh ideas and design better music systems.
I never understood how the "alone time" he spent helped him. When I started working with Lean tools, I realized the importance of stopping or slowing down to get a better handle of the project or to make problems visible.
The concept of andon lights used to stop the line to fix a problem in a lean enterprise explains how this tool can remove waste of scrap, defects and rework.

Seeing is believing

Hand hygiene is one of the topmost concerns of hospitals as it prevents infections in the hospital. Physicians and nurses not following hand hygiene in a hospital can result in the outbreak of serious infections.
Treating these infections may cost the hospital lot of money. And sometimes these infections can result in patient deaths causing lawsuits.
Inspite of the importance of hand hygiene, compliance to hand hygiene is on an average 40% (per Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published on October 25, 2002 by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

Some methods for hand hygiene are washing hands with soap or using alcohol based rub.
Several studies have proved that alcohol based rubs are more effective than washing hands with plain soap and water.
However, older nurses at this local hospital did not believe this. It was proven by measuring the number of pathogens found on the hands of nurses using soap versus those using alcohol. Only after seeing for themselves, the nurses believed in that alcohol was better than using soap.

Listening to "Voice of your people"

"Voice of customer" is a very common term in the Six Sigma world.
It explains the importance of paying close attention to customers explicit and implicit needs.
But rarely we think about listening to the voice of the people. Most employees in an organization express their views and opinions about their workplace. Many employees have ideas for improving the workplace too. Given a chance these employees will talk about their ideas and in the right environment will even figure out ways to implement them.
However, if managers do not pay attention to these employees, over time they will stop communicating. The managers job is to prevent this from happening as some bright ideas may never see the light of the day. Any idea that brings improvement is a good idea and good managers must capitalize on them.
Listening to the voice of your people is as important as listening to your customers.

Data collection - waste or value?

Every company I visit as the Lean Six Sigma specialist, I see process and product data being collected. Operators on the plant floor check several process and product parameters. This data is recorded in the inspection reports that the operators are supposed to fill out. So much data is collected every day but very little is done with it.

Process and product data provide useful information that can be used for quality improvements. Many times no one even looks at this data. Sometimes the operators who are doing the checks also don't pay attention. So what's the use of the activity of data collection if no is going to take any action on it.

Data is collected for the sake of record keeping. However, in the Lean Manufacturing world, an activity that consumes resources and does not add value is waste.
Data collection causes..
1) waste of time
2) waste of paper if data is collected on paper
3) consumes unnecessary hardware storage space if data is collected electronically.

Unfortunately, very few companies act on the data that is collected. That is why processes rarely improve and few companies have succeeded at implementing Lean.
Sad but true that manufacturers collect Lots of data, but take little action on it!