|
TONIGHT!
A Series of Visual Workplace and Smart Placement on-site services in the UK
October 15-23
(Private Events Only)
Visual Workplace Seminar
New Delhi
November 30-December 1
Visual Workplace Seminar
Mumbai
December 3-4
|
without waiting for corporate authorization.
|
and you can get a Kindle version of that same book for only $2.99
Just check the box!
This deal is retroactive!
(Click the appropriate title to go to the purchase page.)
|
|
From the Editor--
And from a Reader: Standardization Article
|
 Dr. Galsworth received a comment about last week's article, Borg Thinking: Standards... Standard Work... Standardization.
Dr. Galsworth responds:
"Kelyn Brown in Murray, Kentucky and Senior Manager Global Lean Deployment at Dana Corporation, was kind enough to point out that there is a fourth term to put into the mix of standards, standard work, and standardization that I discussed in last week's issue of The Visual Thinker. That term is "standardized work". Mr. Brown went on to share that Toyota uses this term to refer to the process of gathering information about work content and comparing with Takt to determine if that content meets the customer's required pace. Hmm, to me this seems tantamount to standard work, as I learned it from Yoshiki Iwata in the 1980s. So I suspect I am missing something and will confer with Mr. Brown further to discover what. Thanks and please stay tuned."
|
Lewis Carroll had episodes of micropsia during his migraine attacks which made him to conceive the idea of Alice seeing things smaller than they were.
|
Find your thought for the week in our new video gallery. Lots of great thoughts and ideas you can use today!
|
| And the Visual Fail Prize Goes To... |
Have you seen a Visual Fail that made you laugh? Send the image to
[email protected],
and we'll put it here and credit you with the funny find!
|
|
 |
|
|
Visual Radio:
5S in Japan: Origins of the Model
|
Listen to Gwendolyn this
Thursday at 10am
(Pacific) on
This Week's Episode
5S in Japan: Origins of the Model
When 5S came to the West in the early 1980s, we were inspired and eager to get on board. In a blinding flash of the obvious, we asked how we could have worked for so many decades in such cluttered, dirty work places--and achieved any level of success. But the fact is we did work in such places, without a second thought--and we became a world economic power. Go figure. With the blessing of Womack and Malcolm, we forged ahead with 5S. Countless companies achieved remarkable 5S triumphs. But many other companies failed in ways both puzzling and wrenching. In some, using the term "5S" was banned forever. This week, Gwendolyn Galsworth, takes a glance into the past and begins to answer the question: Why? What went wrong? Why had these unintended--often disastrous--consequences occurred? To start, she shares her take on the origins of Japan's 5S model, its true role, and how all that fit with the values and preferences of the West.
|
|
The Four Friends: a Japanese Ideal
|
|
Borg Thinking: Visual Standards are NOT Outcome Insurance
by Gwendolyn Galsworth, PhD
Standards define what is supposed to happen at work, both in terms of product and service specifications and how those specs are achieved. I made this distinction last week when we first spoke of technical standards and procedural standards. Pretty dry stuff, I admit--yet also necessary and useful. Things get a tiny bit exciting when we move to make visual the vital information contained in our technical and procedural specs.
When we make these specs visible and easy to access through visual standards, we take them out of hiding, liberating them from thick binders and the bowels of our computers. We locate them, instead, at or very close to the point-of-use in highly obvious formats. There are two main ways to do that: 1) Organize the details in order and show them, step by step (Figure A); or 2) Focus on the highlights only, pinpointing the tricky parts only-instead of every single detail (Figure B). Both approaches are valid.
|
|
|
A. Visual Standard, Step-By-Step
|
|
|
|
B. Visual Standard, Tricky Parts Only
|
|
Great signs, clever visual devices, artistic or humorous graffiti. If you find one to share, send the image to
[email protected]
|
|
|
