This shift is the problem...

8/15/12...Last night we had our 12th report out since the inception of teaming in our plant, way back in May 2010. Report outs occur about once every 3 months and give our nine teams a chance to report their accomplishments and discuss their metrics. We also spend time letting our six committee's talk about all the wonderful things they are working on. At the end of the night, most agreed the report out was successful, not perfect, but there is no need to be, we are all on a journey. Plus, after twelve of these, it is still nice to know we are energized by the engagement of our folks and we see them still engaged as well.

So what prompted this entry? A number of things. One I was watching a youtube video of Robert Miller discussing the Shingo Prize. The prize is only awarded to companies approaching or in a Principled driven organization. Very enlightening. He discussed the companies they have audited for the prize. I was most curious about the typical metrics from those who are approaching Principle driven. One in particular popped out. He said the average number of implemented ideas by employees were 60 per person per year. I paused. And thought hmmm...I know we are nowhere near this number. In fact over the last two years we celebrated implementing 200 ideas and even threw candy out at Fun Day to document this fact. As a comparision, 200 ideas in 2 years equates to about 2.5 implementations per person or 1.25 per year. This is far from what is mentioned above. If I take the 60 ideas reported by the Shingo prize recipients and times that by our 80 people, I come to a  total of 4,300 per year. Yikes!! The discrepancy is incredible.

So I wondered, is this indeed a good thing? The Shingo prize people readily admit five years ago they made changes in their criteria because 80% of those who received the prize, when they were reaudited....failed. Hmmm. So I wonder what the sustainment percentage is of the 4,300 implemented ideas per year. Also, I have been on both sides of audits and have seen how people manipulate the audit criteria on both sides, so when the Shingo people report the improvement ideas, are those companies being audited really presenting the facts or just presenting the lipstick on a pig? I do not know. I am curious to find out the following from those organizations:

1. What is the depth of the ideas? I think our depth is deeper so therefore the effort takes longer.
2. Of those ideas, how many our sustained? Are the ideas audited for sustainment?
3. Do the stakeholders take ownership of the ideas?
4. etc.

So I do have some questions. However, in our organization I do think we have more opportunity to generate more ideas. Our people are not quite seeing the 7 muda's nor using their insight to see waste on a daily basis. So our training, positive reinforcement, and accountability or a mixture would need to increase.

I know with our teaming, one of the embedded principles is the team taking ownership of all ideas before proceeding. This tends to slow down the process, but if we are sustaining 80%, is this bad?

Also, in my work history, I have always heard shifts blaming other shifts for problems, etc. In a four shift operation it is even worse. Once we went to teaming, I never hear people complaining about other shifts...I mean ever. So do the intangibles of getting people to look out for each other's back and work together outweigh decentralizing and getting more ideas implementing?