Every organization and Leader we interface with are constantly coaching within their organization that pursuit of attaining that "Perfect Process".
The tools contained within the Toyota Production system focus on the identification and elimination of waste. It is through the elimination of "Waste" that Toyota works toward achieving that perfect process. This leads to detailed documentation, standard work where Toyota is able to expand quickly with predictable results. But, one needs to be reminded that Toyota operates with a philosophy that Team Members will remain with the company for life.
Another corporation that embraced this concept of achieveing a "Perfect Process" early in their evolution was McDonald’s. Now McDonalds does not get the respect it deserves as being a truly sustainable Lean Enterprise. We have fallen out of favor with their menu and initially their marketing model was geared to attracting children … but they have learned to pivot through the years, all those children that wanted their "Happy Meal" now attend McDonald's café as Retiree's for their morning coffee and breakfast sandwich in a social gathering of peers.
Take a closer look at the McDonald's organization from an operational perspective.
At the on-set McDonalds recognized that they would have an employee model that would have a high-turnover rate. A large contingent of their employees would be teenagers, and most likely this would be their first formal employment opportunity.
They designed very brilliant processes that could be managed by average and temporary employees some only who worked a few hours per week. Remember when we laughed watching the cook line and hearing all of the bells and buzzers going off? Is this not the ultimate of standard work combined with error-proofing? Remember looking at the cleaning check-lists mounted in their washrooms? I truly believe McDonald’s presented us with a good operational model even before we truly became exposed to Toyota.
Almost every industry sector is greatly concerned about their aging workforce and how can they capture the intellectual knowledge to insure an uninterrupted transfer of this knowledge without a detrimental impact on their product or services. But how did we get into this situation? Of course, we are in the constant chase to satisfy our stake holders with sustainable profits … this in many cases has forced us to eliminate training, documentation, simplification and the changing market has added complexities to our processes
and products because of the increasing customer demand of wanting products and processes faster, cheaper and better!
Catering to the ever changing needs of the market and your customers. This can quickly generate a plethora of unique processes requiring the skills of "Brilliant People" to manage them. Now you are burdened in needing those "Brilliant People" to manage Average Processes".
To reverse the trend and allowing you to build your processes to be more robust and predictable make sure you do a candid review and then view the potential tools and how they assist in creating a brilliant process that can be managed by average people.
If you need help or assistance to identify which tools and methods are the most applicable in your situation contact us.