Examples of Excellence

Congratulations, David Hogg

8 June 2012 by Kevin Meyer

I just learned that Dave Hogg, one of my oldest friends and mentors in the lean world, has received the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal for his work in promoting lean manufacturing. A remarkable, and well-deserved, achievement for a remarkable person.

I first met Dave in the mid-90s when I was struggling with trying to figure out how to turn around a large medical device manufacturing facility and I discovered The Association for Manufacturing Excellence – and lean. Through AME I almost immediately met Dave, and over the years he has instilled in me a passion for the human side of lean – the power of the oft-forgotten respect for people pillar. I've asked him to help train some of the organizations I've been fortunate enough to lead, and has always been available to offer advice. Dave is the person that encouraged me to start sharing my own lean experiences and knowledge, first through Superfactory and then through Lean CEO, Evolving Excellence, and more.

Dave Hogg is well known for the lean consortium model he created and implemented at the High Performance Manufacturing Consortium, which in 1998 was described by MIT's Sloan Management Review as a "leveraged learning network." This model spawned dozens of other successful consortia in Canada and throughout the rest of the world. In 2011 he was inducted into AME's Hall of Fame.

Congratulations Dave.

Let’s put this myth in its own coffin already.

28 December 2010 by Dan Markovitz

In this month's edition of the Atlantic Monthly, there's a short piece on how Batesville Casket is using lean to remain competitive. It's a well-written article providing a nice snapshot of the challenges the company faces (Chinese imports, increases in cremation) and how lean is helping it compete.

But then there's the obligatory opposing view of why lean is bad for workers:

How such a lean refitting affects workers on the factory floor receives far less attention. Batesville’s management has guaranteed that no employees will lose their jobs because of a “kaizen event,” an activity in which workers are encouraged, through various exercises, to demonstrate how they themselves could be made superfluous. But Mike Parker, a labor writer who has described lean production as “management by stress,” told me the Toyota Way fixates on efficiency and productivity at the expense of workers. “There’s no place to consider whether some very narrowly defined, de-skilled job offers any satisfaction.”

Now, let me say first that I've never worked on an assembly line a day in my life (unless you count doing dishes at home). It can't be a day at the beach — but of course, that's why it's called "work." However, I'm not sure that there are any jobs, anywhere, that are stress-free. Whether you're running your own small-town soda fountain or leading the global marketing team at Boeing, there's going to be stress. Pressure to improve performance is ubiquitous. If you or your company doesn't feel that pressure, you've either got a cushy monopoly or you're going out of business and you just haven't realized it yet.

More importantly, though, Mike Parker's contention that lean leads to a "narrowly defined, de-skilled job" without any satisfaction is wildly off the mark. As near as I can tell — and again, I've not worked in a factory — by providing workers the opportunity to make the work itself better ((even expecting it), employers are also giving people the chance to use all of their experience and their creativity — in short, their minds. That's hardly a "de-skilled" job. Yes, there's repetitive scut work, but there's also a very rich component of intellectual challenge. And most significantly, that intellectual contibution is welcomed and rewarded by management.

I'm not sure what Mike Parker think a better system might be. Hanging around the plant, working at your own pace, not allowing line workers the opportunity to contribute to the design of their own work? That sure turned out well for GM's Fremont plant before NUUMI, right?

Fitness Accessories for the Stand Up Desk

30 January 2010 by Kevin Meyer

By Kevin Meyer

Last week's post on the health effects of standing, and how sitting long periods can more than offset the benefits of even regular vigorous exercise, generated a large number of public comments and even larger number of private comments. As regular readers know, I switched from a traditional executive seated desk to a stand up desk over a year ago after visiting some companies in Japan and have been (annoyingly?) pushing the concept ever since. In addition to the physical benefits of standing it also forced me to organize and 5S my workspace, which has paid off in improved efficiency and peace of mind.

Several readers wrote to suggest "accessories" that would take the stand up desk concept to a whole new level, so just for grins on this fine Saturday I thought I'd compile some of them for you.

First there's the most common accessory: the treadmill. It's a bit difficult to put a motorized treadmill under a stand up desk like mine, but some of the flat manual treadmills would work. However manual treadmills take quite a bit of work to get started, and coupled with wearing dressier shoes most days, I doubt I'd use it very much.

Another option would be one of those small stair-steppers, often seen in the cheesy late night TV ads, although this particular one got pretty high reviews on Amazon. Although it looked simple enough, my concern was that it would prevent me from turning from side to side while working at the desk.

One reader was passionate about a mini-elliptical machine, which also got very high reviews on Amazon. I'll admit – it's looks pretty cool. But something about it makes me fear I'd have some serious sweat stains after just a few minutes. A sweaty, smelly office isn't exactly the image I want to convey as a company president.

Then there were some rather, uh, unique accessories. Take the balance board, which is basically a skateboard sitting on top of a single roller. The surfers and snowboarders among us, and there are a lot of us here on the California coast, would probably love it. But just like the similar "rug runner" contraption, I bet our safety guys would have a cow. I can just see the safety incident report – manager fell off balance board while working at desk. That's sure to cause an OSHA audit!

Finally I did come across one accessory that just might work: the bosu. My personal trainer enjoys killing me on this simple device, often while doing something crazy like holding weights and doing single leg squats, but I have to agree that it has greatly improved my balance and core strength. I'd have to raise my desk a few more inches in order for it to be at an ergonomically correct height, but that's easy enough.

I can turn and twist, move if I want, but all the while the small and large core muscles are being exercised to create balance. I often find myself standing and balancing on top of my small 6" foot rest anyway. It's not inherently trying to throw you off like the balance board or rug runner, so the safety guys should be a bit happier.

So that's the plan. I know another guy in the office is set on a treadmill, and we'll see what the other stand up desk converts will do, if anything. I'll let you know how it goes.

Standing on the Road

29 November 2009 by Kevin Meyer

By Kevin Meyer

Many of us are traveling this holiday, and I for one struggle to remain productive. A break from work is good, but falling behind isn't relaxing either. For those of us that have embraced the stand up desk, Jon over at Gemba Panta Rei provides a road warrior productivity solution.

Yes, a portable stand up desk. Perhaps not the most elegant, but definitely functional.

One of the commandments of kaizen is "Instead of making excuses why
something can't be done, think of ways to make it possible." So think I
did. Looking around the room for a way to boost up the desk about 30
cm, I began opening drawers and doors.

Et voila! A light, portable, folding ironing board gave me the
perfect platform for my stand up desk. But not quite. I am not a tall
person, but the ironing board was still too low, causing me to stoop.
The search continued. Luckily there was a wicker laundry basket of
sorts in another drawer, the perfect booster to fit between my laptop
and ironing board.

Nice job Jon! But as is typical with his posts, there's a more fundamental lesson:

The lesson is that we need to stop making excuses and will ourselves to
improve. Then we need to think positively about how to overcome each
obstacle. And we need to turn each small improvement idea into concrete
action. First engage the heart, then the mind, then the hands. I write
these words from a road warrior stand up desk built from these
principles.

Absolutely. Happy Thanksgiving!

Stand Up to Learn

23 October 2009 by Kevin Meyer

By Kevin Meyer

After my recent post with my thoughts after trying a stand up desk for a year, several readers wrote in to tell me about how the same concept is being used in education. Yes, even with little kids. It turns out that standing is a great way to eliminate fidgeting, which thereby improves the learning experience. Some of the resources I was pointed to include this article in The New York Times.

Unlike children almost everywhere, those in Ms. Brown’s class do not
have to sit and be still. Quite the contrary, they may stand and fidget
all class long if they want. And they do.

The children in Ms. Brown’s class, and in some others at Marine
Elementary School and additional schools nearby, are using a type of
adjustable-height school desk, allowing pupils to stand while they
work, that Ms. Brown designed with the help of a local ergonomic
furniture company two years ago. The stand-up desk’s popularity with
children and teachers spread by word of mouth from this small town to
schools in Wisconsin, across the St. Croix River. Now orders for the
desks are being filled for districts from North Carolina to California.

With multiple classrooms filled with stand-up desks, Marine
Elementary finds itself at the leading edge of an idea that experts say
continues to gain momentum in education: that furniture should be
considered as seriously as instruction, particularly given the rise in
childhood obesity and the decline in physical education and recess.

Dr. James A. Levine, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, advocates what he calls “activity-permissive” classrooms, including stand-up desks.

So standing up not only improves focus and learning, it can help decrease obesity. That could help more than just kids. Studies to obtain quantitative data are in progress.

Researchers should soon know whether they can confirm those
calorie-burning and scholastic benefits. Two studies under way at the University of Minnesota are using data collected from Ms. Brown’s classroom and others in
Minnesota and Wisconsin that are using the new desks. The pupils being
studied are monitored while using traditional desks as well, and the
researchers are looking for differences in physical activity and
academic achievement.

“We can’t say for sure that this has an
impact on those two things, but we’re hypothesizing that they may,”
said Beth A. Lewis of the School of Kinesiology, or movement science,
at the University of Minnesota. “I think we’re so used to the
traditional classroom it’s taken a while for people to start thinking
outside the box. I think it’s just a matter of breaking the mold.”

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel had a similar article.

Fifth-grade reading teacher Pam Seekel thinks maybe she did kids a
disservice over the years when she told them to sit still, to quit
fidgeting so they could focus.

“As
a teacher, I never sit down,” said Seekel, who works in the School
District of Somerset, near the Minnesota border. “I started to think:
Why should I make the kids sit down?”

This
year, many of Seekel’s students are using new, adjustable-height
stand-up desks produced by a Wisconsin company, as well as a big, tall
table that lets students work in groups while standing and shifting
their weight, leaning, stretching, wiggling and generally doing
everything but sitting still.

Even in kindergarten.

Since then, one kindergarten class even has them — at times when the
students would normally be seated at desk chairs, Hamborg said, you can
see pint-sized kids sitting on pint-sized balls, many of them slightly
but continuously bobbing up and down.

Demand is kicking up.

Stand-up desks in the workplace have been a niche industry for years,
but Skiba said that many companies like Sunway are suddenly starting to
get a lot more requests for them. Former Wisconsin Sen. William
Proxmire was known for using a stand-up desk, and the new dean of
Marquette University Law School, Joseph Kearney, has a mahogany
stand-up workstation on order for his university office.

There are even a couple of YouTube videos describing their use in the classroom.

Although this next one is in German and shows an interesting accessory.

So what can this teach those of us in the adult world? Learning is important to any organization. Should training be done sitting down at a conference table or behind rows of desks in a training room? Or standing up?