This week was a special week in one of our plants. I received an excited text and call from one of my colleagues.
"Tom, I am having an amazing week!" He said to me.
"What is going so amazing, Jason?" I asked.
"I need to tell you about Mary."
I want to share this story with you as it exemplifies the true human side of Lean. I shared this with a few others earlier in the week which led to everyone sharing these fantastic stories of engagement, caring, and improvement. As you read, I hope you are able to think about a story where you experienced something similar, and if not, well maybe it will motivate you to be the spark that makes it happen.
Mary is a wonderful employee at our company. She is responsible for the movement of products and empty containers throughout one of our main operations. Mary drives a forklift all night, keeping the flow going, and making sure people are able to work well. Weeks ago, after many weeks of coaching with the team at this plant, Mary had given one of our coaches an envelope. Mary writes down most of the things she wants to share as she has a hearing impairment. Mary wrote 6 pages to us describing many problems she sees every single day. The frustration Mary had was felt through those words. Mary saw clutter as a major frustration for everyone in the operation, and especially herself. When clutter built up, the flow of product and equipment was interrupted, and, for her, her flow of work was interrupted.
We have been coaching the team to perform Gemba Walks and Huddles to open our eyes to the struggles of our employees and to communicate openly with each other to remove these struggles. The huddle also allows us all to hold each other accountable to the process we are all working within and discuss what we will do to improve. During the Gemba Walks, we had seen the struggle dealing with getting empty equipment into the operation and out of the operation. There was inventory of empty equipment built up in the way of the flow, and we all saw how this interrupted everyone's work. The team talked it over, and came up with a plan to clear out an area, keep it clean, and use the space for a supporting stock of equipment out of the way of the flow of product, but still close enough to the operation to be easily utilized within the operation. The team thought they would be able to get this done in about 4 days - there was quite a large amount of things to move as 6S was not a constant focus on every shift.
"So we all figured the area wouldn't be ready until at least Friday. We walked through things with Mary on the board and she said she understood," Jason was talking fast with excitement.
"Well, what happened?" I asked.
"This is the crazy part Tom. That night, during every little bit of downtime she had, Mary moved pallets down the elevator and brought up containers to replace them in the space. In just one night, the entire area was cleaned up and organized like the team discussed! One night!"
"That's amazing!!" I was brought right into the excitement Jason felt.
"Yeah, but it gets better Tom. So before Mary could get to the huddle the next day, the whole work unit team gathered around and we all acknowledged the work Mary did. Since she's hearing impaired we all learned how to say thank you in sign language."
"That's awesome!"
"So when Mary arrived into the huddle, we all turned to her and signed "Thank You." We explained how much of an impact she made for the team. It was all of her effort that led to that success and we all wanted her to know that she is appreciated. I saw her eyes tear up and I'm pretty sure all of ours started to."
"Wow...Jason this...is an amazing story," my eyes teared up as well.
The next night, Mary handed over another envelope. There were half a dozen pages inside - all filled with drawings of the operation and all the different ideas she had to make it better. She had gone home and drawn all these up on her own time. Instead of sharing problems, she was sharing improvements.
This story, to me, exemplifies everything about Lean that makes us all human again in the workplace. Instead of unfeeling, uncaring robots - the basic Lean principles of Respect Every Individual and Lead with Humility has unlocked our human side at work. I wish everyone will be able to experience this, but know it takes each of us to freely give respect and show humility in our work together. When I was told "Lean is a way of thinking" I am finding out each and every week what that truly means.