I witnessed this concept happen this past week as I worked with the team with their Gemba Walks. We walked and learned more about one of our manual sorting areas just before delivery. We were trying to get a better understanding about when, where, and why defects (miss throws) were created. As a very manual process with just over 50 sortations one might expect defects to occur, but we always strive for zero defects, so we must fully understand the process. As we watched the process it became apparent where some new variation had been introduced since the last time I was there. One of the employees was no longer there, and a new employee was in her place. This is the variation of turnover, and it is difficult to control.
In the video above (well worth the watch even if it's over an hour long), Shigeo Shingo walks a process with employees of an AT&T production plant in 1990. There are dozens of learning opportunities in this video, but there are two I want to bring out. First, Shingo does not accept that the process will inherently create defects. There are multiple times within the video where you will hear Shingo tell the engineers that it is unacceptable to have defects. In fact, one engineer at around the 41:30 mark brings forward a chart of the defects over time. Shingo's response is "I'm not interested in this. You need to reduce this to zero, I am not interested in hearing you discuss these numbers." This leads to the second point that he makes throughout the video. "Use your brain." We are humans, we have problem solving skills unlike nearly any other animal on the planet. To Shingo, this is our greatest gift, and we need to use our brains to solve problems. Why does the defect occur? It is not sufficient to say that it is inherent in the system. Build defects out of the process by using your mind to come up with clever ways based on what we are seeing in the process at Gemba!
I bring this video up probably because I recently saw it posted on LinkedIn, but also because it will help me make a point. I started this post talking about how it is very difficult to control variation caused by turnover. This is still true, but now I think about the process itself and why the defects were being created, and what would cause any employee, no matter how experienced, to create a defect. So first and foremost, we must always look to remove all potential of defects from the process, and make the process simplified for our employees to remove the struggle.
Now, even assuming we create a "defect free" process, when there is turnover there is still variation. We will note variation in speed, quality, and overall performance. The manual process requires the employee to know a scheme (how to translate a particular address to a particular sorting bin). Each bin is marked, and some pieces match that coding, but not all pieces. As we watched this process we noted that the newer employee was not as fast as the more experienced employees. She often would sort the piece to the wrong bin, then have to overprocess to remove the piece and then wait as she asked the other employee if that was correct, and then transport it back to the correct bin to complete the sort. Given time, she will become much faster at this, but this got me thinking - why did we experience this variation to begin with? Where was the defect in our staffing? Where was the defect in our management system? Where was the defect in how we managed? Why did this turnover have to occur in the first place?
I interact with many people when I Gemba Walk, asking questions to ensure I understand what I am seeing. I learn something new each and every time I go somewhere, but I have missed something. I walk to see the process, but I often miss what is often right in front of us, but doesn't even seem to be part of the process - how we interact with each other as a contributor to the process. I watch how our management might address the employees with negative tones - "just look how slow they are moving" would be a soft retort in some environments, some going as far as to yell at people. Watching those interactions you can see the defeat in the eyes of the employee, and I'm sure if I'm seeing this once, those behaviors are probably a common scene. This atmosphere in my opinion is one, if not the root cause of turnover, and therefore variation. Worse yet, even if the employee doesn't leave, we will break them down until performance suffers, and then "we have no choice but to take corrective action," which is another euphemism for trying to let someone go. This is the most difficult cause of variation because it is how we are, how we act, and is an ingrained mindset that we bring to our everyday life.
One last thing that I gained from the video above at the 1 hour mark. "What is lacking here is belief, faith." If you cannot believe in giving Respect to Every Individual, if you cannot believe we can have zero defects, then you will not. We must change our mindsets.