Great thread topic! I love the Toyota way!
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Sounds like the accountants are running inventory levels. When it is implemented by the priorities of all the stakeholders, it can work well.
First of all learn from the accidents and problems posted in the industry.
Don’t buy cheap garbage to save money, you’ll end up hurt and or severely hurt. Remember buying junk isn’t about if you’ll get burned, it’s about when you’ll get burned.
Observe processes that lead to accidents and processes that are out of your scope of safety.
Learn from the people who have been around a long time, if they avoid things to make a dollar don’t lean down the route others take to make a dollar involving high risk.
Not all certified steel is certified. There are sellers selling china garbage with American stamps that don’t even include proper testing. Meaning they claim it’s safe and tested, and even charge you for testing but don’t do it. There’s pictures all over the internet of a asme/engineer stamped vessels that were prior tested by the sellers then handed over to customers with holes in the welds and seams with leaks. Clearly not tested and sold solely for profit. Not safety concerns.
Only deal with liable companies in the USA, or else you have no leg to stand on with a complaint.
Your processes and safety protocol based on industry standards should always be written by veterans who don’t have accidents and a history of solid knowledge.
When progressing through and creating more flow through, it is really important not to cut corners no matter how comfortable you get in a lab.
Do your research, don’t hire anyone who has been involved in any accidents. Other than their management they are most likely responsible for the accident and will end up doing the same in your spot.
Not to mention if done right it save’s you money on taxes big time.
Without this task you’ll end up paying more on taxes or even paying for your losses that weren’t accounted for. Hence creative paperwork can save you even more.
The story of Ford and Deming is a great example of what I was trying to highlight.
Deming, having a reputation for his expertise in statistical quality control, was brought in by Ford in the 1980s, to help fix their endemic quality issues. Instead of focusing on quality control off the bat, Deming focused on management culture, and creating a culture of quality from the top down.
What’s interesting, is Deming’s work with the Japanese influenced his focus on a holistic approach to quality management, which he would then bring back to Ford decades later.
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How can you have both SOP’s and Continuous Process Improvement?
Either you do it the same way every time, or you don’t…
As the guy writing our SOPs, and the one hardwired for continuous process improvement (ok tinkering), I feel there is a conflict here.
I don’t want folks deviating from SOP, yet I need the entire team to look for places where the SOP needs improved, and test those changes.
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Your SOP must be adhered to by the operator - but if they, or anyone else has suggestions for how it can be improved, they should feel safe to suggest the changes.
Then you can experiment in a controlled environment, and implement changes to the SOP as you see fit. It’s best if you can involve the person who made the suggestion- though that is not always possible. Regardless it must be clear that the experimenting you are doing is separate from standard production and that during standard production the SOP must be followed.
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Wouldn’t that be punctuated process improvement, not continuous…
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No, because all employees are constantly looking for areas to improve, and management is constantly engaging with subordinates to identify and react to those suggestions.
Just because (some of) those improvements must go through a formalized proces doesn’t mean that improvement isn’t happening. Even if that improvement is happening in the mind of an operator who is thinking to himelf: “I wonder if we did thing’s THIS way, if we’d reduce waste/increase efficiency/improve safety/improve quality, etc”. A culture of improvement is the difference between an operator feeling like a cog in the machine, and an operator feeling like a contributor.
And beyond that, I’d be willing to bet most SOPs are not so specific so as to outline every detail of every step. Maybe there are ways to improve following a step without deviating from the SOP at all. For example maybe an SOP specifies a step “attach the filling hose to the manifold” but doesnt speciffy how the operator should hold the hose, and the operator finds a particularly quick way of doing so.
Yeah, I absolutely try and write the SOPs to allow for evolution…which works until it doesn’t, and they need updated.
I used to have a foil, who would actively resist such change. Because “experimental” also means “might not fucking work”.
Now I have to find that balance on my own…
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Hi dear bro the @Farid and the @Sidco_Cat very please for meet.
This is excellent coincidence as I bring up kaizen this week.
Many thanks.
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I suppose I’m a champion of continuous improvement as I know I am not a skeptic. Perhaps instead I’m a grass roots CI jury rigger? 
Things that have been successful - identifying practices that work and helping teach them to others, especially for things like plant harvest, trimming, and packaging activities. Some people are just more organized and they get more done. Having video cameras everywhere…I think helps with this, because you don’t have to be “present” to watch processes. -shrug-
Things that have not been successful… trying to convince management of CI most of the time. I’d say 10% are on board for empowering employees to see opportunities for improvement and allowing them to “try things out” and see if things get better. The sheer amount of fucking equipment purchased trying to make things “faster” or with “less waste” when people don’t actually know how “fast” or “wasteful” things are. Haha.
In general - most of the places I have gone have seriously low hanging fruit. A lot of hurry up and wait situations that can be fixed. Spaghetti diagrams that looks like some kind of egg drop soup dropped in a cat box… where you can literally move things to make workers lives easier.
I suppose my private mantra is… if I was the laziest person here, how would I make my job easier. Then I implement those things. Often - you can find that “lazy” person on your team and take their “secrets”.
And the public mantra is… how can I keep my employees safe while helping them do more and hate what they do less? Its a little love triangle there and letting people know that I want these things for them and empowering them to want these things for themselves seems to work.
I feel like I have decent success at growth and turn around using these methods.
One very large cultivation I took from very negative weekly numbers to four times as much in the positive.
One medium sized vertical - I moved about 30% of the stuff to contract manufacturing, because others could do it SO MUCH faster and cheaper than was capable of doing in house. And then we turned around and put those dollars into improved inventory and label printing - which allowed us a 30% quarter over quarter pump in production for 3 quarters. Might have happened faster, but training staff was complicated.
And many small operators - where even the most basic CI can help with things. From helping regulators see that you have a plan for change… to helping employees see that you have a plan to make their lives better AND they get to help… to clearly defining what is happening so you can have a good conversation with investors about how you are going to get from A to B, with terms that they seem to understand.
All that being said - I’ve also seen things really fail. I’ve watched places get so focused on fucking KPI forms, that they forget why the KPIs existed to begin with. And I’ve definitely watched amazing teams do work only for managers to get rewarded and teams get laid off. 
So sneaky CI monkey, hiding in the brush/trees. Yes. Not a skeptic. Not a champoin, not really. 
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I definitely feel this one, since much of my job is managing capital projects. None of them have been entirely a waste, but many were jusified based on very hopeful fuzzy math with regard to roi.
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Preach!!
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We need a book club. Here’s a good one:
All I Need to Know About Manufacturing I Learned in Joe’s Garage: World Class Manufacturing Made Simple Amazon.com
Anyone want to read and discuss? It’s a great intro to the quality mindset.
You can get this book used on eBay for a few bucks.
And, for changes, there’s a process for that.
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This. You can’t improve what you can’t measure. If you have a process you want to improve but you don’t even know how to begin, measure it. Just measure it and track it over time.
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I am so down for a book club. <3
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You leading a book club is a high value opportunity. What are some titles you’d consider?
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Hmmm. What is the theme of the book club? Only books about cannabis? Business? Other things? I read about 4 books a week… about half fiction and half non-fiction academic stuffs. Hahaha.
Just now I’m focused on sustainability - so I’m reading different best practices for things like water reclamation, geothermal/solar power, and effective outdoor cover crops for Zone 4 to 6 areas (aka more cold!).
I’m also reading… Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet.
And I’m reading through all of Nnedi Okorafor’s books (yes all of them, only 3 more to go!).
We could go old school OEE books…
We could do academic journals on cannabis…
So many options!
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I love your brain. You feed it well. What about continuous improvement and quality? I’d love to explore that topic with you.