Saturday, September 1, 2012

Week 1: 09/03-09/07 – Look for the Waste of Defects

Muda Walk for a Month
This is your first week to do a Muda Walk. The theme is the Waste of Defects. Most of the other wastes are compounded by moving, storing and installing defective products. A defect is any work that does not function as designed or intended. Defective work includes: rework, wrong installations, weld defects, punch lists, missing material on a bill of material and change orders caused by incorrect design or installation. This waste is redoing a bid proposal, recopying a report, redoing a time sheet or dealing with an out of code compliance issue. In fact, if it has a “re” at the start of the word it is probably a type of defect.  Workarounds are usually indicators of defects.

Go to the shop, office or a job site and look for signs of defects.
o      How do you know it is a defect?
o      What should it look like if done right the first time?
o      How do the workers know when it is done right?
o      Do the workers get feedback on when they have made a defect?
o      How do you get feedback about defects?
o      Look for scrap or piles of rejected material.
o      Watch for workers doing work over.
o      Ordering excess material is a symptom of poor quality.
o      Ask the workers if the part, drawing, material or install is right coming to them. How do they know?
o      Are there workarounds? If you have a project that is wrapping up look for material left over, it usually indicates defective ordering or rework.  Look at punch lists for jobs completed, what is usually found on every list?

Once you find a defect, analyze it to find the root cause. Ask the workers how to eliminate the defect. Listen and ask them what they can do to prevent errors. Let them do it. A root cause of many quality problems may be that the worker does not know how to do it right the first time or even what ‘right’ looks like. Provide training. The worker may not have the right tools to make it right consistently.  Discussing the cause of the defects with the workers, while not placing blame will help identify the root cause. There are no defects when we do it right the first time.

Go watch for Muda. Record your improvements.
Go and See – Ask Why – Show Respect – Do No Harm

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