Go and see to get the greatest understanding! 現地現物

An often underrated but very powerful lean technique from the Toyota Production System is called “Genchi Genbutsu”.

Taiichi Ohno developed this technique in the 1970’s.  He drew a chalk circle on the floor and asked a graduate to note down what they saw, when observing a process.  When he returned, he checked if the graduate had seen enough.  If not, he would ask them to continue to observe the process.  The aim of this was to get the graduate to fully understand what was going on and to identify where value is added and where process wastes are created.

The Japanese “Genchi Genbutsu” means “Go and See” in English, however, I usually use the term “Go, See and Understand” when coaching people on this.

It sounds like a simple concept, and it is, however, in practice, many of us don’t always truly observe things to the level of depth that is required to fully understand what’s going on. 

Back in my retail store management days, I recall a customer service training course where everyone was asked to remove their watch and place it face down on the table.  We were then asked to describe and draw our watches in detail. 

Whilst I look at my watch many times per day, I struggled to remember every single detail.  Indeed, the majority of the course attendees struggled to replicate the detail. 

The purpose of the exercise was to demonstrate that when meeting customers, it is really important to not only just make eye contact but to try to connect with them and fully understand their needs. 

“Genchi Genbutsu” or “Go, See and Understand” also requires you to stop and to take time to fully understand what is going on, not just to scan the area and make up your mind quickly as we sometimes do.

I recall many examples when this has been really effective.  One of which was at a distribution centre in the Main-Pick department.   A voice-picking solution had previously been implemented.  Pickers took roll-cages around the warehouse and used voice operated head-sets to confirm picked items from locations to the cage.

A number of process reviews had previously been completed, focusing on the picking area.   There was a general view that other than continually reviewing and optimising the layout, there were no other step-change improvements that could be made, other than things which would require significant investment.  We were soon to find out that this was not actually the case! 

During a process review, we decided to “Go, See and Understand” to fully explore what was going on.  We opted to observe pickers from when they joined the department until they left it, rather than just look at the picking process. 

We stood in an area in the middle of the warehouse and observed the start of shift briefing.  After this was delivered, we saw the pickers go to collect their voice-pick headsets and start their shift.  We saw them form a long queue and at the front, pickers were picking up the headsets from totes on the floor, then taking them with a cage to start picking. 

On a number of occasions, we saw pickers pick up a head-set, switch it on / off and return it to the tote.  Clearly some units were not working as expected.  We then repeatedly saw pickers picking up and returning the same head-sets to the tote.  This resulted in many people being delayed in starting their work.  The time from when they started to queue until they were all working was circa 15 minutes.  This was obviously unacceptable process waste and a great opportunity to improve productivity.

We then used root cause analysis and 5-Whys to avoid putting on sticking plaster additions to processes.

The solution was simple, as the best / most robust ones usually are.  The site team erected a fixed cage enclosure with a metal rail on the outside for storing the head-sets when not in use.  Inside the cage was a chute going downwards into a tote for faulty head-sets.  There was also a panel inside for charging head-set batteries and an issuing point.

At the start of shift, multiple pickers were able to collect their head-sets at the same time, reducing the queuing time.  Faulty head-sets were placed on the chute, where they slid down into the faulty unit tote.  Staff were assigned to issue batteries etc at the start of shift and routines were put into place, backed up with standard operating procedures for inspecting and returning faulty equipment for repair.  This solved a number of simple problems and provided great improvements to productivity.

All we did was commit the time to observe, in detail, what was happening.

Next time you observe something, ask yourself if you are truly seeing everything and understanding it at the depth required?  

Go and see to get the greatest understanding!

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this blog.  Please feel free to contact me to discuss how I can help you approach change.