Early in my career I was privileged enough to have the opportunity to participate in one of Charlie’s famous five-day workshops. It was my first introduction to Lean manufacturing and to the BASICS methodology. I have since been a participant or assistant in three more workshops, have participated in or lead a handful of highly scoped projects or kaizen events within my company, and have helped to create a Lean-based production system that puts a lot of what is taught in this book into action.
“Do you know what you don’t know?” and “Lean is a five-year journey that never ends” are two quotes that I hear from Charlie and Dan over and over again.
They never let me forget two main principles of Lean—Respect for people (or humanity) and Creating knowledge. The authors talk about both principles throughout the book by highlighting benefits of keeping everyone involved and respecting everyone’s ideas. Put together with the rest of BASICS, these principles help create a culture of problem-solving and continuous learning.
BASICS was founded almost 20 years ago by Charlie and has become my go-to method. It can be used in a multitude of ways—from a small two-hour quick kaizen to a three-day rapid improvement to a larger five-day event, or even a multiyear improvement implementation.
In a recent event, my team and I were able to improve our production output by 20% and increase our efficiency by 30%. These improvements were achieved using BASICS. It is important though, that the sequential steps of BASICS be followed: Baseline, Analyze, Suggest Solutions, Implement, Check, and Sustain. The improvements mentioned above would not have been possible without the buy-in to the project by everybody at all levels of the plant. Following the authors’ tools and experiences in this book helps make sure that you can get this buy-in.
To me, Baseline (B) is one of the most important steps in this process, and more importantly, it can be the hardest to get correct. This step is often overlooked, as it was by me early on in my career. I learned the hard way what the authors already knew and show in this book. If the project’s problem, scope, and goals are not clearly defined … then how do you know if your project was successful, or even worse, how do you know if it’s complete? At the same time, if you do not know what the current-state metrics are, how can you measure if your improvements created positive results? The time must be invested up front to collect the data, scrub it—and then make sure there is an agreement from all parties involved. Without taking this important step, there is likely to be indecision at the end of the project on what percentage of improvement was attained, or when to move on to the next task. It is just as important to involve plant leadership during the baseline process, or, without a doubt, they will always resist the improvements and continue to pile more “in-scope” tasks on your team.
The second step of this method is to Analyze (A) your current-state process and to question everything that is being done today, or your “as-is” state. The authors present a comprehensive toolbox that helps to quantify this state, such as figuring out TTT (total throughput time), TLT (total labor time), and the difference between internal and external setup time.
Dan, Charlie, and Bill show how following a simple three-step process of analyzing the product, the operator, and changeovers will help make sure that there is a complete and comprehensive understanding.
Charlie and his team also introduce an old—and yet new revolutionary tool … the video camera! Using a video camera alone has been one of the most important tools for us to get this step right. Sports teams have used them for years to learn and improve, however manufacturing tends to shy away. I’ll be honest, I never even thought about videoing my operations in this way. This book will show you all the advantages, as well as the best way to get your company to buy-in to the thought of using a recording device.
From there, the book moves on to the “fun” stuff. This is one my personal favorite phases of a project: Suggesting Solutions (S) and then Implementing (I) those solutions. I find that many of the tools discussed lead to an interconnected system. The authors take this complicated concept and explain these tools in a way that helps the reader understand how they build upon each other, leading to an ever-growing Lean system. This phase helps you and your team to decide on the “right” layout, how to create one-piece-flow, sequencing the order of operations, workstation design, and much much more.
The authors then help define the best approach to implementing the improvements, such as setting up a pilot or test area and having the Lean Leader run the line first, while the line leader is being trained on running the line and all its processes. This also leads right in to creating standard work for the operators. The authors show their vast experience by providing best practices when it comes to standard work and leader standard work and helping to clarify what makes sense and what is most beneficial to those using it.
The book then moves into Check (C) and Sustain (S). In my experiences with BASICS, these last two sections rely heavily on your shop-floor management and their incorporation in this journey. We want to create a system of checks that makes sure the process continues to meet our expectations. It is also very important to realize that there needs to be a system in place that drives daily continuous improvement. While reading this book you will be introduced to a variety of ways to help make the transition into this phase as simple as possible.
Introducing Lean is hard enough; however, doing it without a roadmap is suicide. History shows us that many have tried, but few have succeeded. This book will help lay the groundwork for success by using BASICS as that roadmap. Whether you are a seasoned practitioner or being introduced to these concepts for the first time, this book is relevant. Charlie and his team go into companies with the idea of not only helping those companies succeed with Lean while using BASICS, but also training and teaching the companies’ Lean team members how to continue this journey, even after they depart. They makes sure the company can rely on themselves to continuously improve. This approach to doing business is what keeps me going back to them time and time again. They are always willing to help and share their knowledge.
This book is an example of the vast knowledge this team has to contribute to the Lean and manufacturing community. Along with other books that the authors’ have written such as The Lean Practitioner’s Fieldbook and One-Piece Flow vs. Batching, this one will remain in my arsenal as a go-to point of reference when needed.
I want to thank Charlie, Dan, and the rest of their team for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this book through the foreword. I appreciate everything that they have done for me in the past and I look forward to continuing to work with them in the future.
Jeremy Horn
Operations Process Improvement Leader