Patrick Adams   

Welcome to the lean solutions podcast where we discuss business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for true lean process improvement. I am your host, Patrick Adams. Hello, and welcome to the lean solutions podcast. My name is Patrick Adams and today’s guest is Jim kanaskie. He has over 30 years of experience in manufacturing in products ranging from plastics and paint to food and bourbon. Yes, that’s right. bourbon manufacturing. I’d like to hear a little bit more about that. But his focus has been in engineering operations and management. Jim is also a writer for Forbes, where he covers all topics related to manufacturing. And Jim also, side note here, Jim also helped out with my book. So Jim, welcome to the show. Thanks, Patrick.

Jim Vinoski

Great to be here.

Patrick Adams   

Yeah, so I’m excited to dive in here and talk about Lean. So you know, why don’t we just begin with maybe an experience that you’ve had that relates to Lean, I’d love to hear again, just in your vast experience in manufacturing, just hearing maybe your best lean experience or maybe your most memorable lean experience that you’ve had in your 30 years of manufacturing?

Jim Vinoski    

Yeah, best and most memorable I think kind of run hand in hand and that was my days at General Mills we were early in the stages of launching we had kind of our own internal just Continuous Improvement Program latched on to key components of Lean and Six Sigma and kind of wove them together and I was serving a plant down in Tennessee and then traveled there pretty routinely got to know the operators on the floor really well there was just one filler operator who you know just really hit it off with and I always made sure to go see her when I was visiting and one day after I knew they’d done some launch activity and went down I was talking to her and she was just beside herself with joy about the progress they’ve made since I’d been there last and it was very basic implementation of basic conditions and you know documenting set points and making sure machines are clean and they had schedules for lubing and the sanitation pieces that might have been missed before and just immediate difference for her on you know the machines runnability the ability to do her job and to deliver the goods and you know just never seen anyone on the floor so filled with joy and it was such a basic thing is like you know, this right here is the power of lean, you go to the people and you deal with the problems they’re dealing with every day that are driving them crazy and it’s not rocket science right? It’s it’s simple fixes that can make enormous differences and I just still remember her beaming face just like the face of successful lean

Patrick Adams   

this as you said, sometimes it’s that simple. I mean sometimes it’s like what headaches Do you have and let’s try to let’s try to eliminate those let’s try to remove those those roadblocks those challenges that you have and just by doing that for your employees for your team members I mean that can be life changing for some people absolutely I’ve seen people break down and cry just because you know I’ve been dealing they’ve been dealing with this this challenge for years and years and no one would ever listen and finally some relation in it and we fixed it and now I no longer have to deal with that again.

Jim Vinoski   

Yeah, it’s amazing it’s amazing when very memorable

Patrick Adams    

Yes, I love it. When you talked about the joy that she had I immediately went to you knowing that this has to be a story from your bourbon days.

Jim Vinoski  

It is not no it was actually a yogurt plant oh yeah so i mean you know there are similar stories through all my experiences that one just stands out with how quickly the turnaround came about and and you know the impact it had on this person who already valued and you know thought the world of decision so to see her so happy is really meaningful

Patrick Adams    

I love that and and sure there’s so many people that are listening that can resonate with what you’re talking about so many leaders that have people that you know they’ve seen that that light bulb go off or they they helped remove a roadblock or maybe it was that maybe they were the person that you know someone came in and helped remove a roadblock for them and help them out and just the the feeling that that that gives you when you’re able to you know not to remove that and not have to deal with that one problem anymore. I mean it’s such a great feeling and you know, as lean practitioners you know, as an operations manager yourself and being able to do that and have that experience is definitely something that you’ll never forget

Jim Vinoski

I’m sure 

Patrick Adams  

So I want to flip flip the script on you here and go the other direction. So best lean experiences one side of the coin. The other side is your worst lean experience. So you know everybody probably listening is laughing right now because they’re probably thinking, oh, I’ve had one of those right? But I’m curious to hear what’s your worst lean experience?

Jim Vinoski  

Yeah, yeah. So unfortunately, this is also very memorable and It’s not so much one thing, a single episode, like the success story was, it’s this pattern where at a particular place I was working, we had our lean practitioners, and they were inevitably, you know, separate from the plant. And unfortunately, it was a culture where they really didn’t know the people in the plan they didn’t visit that often they weren’t personally involved in, in our efforts. As one of our tools that we’re making use of, we had launched five s, and I’m a big believer in five apps. I think we can do, like we did with the basic conditions in the success story, you can make a huge difference in people’s ability to do their jobs. And in this case, it helped in certain ways, but because there was never that connection with the people on the floor, and what was important, we just had this program of, Okay, we’re going to do these areas that are common to all of the plants in the network. And we’re gonna have these four hour meetings every other week to report on results, where everyone sits and listens to everyone else talk about what they’re doing with PowerPoint presentations, and on and on and on. I mean, it was so utterly tone deaf, it was just beyond belief, but it was driven by our manufacturing VPS. So there was really no fighting the battle. And, you know, people would sign in, and just sit there and probably be on their computers or their phones, not paying attention to what anyone else is doing. Because it really didn’t apply to the areas that we identified as common really, in reality, very different plant to plant. Sure. And then the efforts were, it’s not that we didn’t get, you know, the SS covered, but it was so much window dressing because people weren’t invested, they were being forced to do stuff they didn’t find valuable. And you know, the results showed it. So we’d have really pretty PowerPoints. But then if you actually went out in the plant didn’t quite measure up to the pictures that were shown in the PowerPoints. And it was just unfortunate, could have been so much more successful if we had had people out engaged with the people on the floor, finding out those areas, like we did with the success story of the pain points for our folks who are delivering the goods and working with them one on one to get that stuff corrected, using the tool effectively versus just using the tool because it’s a tool to be used

Patrick Adams   

very much the explanation of fake lean, or what I call the culture of continuous appearance, right?

Jim Vinoski    

I remember that very well. Yeah. And it’s a great phrase. It’s exactly right.

Patrick Adams   

 I’m curious to hear, you know, with your best experience and your worst experience. Can you elaborate maybe a little bit on learnings that came out of those maybe for you personally as a plant manager, operations manager, whatever position you were in at that time, what was your maybe what were some of your takeaways, your personal takeaways from those experiences?

Jim Vinoski  

Yeah, so on the success story, when we’re in leadership and management, we tend to focus on these measures that we’re trying to drive, right? And those can be a very good thing. But they can also create blind spots. And so if in that case, we had focused just on the reliability numbers, and going with our own preconceptions about, you know, here’s what to do to move that number up, here’s, here’s where I think the problem is, is coming about and putting in solutions that were driven by those of us not on the floor, would have been a very different picture, versus going to the people in, you know, folks who have just an intimate knowledge, because they’re the ones working with those machines, day in day out, and dealing with the problems in the real world where they’re under the gun to get production, they pretty well know what’s eating their lunch. And so really focusing in with that operator and finding out from her what those pain points were, and then using the tools effectively to address those pain points. It’s just such a huge difference versus what we did in the unsuccessful scenario, which was very much that outsider looking in. I know best, I’m going to come in and steamroll everybody and make them adhere to my whims by virtue of the power of this vice president who’s driving things. And it just forces people to do things that take their time away from the stuff they really need to be doing, which only exacerbates the problems. That’s right.

Patrick Adams   

I think there has to be so many people right now that are just shaking their heads like I am, you know, just no, knowing exactly what you’re talking about. Because it is unfortunate. There’s so many organizations that deal with that. And I hope that there are some leaders that are listening right now and thinking to themselves, is this mean? Am I the one that’s forcing something on the team without involving them in the process without engaging them, empowering them and equipping them with the skills that they need in order to really drive a true continuous improvement culture, because it has to be a team effort. It has to be everyone involved, not just one person or a few people, you know, at the top that are pushing something on the rest of the organization. So I appreciate your stories and also your learnings and just being open enough to share. You know a little bit about that. So thank you. Sure. And also that leads Jim into my next question, which is about the struggle and the failure of the mean efforts or you know, where, you know, lean is deployed into an organization? Maybe, you know, I’ve seen it titled as a program, let’s try this program for a month, right? You know, or truly lean that where an organization says we’re, we’re committed to this, and this is the way that we’re going to do business going forward. Why would you say that lean efforts struggle or fail in any organization,

Jim Vinoski  

egos the number one reason, you know, rather than approaching it with that perspective of I’m here with this initiative to help my people do their jobs better to help them really live their lives better, you know, if you do it, right, it’s truly making a difference in their day to day lives and their well being. While you get phenomenal results for the plant and for what you’re, what you’re doing to the manufacturer, what you make and make sales and be successful, right? Instead, we have so many people who approach it as, like I admittedly did in my early days as an engineer, the guru coming in and smarter than everyone else, and, you know, forcing things down people’s throats, because I know best. And that’s rarely correct. I’m not gonna say it’s never Right. I mean, I’ve had experiences where I truly did recognize a problem that operators didn’t and was able to resolve a situation but those instances pale in comparison with where the operators knew, you know, where, where their bread, bread was buttered, and you know, where the problems were coming from, and how to how to get after him. And so I think, too often, it’s that kind of hero mentality, or power trip where, oh, here’s this program that’s been so successful everywhere else, and we’re going to institute it, it’s going to be the way we do our business, and blah, blah, blah, and executives are going to be engaged. You know, personally, in doing it, it’s saying all the right things, but in practice, so many times that’s done wrong. So for example, the executives being engaged, I don’t think you’re gonna succeed without the executives being fully bought in, you know, right to the top of the house. That being said, if it’s a VP, like we had, in my unsuccessful story, just forcing things down people’s throats, because of the power position holds, that’s a huge problem. You know, if you’re disconnected from the floor, and you don’t know what the pain points are, then playing those power games is almost always going to be detrimental, right. And that can occur at almost any level. Like I said, even as an engineer coming in the door fresh, I had a certain level of authority over the folks in plan, and I could force things down people’s throats. Fortunately, I wasn’t too stupid to realize that when I done that a few times and failed, maybe made more sense to listen to people and get input and get by it.

Patrick Adams   

Yeah, yeah, I like the way that you put that because the upper level leadership definitely needs to be involved. So it’s so we don’t want to swing the pendulum too far the other direction where, you know, leaders think, Well, you know, I don’t want to mess things up. So I better just not, you know, I better just disengage and not be involved. Because I don’t want you know, to push us in the wrong direction. But that’s also not going to be successful. So leaders need to definitely be engaged and involved. But to your point, they they need to be coming alongside the the team members and those people that are closest to the value at work, and the managers need to be coming alongside them and looking for and asking them what can I do to help support How can I come alongside you what roadblocks Can I remove, you know, all those types of things.

Jim Vinoski  

I think the other piece is that people really need to be students of lean at every level. And you know, there’s this concept ever heard of the concept of the cargo cult, I have not. This was back after world war two in the Pacific Islands, there were the indigenous folks on the islands who got accustomed to US troops bringing in No, or material then, you know, advanced their lives so much. When the soldiers started leaving, they started mimicking things building, like fake cargo ships, and fake vehicles, you know, to try to keep that material flow going in their minds, and you think about it the same way with, for example, the toilet concept. Everyone thinks, okay, Toyota had all this success, we’re just going to emulate them. So here are the tools they use, and we’re going to do all these things. And we’re magically going to succeed. Well, no, because one toilet is not my bourbon plant, not my cereal plant, not wherever else. I work in very different places, very different organizations, very different businesses, the concepts are sound, but they have to be applied very differently in those different arenas. And so unless you become a student of lean and understand the real basics of what you’re trying to accomplish with those defined tools and initiatives, they’re not going to succeed and

Patrick Adams  

preach it. I have that

Jim Vinoski 

book in common. So yeah, we’re on the same In a lot of this stuff, 100%,

Patrick Adams 

I just see so many organizations struggle because they, Toyota, did amazing things, don’t get me wrong. And obviously, you know, I talk about the Toyota Production System very regularly, very much a supporter. But organizations have to, like you said, understand the concepts well enough to just use a cookie cutter approach and just take those concepts and try to apply them to the organization in the same way that Toyota applied them is going to be detrimental to your organization. So I appreciate that you put that out there, thank you so much. And I’m guessing also that there’s people that are listening right now who are maybe just launching their their lean efforts, and maybe, you know, maybe someone did tell them or maybe they read in a book that they needed to take the you know, Toyota’s approach and just apply it in the same way, you know, use this roadmap, whatever it might be, and I guess I would, I would echo your advice and say, you know, be careful about that. But I would also ask you what your advice would be for? Maybe someone that’s in that position where they’re, they’re new to lean? Or they’re just starting to apply lean? What would be your advice for launching a new lean effort? Where should they start?

Jim Vinoski  

Well, it really knits together a couple of the points that we’ve already made here. One is that real in depth knowledge of what’s going on, on the floor, you know, what the hiccups in your production are in some of the ideas behind the causes and solutions. And then when you learn these concepts and these tools and these ways and approaches, with lean, you look to marry the two up so you know, which of these things is best to address the things you’re seeing? And how do you apply it? How do you bring them together so that it’s effective. And, you know, that ought to be a process that you’re working through, not only for yourself, but you’re bringing along the people on the floor and the people above you to understand, here’s what we’re doing, here’s why we’re doing it, here’s why I think it’s going to be effective, and see that other people either buy into that or not, it should be an ongoing discussion. It’s never a problem to try something and fail. It’s a huge problem to try something and fail and keep doing it again, and again, because you’re so committed to the process and not to the actual outcome.

Patrick Adams 

Yeah, the definition of insanity, right? Doing this over and over again, expecting different results. Now, at some point, you have to change what you’re doing, you have to change the inputs, if you want some different outputs. Right, right. So true. Again, I’m going to flip the coin here. And I’m going to say, you know, we talked about someone that’s maybe listening who’s new to lean, or just starting their Lean journey, but what about those that are listening who maybe are with established lean companies, or companies that have been on their Lean journey for years and years and years? Maybe they’re maybe they’ve been successful in some areas, or maybe they’re, you know, struggling to get traction? Any advice for somebody that’s maybe in one of those companies?

Jim Vinoski  

Yeah. So I think my advice is the same, regardless of the level of success, and that is, when you’ve been at it for a while, and you’re kind of entrenched in what you’re doing, that’s a perfect time to pull your head up and say, Okay, I’m gonna do a reassessment of what we’re doing and how it’s working. And whether there needs to be a change or a shift, I’m going to revisit it with people on the floor and with people at higher levels, make sure that we’re still on the same page, and that we’re evaluating whether we’re truly being as successful as we’d like or not. And if not, then what are we doing about it? So it’s either Yeah, hey, things are going great. We’re very happy with where we are, how do we reinforce that? How do we make sure it’s fully through the organization? That, that we’re all pulling the same way on the road, right? And then if it’s not, okay, you know, let’s not do that and sign anything. What are we going to do to change the game and to make it successful? try a different tack, a different approach and, and come at it a different way.

Patrick Adams  

Right, right. No, that’s good. I appreciate that. I’m also I want to ask one more question kind of in is down a similar path, you know, maybe there’s a mid manager, a supervisor, a team leader, or you know, machine operator, somebody that’s listening, who’s at an organization where they, they know the power of lean, they know the power of continuous improvement and what that can do for their organization, but they don’t have upper management or leadership support. Any advice for someone that’s in that position, and how they can maybe, you know, ignite the fire or start something within their organization? Where could they go or what could they do in order to, you know, just, I guess, kick things off on their own within their own space, right?

Jim Vinoski  

Yeah, yeah, so I’m laughing because I’m gonna say right up front. Patrick is not paying me anything to say this. I truly believe this. There’s that book over his shoulder that I helped him edit. And, to me, that kind of thing, whether it’s that book or some other basic reference to kind of life out, here’s an effective approach and to give a material resource to refer to and say, Look, we can make things better here, I’ve been reading this book, or I read this article or talk to this person, it always helps to bring, you know, some kind of outside perspective and say, geez, we can improve if we give this a go. And, you know, what I really love about your book is it’s, it’s not really programmatic, it’s not pushing superduper complex processes in lean, it’s, it’s all about the basics. And it’s very much about engaging with people and making sure that all levels are on the same page and trying things that either work and don’t and then adjusting if they don’t, I think it’s really so much about that discussion and coming at it, you know, in a calm and logical manner, and saying, I would really like to help us take our organization forward. And and here’s something, I think that we’ll do it

Patrick Adams  

right. And I appreciate the mention of the book very much. And I would say, you know, a big piece of that, and really, you know, part of the the purpose of why I put the book out there was to really help organizations realize that they needed to, they needed to develop a, you know, scientific thinking within their organization, the ability to become a learning organization, one that’s willing to try new things and experiment and, you know, again, create their own Toyota production system, you know, their own company, production system, whatever that might be. But that happens through them experimenting, and trying and learning and really asking, you know, taking time to stop and reflect back and say, What did we learn when we tried this? It didn’t work, right. But let’s call it a success, and read and figure out what it is that we learned from it? Yep. So definitely something that I want our listeners to take away today.

Jim Vinoski  

Well, and I’ve got those examples, like I gave for mine, those places you’ve worked where things didn’t go? Well, yeah. And to me, that’s that same facing up to you know, we’re imperfect, we’re human things are gonna fail, but it’s all about how you deal with it after the failure, that’s going to determine whether you’re going to, in the long term be successful.

Patrick Adams  

That’s right. That’s absolutely right. And I’ve been involved with, with organizations and leaders that, you know, when when I would try things, I would get my hand slapped, or, you know, or if I tried something, and it didn’t, it didn’t work out the way that I had hoped it would, you know, I would get a sit down with, with my manager, or whatever it might be, right. And those are the times where you go, man, well, I guess, you know, I don’t really want to try anything else, I just, I’m going to come to work, I’m going to do my job, and I’m going to go home. And that’s not the kind of organization that we want to, you know, the kind of organization that’s going to support a continuous improvement effort or, you know, develop that culture that you’re looking for. You have to have leaders that are willing to say, you know, great job, you know, it didn’t work out the way you expected. But what did you learn? And how can we apply that learning next time when we do this? That has to be the conversation? Right? Yep. So one of the other things I want to talk about, you know, Jim, is your Forbes writing? You are, I believe you just hit an anniversary of three years with Forbes writing for Forbes, and I think you hit 200 articles that you’ve written? Yeah. Wow, over 200. That’s amazing. That’s huge. But you have a recent article out there on digitalization. And I’m curious if you might be willing to share maybe just a summary of that article that’s out there. And we can throw a link to the article in the show notes so people can go out to check it out. Oh, yeah.

Jim Vinoski 

And to me, that kind of marches in parallel with what we’re discussing. I know a lot of folks are feeling the pressure on on industry 4.0 and there’s so much discussion about Oh, you got to do this you got to go go go if you’re not already doing industry 4.0 you’re falling behind and maybe so and maybe not what was really illuminating about the article and I talked to the CEO of the Siemens digitalization division, Cedric, Niki. And it was just amazing, cuz I know, you know, Siemens certainly wants to sell their stuff that’s part and parcel of advanced manufacturing. But to me, he was so humble in his approach. And he said, you know, it’s not all about automation in the latest and greatest, it’s, it’s really about understanding data from one end to the other. And yeah, that could mean as you fully understand that, that you are behind in technology, but it could also just mean that you don’t have work processes that you should or, or digital interfaces that are completely separate from your manufacturing operation more than like ordering or supply chain, you know, it’s that next kind of step up in understanding your total organization in your business really and then and then there’s the manufacturing element of it that certainly could require some impact. But maybe not. And so to me that’s so similar to lean there. There’s this big push all the time of lean, you got to do the whole thing right now or you’re behind Well, no, that’s ridiculous. There are very effective things out there. But you really need to understand your own business and your own floor and people and know what’s going to be effective in addressing the problems that you’re dealing with. Same thing with that digitization effort. Absolutely. It was just huge feedback on that article, because it was like this, this dam breaking of people out there who’ve felt that pressure and are like, Well, good, you know, I don’t have to go out and buy a robot, not even know what to do with it.

Patrick Adams  

Right? Right. That’s good. Yeah, definitely. Definitely a hot topic right now for sure. I appreciate you sharing with us a little summary. And again, we’ll put a link in the show notes to that. I don’t know if you are working on any more articles, can you give us a maybe a view of what’s coming in the future, any articles that you think are maybe going to be published in the next few months or a year?

Jim Vinoski  

Yep. So let me do a small one and a big one, I’ve got one coming out in just a few days. That is 3d printing. I’ve written pretty extensively on 3d printing additive manufacturing. And this latest one is a small company that was actually bought by desktop metal called forest. And they’re 3d printing wood. It’s like genuine wood with grain and everything. They’re using waste sawdust as their raw material. And they’ve developed machinery to use binder jet printing. So they’re printing these thin layers of that sawdust, and then a binding agent that keeps it all together. And they build, you know, it can be individual items like a bowl, they have actually on their website, they have balls for sale, or it can be a whole slab of what looks like real wood to build interior design or automated automotive interiors, that kind of thing. So they’re just getting started, it’d be interesting to watch what they have going on. Now the big one is I’ve written a number of articles about all the cool stuff that Autodesk does. I remember back to my earliest days in the manufacturing world when an auto CAD first came out so kind of in there along with the company as they’ve grown and expanded in. And so I’ve written about things like the bicycle crank arm that they use generative design for in conjunction with Saran and their investment in factory LS, which is doing off site and have modular housing units for construction and just all kinds of cool things. I even got to talk to the guys in Hollywood with studios. They use Autodesk manufacturing tools for their scheduling. And they do 3d printing of their animation puppets. So really cool things that just go across all kinds of different things that you’d never really picture if you’re just in manufacturing using AutoCAD. So I’m going to do an umbrella article about Autodesk and where their company’s going and how these things all kind of fit together. Oh, that’s great. That’s coming out here and probably another few weeks.

Patrick Adams 

All right, looking forward to it. How often do articles normally come out about every every couple weeks? Or?

Jim Vinoski  

No, I’m doing about five a month,

Patrick Adams  

five a month for over a week. That’s great.

Jim Vinoski  

And now the well there’s so many cool manufacturing stories to tell like oh, yeah, I can’t keep up.

Patrick Adams  

Well, that’s great. I’m excited to hear that. And I always love talking to you, Jim, obviously, the work that you did on my book and just the the writing that you’re doing with Forbes and just the the impact that you have as a lean leader, you know, in the companies that that you’ve worked in and that you are currently working in, so thank you for what you do. And I appreciate you being a guest on the lean solutions podcast.

Jim Vinoski

Glad to do it. great talking to you, Patrick.

Patrick Adams  

All right. Take care Jim. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the lien solutions podcast. If you haven’t done so already, please be sure to subscribe. This way you’ll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined. Please give us a review. Thank you so much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai