ASQ meeting review where I presented...

I was contacted by the Lafayette ASQ Section 0917 to present about my "Kaizeneering" and how we use Lean at home. Here is the review from that meeting from the January 2010 newsletter:

December Meeting Recap - if you did not attend

You missed a really good time! Dan Lafever (a.k.a "The Kaizeneer") proved to be an excellent speaker who used an extremely entertaining approach. He challenged us to use principles of Kaizen and continuous improvement in our daily lives. Dan shared success stories from simple reminder signs to cost savings ideas that amounted to thousands of dollars saved by his household! Of the 36 people in attendance, 33 provided program feedback. The overall score was 4.78 of a possible 5. One person commented that this was one of our best programs in several years. Another "It challenged me to take another look at the mundane tasks at work." Still another commented "powerful tools at work, what a great idea to use them at home also!"

You can read the entire recap at http://www.asq.org/sections/mini-sites/0917 and look under Newsletters.

Thank you for letting me present at your spouses night-it was great fun!

Visual quick and easy kaizen

Muda Monday - 2nd waste at home - Inventory

Muda is the Japanese word for waste and I hope to illuminate how the waste of inventory, too many and too much of anything, can be reduced at home saving time, money, and effort. The Toyota Production system the removal of waste as part of "lean" principles. Let's look at some examples of how the waste of inventory has played out in my home:

Food Inventory - unconsumed food excess on plates, food leftovers that spoil and are subsequently thrown away, food purchased but never consumed, etc.

So many examples of wasted food!

• We love to eat mashed potatoes and gravy but the gravy leftovers are hardly ever eaten. Our countermeasure is to make only enough gravy that is eaten at that meal.
• Don't buy things you won't eat...food drives are proof that people empty their cupboards with canned goods that no one wants.

The USDA estimated that 96 billions pounds of food or about 27% of food production is wasted each year.

Household inventory - too many clothes, excess household goods, garages overflowing with inventory, endless yards sales, and so on.

• Goodwill Industries and other second hand stores exists because of excess personal inventories
• Obsession with stuff leads to unhealthy behaviors and materialism
• Loved ones have to sort through mountains of junk once a person passes away
• Inventory can create a "denial of service" by taking up space that should be used for other purposes i.e. garage not used for cars but storing inventory

Our countermeasure was to start our Great Household purge last year which we are still in the process of doing. I recently sold a few things, had another round of donations and trash removal from my garage. We use the garage to park our car in. Also, buy only what you will need or find a way to make it, grow it, or trade for it so you don't accumulate uneeded items.

Information inventory - too much junk mail, endless electronic communications, excess information from TV, newspapers, and Internet, records retained beyond appropriate time, etc.

• Cable TV where there are hundreds of channels yet only a few are watched
• Mailboxes that are filled with expired emails that are not deleted
• Cellphones with volumes of text message still hanging around
• Telemarketing calls that waste your time
• Files with obsolete or redundant information

Countermeasures that we have taken include dropping cable TV, eliminating unnecessary email boxes, getting on the do not call lists, and purging information on a regular basis. In addition, we are working on better processes to address the over consumption and overproduction of data and information.

These are but a few examples of inventory muda. Consider how you can reduce the waste of inventory and live a simpler, happier, and calmer life.

What have you improved today?

Dan Lafever, Kaizeneer

Great quotes on waste...

"Waste is worse than loss...the scope of thrift is limitless"

Thomas Edison

"Waste neither time or money but make the best use of both. Without industry or frugality, nothing will do, and with them everything"

Benjamin Franklin

"Willful waste makes woeful want"

Scottish proverb

"Let's make toast the American way: you burn and I'll scrape"

William Deming

"All organizations are at least 50% waste-wasted people, wasted effort, wasted money, and wasted time."

Robert Townsend

"The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize"

Shigeo Shingo


What have you improved today?

Dan Lafever, Kaizeneer

Pockets of resistance

Our home was built in the 1950s and it has an interesting history. The builder of the house was a secret service agent during that era and he raised his family here. He designed the home and built most of it home himself as I understand it. The second owner was a Branch Davidian and we purchased the property from he and his wife in 1995. To our real estate agent's chagrin, Mrs. "Davidian" was home at time of our showing and I will never forget the lecture she gave us about the evils of automatic dishwashers. In truth, I believe story was to cover up the fact that the washer was broken and they were too cheap to fix it. As the third owner, I keep hoping that I will find a hidden cache of weapons or a treasure trove of classified documents on who really was responsible for the Kennedy assassination. Indeed, I have discovered some mundane secrets such as the original house blueprints, a box full of brass drawer handles, and very inefficient air duct work system for the furnace.

This fall, I have been working to improve the air flow and improve our homes comfort for the coming winter. Our bedroom has always had a pocket of warm air in one part of our room. As I delved to the root cause, I inspected the warm air register. The louvres could be opened to perpendicular but they pointed to the left. Two feet from this register is the wall and our northern exposure window. It hit me like a bolt of lightning-the warm air was going either straight up or to the left to the wall and window! No wonder there was always a pocket of air in that little alcove. This problem had been going on for years and I had never really looked closely to see if this could be improved. The lesson I learned was don't simply accept sub-optimized systems but rather to learn and understand...learn by doing!

Before:



The improvement to this problem was very simple. After taking apart the register, I rotated the metal assembly 180 degrees and now the louvres point to the right and the air moves to the center of the room. It was a five minute improvement that cost nothing and I wish I had examined this part of our HVAC system long ago.

After:




Yeah, they could use a good cleaning! Take the kaizeneer challenge: Examine something at your home that is not optimized and see if you can improve it.

What have you improved today?

Dan Lafever, Kaizeneer

The truth about compact flourescent bulbs (CFLs)

This is a story of a CFL bulb that expired before its time. As you can see, I wrote the installation date on the base. It was deployed in my garage on 9/21/09 but it failed to survive even one month. This bulb was a Sylvania 13W CFL13EL/MINITWIST 3000K. My improvement idea was to write the install date so I can know how long they are lasting.

A number of CFL bulbs I have purchased in the last year are failing. This is disappointing because of the claims of very long life. This kaizeneer has not found even brand name CFLs living up to the promise of extended use. So, I have summarized what I have learned using CFLs:

• Never buy the off brand CFLs-they are not worth it.
• CFLs will lower your electric bill - I believe they have lowered my electric bill by 10-20% a month
• The warranty on CFLs sounds good but it's a hassle to track down the receipt and take the time and effort to send it back for a replacement bulb
• CFLs will sometimes cause other problems like having to get a bigger globe when the CFL replaces an incandescent bulb
• I haven't had issues with dimming causing CFL problems...they just don't dim because they are more a binary light than incandescents
• CFL disposal is not easy or readily available
• Premature CFL costs reduce the monthly electricity savings.

Overall, I can tell using CFLs have helped but I am disappointed in the performance over time. Hopefully, they will improve as the product matures.

What have you improved today?

Dan Lafever, Kaizeneer

Can a safety pin make your home warmer this winter?

Before: Curtain is blocking the warm air duct sending warm air behind the curtain and out of the room:



After: A safety pin added to pin back the window drapes allows all the warm air to get in the room.



Benefits:

• Hot air is no longer diverted behind the curtain
• Room feels warmer

Cost of improvement: 2 cents

People have said to me that kaizen work like this is "common sense". Indeed. Why then isn't everyone improving things and making their lives better? Because it's not common sense or everyone would be doing it.

Kaizen is not common sense...it is uncommon wisdom.


What have you improved today?

Dan Lafever, Kaizeneer