Michelle: So can you tell us, why did you wanna present a workshop on Lean? Why do you think this would be a good topic for the show?

Eric: I teach Six Sigma classes at a variety of different levels, but in pretty much all of them, I cover the basics of Lean. The curriculum of Lean Six Sigma, I describe as being about equal parts Lean and Six Sigma with a little bit of project management tools thrown in there. I would estimate about 40% Lean, 40% Six Sigma, and about 20% project management, at least the version that I teach. Now the Six Sigma tools tend to be a little bit more on the complex side. Most of them are statistics based. And sometimes people who aren't comfortable with math are afraid of them. On the other hand, the lean tools tend to be fairly simple, fairly straightforward. The trick is though, to having the discipline in order to execute those things. And they do take a little bit of practice. So when possible, I prefer to teach lean concepts with demonstrations rather than just lectures. This particular workshop will be an introduction to Lean and will feature a simulation I call the Pen Game. The Pen Game is something that's practiced by many companies in several different parts of the world. I break up the room into a couple of teams and each team will be a mock production line, a mock assembly factory.

And we'll run for several rounds. Each round will last for about eight minutes or so. And the purpose of course is to build these pens efficiently as possible. In each of the rounds, we change some things. We start off with a process that's kind of on the messy side the way that I set it up. In Lean, there's a concept of the eight forms of waste. They form the acronym TIMWOODS, although some people do know it by the acronym DOWNTIME. So it's easy to see those TIMWOODS, those eight forms of waste in the initial round. Now in the last round, I give people the opportunity to create their ideal factory, trying to come up with ways to minimize the amount of waste to maximize the efficiency of the process. But along the way, I give people one thing to change. So when we go from the messy process to the second round, I asked them to change one thing, just to illustrate the power of lean. And then in the second round of the third round, they get to change again, just one thing. And then finally in the fourth round, they get to make any changes that they want. And the two teams compete with each other to see which ones can come up with the ideas for best efficiency.