How to Implement Lean at Your Farm
Lean is not a project with a start and end date. It is a new way of working and thinking, and a new culture must be incorporated. If you want to incorporate the new culture, you must make a long-term planning for the implementation.
8.1 How to Implement Lean at Your Farm
8.1.1 The Current State of Your Farm
What is the status at your farm right now?
Are you ready to test if Lean can give you value?
If you have crossed the boxes to the left or in the center, you can create improvements by using Lean at your farm. At the same time, the statements may quite possibly tell you what kind of value you can achieve.
8.1.2 Leanstart With Simple Tools
Start by the tool best fit for your vision with Lean work. It may be an advantage to take one tool at a time and implement it well before you start on the next area or tool.
To some people, Lean can be a huge change, while others see it as logic. Therefore, it is important that everyone gets ownership of the tools and the new way of working. The most obvious tools to start with are either the board meeting or the 5S.
5S means
• Sort
• Set in Order
• Shine
• Standardize
• Sustain
8.1.2.1 The Board Meeting Involves the Employees
The board meeting is not an easy tool. It requires a new management and communication style. Nevertheless, it is central to the work with continuous improvement and involvement of employees.
8.1.2.2 5S Provides Quick and Visible Results
5S is a system for achieving tidiness and the tool that employees are most happy with. They can immediately see both the idea and the benefits. At the same time, it clearly identifies what Lean thinking really is about.
8.1.2.3 Lean is Also for Smaller Farms
The employees are an important part of Lean. Therefore, you may think that Lean is only for large farms with several employees, but a farm with a married couple or an owner + replacement worker will also be able to benefit from using Lean thinking. Some of the tools may be more relevant than others, but there are clear opportunities to create more value by implementing Lean on all farms.
The hype curve describes the phases you can expect to go through when you start working with Lean.
It starts with great enthusiasm because something new is happening. There is great interest and great expectations. You will reach a peak with inflated expectations where there are successes but also many mistakes. Then comes a phase of disillusionment, which gives rise to disappointment that not all expectations were met. In the next phase, some of the tools begin to work, and slowly you will see an increasing understanding. The final phase is the level of productivity you achieve in the long term.
Development is initiated, on one hand, by people who think new ideas are exciting, and they like to get things started. On the other hand, the same people often find it difficult to maintain interest after some time has elapsed and there are new projects that take their focus. It is a completely natural process, and you should expect a trough.
If you are such a type, you can prepare how to get out of the hype curve again by leaving the coordinating role and responsibility for the task to another. You must acknowledge it if you are best at starting things and others are better at maintaining the process. You can also participate in a discussion group where you can talk about your position on the curve right now. Then it is easier to keep believing that it will probably start again.
8.1.4 Plan for the Implementation of Lean
As mentioned in the previous section, it is normal that there will be a drop in visibility and attention. Therefore, it is crucial that you make a plan for how to develop Lean work at the farm. Even though you start with one step at a time, you must be able to see goals and direction in the long run.
You can make Lean a culture so that it becomes your very natural way of working and thinking. You can do area by area with 5S, and you can maintain communication and improvement work with the board meetings. When you encounter a problem, you can use Lean tools to find a solution. It will continue, and you will find more and more ways to develop it. You will also have periods of crisis where everything seems to fall back to where you started. Therefore, Lean work never stops.
Next is an example of how you can carry out a full implementation of Lean. It should be seen as an inspiration for how to implement it everywhere on the farm
Hidden Agenda
The owner of a farm considered introducing board meetings. At the introduction, he was sitting at the back. He made a proposal to improve the routines but did not participate much in the debate. He was observing.
The employees were a little hesitant at first but could soon see the idea. They constructively started training, and everything seemed good.
Afterward, the owner commented that he was well pleased. Maybe now they could learn to see when routines needed to be changed. That was what he wanted to follow up on at the following meeting.
He thus pretended that with Lean he would involve the employees. In fact, he just used the tool to pull his own agenda down over their heads.
Step 1: Introduction to Lean
You must have an introduction to what Lean is and what results the implementation of Lean may lead to. The participants in this introduction are initially you as the owner/leader, the leading employees and maybe your farm board of management. They must be the decision makers at your farm.
You must prepare yourselves for making a decision as to how you will handle the implementation and how many resources you will use. You will also need to assess the effect of Lean implementation on your results.
At this point, there must be time for reflection and for reading more about Lean.
Step 2: Lean Vision
At the next step, you must decide what you want to achieve with Lean. You must define the burning platform, and you must agree on your Lean vision.
The vision does not have to be measurable. But it must not consist of empty words, smart phrases and something that might as well have been written by your neighbor.
You must choose which tools are most suitable to fulfill your wishes.
There are more than 50 Lean tools, so it is necessary to choose which of them you want to work with.
Lean Visions
Lean vision at Eastwood Estate
We want to create value without waste and involve our employees in the process – and have fun doing so!
Lean vision at Westwood Estate
We want to save working hours, improve our communication and be in control of our maintenance costs.
Lean vision at Southwood Estate
We want to be more efficient and have better teamwork between field and barn.
Lean vision at Northwood Estate
We want more tidiness on the farm, and we want to produce more with the same people.
Step 3: Training of Leader and Manager
Leader and manager must attend a course in Lean management or change management. That will speed up the process of being good at and more comfortable with the new management style that is necessary to make the Lean culture work.
Much time can be saved by avoiding resistance from middle management. Resistance may occur because the manager doesn’t have sufficient knowledge about Lean and therefore is unable to see how to act during the change.
It is obvious that both the leader and the manager should be prepared well to teach others about the new approach. It will ensure less error and less frustration in the introductory phase.
Step 4: Organization and Time Planning
Designate a Lean Leader In Lean work, initiatives must be taken and followed up. Therefore, designate a Lean leader on the farm. Even if it may seem obvious to choose the owner/leader, it is not always the right choice. At least it must be a person who is enthusiastic, has the time to solve the task and is persistent. So, if the owner is the entrepreneurial type who engages in many things and continuously gets new ideas, he is not the right one for the job.
Divide by Teams Different teams may have different working hours and different challenges. In many cases, it is a good idea to work with Lean and continuous improvements in the groups/teams who work together on a daily basis. However, it is important that the groups learn from each other and talk together across teams. If you have multi-site production, it may be a good idea to make a team for each site.
Make a Schedule You must decide on a schedule for the various activities. The plan must be realistic and take into account the other tasks on the farm. But as mentioned, Lean is not something you finish. Several times in the future, you will take new initiatives and adjust the plan.
In the beginning, you may need external consultants. Once you have learned to use a tool, you continue your own. Therefore, there may be more loops of introducing and training employees as you start using more tools.
Step 5: Training and Workshops
It is now time to introduce Lean to all employees and train them in the tools. You can start with a theory day with exercises, so everyone understands what Lean is.
You will encounter resistance because you want changes, but it is our experience that employees quickly catch the idea and want to be involved. They want to work to eliminate waste, and they have a lot to offer.
It is a good idea to take one tool at a time and ensure that the new methods are incorporated. The great thing about doing things quietly is that Lean gets into the backbone and gradually turns into a culture. Moreover, it comes from below. From here, it becomes everyday life, where it is just “like we do here at the farm”.
Workshop at the Farm In a workshop, it works well to begin with a short presentation of the tool. Then it is necessary to address its practical application in the production. The first time requires introduction and guidance from outside, but otherwise you can just proceed.
Step 6: Follow-up Days
You keep up the energy if you celebrate the successes. Therefore, at regular intervals, you should meet, discuss and make new plans. You must measure how much you have achieved so that everybody feels that it is worth moving on.
If the work with Lean is quiet at times, it does not necessarily have to be shut down as a failure. You will probably fall back into the old patterns. You just have to learn from it and move on.
Ten Tips for Success with Lean
Mogens Egegaard Sørensen, Lean Mindset and Coaching, has worked with Lean at Arla Foods, Siemens Wind Power, Nobia and Carlsberg, among others. He has ten tips to succeed with Lean in a company. The points are not in order of priority, he emphasizes.
1. Lots of Communication. Management must be available and follow up. It is important to create understanding and ownership of Lean work.
2. Give Middle Management a Clear Role in the Process. Don’t fail to see them. Their role may easily become diffuse and unresolved.
3. Employee Involvement is Crucial. Without a massive involvement of your employees, Lean is impossible. It is the specific knowledge and commitment of your employees that implement the practical measures.
4. Training. There must be lots of training of both leader and employees. Lean Principles, Lean tools, project management and many other things must all be learned.
5. Time. Time for Lean must be created in addition to daily operations. There must be structured time for training and working with Lean.
6. Patience. Change takes time, and patience of all parties is a prerequisite.
7. Involve Shop Stewards. They are central to motivating employees and giving feedback.
8. Ambitious Plan for Implementation. Don’t allow too much time to pass before something happens and visible results are seen.
9. Use External/Internal Consultants. It is crucial that there is professional and experienced help to assist with learning and developing a completely new culture of improvement.
10. Managerial Support. Management must have 100% focus on Lean – otherwise nothing happens. Management must hold on to the process, maintain faith in the project and follow up, follow up, follow up.
Question:
How do you end a Lean process? What is the last step?
Answer:
Among other things, Lean is about continuous improvements. So, if you have introduced a Lean culture with continuous improvement, in principle there is no last step. The will always be things to improve, also because the conditions change.
If you reach a point where you say that the culture is now introduced, and we are “Lean”, then you may call it a conclusion. But as soon as you say, “We can do it now”, you stop learning and creating continuous improvements.
Question:
I think it is hard to keep employees inspired. How do you do it?
Answer:
It is about being prepared as a leader. When you feel that you are going down in the trough, then focus on all that you have achieved; it gives energy. Make your goals visible, and break them down to the daily level so they are relevant to your employees. You should also consider whether your involvement of employees is sufficient. Involvement creates inspiration.