Jim Paluch is on the lookout for waste. Paluch, a business consultant and president of JP Horizons, teaches a management style in which wasteful practices and actions are the enemy. He shared his experience of working with companies for a year with his program Wednesday in the Professional Landcare Network’s Green Industry Conference workshop “A Year’s Worth of Lean Insights,” held at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville in conjunction with the Green Industry and Equipment Expo.
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Lean, a management philosophy modeled after Toyota’s practices and adopted by companies including Ariens, is based on the notion that companies have waste that can be eliminated, leading to a more efficient company. Paluch shared secrets to making this happen using examples from the nearly 200 landscaping and lawn care companies he’s worked with through his 52 Week Challenge.
Achieving lean status in a company starts with the people and the training they’re given, Paluch says. People can fall into two categories. A destroyer is someone who was ineffectively trained. Symptoms include a negative attitude, inability to listen to new ideas and lack of a vision. This attitude can be turned around by making the person feel better about his or herself. “When’s the last time you paid someone a compliment?” Paluch asks.
Training is another way to change a destroyer’s thinking or prevent the attitude. There are two types of training: waste of time or enhancing critical thinking, Paluch says. The latter includes encouraging analytical thinking and an inquisitive nature. The employee trained effectively to show these characteristics falls into the second category: the builder. The builder smiles, listens to ideas and has a vision.
“When we have people making choices that will allow them to be builders, we know we’re developing people,” he says.
Keep these tips in mind to train effective builders, Paluch recommends:
- Develop a curriculum
- Make it easy on the trainers
- Blend technical with personal development
- Stay consistent and disciplined
- It must apply to the workplace
- Keep it fun
- Be patient
Along with people, work on molding a company’s culture to achieve effectiveness. Take a day to get away and talk to employees about the company’s mission statement. “Allow them to draw pictures; take them to the top of a skyscraper,” Paluch says.
| GREAT MISSION STATEMENTS |
Consultant Jim Paluch of JP Horizons shares examples of great mission statements he has heard during his work helping companies with lean management training: |
Another key component of the lean method is eliminating as much of the waste – or items the customer doesn’t see as value - from the company. For example, the customer values the results of a great landscape job. The rest of the process, including loading the trucks, putting in the labor and unloading the trucks, has no value to the customer and is in turn considered waste, Paluch says.
Excess waste can be reduced by eliminating extra workers at a site, time spent waiting because of a lack of organization and unnecessary transport of equipment.
“As we reduce waste, gives us more time to add value,” he adds. “Think about the edge would it give your company if you could turn design/build design around in two weeks instead of four.”
Kaizen events help participants to identify where this waste is occurring and eliminate it. The first step is to document the current conditions. Learn to just sit and observe, and do so visually, Paluch says. For example, go to a worksite and videotape the work that’s being done.
This can work even at older companies with old ways of thinking, like the redbud tree that has flower blooms on old wood. “I don’t care if you’re an old business or new business; you can flower on old wood just like redbud,” Paluch says. “The power in a Kaizen event is that we learn to change things.”
Kaizen events involve a two-step process. Step one is documenting current conditions. Get visual in the documentation; go to where the work is happening. Be still and just observe what’s happening.
Practice process mapping for company procedures. Map them out in diagrams. One of Paluch’s clients who holds Kaizen sessions says the process tends to be disorganized initially, but getting it down on paper creates a powerful visual. Participants must accept the truth of the situation to make progress, Paluch says.
Step two is identifying waste. Know that waste is there, even if it’s not surfacing with major problems. “You do not need to be sick to get better,” Paluch says.
Naming the problem helps you to deal with it, and from there, companies can eliminate what is costing them time.
This can be easier said than done, Paluch acknowledges. Some might be met with resistance when they try to adopt the method in the workplace. “This is where patience comes in,” he says.
Follow the lean management steps in their correct order to change the work environment (improve the people, then the culture, then the process) and melt resistance. “This is about improving your quality of life,” he says.
