Tag Archive for: manufacturing

What Are You Afraid Of?

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There’s usually a subtle pause before an owner answers my question. Most of the time, they’re giving careful thought to how they want to answer. And sometimes, there’s a little more to it. An honest look under the hood can stir up some apprehension. It’s like finding an unmarked trunk in your attic, that mix of excitement and dread before opening the dusty lid. Will you find money? Or a dead mouse?

I appreciate that hesitation. And it’s exactly the kind of support we’re here to lend.

I’ve come to believe something I hope is reassuring:

Understanding your current state isn’t the scary part. Not knowing is.

The things that quietly wear on a business are usually the ones nobody’s looking at. The workaround everyone’s grown so used to they’ve stopped noticing it. That kind of thing rarely shows up on a P&L, and it’s hard to improve what you haven’t let yourself see.

A lot of owners avoid the look because it can feel like admitting they’ve come up short somewhere. It isn’t. Every business has soft spots, the good ones included. The strongest owners I know aren’t problem-free; they just know where their soft spots are. When we leave those spots unnamed, they don’t go anywhere. They tend to smolder until a harder moment forces them to ignite.

“Current state” just means the truth of how things work right now. Not the version you’re hoping for, and not the worst case running in the back of your mind. Just the reality of it. And once it’s in front of you, it tends to stop being something to dread and becomes a place to start from.

That’s why I built the Predictable Performance Self-Assessment, to give owners a clear view on where to look. It takes about 8–10 minutes and walks through four areas we call PACT: Plan (how you set direction), Act (how the work actually gets done), Communicate (how information moves), and Train (how you develop your people). There’s no grade and no one looking over your shoulder. Just an honest read on where things stand.

What tends to surprise people isn’t that they have gaps. They figured those were there. It’s where the gaps turn up. Someone sure their problem is sales finds out the real issue is that nothing’s written down anywhere. Someone bracing for a hard result learns they’re in better shape than they feared, with just one area that could use some attention. That’s the benefit. Ambiguity becomes a short list of specific things you can do something about.

So, what are you afraid of, really? Go ahead. Open the lid.

Curious where your business stands? Take the Predictable Performance Self-Assessment.

How Female Leaders Can Harness the Power of Gemba Walks

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In today’s rapidly evolving world, business leaders must do more than rely on theoretical knowledge to solve problems effectively. The concept of Genchi Genbutsu, or “go and see,” urges leaders to engage directly with real-world situations. By doing so, they gain firsthand understanding rather than depending on secondhand reports or distant analysis.

A Female Perspective on Genchi Genbutsu

From a female perspective, Genchi Genbutsu holds unique significance, especially in traditionally male-dominated environments. Women in leadership roles can apply this principle to break down barriers, build trust, and form deeper connections with teams, suppliers, and customers.

Emotional Intelligence Meets Operational Insight

Women often bring strong emotional intelligence to the workplace, which enhances their ability to practice Genchi Genbutsu. By personally observing situations through gemba walks—whether on the shop floor or during field visits—female leaders can cultivate deeper empathy. This direct involvement helps them understand the challenges employees face and enables them to design more inclusive, tailored solutions.

Spotting Hidden Challenges and Driving Change

When women leaders observe processes in person, they often uncover inefficiencies or worker challenges that reports overlook. They can then advocate for improvements that not only boost productivity but also prioritize their teams’ well-being.

Challenging Stereotypes Through Action

In industries like manufacturing, engineering, or tech—where women remain underrepresented—female leaders can use Genchi Genbutsu to challenge outdated stereotypes. By actively participating in operations, they earn their team’s respect and reinforce their credibility. Their hands-on approach demonstrates a commitment to understanding every aspect of the business, helping them build rapport and challenge assumptions about leadership and gender.

Collaboration as a Catalyst for Solutions

Genchi Genbutsu thrives on dialogue with those involved, making it far from a solitary activity. Women in leadership often excel at fostering collaboration and open communication. They can use these strengths to share insights from firsthand observations and encourage team-wide problem-solving. This collaborative approach increases employee buy-in and ensures that solutions are both practical and widely accepted.

Creating Inclusive Workplaces Through Observation

By following this principle, women leaders also promote inclusivity in the workplace. When they personally experience the work environment and listen to all voices, they create a culture that values diverse perspectives. Their hands-on involvement helps them identify areas where inclusivity may be lacking and inspires meaningful change. For example, a female leader might notice that certain voices go unheard during meetings. With this insight, she can take proactive steps to ensure everyone feels empowered to contribute.

Inspiring the Next Generation of Grounded Leaders

As more women step into leadership roles across industries, Genchi Genbutsu offers a powerful strategy for breaking down barriers and inspiring future leaders who stay closely connected to their business environments. This philosophy transcends cultural and gender boundaries, promoting not only operational excellence but also empathy, inclusivity, and collaboration. By going to the source, experiencing challenges firsthand, and leading with emotional intelligence and practicality, women can drive meaningful change—one observation at a time.

Let’s talk about how you can take practical, manageable steps to regain control of your operations—without burning out your team or your bottom line.

👉 Reach out today! ewilliams@longrunbusiness.com 

Takt Time vs. Cycle Time: Capacity Considerations

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At the core of every manufacturing business are processes designed to convert raw materials into finished products for customers. In a purely physical sense, these processes are what keep us in business, and each of those processes has a finite amount of capacity to serve. Do you keep tabs on how much total capacity exists by process, how much of that capacity is currently being utilized, and where capacity adjustments will be required to either control costs or increase revenue? I believe it’s valuable, especially in a dynamic market, to understand any upcoming investments required to add capacity, or where existing capacity could be leveraged. If we balance the ledger daily, and close the books monthly, then wouldn’t it be wise to establish some similar routines for the hardest working assets in our business? In this paper, I discuss the concept of Takt time, and how Takt time can be compared to cycle time to gain insight into capacity.

Most businesses have some measures in place for labor efficiency or productivity that can be representative of overall capacity, but in many cases the measures don’t give us a dependable or accurate view of our actual capacity utilization. Measures like labor utilization (total labor hours applied divided by total payroll hours) might provide us with a decent estimate of available labor, but usually fall short of providing specific, actionable insights. Productivity measures, on the other hand, provide feedback on performance to established standards, but rarely correlate directly to capacity.

Introduction to Takt Time

I like to consider capacity through the lens of Takt time, or simply ‘Takt.’ Takt is a Lean concept, however it is based on the German word for pace. To determine Takt time for a given product, divide the customer’s demand requirement into the available time. For example, if our customer requires us to ship 60 units per day, and we work a single shift with 480 minutes available, the Takt time is 8 minutes. Let’s say your customer is anticipating growth to 80 units per day? Then divide the new requirement of 80 units into the available time of 480 minutes, to calculate a proposed Takt of 6 minutes. You can think of Takt as a target rhythm or heartbeat, one we’d like every process to be in sync with.

Your Takt calculations are probably a bit more complex, but Takt thinking is simple at its core and is a great foundation for considering capacity in terms of what our customer(s) require: We need every process capable of operating consistently at Takt time, and processes that are consistently operating above – or below – Takt are most likely generating costly waste.

Comparing Cycle Times to Takt

For machine-based processes, we need a cycle time less than or equal to Takt to keep up with demand. However, if we are currently running the machine at a faster cycle time than Takt, then we introduce unevenness into our operation and begin to generate waste. If the machine is not reliably achieving Takt, then we consider it a constraint and must look for ways to improve the machine rate. It is common for businesses to outgrow the capacity of their assets, but it is even more common for assets to underperform due to a lack of routine preventive maintenance. Usually this results in unplanned downtime in addition to degradation of cycle time capability, further introducing unevenness and waste.

For labor-based processes, this is where time studies come into play. Developing solid standardized work begins with time observation on a job-by-job basis. We look at “Big T” and “little t” times. Big T focuses on the average cycle time of a job, as well as the amount of variation or ‘fluctuation’ between cycles. For little t times, we break the job into smaller steps to understand the contribution of each step to the total cycle time and the total fluctuation. We won’t delve much deeper into time observation at this time, but it is important to remember that while 10 cycles is commonly considered a minimum number of cycles to observe, sometimes we must observe many more cycles to grasp what’s happening within the job. We observe until we understand.

If team members bristle at the thought of time studies or the sight of a stopwatch, then there is likely a misunderstanding about the purpose of time observation and standardized work. First and foremost, our aim with time observation is to understand the struggles that team members face while performing their job(s). We leverage our observations to identify and execute on improvements, and ultimately to create “smooth work” by identifying and driving out fluctuation. Once we understand the individual work elements within each job, and have driven out fluctuation to the extent possible, we can balance the work between all jobs within a process to ensure the entire system is capable of achieving Takt time.

For processes that contain a combination of machines and labor, we can use tools like a Standardized Work Combination Table to understand the overall cycle times and process capacity. In fact, we are barely scratching the surface here and there is a world of tools and methods to address the unique circumstances within your business.

Summary

The aim of this paper is to encourage you to view your operation, and the processes within, through the lens of Takt time. If this is a new concept, it might not strike you as initially intuitive, but with some consideration and application in your business, I believe you’ll soon see the value in it. One aspect of Takt I appreciate, is that not only can we learn a lot about our capacity compared to future volume scenarios, we also learn a lot about the state of our current operation and where various wastes arise. Most of the time, there is capacity waiting to be unlocked without significant investment into assets or additional labor.

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like to discuss this topic further or explore its application in your business. We can help you to see the effects of imbalance within your operation without taking out a stopwatch, and have the experience to unlock value in your operation while developing your people. Win – Win!!!