{"id":5655,"date":"2018-08-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:10003\/the-lean-post\/articles\/cardboard-duct-tape-and-string-the-do-first-mindset\/"},"modified":"2023-11-30T17:09:04","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T22:09:04","slug":"cardboard-duct-tape-and-string-the-do-first-mindset-kaizen-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lean.org\/the-lean-post\/articles\/cardboard-duct-tape-and-string-the-do-first-mindset-kaizen-means\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardboard, Duct Tape, and String: The Do-First Mindset & Meaning of Kaizen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I remember the date like it was tattooed on my left arm. October 25, 1994. It was a Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d been given the assignment to go and work with a company that produced roll-formed metal parts for the appliance industry just outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee. I had just moved from Toyota City, Japan, to Lexington, Kentucky. Toyota had transferred me from a product planning job (read desk jockey) to working at Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toyota established TSSC in 1992 with the sole purpose of sharing the vaunted Toyota Production System (TPS) with any manufacturing company that was interested in transforming its manufacturing operations from traditional push-type manufacturing to a pull system using TPS. Amazingly, Toyota did this for nothing \u2014 for many years, we didn\u2019t even charge companies for our travel costs. Of course, a majority of these companies were Toyota suppliers, but many also were not. So, furniture, toy, and household goods manufacturers and companies in many other industries could benefit by learning about TPS. And Toyota helped companies actually change the plant floor \u2014 this was not a training course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toyota helped these other companies for many reasons, some political. Still, regardless Toyota had made a significant corporate decision to give its most precious know-how to anyone who asked. To this day, that idea seems a bit unreal to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I was a fairly young employee who had spent six years working in Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) in Toyota City, Japan, the only American in a Department of 150 people. And the work I did was all administrative, working with Chief Engineers to plan new vehicles for overseas markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1994, I was transferred from Japan to Lexington to work in TSSC, and the third week, after I arrived in the U.S., I was asked to go to Chattanooga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mentor at this project was Mr. Yokoi (I mentioned him in my last column), who had been sent for four months to the U.S. from Japan to help TSSC transform companies and develop people like me, greenhorn Americans who had little or no experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My career up to this point had been behind a desk. I was an English major in college with no production background \u2014 and no engineering experience. But Toyota chose to invest in trying to educate me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As true lean practitioners, we should demonstrate with the company how to make physical change at the gemba. Coaching advice isn\u2019t enough if the gemba doesn\u2019t change for the better.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One day, I was standing on a shop floor in Chattanooga staring at a semi-automated arc-welding and assembly operation. Mr. Yokoi was off somewhere in the same plant trying to fix a big problem of defective parts getting out to customers. He had asked me to look at this production cell with the purpose of improving productivity. The person responsible for arc welding performed the welding of two components of a refrigerator door handle. Another operator received the welded part, packed it, boxed it, and put it in a pile for shipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Yokoi had given me, what I\u2019m sure to him, was a simple assignment to take out the waste of this operation so that one person could do welding, packing, and boxing. But I\u2019m also sure he knew that, with my capability, this would not be easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And his initial instruction was amazingly vague. Stand right here, watch this operation, identify waste, and see if one person can do it, not two. Then he\u2019d run off to his other duties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stood and watched, wrote down a few ideas I had for improvements, and after what seemed like an eternity (though it was only a couple of hours), Mr. Yokoi stopped by again. He asked what I\u2019d done. I showed him my ideas and shared my brilliance, believing he would fully agree. My ideas were so good! One example: as part of the welding process, the operator had to stand and hold the part’s right side while the left side was welded, which seemed like waste to me. He just stood there holding the part \u2014 why not ask maintenance to build a small jig on which it could rest. Pretty smart, huh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Yokoi didn\u2019t seem to think so. He looked at me quizzically, laughed, and walked away. What did I do? Was I supposed to follow him? I stood there, a bit stunned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time he came back in five minutes. He had a bunch of cardboard under his left arm and a roll of duct tape in his right hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said, \u201cBefore we send maintenance off on some adventure and potentially waste their time, build this little jig of yours with cardboard and duct tape.\u201d (Let\u2019s just say, his English wasn\u2019t that perfect, and he wasn\u2019t quite that cordial). Then he handed me the cardboard and duct tape and walked away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WTF was I supposed to do with this stuff?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I spent the next hour figuring out how this might work, how I might design it. I wrote out a sketch, and when Mr. Yokoi came back, I showed it to him. He looked at the cardboard and duct tape laying on the factory floor next to the machine and said:  \u201cMaybe you didn\u2019t understand. I wanted you to actually use that stuff.  You don\u2019t need this\u201d (again, edited for English quality and cordiality), while pointing at my sketch.  He looked at me much less pleased this time and stormed off quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I picked up the things he\u2019d handed me, grabbed a cutter, got down on the floor next to the machine, and actually tried to make a cardboard jig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And an amazing thing happened over the afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, it took me more than an hour just to get something cut out and constructed with the cardboard and duct tape that had hope of being sturdy enough to hold up under repeated use. Then, once I\u2019d gotten something together, I realized that to try it, I actually had to interact with the Team Member doing the job to see:<\/p>\n\n\n\n