Good Supervisors Inspect and Correct In Order to Get What They Expect
In the first article in this series, the idea that the best supervisors eliminate problems by attacking the causes, versus simply working around them without any thought for the future, was discussed.
In this article, the concept of inspecting and correcting will be covered. As discussed by Pascal Dennis in Getting the Right Things Done, A Leader’s Guide to Planning and Execution, it is common within the Toyota Production System for group and team leaders to “audit their operations by observing what is actually happening and comparing it with the standard”. The best supervisors spend a “great deal of time walking the floor to verify the important systems or processes are being followed in their area”. By constantly inspecting and always correcting, the best supervisors create consistent results because they ensure their process is being operated as intended.
Focus on the Process – Are They Doing it Right?
“The most important activity in a production operation is production. In a lean environment, carefully designed and monitored processes define production activity. When the process operates as designed (and refined), it meets its goals for safety, quality, delivery, and cost” (Mann, 2005, 29.) At the point of manufacture, or the point of service, lean processes are well defined and the work is standardized in order to eliminate variation from one employee to another. The tasks are designed around best demonstrated practices that have been shown to produce the best results. It sounds a little robotic, and it may be in some cases, but it is the foundation of lean production. The idea is that if the process is followed as designed, it produces a good produce or delivers a good service in a predictable and stable way and satisfies the customer every time. What a novel idea.
If it were as easy as defining standardized work and then having every employee follow it without fail, supervisors probably wouldn't be needed. However, human nature being what it is, many employees take short cuts or alter the way they do their tasks. Some do it for creative reasons such as looking for a better way. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it has to be handled well in order for it to be helpful. That is a topic unto itself that won’t be discussed in this article. Others do it out of laziness or lack of concern for the outcome. Still others do it because they were never properly trained. Whatever the reason, the point is that they do it. In most cases, when several employees are doing the same job, but doing it differently than it was designed to be done, the results are not consistent. Some employees produce faster, others slower. Some have great quality; others scrap their work due to defects, or worse yet, send defective work to the customer.
That is why the best supervisors inspect the process. They check up to make sure that the work is being done as it was designed. The best supervisors inspect, whether it is related to safety, quality, productivity or any other metric and the employees get a loud and clear message about what is important.
They Aren’t Doing it Right? Then Correct Them!
The fact that corrective action is required if a supervisor finds something being done wrong or improperly should seem fairly basic and straightforward to most people. That is because it is. Inspecting without correcting is meaningless. It equates to walking around the shop floor just to be seen and then disappearing back into the office without engaging at the process level. If a supervisor, or any other manager for that matter, observes an employee working outside the norm and does nothing about it, that leader has just established a new normal and the employee thinks that what he is doing is acceptable.
That is the point that the best supervisors understand and act on. The best supervisors always apply immediate and appropriate corrective action when they see an employee failing to do the work as it was designed. The first thing the best supervisors do is ask the employee why they did the particular task or action the way they did. They then ask if the employee knows that the action wasn’t done right.
This simple questioning process gives the supervisor the chance to take the conversation in one of two directions. It can become a discussion about a potentially better way to do something, which might result in a process improvement, or it might go down the simple path of “you did this wrong and I need to you do it the right way from now on”.
Either way, the supervisor has to take corrective action and get the process back on track in order to ensure that the expected outcomes are achieved.
In the first two articles, we have now discussed that the best supervisors attack versus defend, as well as inspect and correct. These two attributes of the best supervisors have the effect of eliminating or reducing problems that interrupt the process and ensuring that the process delivers consistent results.
In the third article in this series, keeping score and being accountable to results will be discussed.
Sources
Dennis, Pascal. 2009. Getting the Right Things Done, A Leader’s Guide to Planning and Execution. Cambridge, MA: Lean Enterprise Institute
Mann, David. 2005. Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain a Lean Conversion. New York: Productivity Press
