Problem Solving
1-day
Course Overview: Sustaining a Lean transformation requires continuous problem solving in a team-based collaborative environment. Good problem-solving skills are generally not intuitive; they require training. Understanding what should be happening versus what is actually happening, identifying special or common cause patterns, and determining potential causal factors as prerequisites to developing solutions is critical to effective problem solving and therefore to adaptation towards a learning organization.
This course focuses on teaching team-based collaborative problem-solving methods. The course emphasizes the use of simple and intuitive, yet highly effective, scientific problem-solving methods that are as applicable to those on the front lines as they are to managers interacting with front line workers who must speak the same problem-solving language in their leadership roles. The course also examines the supporting infrastructure and management roles/responsibilities that go along with the problem-solving skills and how they all relate to a Lean thinking culture in the context of a Lean Management System.
Course Objectives: Students will learn
- Why problem solving is a core Lean competency
- The steps in the Plan-Do-Check- Act (PDCA) process
- How and when to use different problem-solving methodologies such as Problem-Solving Flowcharts and A3
- What constitutes a fact-based problem, including
- How to recognize and communicate a problem
- How to identify the core problem to be solved
- How to identify the physical or virtual environment where the problem occurs
- How to collect factual information and characterize the problem
- How to identify and distill potential causes
- How to distill down to the hypothetical singular root cause
- How to fully develop and prove out countermeasures
- How to make improvements fully operational and permanent
- How to sustain problem solving at all levels
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