How Kaas Tailored Uses Visual Management Tools

In the fall of 2020, Kaas Tailored hosted a series of Zoom calls unpacking our Daily Management System (DMS). Each month we focused on a different element of our DMS, starting with strategy, then discussing daily huddles, then talking about Visual Management Systems (VMS), and ending with Leader Standard Work. In this post, we look at some of the artifacts we use at Kaas Tailored for our Visual Management System. 

Using a Visual Management System is based on one of our values at Kaas Tailored: we want to Know and Show the Truth. We know that human beings can take in a lot of information through their eyes, and we don’t have to speak the same language to understand a lot of what’s going on. Here are some of the tools we use to help us know and show the truth.

The Dance Floor 

The dance floor, or destination guide, helps our team get to the truth quickly. It’s a hub for all of our most pertinent or important information. There are a handful of components that you see here. The destination guide itself is in the middle; its main purpose is pretty much how it sounds. It is about destinations and to start with the most important part, the center, which states where we want to go and who we want to be.

As a company, we want to shine light wherever we can and really shine light through the growths of individuals, so we are not just about furniture or products. Often, companies put their values on the wall, and you see a lot of truth, trust, teamwork, all those kinds of things, and they kind of die there. Our hope with some of these things is that through constant visual reminders, like this, paired with teaching and explaining, we are able to keep these values alive. We want our team to understand them and actually start to believe them, or decide not to believe them and maybe exit out. We want it to be super clear where the company is going.

The second major part of the dance floor is the destinations for individuals. The top half represents people from the shop floor, mainly the people who actually put their hands on the product. The bottom half would be more like finance, HR, office president, and chair manager. It is a sort of subway map of growth to prompt conversations with individuals to ask them what they want to do and where they want to go and try to find a pathway that fits who they are and their gifts and try to get them there in little bits.

There is also something new we have been testing. We have created little cards that explain our policies, thinking models, and the things we may take for granted or assume people know. The purpose is to help communicate these things to everybody in the same way. 

The Kata Map 

Kata is essentially identifying a big mountain that’s kind of scary, which is that central challenge right there in the middle. For us, it’s cutting the lead time of all value added activities by 75 percent through implementing flow principles. We are specific on how that is kind of scary for most of our team members. We are taking that big challenge, dividing it into five smaller challenges for each section, and then each department within that section has a part to own in that. Instead of having a huge goal that has several disconnected challenges, we have one strategy. If we all cut our lead time of design and how we build and integrate into our systems, then we are going to have a brighter future here, but it is all now working together, imperfectly, which is part of the journey. The Kata map is new to us. Kata, in general, is new to us. The big idea of the Kata map is it shows everybody the goal our company is trying to achieve or where the whole company is trying to go. It is trying to pull aligned growth through the company, and take that big idea at the center and show how everybody can get there. 

Year-to-Date Status Board 

Each department has a year-to-date status on the wall that measures the important things for every department. So finance, purchasing, and production all measure their top three things so that every month we can actually know the status of truth little bits at a time. Instead of looking at a financial report at the end of the year, we know where our financial situation is at every month. And it brings about quicker action to the truth, whereas having a lot of lag time in any of those metrics could be very costly for us. It has an owner, and that person is responsible for these metrics. If one goes red, the owner is responsible. That doesn’t mean the metric owner caused it; it just means that they now have to look into it and try to figure out how to get back towards the green.

Today Board

These are updated daily. Our today boards have a date, the previous day, the current day, and capacity. Capacity is signified by the green/yellow/red on the side. This vertical, long yellow strip shows that IT feels like they are overloaded with work. Knowing that team right now, I am not surprised that they are yellow today. It doesn’t mean you can’t bug them; it just means that they are at risk for not getting everything done and meeting their commitments. There is a space for issues. This one is yellow, which means they have a plan to get through it, but it’s not solved yet (it would be green if they solved it). Our today boards are updated daily by the owner of that area.

Beer Cups! 

Our beer cups communicate our right now status. On our floor, we have today boards which are daily, and year boards which have the monthly/yearly status. Our beer cups show right now and, especially in production, this status can change every few minutes. Green means that they have everything needed in terms of material, they are not working through any issues, they are able to build in a timely manner (to the time that was estimated), and they are not running into any problems. Yellow means that they are behind, but they have a plan. In the administrative world, where Kelly, Oz, and I work, it is more of a gut feeling of like, “I kind of feel yellow, which means that I’m at risk if I get interrupted with a bunch of issues, I might not get everything done.” And then red is, “I won’t get everything done, and I need help.” These signals are kind of like Toyota. They have their red/yellow/green lights. This is just a very cheap version of that, but basically, if we run into any problems, red shows us something needs to be escalated to the manager, and something should be done about that. We pair these cups with workstation signs, which is the next thing I’m going to talk about.

Workstation Signs

Each workstation sign says who the person is, their title, their main responsibilities, and the department that they are working in. It has pullout signs that mimic the beer cup colors, so green means that this person is available. If I am working at my desk, and my sign is green, anyone can interrupt me and ask questions. When it is red, that means, “Go away. I’m busy.” Out means “I’m out for the day.” And back at means “I’m out on vacation” or something like that.

If you’d like to learn more about how to implement a Daily Management System within your organization, or more about Kaizen and Continuous Improvement, consider signing up for a Kaas Tailored Waste Tour.