QUESTION no 1

I have already wrote finish the VSM. I need you to help me finalize the VSM and help in analysis.

1. Abstract The problem identified at the start of this analysis is the difficulty in calmly getting the whole family out of the house on time for work and daycare, which is worsened by the variance in the morning events. The morning routine begins at 5:00am with a goal of driving away at 5:45; we usually leave somewhere between 5:45 and 5:55, but that often entails either sacrifice (for example, not making a sandwich for lunch) and/or chaos (rushing to catch up after a meltdown over the wrong shirt pulled out of the dresser). The primary metric by which the problem can be measured is the level of stress when all family members and items have been loaded into the truck. Stress is difficult to quantify, but it is palpable and detrimental to starting the day off on the right foot. The secondary metric is time (for example, leaving the house at 5:55 makes us 10 minutes late for work) and the tertiary metric is readiness (if someone is missing an item he or she needs for the day - food, clothes, boots, etc - then the morning routine was not successful). II. Background - Introduction This paper analyzes the process of getting the family out of the house in the morning. My husband Andrew and I both go to work and our two children, ages 2 and 3, go to daycare. We also have two dogs to take care of as part of our morning routine. This is a typically chaotic time of day and although we have flexible start times at work, we often don't make it out of the house as early as we'd like. This process involves many human factors, some of which we, the parents, can control, and some of which wecannot - especially the great unknown of what the children's moods will be when they wake up. The overall process, from problem identification through analysis and forward actions, follows the A3 method. The problem is defined in the background section, the current situation is identified, a root cause analysis is performed, the desired end state is established, and a plan is formed to reach that end state and to monitor progress. The problem was documented by observing, monitoring, and measuring steps in the current state process. Individual steps were timed and quality issues (rejects) were counted and documented. Each A3 process element is discussed in detail in the following sections. III. Background - Problem and Value Statement The problem this analysis aims to address is that on most days there are high stress levels by the time the family is in the truck, Andrew and I are typically around 10 minutes late to work, and occasionally we leave the house without a needed item. The challenge presented is to optimize the process of getting the entire family ready for school and work in the morning. The definitions of value in this analysis are: 1. Lack of stress (eliminating stress) 2. Time (shorter timeline is better) 3. Preparedness (having all required items) The primary stakeholders in this operation are the parents (Andrew and Jennifer), our children (Jack, age 3, and Wheeler, age 2), our employers, and our children's caregivers (daycare employees). If we are late in the morning we negatively impact our managers' and subordinates' perceptions of us. More noticeably, yet alsomore difficult to measure, we are affected by the stress and chaos, which impacts everything from our performance at work to our attitudes toward each other and the children. The children take their emotional cues from their surroundings so if there's chaos and stress they pick up on that and it impacts their mood and behaviors at daycare. Our employers are impacted by our timeliness in arriving at work and by our job performance, which is impacted by our morning stress levels. If the boys go to daycare stressed or upset and act out, that impacts the daycare employees' work and their daily flows. IV. Current Situation - Value Stream Map The current state value stream map is depicted in fig. 1. The VSM shows a swim lane view; the top row is tasks performed by Jennifer, the bottom row is tasks performed by Andrew, and the middle row is tasked performed by both Jennifer and Andrew. The day prior, items such as diapers, wipes, and extra clothes for the boys and work computers and papers for the parents are gathered and placed on the kitchen table. Then in the morning the parents wake and focus on personal hygiene and kitchen tasks prior to waking the boys. There is one bathroom in the house with only enough space for one person at a time and the kitchen is also too small for more than one person. This requires hygiene tasks to be spaced out for all four family members and it prevents the possibility of multitasking for kitchen activities such as making coffee and preparing lunches. The adults eat breakfast at work and the children eat breakfast at daycare so breakfast is not part of the morning routine. The children do typically have a light snack in the truck during the commute though, which needs to be prepared.Day prior: Day of: daycare Faronal Four coffee, Jack's hygiene Miaporn, winter dean pot, pack truth hair, [patty, brush Jack cloth Let dogs In, dothen, paper lunchan minute D minutes 1 minute 5minute 4 minute onifer writer annifar Show and Land truck Coffee with coutn Than, food, minute coffee, kichuj minute nitin/And Personal Start truck, let Make coffee, Pick out boys' hregions [brush dogout start brow cycle clothon (diaper, brush tooth| clothon minute minutes a minute Anddraw Fig. 1. Current State Value Stream MapThere are several estimated rejection rates shown on the current VSM. These rates were calculated based on real data over the course of three weeks. There is some variation in the data, however judgment based on personal experience is that the arithmetic mean is still an accurate representation of a larger time span. See Appendix A for the raw data and rejection rate computations. V. Analysis - Root Cause An analysis was performed to identify the root cause of each of the three problem areas (high stress, time delays, and unpreparedness). Stress, being difficult to quantify, was analyzed through qualitative methods, specifically observation and interviews. We, the parents, had a discussion regarding which of the elements of the morning routine are the most likely to be stressful and what the key stress triggers are. Interviews with a 2 and 3 year old are more challenging, given the lack of understanding of the concept of stress and the underdeveloped reasoning skills, but the 3 year old is capable of explaining his feelings to some degree and he understands the concepts of "why" and "because". Instead of sitting him down and asking him questions like "What is the most stressful part of the morning for you", I gathered information through our normal morning activities; when he would show signs of stress I would ask him what he was feeling and why he was feeling that way, and what made him angry, sad, upset, frustrated, etc. Through these discussions I determined, not surprisingly, that stress for the adults is a result of emotional overreactions (temper tantrums) and is amplified by the delays that these emotional incidents typically cause. For Jack, his acting out is typically caused by being tired, not wanting to go to daycare, and a lack of choice andcontrol in certain situations (especially getting dressed). Wheeler is less prone to tantrums. Unpreparedness was analyzed by looking at common errors (what is typically forgotten or forgone). There are three general categories of missing items: out of sight items, atypical items, and lower priority items. Out of sight items are wallets, phones, and badges that are forgotten when they're stored out of sight. There is a bag on the table by the door with items that need to be taken but sometimes a key item is left in a different place (on a high shelf out of reach of the kids or in a coat pocket). When this occurs, those items are more likely to be forgotten. Atypical items are items like diapers, wipes, and extra clothes that need to be brought to daycare only when requested, as opposed to every day. The daycare sends a note home when these items are needed. Lower priority items are items that are intentionally sacrificed because of a lack of time, for example not making a sandwich for lunch because we're running late. Finally, time delays were analyzed quantitatively. Since time delays also impact unpreparedness and stress levels, this is to some a degree a summative assessment of the entire morning process. In all cycle time tables, time is in minutes. Horizontal lines depict a hard stopping point where no one can proceed until all activities above the line are complete. Yellow highlighting denotes a time that has been impacted by and accounts for quality issues. Available time in the current state is 45 minutes: parents wake up at 5:00am and need to be in the truck by 5:45am.First, cycle time was calculated assuming no quality/reject issues. Table I shows these calculations with a cycle time of 61 minutes, 56 of which occur the day of, which is already beyond the 45-minute available time even without accounting for rejects. Jenni Cycle time Tank Time our coffee Original uck clothen 38 Day 1 Cycle time, total Next, quality issues were taken into account in cycle time and the specific process elements with quality issues were visually identified in table II. Janni Cycle time Dury O Pour coffee Accounting for quality Jack hygiene lack clothes 87.12 Cycle time, Botal The next table, table Ill, also adds in waiting time. For example, it doesn't make sense to wake the boys earlier than necessary so Andrew doesn't pick their clothes out as soon as possible; instead he waits a few minutes until it's almost time to wake Jack. This waiting time is somewhat complex because typically waiting time is clearly and completely muda, or waste, but in this case it does add some value. When we wait for something (the coffee to be ready, the bathroom to be available, etc) we often spendtime with the boys and that may help to improve their moods, thus decreasing stress. In that sense it is a value-added activity. How much value it adds, and whether it adds enough value to make it worthwhile, is difficult to assess. Because of the difficulty in measuring and quantifying any possible value added, it will be assumed for this analysis that the waiting time is entirely muda. The waiting time creates a lack of evenness and drumbeat. Jenni Section Cycle time Tank Time Puck 10 mesa] Accounting for quality and waiting fever our coffee uck hygiene lack clothon 62.12 Day 1 Finally, table IV draws attention visually to the "low-hanging fruit" of quality issues and wait time, which represent muda (waste) and mura (unevenness). This is not to say that other areas of the process cannot be improved; just that these are the improvement opportunities identified through this method of analysis. TABLE IV. CURRENT STATE CYCLE TIME WITH MUDA AND MURA IDENTIFIED Jenni And Tank Cycle time Tank Time Pack Dwy D 10 Start truck 10 Wait Opportunities forimprovement Four coffee 10. Pick out boys' dothes 45 10 lock dothan thanlar hyrione/ dothes 7.02 15 03 15 ST.12 Cycle time, totalEach of the above analyses constitute a piece of the overall picture; solving the problem requires integrating all the information to identify the true root causes. The first root cause of the problem, addressing time, is a lack of evenness; morning tasks could be distributed between Andrew and Jennifer in a far more even way, which would eliminate significant waiting time. This becomes clear when looking at tables 3 and 4 and seeing that Andrew has almost 25 minutes of wait time and Jennifer has over 5.5 minutes of wait time. The second root cause of the problem, addressing stress caused by the boys' temper tantrums, is fatigue, the desire by the children to remain in bed or at home, and a lack of choice and control. There are many other factors that contribute to toddler behavior that are not within our control, such as developmental changes, and it should not be assumed that "acting out" can be eliminated entirely; these behaviors are a normal part of early childhood development and should be viewed as a behavior to be managed and addressed but not a behavior to be eliminated. The third root cause, addressing unpreparedness, is caused by an insufficient organizational and management system. The only quality issue not addressed in the above analysis is Jack's hygiene. These quality issues typically manifest as potty training challenges, Jack not wanting to wash his hands, not wanting to stop washing his hands (playing in the water), Jack wanting to play with his toothbrush instead of brushing his teeth, or Jack not wanting to leave the bathroom, all of which tend to result in disproportionately intense emotional responses on his part. These emotional responses are better addressed as part of a long term parenting strategy as opposed to a lean process analysis.Each of the above analyses constitute a piece of the overall picture; solving the problem requires integrating all the information to identify the true root causes. The first root cause of the problem, addressing time, is a lack of evenness; morning tasks could be distributed between Andrew and Jennifer in a far more even way, which would eliminate significant waiting time. This becomes clear when looking at tables 3 and 4 and seeing that Andrew has almost 25 minutes of wait time and Jennifer has over 5.5 minutes of wait time. The second root cause of the problem, addressing stress caused by the boys' temper tantrums, is fatigue, the desire by the children to remain in bed or at home, and a lack of choice and control. There are many other factors that contribute to toddler behavior that are not within our control, such as developmental changes, and it should not be assumed that "acting out" can be eliminated entirely; these behaviors are a normal part of early childhood development and should be viewed as a behavior to be managed and addressed but not a behavior to be eliminated. The third root cause, addressing unpreparedness, is caused by an insufficient organizational and management system. The only quality issue not addressed in the above analysis is Jack's hygiene. These quality issues typically manifest as potty training challenges, Jack not wanting to wash his hands, not wanting to stop washing his hands (playing in the water), Jack wanting to play with his toothbrush instead of brushing his teeth, or Jack not wanting to leave the bathroom, all of which tend to result in disproportionately intense emotional responses on his part. These emotional responses are better addressed as part of a long term parenting strategy as opposed to a lean process analysis.One key requirement to achieve flow in this process is to enact effective change. Change is difficult for any organization but like everything else, it becomes even more difficult when children are involved. It will be important in the transformation process that the children understand what changes are happening, why they are happening (at an age-appropriate level), and how the changes will happen. The children must understand first that the change WILL happen. One lesson learned in teaching is that you never ask a child whether they want to do something, because you have no good way out if they say no. Instead of saying "won't you please do this" or "would you like to do this", you instead give two acceptable options, "Would you like to do it this way or that way?" This also empowers them, involves them in the change, and helps to propagate the cultural change among all participants instead of just having mom and dad change and dragging the children along. Children also need to be prepared for the change and excited about it. If the children's clothes will be picked out the night prior, they need to be involved in that change and excited about that change. It also needs to be established from the start that these are the clothes they will be wearing the next day, and there are long-term effects (not necessarily negative) based on their decisions now: if they choose outfits A and B tonight, they will be wearing either outfit A or B tomorrow. While change involving children is typically more difficult, one should not discount the difficulty in inducing transformational change among adults. The plan must be clearly communicated and both adults need to a) accept that there is going to be a change and b) buy into that change. If one party changes grudgingly or does not agreewith the way the process is being changed, there may be failure. Further, this process represents a different dynamic than typical organizational change. In a typical organization there is a leader who decides there must be change, and that leader dictates to his or her subordinates that the change must happen in a certain way. In the case of this process, there is no leader or subordinate and both parties are equal, but the change is being driven more by one party than the other. More attention must be paid to interpersonal relationships here than would be required in a typical organizational change initiative. VII. Risks The biggest risk in changing the process is the possibility of the modified process being ineffective in key high stakes areas. For example, if the new process results in added time due to unexpected issues on a day where one of us has an important task or meeting first thing in the morning. A second related risk is the risk of changing the routine for toddlers. While these changes aim to reduce the stress and make mornings easier on both the children and the parents, any change can temporarily increase anxiety and stress for the children. VIll. Goal The primary goals are to reduce cycle time to equal or less than available time, to lower stress levels, and to increase preparedness. This will be achieved primarily through reducing muda (resolving quality issues and decreasing wait time) and mura (better distributing the workload between Andrew and Jennifer and working towardbetter drumbeat of effort). This will also be achieved through improved preparation, organization, and household management. IX. Recommendations One overall goal is to achieve flow. Flow requires eliminating push, reducing wait, and having one step completed just in time for the next step (when the next step is ready). The current process relies heavily on push, where a task is performed regardless of whether the next step is ready and participants rush through to perform certain steps and then sit and wait. The primary recommendation from this analysis is to redistribute the efforts to better balance tasks between Andrew and Jennifer based on time required. Preparing food is a task typically performed by Jennifer but it's the one that makes the most sense to move based on bathroom and kitchen availability, process order, and available time. This will require slightly more prep time the evening prior on Jennifer's part but will also reduce the time required in the morning and reduce associated wait time so overall it leads to decreased waste. See table V for the breakdown of anticipated cycle time for the proposed new process. Additional analysis tables can be found in Appendix B. Note that cycle time with no quality issues is assumed to be 41 minutes the day of, which is less than the 45 minute available time. Cycle time Time Day D Original co clothon 41 Day 1 54 Cycle time, totalA follow-on recommendation from this is to prepare morning snacks, breakfasts, and lunches the evening prior. This reduces required time in the mornings and also helps to reduce quality issues by performing these tasks without feeling rushed. Additionally, it will help minimize any quality issues potentially caused by transferring this duty from me to Andrew. Any non-refrigerated items can be placed in the tote bag that always comes with us and any refrigerated items can be placed in a designated section of the fridge. If there are items in the freezer, a card can be placed in the fridge directing the preparer to open the freezer as well. Taking this a step further, there could be a supermarket of snacks and lunches for the week. On Mondays (the day before our work week begins), several breakfasts and lunches could be made and placed in the refrigerated bin. There could also be a bin or other designated location in the pantry where snack choices are located. This would move much of the "night before" prep to weekends. Finally, the daycare slip listing items the children need should be placed on top of the tote in a visible location; this would serve as a reminder or verification in the morning that all required daycare items are gathered and brought. Often time this slip is placed in the tote bag, but it often ends up covered by snacks and other items and gets forgotten during the morning routine. These organizational strategies all contribute to improved quality and visual management. They help both adults see what is needed, what is packed, and what is missing. The next recommendation is to give more choice to the boys and empower them by allowing them to pick out their outfits the night before. This applies more to Jack than Wheeler and dressing Jack is the largest typical stressor, but it will still benefitWheeler by empowering him and involving him in the process of getting ready. Jack does not do well without choice and he also does better when he feels like the choice is his. This is a common trait for people of all ages; empowerment is an important aspect of successful transformation. We've tried dressing Jack while he's asleep; this backfires because if he wakes up and doesn't like the outfit he's in he gets very upset and frustrated. We've tried letting him pick out his clothes in the morning; this backfires because he tends to be indecisive in the mornings or picks out clothing that's not appropriate for the weather and because he's more sensitive in the mornings, he doesn't receive the outfit rejection well. Allowing the boys to pick out two outfits the night prior will move the activity to a time when their moods are typically better and still allows for freedom of choice in the morning when making the final decision between the two outfits. The final recommendation from this analysis is to use a whiteboard checklist, either near the front door or on the fridge. This contributes to visual management and again helps all participants to ensure that the required items are remembered. This checklist will have a list of all possible items, as well as a blank for atypical items (library books that need to be returned, items that need to be given to a coworker). Anything not needed for that day (ie. diapers or wipes) should be marked "N/A". X. Plan The plan for enacting change is to implement changes in two phases to minimize the undesirable consequence of overwhelming participants with too much change at an already stressful time of day. The first phase would change the infrastructure and thesecond phase would change the process. Specifically, the first phase of changes would include bins (supermarkets) for lunch in the fridge and snacks in the pantry as well as a whiteboard checklist. Shifting lunch prep to the night before will also happen as part of the first phase because it impacts only one participant and no other process steps. These changes should take no more than one week to successfully implement. At the beginning of the second week the process will change. The future state process is outlined in fig. 2 below and will be posted on the wall for the first week of the change so all adult participants can clearly see their role in the process; this will also serve as a reminder during initial incorporation of these changes to reduce the risk of quality issues caused by unfamiliarity with the new process and to help remove obstacles (lack of knowledge) that could prevent effective change. This remaining change will occur all at once, and not piece by piece, because any one change will impact all other steps in the process.Day prior: Day of: 25%% reject rate 23% reject rate Pack for Personal daycare, hygiene (brush Jack's hygiene prepare food teeth, hair, Ipotty, brush Jack clothes Let dogs In, and snacks dress, etc) teeth) feed dogs 12.3%% reject rate 10 minutes & minutes 8 minutes 5 minutes 4 minutes Jennifer Jennifer annifer ennlifer Pick out boy's' Shoes and Load truck clothes coats Ibags, food, coffee, kids] 4%% reject rate 1 3% reject rate 3minutes minutes minutes Jennifer Andrew Jennifer/Andrew ennifer Andrew Four coffee, Wheeler's Personal Make coffee, Start truck, let clean pot, pack hygiene hygiene [brush start brew cycle dogs out breakfasts, [diaper, brush teeth, dress, lunches teethl. clothes etc 2 minutes 4 minutes 10 minutes 5 minutes 0 minutes Andrew Andrew Andrew Andrew Andrew unch Fig. 2. Future State Value Stream MapThis future state VSM makes certain assumptions regarding rejection rates and quality issues. The majority of the current state rejection rates are relatively high so fairly significant quality improvements can be expected from these changes; typically, the better a process is the more difficult it is to improve and in this case the process is not very good right now. It is assumed that the three quality issues addressed in these recommendations (Jack's clothes, Wheeler's clothes, and prepping coffee and food) can be halved by the recommended process improvements. Since nothing is being done yet to address issues with Jack's hygiene, it is not expected that those quality issues will decrease. XI. Follow-Up These changes will require some time to fully implement and adjust to. Rejection data should be tracked and maintained to verify decreases in quality issues; if there is not a reduction of at least half within the next 6 weeks then the recommendations must be reassessed - are they not being followed, or are they not working? Six weeks gives enough time to both adjust to the new process and to collect sufficient representative data. Process timing should also be measured once weekly to determine whether cycle time is being decreased as predicted. Finally, stress will be re-evaluated at the end of week 3 and at the end of week 6 through conversations with participants. As a caveat, this analysis is based on what was the current process as of late September. There are significant process variations between summer and winter that must be considered going forward, and if continuous improvement is to be achieved then this process must be re-evaluated periodically throughout the year. The initialrecommendation would be to re-evaluate every 2-3 months. Already at the time of this writing, we now have to tend the fire before leaving for work which adds several minutes to the morning routine. During summer we don't need to warm the truck or put wood on the fire. When the wind blows, typically in fall and spring, we can only open one truck door at a time so the boys cannot be loaded simultaneously, thus increasing the time required to load everyone in the truck. Finally, as the children get older they have both more and less requirements; when Wheeler starts potty training this will add significant time to his portion of the routine, and as both boys get older and become more independent they'll be able to perform more tasks on their own without direct assistance. XII. Conclusion This analysis, while not of a typical manufacturing process, still addresses several key elements of the Toyota House. The recommendations empower people, promote continuous improvement, work toward achieving flow and heijunka and improving jidoka, and establish standardized processes with visual management. Fig. 3 illustrates the Toyota House; connections between elements of the House and elements of this analysis are shown in green text.Best Quality - Lowest Cost - Shortest Lead Time Best Safety - High Morale Through shortening the production flow by eliminating waste Just-in-Time People and Teamwork Tidoka Right part, right Selection -Ringi decision making (in-station quality) .Common goals Make problems visible Amount, right time .Cross-trained Not dividing duties Empowering children -Automatic stops Take time based on typical roles through choice *Andon .Continuous now -Person-machine Pull system separation Continuous Improvement Quick change Path forward .Error proofing .Integrated -In-station quality Logistics Waste Reduction -Solve root cause Reducing walt time, -Genchi Genbutsu Eyes for Waste of problem (5 Whys) Not competing tasks "(during data collection) Problem solving Prepping food and earlier than -5 Why's clothes in advance, necessary providing choice, whiteboard Leveled Production (Heijunka) Dividing and assigning tasks Stable and Standardized Processes Establishing and posting VSM Visual Management Whiteboard Toyota Way Philosophy Fig. 3. Relationship Between This Analysis and the Toyota Houselll Overall these recommendations have the potential to reduce cycle time to 41 minutes, which is anticipated to be 46 minutes with quality issues. This is just over the 45 minute available time but it is a significant step in the right direction and may also reduce stress and increase preparedness. This plan and the recommended follow up would be the first of many iterations in a cycle of continuous improvement