Obeya is Japanese term, 大部屋, which is directly translated as "big room" or “war room.”
Key Takeaways:
Obeya is a space, enclosed room or an open space where cross-functional team collaborates on specific issues are tackled for faster and better solutions or results. Collaboration is the key word. A recent innovation is digital obeya known as iObeya devised by KAP IT.
Obeya provides regular meeting to take place. Though, historically, obeya as originally implemented by Toyota during the development of hybrid car, Prius, was a temporary effort to work on a challenge (such as product launch, quality improvement, cost reduction) that was beyond what is ordinary, and terminates once the objective was achieved.
A team can be as small as 2 members but not more than 20, ideally between 6 to 8.
Obeya gathers relevant information which are in the form of visual charts which are analyzed to make decisions.
Before we start, make sure you register for this wonderful webinar hosted by Industry Week:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/industry-week-webinar-obeya-management-how-lean-daily-macpherson/?trackingId=cPsHPyT83JwJnHIwB7YQow%3D%3D
Understanding Obeya
In Lean Enterprise Institute’s Lexicon:
1 Obeya in Japanese means simply “big room.” At Toyota it has become a major project-management tool, used especially in product development, to enhance effective and timely communication. Similar in concept to traditional “war rooms,” an obeya will contain highly visual charts and graphs depicting program timing, milestones and progress to date, and countermeasures to existing timing or technical problems. Project leaders will have desks in the obeya as will others at appropriate points in the program timing. The purpose is to ensure project success and shorten the PDCA cycle.
2 Art Smalley, a former engineer at Toyota Motor Corp., said of obeya, “It implies a dedicated space for a specific problem where a group of team members will regularly meet to work on a specific topic for a given period of time. It involves work that is above and beyond the ordinary realm.” Similar concepts to obeya are already being practiced, he said, such as NASA’s mission control room, NFL’s prep room for draft, and even rooms dedicated for hostage crisis situations. Obeya has no set rules, whether an enclosed room, or an open space with white boards. According to Mark Reich, former general manager of the Toyota Production System Support Center Inc., obeya provides visibility of projects for progress tracking, “At Toyota, an obeya is a room where projects are made visible so the cross-functional team of people interacting on a project can visibly track progress.”
3 Sam MacPherson, executive director of the Lean Leadership Academy, said in an interview with Industry Week, that obeya is a dedicated space where team members collaborate to solve problems quicker and are more effective, with minimal organizational barriers. MacPherson compares TPS as the nervous system and Obeya as the brain of the system. In the obeya, the available information are synthesized, digested, analyzed, and prioritized to make decisions. To him, the big word is COLLABORATION. Without collaboration, a gathering of engineers does not qualify as obeya, nor a room full of eye-catching visual information.
4 According to Jamie Flinchbaugh, a lean manufacturing consultant, an obeya should be a place to hold people, information and decisions. He also said, “The process must make information visible with a high cadence of collaboration that is both defined by planned meetings and informal conversations, the purpose is to improve collaboration, alignment and speed of problem solving.”
So, obeya will be a big room with relevant visual charts and data to aid in communicating and understanding of a situation and problems. Perhaps a visual example would aid in understanding what obeya looks like.
Obeya in Timken Honea Path plant in South Carolina
What is the Focus of Obeya?
5 There is no right answer. But to give a headstart, we can learn from what Michael Balle focuses on three topics:
Customer complaints: every complaint from a customer is a fact that the product or service didn’t meet customer’s expectations. Obeya provides a space where customer expectations and definition of value are identified and understood.
Key performance indicators and improvement objectives: any team needs to know the score to win. A couple of KPIs (up to seven, more than that and people lose interest) would be measured to provide those scores. A3 problem solving project presentations by each team member would encourage collaboration across different functions by working on root cause of the problems and providing solutions.
Coming changes that will affect us all: on-going new product and new process development that should be integrated into work by cross-functional leaders.
CASE STUDIES
Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Inc. (TIEM)
6 TIEM calls their obeya “adrenaline room,” because they are challenged to go beyond just reporting what has happened to making a commitment to move forward based on the gathered and shared data. According to Tom Lego, Customer Center Manager, “… the most important lesson that we have learned is that regardless of the amount of data that you gather and place on the walls, nothing happens until someone is willing to do something or act upon this data.”
At TIEM, every team leader gathers information from the shopfloor and maintains a control board in his/her area. Those relevant information and metrics are shared in the obeya. Lego said, “By getting this team together, we hold each other accountable—not only for driving continuous improvement, but assuring that we are working toward these objectives in alignment with our Toyota core values.”
Executives attend the obeya meetings as advisors. Lego said, “They are there to offer suggestions and guidance, but their desire is to help build a management team that works together to take ownership of the current condition.”
The ultimate goals of obeya are to improve productivity and achieve continuous improvement goals. While they use many lean tools, being on the shopfloor to support their associates allowed them to understand the real condition and to improve collaboration to drive continuous improvement. Even with the availability of digital technology, most reports are hand-written using colored markers and pencils, because creating digital presentations add up to the time prior to reflect on the issue and act to improve it. 7 According to Scott Redelman, Senior Manager of Production Control and Logistics, “All the ways that we report are typically quite manual, and that's intentional. We have a lot of graphs, bar charts, line graphs, that are filled in manually in the room so that we build the culture ... the managers understand the data they are putting on the wall and reflect on where the gaps are and where we can possibly improve. During the meeting, there are a lot of times when somebody will handwrite on somebody else's chart ... or scratch an idea out or open some discussion--so it's not a reporting meeting, per se, it's truly a change the daily operations with adrenaline process."
Nike Europe
8 Nike started and implemented obeya through trial and error. At the start, they had no clear idea what obeya was, but they get going until they get closer to target through several iterations. They asked questions about their data, whether they are correct, in the right format, and even relevant to their stakeholders. Soon, their obeya became popular and even their key planning and review sessions were held there.
Nike got positive results, discovering that they actually make decisions more quickly and confidently, by coming together to tackle tough challenges and to move the ball through the field towards the goal line. But getting these results took time. they would stick daily operational issues on a wall to track them, for many months, until they see change and positive influence in how they solve problems.
Nike realized the greatest beneficiary of obeya is the people. Employees began to understand the importance of their work in contributing to Nike’s strategy and goals. Employees are also encouraged to experiment, and fail occasionally to learn from their experience.
Timken Shiloh Plant
9 Timken calls their obeya the operations center or command center. It is located in the middle of the facility where anyone can reach it within 3 to 5 minutes when needed.
Robert Porter, Operations Manager, emphasized that engaging first the leadership, from the top to team leaders, in learning and understanding lean principles, is critical to successful efforts that follow.
The way Timken operates obeya is cross-functional leaders meet thrice a day reviewing the plant’s performance and initiating countermeasures for any problem. Meetings are short, no more than 45 minutes in a day. Prior to the obeya meetings, production operators log data in their zone, which are then validated by team leaders. The group leader validates each team leader’s data and thinking before logging in the data to the obeya. So, there is a chain of command ensuring proper checks and balances. During these “touches” there are coaching and thinking processes that drive problem solving.
Even though obeya provides guidance and decision making, the goal is still to keep the problem solving at the gemba.
REFERENCES:
