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This podcast offers business solutions to help listeners develop and implement action plans for lean process improvement and implement continuous improvement projects, cost reductions, product quality enhancements, and process effectiveness improvement. Listeners come from many industries in both manufacturing and office applications.
Patrick Adams 0:04
For what a company would really experience with a supplier and a customer and and all these things. I mean, what did you see, as far as that goes,
Andy Olrich 0:13
he had all of these real world scenarios plugged in and, like you said, the supplier, but what he built into it is depending on what the team selected that would then bring in or take out some complexity when it came to the crunch their times and the quality certainly reflected that there's a bigger picture there to look at.
John Dyer 0:30
Still, I would highly encourage you to attend, bring your whole team with you and use this day as a great learning experience. I'm not sure you can get this same level of learning in any classroom or any plant tour or any you know keynote speaker or workshop. I think this is very unique. You
Patrick Adams 1:00
John. Hello and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast. This is a special episode because I was able to sit down with two people who were part of the lean excellence World Championship this year at the Lean Solution Summit, both John Dyer and and Andy Ulrich who were part of the competition, John actually put together all of the intricate details, the creative solutions, the the challenges, everything that went into this, this particular competition, John Dyer put all of that together, and then he actually facilitated the competition for the second year in a row. Andy Ulrich was one of our judges during the competition, and he did an amazing job and just worked his way around to all four of the teams that were competing against each other. Gathered a lot of really, really great information. So I'm excited for you to listen in as I interview these two individuals who took a huge part in the competition this year and just talking about the details, the learnings, the challenges and what we have in store for next year. So enjoy this episode of the lean solutions podcast. So Andy, you had the opportunity to experience the Lean excellence World Championship. In fact, you not only experienced it, you were involved. You were a judge. You were able to kind of work your way around and meet with all four teams that were competing against each other. Tell us a little bit about your experience at the Lean excellence World
Andy Olrich 2:30
Championship. It was so much fun. I was here last year and got to watch the competition, but yeah, being a judge was a was a whole nother level. It was so much fun just seeing how the teams were getting thrown into the challenge, and just the many different ways that they were working together. I just the way that the thing that probably stood out the most for me was, although they all had the same challenge, there was some quite different ways that they approached some of the things like the process mapping and some of those other activities. So it was really interesting how they were kind of getting through the same steps, but they might have moved the orders around, and just some of the different approaches. Just shows how broad this, this continuous improvement place could be, depending on where you come from, or what tools and things you like to use, especially under pressure. So I was doing really well to it's hard for me to sometimes not talk, believe it or not, so that's the other challenge for me. Was I had some really great notes, some scoring material that we had to run through some of the categories, and I wasn't allowed to speak to the teams. I could speak to the hosts, and they're looking at me and wondering, who's this guy with the board, and he's just looking and not saying anything. So it was so much fun, but it was just such a great thing to be a part of. And you know, when it came down to the winners, there wasn't much in it, so it was a tough job. Yeah,
Patrick Adams 3:54
so when you, when you started kind of go moving yourself around and watching how each of these teams were working through utilizing Lean tools and just working together, team dynamics. Everything Did you see like when they went to apply a lean tool of sorts? I mean, was it applied the same every time? Did it? Did it? Was it a lot different when they were under pressure? I mean, what did that look like? Did you see some different things that you had never seen before? You
Andy Olrich 4:23
know? Yeah. So I touched on it a bit, but yeah, it was really like when they kind of pushed into that corner and they fell back on their their tried and true tools and systems. But there was a couple of teams, one of them that only met to get each other for the first time that day, that's right. So there was a little bit of back and forth around, oh, well, we're going to use this tool. Let's do some 5s and then someone said, Oh, we do 3s right? And then it was like, Okay, well, we'll do it like this. And just a little the little nuances on how, as I said, how they've done it previously. It was really cool to see that. But they would have to that be, that team dynamic, as you said, that they would have to kind of work together. There was. The team lead that would kind of bring the team together and say, right, well, here's some ways we could do it. What do we think now? So we can get going and apply what's going to work? So yeah, there was lots of things like standard work and and, and those foundational tools methods, but yeah, just the application of and some of the, some of the teams actually had to get someone to draw it or write it down. They're like, I think I know what you mean. Write it down and then they'll have a bit of a bit of a look and go, Okay, so yeah, it was quite fascinating, as I said, to see they're trying to work through the similar steps and processes, but there's quite a few different ways they were trying to slice and dice it, but yet, in the moment they can't, they just said, look, but you're gonna have to stick with something. So let's just go and give it a try, and let's see what happens and and even between the rounds. So they had a round where they they had to execute, and then they had some reflection, and then they went again. Some of the tools changed quite a bit. Either wasn't connecting well enough with the team, or they worked out that, you know, you that type of tool probably didn't work. Let's try something else.
Patrick Adams 5:59
Yeah. What did you see as far as like challenges like that each of the teams faced? Did you see any specific challenges that that were a little bit more difficult for the teams to accept and be able to continue forward, that they had to, like, really work through?
Andy Olrich 6:15
Yeah, so that it was a masterpiece how John Dyer had designed this game and set it up, but when they're in the moment, one of the key things they needed to do was to engage the customer. Get the voice of the customer, sure, and they, I won't give it too much away, but if they engaged with that customer more, they would get more specific feedback, which would get them closer to the quality requirements that they needed to meet. If they kind of said, Oh, hey, quickly. Just tell us quickly what what you want. And I had some feedback from some of the customers saying, well, they only asked me one question and walked away that came back to grab them when they're putting these things up for the customer to do the QA check and approval, and they were just saying they were getting the same back. They're saying, No, it doesn't meet the spec. Send it back. Whereas the others who had engaged and gone through that to make sure that they were not only speaking to the customer, but the teams that really got going well, they were documenting that. They were writing it up on a board, and then they were able to then get and look at the suppliers as well, and go, Well, is this supplier going to meet these requirements? So again, they were getting dazzled a bit in the tools. Some of them, instead of Hang on a second, who are we making this for? Right? We should ask them. So that's where I found it was really great. Like some of the teams, as I said, that the ones who got going well and met the spec sooner, they really engaged deeper with the customer. The other ones who just got into trying to get into the technical and and let's just get busy and look busy. No disrespect to the teams, like I felt sorry for them. They were really thrown into the challenge, but that, just again, that totally gave them that realization that, yeah, we need to talk to the customer a bit more before we get too carried away,
Patrick Adams 7:56
right? And it seems like what you're explaining. And obviously I was there, so I was able to see a lot of this, but for those that are listening in that we're not there. I mean, it seems like John did a great job at making this as realistic as possible for what a company would really experience with a supplier and a customer and and all these things. I mean, what did you see, as far as that goes? Obviously, you just explained kind of the voice of the customer and the power of that. But what about other things that may be like from a supplier standpoint, that were really interesting to watch and so closely related to the reality of what we really experience? Yeah,
Andy Olrich 8:33
as I said, it was a masterpiece, the way John, I said to someone, oh, he's just slammed the trap shut, like he had all of these real world scenarios plugged in. And like you said, the supplier, for those who weren't there or haven't seen it before, they built into the system that there's two suppliers. One was a was known as high quality, and the other was a cheaper price. But what he built into it is depending on what the team selected, that would then bring in or take out some complexity. So if they went for the just for the cheapest price, that was fine, but the materials would turn up sometimes not on time, or they'd be mixed in with all lots of other things, or they'd have an issue with it. And when they went back to see the supplier, he had an out to lunch sign up, so showing that real world supply chain issue, if you get the cheapest price, the service delivery is usually missing, whereas if they went for the more premium or the more cost impactful supplier, when they had an issue, they could actually get and talk directly to the supplier, and they would act quickly. They would get the materials turned up right the first time, even sorted into the right mixes for the products that they needed to make. So yeah, he really, supply chain is such a challenge. And yeah, if they just went in and it's all about the check. Cheapest price, they learned pretty quickly that there's a bit more to it. And there was a couple of teams going. I knew we shouldn't have gone for the cheapest price. We should have paid that little bit extra, which they had to do in time. So if they went for a higher service level, it would be five seconds added to their time, those sorts of things. So yeah, it really nailed home, as I said, Voice of the Customer, the importance of being connected to the customer value, but also when it comes to your critical upstream and downstream of your supply chains, that's a really key consideration as well. So anyone who just jumped in and was all about the tools and and looking smart from a lean perspective when it came to the crunch their times and the quality certainly reflected that. There's a bigger picture there to look at, right? So the
Patrick Adams 10:49
other question that I had was, at the at the end, did the result? Did the outcome of the competition surprise you, based on, you know, the time that you spent with all the teams, or do you feel like you kind of knew, as things were moving along, who was going to be the winner of the competition?
Speaker 1 11:08
Yeah, I'll be. I'll sit on the fence here a little bit. It was hard, because when I when I first got going, I was looking at some teams going, Oh, wow, these guys, yeah, sorry, but I just doesn't look good. But then come to the second round, as they sort of work through the scenarios that John had built into the system, and then having the suppliers and the customers played fantastic roles as well. They really jumped in and went along with the with the program, the teams that actually reflected well as a group, took down notes on lessons learned, did some Kaizen and added some things in their performance in the second round was the team that came dead last was actually the first team to get a quality product through, that's right, the second round. So their their improvement by the numbers, was far greater than those initial teams, and it was really close, like there was only two points separating, first and second. After all that, yeah, it was just really fascinating to see how some teams that we thought were just absolutely underwater, and this one team actually hadn't, as I said, they'd only met each other for the first time and and a couple of them were from Alaska, and their flights didn't get in till 930 that morning. All this sort of crazy stuff that was going on do. On. Gee, they really, they really pulled together and shone that second round, and they put the others right under the pump. They were pretty nervous. They were thinking that they were miles away. And then, oh, here they come. So, and that's it, right? The teams that can pivot, you know, get together as a group and reflect well, and put in some some problem solving and some solutions. And give it a go. They nearly caught him in the finish. Yeah, yeah. It was a lot of fun watching everything kind of work through. And the the outcome was, I think it was surprising to me, because, to your point, it maybe, in the beginning we thought maybe there was some, you know, going to be some winner in some some teams that stood out. But it definitely got really close towards the end. And I was, you know, when team Gentex won it. I was, I mean, I all the teams did great, and I wasn't sure that they was interesting to me to see that. I mean, they did amazing, and every team did so good, and every team has had its own kind of points that stood out in the competition. But would you say, like, next year, Team Gentex comes back to kind of
Patrick Adams 13:35
defend their championship, if you were talking to other teams out there right now that were like, Oh, this sounds a little interesting, the lean excellence World Championship. Should we compete? You know, this is a team of six people that come from each company, or, you know, could be different industries, whatever it might be, but six people that compete against four other teams of six people. So if Gentex was coming back next year and they're going to defend their championship. What would you say to those that are like kind of thinking about coming and actually trying to win the Lean excellence World Championship?
Andy Olrich 14:10
I'd say, definitely give it a go. What do they say when the hunter becomes the hunted? So they've won, and they were pretty happy, but I think they know, yeah, there's someone coming for them. So it will be different next year. The scenario will be different every year. We change it up. But yeah, I strongly encourage you to come and give it a go, buy into it, because you have a chance, regardless of what industry you're from or what sort of skill level it was more around the team dynamic and how well they could connect with a customer and the supply chain certainly wasn't all about the technical, technical tools. So give it a go. You will have a ball, and you will learn through doing the whole way through. So that was the main bit of feedback I got from the team. So we kind of do this stuff, or done a bit of that, but oh well, didn't we just walk through the door and everyone had a bit of fun? Yes, there can be only one. Know, but as you said, everyone else, that was, it was a sensational effort. It
Patrick Adams 15:04
was, yeah. Andy, I so much appreciate you coming all the way from Australia to be at the summit and then be a judge in the competition. We appreciate your involvement, and look forward to having you back next year. Would love to do that. Thanks. Mike, well, hello, John. It's been been a little while since we saw each other last at the 2025 lean Solutions Summit. How are you doing?
John Dyer 15:29
I'm doing great. It was a great conference. I enjoyed being there.
Patrick Adams 15:34
Well, we enjoyed having you on. This was the second year that we've had you back. And obviously, you know there, there's reason why we invite you back every year, the the workshops, the competition, the speaking opportunities that people just love to hear from you. They love to get involved with your workshops. And you know, the workshops themselves are always super creative. I mean, you have, like, a knack for just putting putting the right hands on activities with the right material, and the learnings are just amazing. So thank you for what you do, for all of the those that are attending the Lean Solution Summit. I
John Dyer 16:15
appreciate that. I enjoy it. I enjoy seeing those aha moments when people, you know, it's one thing to explain something to someone, but when they get a chance to do some sort of a hands on activity, and all of a sudden, it's like, the light bulb goes off, and then they internalize it, because they'll never forget that, Right? They'll never forget that activity, it'll be like, Oh, this is when we did X, Y and Z. You know, five years ago. That's when I finally got to see what this concept was really all about.
Patrick Adams 16:53
Yeah, so true. I mean, everybody learns in different ways, right? But there's just something different when you can take a simulation or some kind of a hands on activity, combine that with what you're learning in the classroom, and it's just like the light bulbs start to go off, and you're it makes sense. And then I love, you know, from there, then you take it out to the real world, and you're like, Okay, remember that concept, remember that simulation? Now, let's go apply it in the real world. And, you know, that's when the learnings, really, you know, are solidified.
John Dyer 17:23
Yeah, exactly, and, and really, that was the genesis of the idea for the Lean competition. Yeah, you know, we've all been to a lot of different conferences, and there are, you know, some similarities from conference to conference. And I remember when you and I first spoke about this concept, and it was like, you know, is there something new, something different, that we can do to help people learn and internalize what they're seeing from the workshops or what they're seeing on the plant tours, and it was like, Boy, wouldn't it be really cool if people could see teams in action. You know, actually see different groups of people attacking a lean problem in various ways. You know, there is no one right answer, but when you've got four teams of six, you know, lean, experienced people attacking a particular problem, it's very interesting to see how they approach it, how they work through it as a group. What kind of ideas do they come up with? How do they try those ideas before getting into the actual production run and then seeing the results of their of their labor? It's amazing. What you can learn by observing four different groups doing
Patrick Adams 18:58
that. Yeah, absolutely. And for those that are listening in that, that, you know, don't know anything about the Lean competition, we'll, we'll, we'll explain some details of it. But the, you know, one of the rules is that all of your thinking has to be made visual. So, you know, there's, there's some, you know, whiteboards, there's some butcher block paper on the walls. And, you know, I think one of the requirements this year, John, that you made was they, they had to have a process map, and that was actually part of their scoring,
John Dyer 19:29
correct. That's correct. Yeah, last year they did an as is process map. This year we focused on the to be or future state process map, because they were designing a production system from scratch this year, so it was really important for them to understand what were all the elements that they needed to capture and put it into a diagram that would then help them set their production system
Patrick Adams 19:55
up. Yes, and it was pretty amazing to see the results. Of that, I'm going to ask you in a minute just about the different rounds and kind of what, what that looked like. But as far as the teams go, it was really fun to watch as the teams came together. I mean, lean Alaska, they they had a delayed flight, and they arrived like the morning of and with almost no sleep, and they just hit the ground running. They were ready to roll. That was pretty awesome. I remember team JCR off road. They ended up with one person short because of some some things that happened back at the at the job site, they had to leave someone back. But Tom from GEMBA docs jumped in from Ireland, and he's like, throw me in on a team. I'll, I'd love to be part of this. And, you know, so just like things like that, that, you know, where it was really fun to watch these teams come together that, you know, some of them were teams like, you know, Gentex brought, you know, a whole team from from their facility. Then we had other teams that were made up of, like, lean Alaska had, you know, people from all over the US that were coming in, military members and things like this. And so it's kind of fun to see how those teams came together, right?
John Dyer 21:07
Oh, yeah. It's been fascinating. You know, each team consists of six people, and between the two years that we've done this, it's been very interesting to see the various makeups of those teams, right, and how that benefits them and how that might hinder them, right? In one case, we had a team that was made up of almost all shop floor employees, and they did an amazing job of analyzing the problem, you know, really digging into it. This was in the first year, but where they fell short was that they didn't spend enough time with the customer. And that was a big aha moment for them. And, you know, as shop floor employees, they were like, wow, we now understand why it's so important to know what our customer needs are, even if it's the internal customer, because, you know, that really hindered our ability to get good product out the door. One other team was made up of six continuous improvement professionals, and that was very fascinating, because for the first half of their planning time, all they did was argue with each other. Too many chefs in the kitchen there were there was no leader, so they all thought they had the answer, and so they just kept pulling in different directions. And then once they realized that half their planning time was gone and they had not accomplished anything. That was their wake up call, and they finally got on the same page and started pulling in the same direction, and ultimately ended up winning that first year, yeah, that first year, yeah, it was awesome to watch that absolutely. So that's one of the things that's fascinating
Patrick Adams 23:01
phase, the norming phase, right? You can kind of watch that happen in real time. It was exactly amazing,
John Dyer 23:08
because there's, there's, you know, there's an element of pressure too. You know, you have the, you have the clock that's ticking during the planning phase. You know, everybody wants to win. They want to represent their their organization, and go back with the trophy. It's a very nice, very well designed crystal trophy. So yeah, there, there is some pressure involved, and you definitely see those four phases very clearly throughout the planning session, absolutely.
Patrick Adams 23:39
So walk us through the the rounds, or the, I guess, the high level structure of what these teams experience when they're part of the competition, right?
John Dyer 23:50
So this year we had a brand new production system. You know, the first year we gave them a broken production system that they then improved upon. This year, we gave them a piece of Ikea furniture. And anybody who's put together Ikea furniture knows that there are a lot of steps involved, a lot of pieces involved. So it was a nightstand that we had found that had, you know, a drawer and a door and several, you know, shelves. So it was pretty complex. And so we gave them a piece of this Ikea furniture with the instructions on how to build it, and they had three hours to put together a production system to build five of these as quickly as possible. Now we also explained to them that a few minutes before production began, we were going to take the instructions away, so they had to rely on visual management cues when they set up their production system in order to put this thing together, because they didn't have the instruction sheets to fall back. On. So it was really fascinating to see how each team approached this and how they, you know, used masking tape to tape off the tables to indicate, you know, where the screw goes on that particular piece of wood, and where that wooden Dow goes, and all these really, really great visual management cues. So, so they had three hours to plan this, to put the production system together. We threw a few curve balls at them, which we always do, you know, we want to make it interesting. So, like this year, they had two suppliers they can choose from. Both suppliers did an amazing job of trying to sell their wear wares to the various teams. Yes, and it was interesting. Two teams went with one supplier, and two teams went with the other supplier. So, so that gives you an idea of how how close they were now one supplier promised them a discount, a discounted price, and that could have been a bit of a red flag, plus, he was very slick in the things that he promised them, he was slick, yeah. And so, like I said, Two teams went with that supplier, and then they discovered during the production round that he didn't quite live up to all of their expectations. He was on break a lot. He the purchase order process was broken. When they opened the box of parts. It was full of beads that represented packing material, you know, those kind of things that you just don't think about when you're buying from a new supplier. So those two teams were pretty upset by by their choice.
Patrick Adams 26:57
And Interestingly though, John, one of the teams decided to stay with that supplier going into the final round. Isn't that, right?
John Dyer 27:05
Yeah. So that brings us to round two. So in the first round, they were asked to build five units as quickly as possible, and it had, there were a lot of quality criteria they had to meet. We had someone playing a customer, and she did an amazing job, and she checked over every cabinet very closely, like even, as an example, the door, you know, the door that went on to the Cabinet had four different adjusting screws to make sure it was nice and square. So we actually used a penny to check all the gaps all the way around the door, and it had to pass the penny test, or it got rejected, and the team had to go back and fix it. So that was in round one, and then we gave them, and they didn't know this going in, that there would actually be a second round, we said, All right, we're going to give you another hour, and then we want you to run your production system a second time, building five more units. And the criteria for the second round was, how much improvement can you make over the first round, right? So you know what percentage of and that's the whole idea of continuous improvement, right? And I got to tell you, all four teams did an amazing job of improving their process. The average across the four teams of improvement was over 40% improvement in the amount of time it took to build those five units. But yes, one of the teams that you're talking about that was using the poor supplier. They did a great job of analyzing their first round production system and discovered that the bottleneck was not the supplier. They actually had someone that was pretty good at sorting through the beads and finding the parts and making sure that that they got the parts soon enough, so that if the supplier went on break, it wouldn't impact them that greatly. So they decided to utilize their resources towards the bottleneck and break the bottleneck, and that allowed them to increase their production output significantly, and they ended up winning the second round. Yeah, because of that. So yeah, and a great lesson learned. And again, there's so many terrific lessons to be learned, right by observing this, but that was a great lesson learned that don't let your emotions just make your decisions for you. Instead, use data. Use real data, because I got to tell you, they were extremely ticked off at this supplier. Oh yeah, there were. They were thrown around, yeah, and they were ready to fire that supplier in a heartbeat. It, but when they looked at the data, it showed them that that was not the problem, and so they stuck with the bad supplier, and that ultimately ended up allowing them to win the second round.
Patrick Adams 30:13
Yeah, pretty amazing, and you talked about the learnings in observing. The cool thing about the Lean Solution Summit is that this competition goes on during the first day. It pretty much lasts almost the whole day outside of the keynote speakers. But participants or individuals who are attending the conference have the option to be able to go see a breakout during that time, or there's also time that when they can come and observe. And I was surprised, like a lot of people, started in that room, and they just stayed in there, because it was so intriguing to just move around to the different teams, talk to the judges, watch what was happening. I mean, it was just just an amazing case study of so many different things going on at the same time, right?
John Dyer 31:02
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was interesting to watch the observers, because several of them got their phones out and videoed parts of it or took pictures of parts of it so they could share that with their folks. Back home, I had several people come up to me during the actual competition, and they were like, wow, this is incredible. You know, how much we're taking away from from this, you know, observing the you know what to do, and in some cases, what not to do, because, you know, it's not smooth. You know, not all the teams are, are on a on a smooth schedule the whole time, right? So sometimes it's like, wow, that's something to avoid doing. But yeah, it's, it's a great learning experience. You know, you mentioned judges. We do have three judges. I think you spoke to Andy earlier. He was one of our judges. And so the scoring for the competition, like in this particular year, it was who made the five units the fastest. In round one, they scored a certain number of points. Who won round two scored a certain number points, and then how many points did each team get from the judges? The judges were had a scorecard that they were using, and they were looking at three specific areas, teamwork, creative thinking, and the proper use of the Lean tools so they could score a certain number of points in each of those categories. And I got to tell you, this year, the score was extraordinarily close between two of the teams. One of the teams won round one, one team won round two. So coming out of that, they were even. And then one team, the yellow team, outscored the green team by two points on the judges scorecard, and that's out of 185 Wow. So it was very, very close. So, yeah, yeah, but it was exciting, and it was very interesting to share the results at the end with the the teams. They were very, you know, excited about the the prospect of winning.
Patrick Adams 33:20
Yes, they were very competitive. Every team was very competitive in this and that's what also made it fun. It was a fun competition, you know, where there was some clean competition, little bit of fun trash talking, you know, between the teams, even among the teams, you know, just, just a really good time all around, but at the end of the day, the learnings that came out of that were just exponential. And, you know, I think about the the winning team, who just happened to squeeze by Gentex, they, they were, you know, just super happy. I mean, they were jumping up and down. They came up on stage and received their trophy. And it was, it was a pretty awesome moment, and even the other teams were super happy for them, because it was not an easy competition, right? It was, it was a long day. It was a lot of thinking. It was draining. It was even physically demanding for for a few of them. So, you know, overall, it ended up being just a, just such a great experience. You know, last year was amazing. This year was was just through the roof, awesome. Yeah,
John Dyer 34:26
and, and the other thing that made this year really special was that, you know, at the end of the day, we ended up with 40 of these nightstands from Ikea that were all built and and and past really rigid quality standards. So these very well built, I
Patrick Adams 34:46
know that my Ikea furniture at my house would pass the standards that we had set for these,
John Dyer 34:51
right, right? Oh yeah, every, every bolt was tested, you know, every, every scene was was checked. So, but at the end of the day. We ended up donating these 40 nightstands to a local charity, and they shared with us that the very next day, these nightstands were going to be in people's homes, yeah, which was very cool. So all that great work that these four teams did didn't go to waste. It actually resulted in, you know, 40 families having a new piece of Ikea furniture in their house.
Patrick Adams 35:28
Yeah, pretty amazing that, actually, I have to think back. I'm pretty sure that that was a suggestion from Mike. Rather, I think that after year one, he was like, you know, man, you guys are. We did cabs on year one, and then at the end of the day, we spent hours taking these all apart, loading them back up into the U haul. And he's like, man, if you could only come up with a way that you whatever you build doesn't have to be taken apart, but you can maybe donate it somewhere. And so that's what John you and I started putting our heads together around what that could look like. And I think actually, Mike introduced us to this particular nonprofit that ended up taking the donations, and now they're using them for transitional housing for individuals who are working themselves out of homelessness and working through some programs to get back into being a productive member of society. And so it's a pretty amazing cause. And at the end of the day, you know, the entire summit, everyone was able to be a part of that and and be able to kind of hand those over to this, this organization. So pretty amazing, right?
John Dyer 36:36
Yeah, and, and we're already starting to think about next years. You know, it's important that these competitions are different, right? They got to be different year to year. Every
Patrick Adams 36:47
year we got to think of something more creative, a little bit different, because we actually, we had one team that that returned, and that was zingerman. So Zingerman's was their first year, and then they came back with a returning team trying to grab that, that trophy. And so we do have teams that return, but also they, you know, obviously, there's lots of pictures and people talk about it. So every year we have to come up with something completely different, brand new that nobody knows. What are you thinking for this next year? Any any ideas that you can without giving too much away, any ideas for 2000 Yeah, you know,
John Dyer 37:22
I like the concept that we did last year of building something that we can donate at the end. So I think we'll stick with that. I'm not sure what, what that will be, you know, I don't think it'll be another piece of Ikea furniture, but, you know, something maybe similar. I think what I would really like to throw at the teams for next year is something to do with Kanban systems. You know, last year we really focused on visual management tools and techniques. And I think next year, I would really like to throw a couple of, you know, tough Kanban type scenarios at the teams and see what how creative they can be in coming up with, you know, a new, innovative Kanban approach. Like, you know, there, there are lots of Kanban systems out there, right? You got work weight boards. You've got two bin systems. You got, you know, video enhanced systems. So, yeah, I'll be thinking about that. You know, I can just envision trying to set up a production system that requires several steps, and saying that the only way that you can communicate from step to step is by the use of a Kanban. That'd be pretty interesting.
Patrick Adams 38:55
The other thing too, that I think is important to note John, is that while we are creating production systems. We also are incorporating some more administrative type of stuff, whether it's order entry or, you know, supplier relationships,
Patrick Adams 39:12
voice of the customer. You know, there's other things. So for those that are listening in and you say, Well, you know, we don't run a production facility, so that's not really for us? No, no, no, no. This is there are so many learnings that come out of this since that it applies no matter what industry you're in and if you are, if you happen to be in a government office or working for a nonprofit, you know, organization on the administrative side of things, whatever it might be, you know, think about this, because we're going to be putting a call out for teams for next year. And if you have a team of six that you think has what it takes to walk home with the trophy, we'd love to have you So John, anything else on that? Any thoughts on, on the administrative side of things, or how you incorporate? Maybe you know anything outside of production?
John Dyer 39:59
Yeah, right, yeah, no, I agree these, we try to make it as multi dimensional as possible, to incorporate lots of different aspects. So as an example, you know, we mentioned that the teams had two suppliers to choose from, so they had to do some supplier analysis type work. They had to do negotiations on price, because each supplier had different price points that they could utilize with the teams, depending on you know, how aggressive the teams were in trying to get a better price, we incorporated a supplier purchasing agreement process that they had to utilize in order to get their parts every every turn. So again, how well did they work with their suppliers to set up this supplier agreement process? And you know, how flawed was that? On the other side was the customer, you know, a lot of Voice of the Customer kinds of things, analyzing, you know, what the customer really needs, and incorporating that into their their system. So, so I agree that anybody can learn by going through this competition,
Patrick Adams 41:25
absolutely and so as I said, we're putting a call. Call out for teams. We only accept four teams every year to compete, one in each corner of the room. So if you think that you have what it takes, if you have a team of six that wants to come and compete in 2026 you can reach out to us. Send me a note. We'd love to
Patrick Adams 41:48
consider you and your team. You don't need to be experts in Lean. You know, this could be the first time some people on your team are learning about Lean. What Is there a better way than hands on? You know, the this type of activity to really drive home the learning points that are coming from the conference itself. So consider that if, if you're thinking about it, we'd love to have you in 2026 whether you're competing on a team or coming to observe and watch the competition, either way, you're going to walk away with a ton of really, really great learnings. John, any any last comments for anyone that's listening in and wondering if they should either compete or come watch the the competition at the 2026 lean Solution Summit,
John Dyer 42:31
right? Yeah, no, I agree with you, even if your team is not comfortable competing this year, they could very easily attend the conference as a team and observe what the teams this year are doing and and analyze that and it, I think that would be great discussion points, you know, off to the side, you know, as you're observing, you could be talking to each other about, Well, what do you think that team is doing? Right? What could they do better? What could we learn from what that team is experiencing, and then that might get you more comfortable to compete the following year. So even if, even if you aren't ready, quite ready yet to compete, still, I would highly encourage you to attend, bring your whole team with you and use this day as a great learning experience, because, again, I'm not sure you can get this same level of learning in any classroom or any plant tour or Any you know keynote speaker or workshop. I think this is very unique,
Patrick Adams 43:44
very unique, yeah, and I again, just want to thank you, John, for all the work that you put into to this. Every year. It just gets better and better, and the amount of time and effort that you put into it, your the way that you think through every little detail just really makes this one of the highlights of the lean Solution Summit. So thank you for all the work that you put into
John Dyer 44:06
it well. And thank you and your staff. I tell you, Danielle that works for you. She's terrific, and all I have to do is kind of verbalize an idea and she'll run with it and make it happen. So she's great to work with. But your whole, your whole group, is terrific to work with.
Patrick Adams 44:25
Appreciate that, John, well, we will see you in 2026 at the Lean Solution Summit. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai