Just when you think you know a thing or two about manufacturing, you get a call from a friend and have a discussion that blows your mind. “How did I not know this already!” That happened to me last week. It reminded me of Benjamin Franklin’s quote: “The only thing I know, is I know nothing.”

The call came from my friend and mentor Paul Akers. He said “Brad, have I told you about Henkaten?”

Before we dive into that definition, let’s first unpack the number one thing in your plant causing all your hard earned cash to fly out the window. And the worst part, you don’t even know it.

Cash killer
One word: DEFECTS. Defined as anything that the customer is not willing to pay for. This could be scratches, dents, parts cut wrong, dropped, chipped, things that don’t fit, questions (yes, a question is a defect), wrong material, machines breaking down, deviation from standard, and that’s just from the shop floor.

What about the hidden factory (your office)? Wrong site measures, questions between engineering and project managers, incorrect drawings, searching for information, email chains due to poor explanations, the printer getting paper jams, and incomplete package hand-offs.

What about when you get to a job site? Did you have everything you needed on the first trip? Are you constantly having to make miracles happen because of mistakes from the shop?

I feel like I could go on forever, but you get the idea.

App tracks defects
At my company we use a lean manufacturing software called Kaizenify.app that tracks all our defects, and the system reports on all of them with frequency and cost. Let me tell you, we had no idea how much we were spending.

In one year we learned defects were costing us $500,000 per year. My heart almost stopped. However, that’s not what needed to stop. It was the defects! But how? It seemed like a never-ending barrage of problems — everyday. Like most real solutions, the answer is so simple I could hardly believe my ears. 

Insert Henkaten
Then we learned about Henkaten, which is Japanese for “change point.”

Toyota learned that almost all defects come from something changing. And they were able to put everything into four simple categories. 

• Man
• Machine
• Materials
• Process 

When you look at the root cause of almost all your defects it will fall into one of these categories, but now what? That is only as good as looking into the rear-view mirror. We don’t want to just categorize defects; we want to fix them! 

If you do the following, it will be like having a crystal ball and looking into the future, solving problems before they happen.
I hope everyone reading this is already doing a morning meeting, if not, oh boy, we need to get you going on that ASAP. Perhaps this can be the catalyst that gets you started.

Dedicate five minutes of your morning meeting to include Henkaten. Simply ask the questions to the team, answer them, and don’t stop there, the magic is in the application of a countermeasure before the day starts.

Here are some examples: 

Man (or Woman) 
QUESTION: Has anything changed with our personnel? 
ANSWER: yes, its Mike’s first day today, and he will be working on the band saw.
COUNTERMEASURE: OK team, who will be shadowing Mike today to ensure he knows the standards and can follow them? He will need lots of support and encouragement.

Machine
QUESTION: Has anything changed with any of our equipment today? 
ANSWER: Yes, we got a new robot installed today and maintenance finished the repair to our saw last night and reported the measuring system is fixed. 
COUNTERMEASURE: Ok team, we all know robots can make perfect parts but also perfect defects if we don’t catch them. QC, please execute a 100% inspection on all parts coming off the robot, stop and get help if you suspect something isn’t right. On the saw fix, John, before you celebrate, let’s take the time to manually measure parts for the first couple hours today to ensure the system is functioning, when you’re confident it’s working, switch to periodic checks for the rest of the day. 

Materials
QUESTION: Has anything changed with the materials we are using today? 
ANSWER: Our usual glue wasn’t available so our supplier gave us a substitute, they said same glue, just a different brand. 
COUNTERMEASURE: OK, our supplier has proven to have a track record of being right. However, we should take the time this morning and do some quick testing before we start to run it in production. 

Process
QUESTION: Have we modified any standard work processes? 
ANSWER: Yes, we found a better way to do some sanding yesterday. We created a new SOP and expect the new process to be active today. 
COUNTERMEASURE: OK, great news. Tim and Kyla, that affects your department. Be aware of the change, review the SOP together before you get going today. 

Another defect
Can it really be this easy? Absolutely. Work this into your morning routine and watch defects disappear. 

I can hear it already: “We don’t have standards to follow.” That’s a defect too. When a defect occurs, you need to ask: 
What's the standard? If no standard exists, create a standard work document.

Was the standard followed? If yes, identify the faulty step that allowed the defect, then correct and update the standard. If no, re-enforce the need to follow standard work.

Need a helping hand,? Feel free to reach out, and we will do our best to help in any way we can.