GA 308 | Lessons Learned at Toyota with Andy Reith

By doing that, we are able to identify who has too much work, who doesn't have enough work. If a problem arises, where is that problem happening? And just try to isolate chaos of production into a more controlled manner so that once we get those things fixed, we can ramp up and let things flow.

Today I'm excited to welcome Andy Reith to the show. Now, Andy currently owns and operates a lean consulting company called Scioto Productivity Solutions. He's based out of Columbus, Ohio. Go Bucs. And today, Andy primarily works with small manufacturing companies. But as it turns out, his lean background, or I guess where he learned most about lean was, I believe it was over 10 years working at Toyota. And so during our conversation, we talk about his time at Toyota, about what he learned at Toyota, some of the leadership lessons he learned at Toyota, and how that's carried over to his work today. We then spend quite a bit of time just kind of talking about the challenges that these small manufacturing companies are facing, including a particular company in Maine called Origin. Maine. And they, they're a manufacturing company that makes gear for the jiu jitsu world. And so they make the GIs and some boots and some other things that folks in jiu jitsu need. And come to find out, Jocko Willink of the famous Jocko show is one of the owners of this company. And so we spent quite a bit of time talking about their journey. And yeah, shout out to all those folks over at Origin. Love to have you on the show too, if you're listening. So, yeah, Andy's a super humble guy. He knows so much. He can tell. But he's kind of a soft spoken guy and very, very humble and I really appreciated that about him. And I think you're gonna enjoy the show. So show notes for this particular episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 308. Again gembapodcast.com and look for episode 308. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Andy, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

All right, all right, all right. So we've got a really good discussion plan here today. Former. It's always good to have folks that used to work at Toyota on the show and hear all those Toyota war stories and then all the things you learn and how you're carrying those forward. But Andy, as you know, before we really get into things, we like our guests to share a quote. So do you have one?

Of course. And you know, I won't bore you with all the lead in because it's part of a fairly long quote, but it punctuates with Henry Ford saying, a man cannot be paid much for that which is to be wasted.

What's that mean to you?

Well, one of the things I've run into is I think there's a general. We, as leadership in manufacturing, do a poor job of explaining what is value. And of course, people want to make money. So if we can better explain to them, you know, how do you add value to the customer? That is what we can pay for. I think it really resonates with people to open up that. The understanding of, how am I going to get paid?

Exactly. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Well, I kind of let the cat out of the bag a little bit that you used to work at Toyota, but why don't you just tell us a little bit Indy about yourself, maybe about your background even before Toyota, and then, you know, and how you got all into this continuous improvement stuff and then. And then tell us what you're up to these days.

Okay. Well, you know, I grew up in rural Ohio. Basically no exposure to Toyota. I knew there was a car company called Toyota, but it wasn't any kind of part of my life. Growing up. My first exposure to the Toyota production system was actually in college. And I had a professor that was a former GM tool and die maker, and he decided that wasn't cut out for him. He went back to school, got his bachelor's, master's, and Then finally a PhD in mechanical engineering before he got into teaching a course on product development. And he was so positive about the Toyota production system and just how they do things that he felt that was important to include in his class. And just the way that he spoke so positively of Toyota, his enthusiasm for it really drove me into that direction. So shortly after taking the class, Toyota came to campus. I had the opportunity to interview with them, got the job offer. The rest is history at that point. That got me exposed into Toyota. I did that for over 11 years and part of the whole Toyota reorganization that they went through. A couple years ago, I decided it was my opportunity to get out there and try to help small American manufacturing companies take those Toyota principles and apply them and try to help their own smaller businesses.

I grew up in Greenville, Ohio, just close to Dayton. Where do you. Would you. Where are you from?

Oh, I was a small town called Shelby up near Mansfield.

Okay. All right. All right. And while I was snooping around on your website and saw Ohio State, so go Bucks. Oh, I o. That's awesome. Yeah. So let's see. Well, let's talk a little bit about. About your. Your time at Take at Toyota. How long were you there?

It was a little over 11 years. I started with what they called the engineering training program, and this was supposed to be modeled after, like, GE's Edison programs. A rotation with lots of training, which I definitely took for granted at the time, like, who I was exposed to, the training that I received, just the broad experience I was able to get. Actually, my first Toyota production system training was with Tracy Richardson.

Oh, yeah.

And, you know, doing the Land Cruiser simulation, all that kind of stuff. So I vividly remember that. And it was just a great experience. Experience.

So cool. So cool. Yeah. So I guess you were at the Georgetown facility then, right?

Well, so I started at the Erlanger, you know, North American manufacturing headquarters, and I was in production and some production engineering for assembly.

Okay.

So we were responsible for all the model changes, new plants, expansions for all of North America.

Okay, got it, got it. So talk about some of the big takeaways from your time there at Toyota. Like, what did you learn?

I think the biggest thing is the importance of leadership, and then specifically the Toyota principle of respect for people, just top to bottom. They had such great leadership and so many positions, and I was really fortunate to work for six or seven different managers during my time that all had their own unique strengths that I was able to pull from and try to incorporate into my own leadership style over time.

Give me an example, though, of, like, you know, respect for people. It's a question I used to ask on the podcast years ago, like, what does respect for people mean to you? But, I mean, you know, really, it's a. It's a easy to say respect for people, but golly, it can mean so many things. So, like, what does it mean to you, you know, from your time there?

The biggest thing that I will always remember is the downturn of 2008 and 2009. Yeah, they. You know, the plant that I was at at the time was Princeton, Indiana, and they decided to move all of the tundra production to Texas and also shut that plant down for two months. But during that two months, they paid everybody. There was no layoffs. Everybody was paid to come in, exercise, clean the floors, paint, do improvement, activities, whatever it was, there was guaranteed work for every single one of those people. My group specifically being production engineering, we had more work to do. We were looking at realigning production in different locations, budgets were being cut, those kind of things. So, you know, we Obviously had a lot of work to do, but they did not have to do that for all those people. And it just really stuck with me.

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. I mean you hear the stories of, you know, there's no work on the, on the, on production line but we go out and help the community or you know, go to the food kitchen or whatever it is. And yeah, you constantly hear these stories of Toyota.

Yeah. And just on a daily basis there's a great respect of, and professionalism and all the personal interactions. You don't, you know, never once in my time did I hear someone sworn at just everything was very professional and it's something that I try to help other companies understand. Like this will help your business to treat everybody respectfully. You know, they'll contribute more, they'll feel more part of that team.

So talk a little about just on the, on the, the geeky lean side, you know, of things, you know, like, like how did, how did you learn smed and whatnot? Like what, what was Toyota for? Some of the tools that we lean.

Folks use, you know, many of them aren't even referred to by name. It's not like we're going to do a SMED event here. Now maybe that was different. In like the stamping shops they would have those specific activities, Kaizen events they refer to as Jishkin activities. A lot of it is just the day to day work. The leadership is a mentoring environment. So especially as I got into entry level management positions, the expectation is that you work directly with subordinates on a close one, on one basis, as much as possible and guide them through things using just what's handed down to you. There's not a whole lot of those. This is this lean tool for this application and go at it, try to train people in that specifically. It's just walking them through by asking questions.

Well, yeah, this whole thing about Microsoft and Toyota Kata. I know nobody at Toyota calls them Toyota Kata, but that whole idea of scientific thinking and moving through the learning and thinking discovery process seems to be the way that they go about it.

Yeah, I actually held off on reading Toyota Kata for a long time and then when I did, I remember one of the early pages he specifically talks about if you ask a Toyota employee how they do things, they might not even be able to tell you. It's like you just do it. You can't necessarily explain it. It's just part of living in that culture.

Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. So. Well, I didn't even let you kind of finish your story. So you Know, you're out on your own running your own consulting business now, I understand. Is that right?

Yeah. I've been doing this for about three years now, trying to focus on smaller American manufacturing companies, you know, based in Columbus, Ohio, but doing a little bit of travel. I've done some work in Oklahoma. I'm up in Maine at the moment working with a client here, so. But really trying to focus on those places where it's just me as one person where I think I can help make an impact with smaller organizations.

Yeah. And the name of your consulting is Scioto Productivity Solutions. Is that how you say it?

Yeah, Scioto is a river, basically. My backyard in Columbus runs through Ohio. So keeping with the lean flow theme, Waves went with a river name there.

I like it. I like it. That's good. That's good. All right, so. Well, let's talk a little bit about small manufacturing companies. You know, it's a, it's a tough, it's a tough business. You know, small companies in general can be tough. So talk a little bit about, you know, what you've seen as far as challenges and, you know, obstacles to improvement that these folks are seeing out there.

Yeah, there's certainly unique challenges because a small company doesn't have the big resources or at least the perceived resources of the big companies. But they do have one distinct advantage, and that is that there's generally that tight knit family feel. It's. It's easy to feel like you're part of the team and a smaller organization as opposed to a large corporation where, you know, you're just an employee. So because it's that small group, there's an advantage on that relationship and then also how quickly they can get things done. You know, it always impresses me how essentially you can go from top to bottom, getting an approval or decision made in a matter of sometimes minutes. Yeah. Whereas, you know, bigger companies don't that advantage.

So while on your website, I was snooping around before we got on and there was a company featured there. I guess that's origin. Maine. Is that the name of it?

Yeah, they started as a jiu jitsu apparel company up here in Maine. And they've just got an incredible story. So it's been a lot of fun working with them. Yeah.

So tell everybody about that, about that company.

So I would encourage people to seek them out to get the full story because I do not do it justice. The guy that started it, Pete Roberts, has a great ability to tell stories.

All right, well, Pete, if you're listening, come on to the show, man. We get to hear your story.

Yeah, I might be able to make that happen.

Okay.

But essentially, he's a jiu jitsu black belt. And around 2011, he decided to start his own company, outsourcing the manufacturer of keys. You know, the Komodo, the heavy duty fabric that they wear when they're grappling. And for the most part, these are all made in Pakistan. So he outsources his design, waits a few months, Pakistan ships him a full truckload or whatever the order size is. And that's how he got the business started. Well, he was in, I think Abu Dhabi at this international tournament, and he saw another competitor wearing his design, but with a different company's logo on it. So, you know, he knew they were selling his design under the table to other companies. And at that moment, he said, getting American made cotton all the way through the finish. Good. It's all going to be 100% American products.

Okay.

So that was the impetus of what's. They're pushing 70 employees right now.

Wow.

And just growing almost 100% year over year. So it's. They have their own challenges because of that growth, but it's just a really difficult environment because of that commitment to American manufacturing.

Yeah.

The best example of that is when they got started, they realized there's no company out there making this fabric in America. So how do we get this fabric if we're committed to American manufacturing? And he ended up buying a loom out of a factory down in Lewiston, Maine, hiring an old timer, refurbishing it, getting up to speed, and then, you know, so he makes his own cloth now.

Oh, my gosh. Wow. That's incredible. So did they. When they. When you first engaged with them, did they have any idea about Lean or anything like that or how did. How did that come about?

Yeah, he had, you know, a basic understanding of Lean principles. Worked a little bit with, like, the main MEP program to get some of the basics. The way our relationship came about is Pete was on a podcast called Jocko Podcast.

Oh, yeah. Jocko willing.

Jocko is part owner of the company now.

Oh, wow. I didn't know. Okay, that's amazing.

So they have that relationship to both jiu jitsu black belts. And obviously Jocko's leadership consulting company, Echelon Front, is influential in how they try to train their leaders here and those kind of relationships.

Yeah, very cool. Well, talk about some of the lean success stories, not just at Origin Main, but some of the. Maybe some of the other clients. You don't have to use their names if you don't want to, or you can. But just talk a little bit about some of the. Some of the challenges and some of the improvements that you've seen.

Okay. So one of the great things about this is an origin specific example is there's no preconceived notion of how to do anything. A lot of this stuff is sort of ground up. Most of the employees are new to manufacturing in general, let alone like the most recent product they've launched is boots. So you know, they've got a couple people that can help with the general manufacture of boots specifically, but you don't have these preconceived notions or we've always done it this way. So everyone's very open to change and you get to start things from the ground up, focusing on lean tools. So one way we were able to do that with boots specifically is looking at the sales forecast and creating an actual TAK time, which seems crazy to us in the lean world, but a lot of companies don't even understand the concept of taktime, let alone apply it. So we were able to come up with attack time, get cycle time studies on all the different processes, apply those, use a yamazoomi chart or operator balance chart to try to level the workload amongst all the boot employees. So we were able to do that to set the lineup in a relatively stable manner.

Now, is the demand for these boots, is it consistent enough to have a reliable taktime, or does it vary?

Generally, all the growth has been upwards and faster, which is a great problem to have.

Yeah.

And they've got a very understanding customer base. The lead times are not where we want them to be. So there's a backlog. And based on hiring and different things like that, we've been able to stabilize how many boots per day we're targeting. But one of the things that we did to try to get all the employees to understand the concept of flow was when we were starting to ramp up boot production, I actually stuck a timer on the wall and set it at 25% above what the TAK time should be.

Okay.

So the understanding of the people was we know we can do the work in, let's say, 20 minutes. If we set the TAK time right now to 25 minutes, everybody agrees. We know we can do the work in that month. Right. Just to get their buy in so that they don't get that feeling that we're just pushing them for more and more and more. So once we did that, we started production and stopped every end of the taktime and did an evaluation and it was very difficult for the employees to be told once you finish with one pair of boots here, stop what you're doing and just sit there. Just completely stop. And it feels wrong. But by doing that we are able to identify who has too much work, who doesn't have enough work. If a problem arises, where is that problem happening? And just try to isolate the chaos of production into a more controlled manner so that once we get those things fixed, we can ramp up and, and you let things flow.

Yeah, yeah. What do you see within a small company as it relates to something like policy deployment? Hoshin Kanri. Or just strategy in general? Like how does that look in a small manufacturing company?

I haven't really seen it done well or at least been exposed to it that much. It seems like most companies really struggle to think beyond maybe six months, a year max to look ahead to. You know, where do we need to be, how many people do we need to hire, how do they need to be trained? You know, it's a lot of just sort of survival mode. How are we going to get through the next month?

Yeah.

And I'm really, I would love to hear suggestions as to how to break past that.

Well, yeah, just thinking out loud, I'm almost wondering and you know, some other lean folks at chime in on LinkedIn or whatever we'll put, when we put this up. But you know, maybe on a company like Origin, we're on this steady growth rate, you know, maybe it is okay to think about six month chunks at a time and maybe it's not appropriate to think about some five year big thing and you know, unless they, they want to, you know, I don't know, quadruple in size and become an acquisition type company. That's a totally different game. Right. You know, when you're going at it that way or, or if they hope to sell the company in three years, you know, that might be a slightly different approach. But if it just, hey, let's grow, let's, let's continue to serve our customers and get better at it. You know, maybe it is inappropriate to, to get all wrapped up in a big fancy, you know, you know, X matrix or whatever it is that you want to do with, with Hoshin, you know, so.

Yeah, yeah. As long as it is not just day to day firefighting.

Sure, sure.

It's better than that.

Yeah, no, no, for sure. Yeah. I mean, you know, obviously not every small company is on, you know, straight up growth, that type of thing, you know, that's that's a great problem to have. But, you know, hey, you know, five years from now, they might have 10 competitors. You know, American competitors, even you are better than they are. You know, as far as Lean and. And, you know, Gracie family gets into the game or something like that, I don't know, maybe they already are, you know, and it's like, next thing you know, whoa, what's going on here? So it'll be interesting to see what happens and follow their. Their story.

Yeah, and it's. It's great. The video you were mentioning previously, if you watch that section with JP Danelle. Yeah, I really thought it was great. He mentioned you are at war as a company. You don't have the same repercussions. You're not being shot at. But there are real negatives to failure. You're talking about people losing their jobs, the stress families will go under. If you're a big enough company, even the entire community just has a big negative impact. So I think a lot of times in Lean, we do encourage the positive and the positivity, but it's not all rainbows and unicorns. This is a business and it's a competition.

Yep. Well, one could argue that Lean as we know it today wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for a crisis, namely Toyota's crisis after the war. Right. I mean, that's how it was born, Right out of a crisis, out of a very bad situation. And they needed to adapt and grow and learn quickly. So, yeah, one could argue it's tough to do Lean when things are going well.

Yeah. And that's another thing I think that small companies could learn from is I really like to talk about the history of things, of the Toyota production system development, because there are so many parallels to the same problems that small companies have. So the birth of Lean book specifically, just I thought was great to talk about the nitty gritty struggles that they went through to develop that, because, you know, nowadays it seems like we get the sanitized version. Like, you know, these are the tools. This is what happened. It's very straightforward and linear. And the reality was it wasn't.

Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. A week or so ago, some of these guys get a little carried away on LinkedIn, and these guys claim they're the best lean people in the world or whatever. And one guy. Oh, oh, no. Didn't actually say this. And, you know, he didn't actually, you know, you know, draw circles on the floor and all. I mean, and then all these other people, you know, guys Jump in and are all arguing back and forth and I'm like, does it really matter, guys? You know, you know, like, what's the principle here? And does it, is it a sound principle? Use your common sense and quit wasting time on LinkedIn, you know, go to your own Gemba, you know, which isn't LinkedIn, you know. So, yeah, it's. Yeah, it's good, good, good and healthy I think to look back on history and try to understand where it all came from and why, you know, why.

Did it come and even the, the circle story, if it's not true. The point is what's important.

Yeah.

That's one of the things that, as I've worked with other, you know, mid level management companies, they really struggle with just standing there and watching.

Yep.

And you know, that's the first thing I do anywhere I go. It's just stand and watch. Maybe ask a couple questions. Yep. But just take it in. And to get someone to stand still is such a struggle. You could. The pain is palpable. Yep. That they think they should be doing something when they really should just be preserving them.

Yeah, exactly. What about. We're actually. I have on my mind right now as we record this here in early February 2020, where we're working on a pretty comprehensive daily management system type series of videos and you know, lots of stuff on response and on and stuff like that. So talk a little bit about that. You know, what are you seeing in small companies as it relates to, you know, pulling the Andon or hitting the and on button or whatever it is to signal for help? Are you seeing that happen enough or not?

I wasn't planning on bringing it up, but I've actually developed my own low cost and on system to try to help this same problem.

Really.

So if that gives you an idea of. Yeah, I don't see it enough.

Yeah.

And so Origin has my very first prototype. Now I've got a couple now. Cool.

Talk about it.

Essentially, from what I found on the Anon systems that are on the market, they're either a little too simple, you know, it's just a light and a button or something like that, which is great to get the response. But at Toyota we use the data behind the Anon system a lot. It's not going to tell you what the problems are, but it's going to point you in the right direction.

So what's your system? I mean, are you using like smartphones or what or how's that working?

So for the prototypes I've used the Raspberry PI to be the brains of the system created, you know, the Toyota style bingo board so that you can see if a button's depressed where that's going on. Play the sound. You know, it's very much modeled after Toyota's system, but trying to keep it from going the other end of the full blown PLC system where you have to have a skilled maintenance guy on staff just to handle anons. So, you know, somewhere in the middle where you can get the data, but it's not too complicated. So, you know, that's been its own struggle on its own trying to get that developed. But most companies, companies do not respond to immediate issues.

Yep. So how many times is, I don't know, put them on the spot and, you know, you could generalize it, but how many times is an end on being triggered? Would you say in a small company or should it be triggered?

You know, I think a lot of times it just depends on the product being made. This is one of the things I talk about is the comparison between, like, my understanding. I've never been in a Ford plant, but a Ford and on system, or the version of it and a Toyota version, Toyota version. They're being pulled all the time. If a station is not pulled at least once a day, then they're not pulling it when they should. It's hard to say it should be X number of times a day or anything like that, but it should be happening enough that it's driving that response. And what I see from especially smaller companies is there's no sense of urgency to respond to a problem. It's, you know, they'll work through it. Maybe it takes them half an hour. Whatever, they'll get to it. And then if it's a big enough issue, yeah, tomorrow we'll fix it. Which again, seems crazy to me. It drives me crazy that there's not this sense of urgency.

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, for sure. Good stuff. So someone's listening to this right now, Annie. They're in it. Maybe they're in a small, small company. Small necessarily. Manufacturing company, Just a small company in general. And they're just getting kind of started with their lean journey. What advice do you have for them other than call Andy and he'll come help you. But what advice do you have for these folks?

You know, I have another quote that just ties in with this urgency. It's by a guy named Naval Ravikant, and he says, be impatient with actions, but patient with results. And with what I understand of Taiichi Onu's style and just Everything that I've experienced at Toyota, I think that really ties in. See the issues, address them, do something about them, but don't expect this overnight sensation. It's going to take time for things to come into place.

Yeah. No, I love that. I mean, and it's in the spirit of try experiment and see what you learn.

Right.

And then keep moving forward, one iteration at a time. Yeah, yeah. Don't obsess over the results. Yeah. The results are going to come. Right. If we keep applying the tools and the philosophy consistently that the results will come, but when you try to force the results, I guess that's when you can get into trouble.

Yeah. And there's always that dichotomy. It's you. You want to take actions, but also don't you know your limitations. Don't go too far, make sure that you can't do some kind of irreparable damage.

Yeah, yeah.

Stay within some kind of boundaries so that you can fix what you missed, mess up and learn from it.

Exactly. Good stuff. All right, well, hey, Andy, if folks want to connect with you, maybe on your website or social media or anything like that, what's the best way?

Well, my website is lean SPS.com decided productivity solutions was too long for web address.

Yeah, probably.

Yeah. And then LinkedIn is where it'd be most active.

Andy Reese, Andy Reith. R e I th yeah.

Yep.

Great. And I guess, are you taking on new clients or anything, or you got enough work or how's that looking?

I'm always willing to talk to people. I'll say that. They're keeping me pretty busy right now, but. Yeah. The best part of the job is just going and seeing other things.

Yeah.

And talking to people and for sure, just getting out there. And it's. I really enjoy manufacturing in general, so that's. That's exciting. Yeah.

Good stuff. All right, well, hey, thanks, Andy, for coming on and stay warm up there in Maine. I don't know how it is right now for you, but it's a little polar here in Texas right now. It's 80 degrees a couple days ago and 30 degrees this morning, so go figure.

Yeah, I like that better. We're supposed to get a foot of snow here next couple days.

That's no bueno.

No.

Well, as you go back to Ohio, probably the same thing, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Anyhow. All right, well, thanks again, Andy. Take care. And go Bucks.

Go Bucks. Thank you very much for having me.

All right, take care. Thanks for listening to the Gemba Academy podcast. Now we invite you to Take a no strings attached, fully functional Test drive of Gembaacademy.com Gain immediate access to more than a ,ousand leads and Six Sigma learning resources, all free of charge@gembacademy.com.