GA 580 | The Transformation of Operational Excellence with Dr. Adil Dalal

I am a humanistic technologist. I really use technology to help human beings and that is what we need to do because technology is going to rule us. So why not use that same technology to save us?

Today I am excited to welcome Dr. Adeel Dalal to the show. Now Adeel has actually agreed to come into our Gemba Academy stud here in Keller, Texas. He lives in Austin. So he drove up to, to record this interview in person, which was really appreciated. We don't actually get to do a lot of interviews with people literally here sitting in front of me, but today we did that. So that was a lot of fun and I really do appreciate him taking that drive in now. So today is a, it's, I think it's going to be an interesting podcast. I'm going to, I'm going to listen to it back myself because it was a very, I should say, passionate conversation. At some times we, we got into the whole ide of artificial intelligence being impacting Lean. And so as you'll hear, Adil is very passionate about artificial intelligence and he does a lot of teaching on it and university level and that sort of thing. And so we get into the whole idea of, well, the good side and the bad side really, of artificial intelligence and what it really means for the future of Lean and quite honestly, humanity. And you know, there's some things that, well, I didn't necessarily always agree with him and so we had a really fun conversation and got. Got a little passionate at times, I think, but I don't know, sometimes it's good to, to have those conversations. But he's very, very well versed in this world, so I really respect him for that. And again, I do appreciate him coming in. Now. Show notes for this episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 5 80. Again gembapodcast.com and look for episode 5 80. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Adil, welcome to the Gemba Academy studio. How are you?

I'm doing great, Ron. Thank you for inviting me here.

Yeah, I'm excited. We don't actually get to do a lot of in person interviews here. We got this fancy, you know, recording setup that we barely ever use. But yeah, it's always fun to do them in person whenever possible. So I appreciate you.

And yeah, I'm driving in from Austin for you, so.

Wow, I appreciate that. That's fantastic. All right, well, so you know how we like to begin all of our episodes a deal. It's with a, with A quote. So what do you got?

Favorite code?

Yeah.

You are more than you can ever imagine. This is the motto of my company. And what I believe that as human beings, we are limiting ourselves. As companies, we are limiting ourselves. As nations, we are limiting ourselves. Our potential is huge, and all it takes is finding that potential. Wow.

I love it. I love it. All right, well, hey, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us about your background, how you first got involved in this continuous improvement stuff that we're into, and then what you're up to these days.

Sure. Thank you. Started my journey from Mumbai, India, onto Western Michigan University. So my passion was automotive engineering. So I got into for my master's out here at Western and ended up getting a fellowship to do some research there and actually got a couple of offers when I graduated from Hummer. And. But I was in Kalamazoo and Stryker was right there. So, you know, I just love the culture, loved what they offered, and loved what they did for humanity. And so from an automotive background, I moved over to medical. And I think it was one of the best decisions I made. So really helped me hone into the leader I am. And Stryker. I basically ran a couple of acquisition programs, and then I was asked to transform the whole division using lean or demand flow technology. So within eight months, our whole organization, which is over $300 million, completely transformed to a point where the data we had for 30 years had to be thrown away because we were so much better. It was not even on the same scale. So I became a big believer in lean demand flow technology. And what I found, one thing which took us, you know, kind of stood out for me and which made me a believer on was as we were completing this, prior to doing this, for six months, our people were not having any breaks. So even weekends they were working because we could not supply our doctors with our instruments. We were on backorder. So they were doing overtime, and a lot of their pay came from overtime. Once we did this, there was zero overtime. And as I was interfacing with some of the people there, leaders, kind of the supervisors. One of the supervisors was very well respected, was walking down the hall, and I tried to avoid her, but none of the doors were open in the conference rooms. So I had to face her and said, adil, I'm so glad we did this. Now I can spend my weekends with my grandchildren at home in my pajamas. That is the true meaning of what hit me, is I did not only change the organization, but I help, you know, transform people's lives. So the work life balance, you know, is so important. And yes, they lost the money, but there is much more important things than the money.

I actually thought you were going down the road or someone was going to complain that they don't make as much money.

So that's where what I thought too, and to have that interaction that stuck with me is that, look, this is a tool which can transform lives. And since then, after I transformed, I was asked to move to a division in California and ended up transforming two more divisions there. We saved, in six months, we saved $6 million of inventory. It was an endoscopy, very high end camera division. So then I said, if I can do this for a medical company, I can do it anywhere. So I started my own company, Pinnacle Process Solutions, and I was working all over the world, in Mexico, France, you know, Prague, Budapest, all over literally. And I was just really enjoying training people, coaching people, transforming organizations, and ended up, you know, working on my first doctorate. Wrote about four books during that time. And right now I'm still with Pinnacle doing totally different things. Not only this, but I'm also writing a book on AI. I am also working on neuroscience. Just this year, three books are coming out of mine. So two are already out, one will be out, which is called Lean AI in June.

Lean AI.

Lean AI. So I'm combining these two beautiful technologies together and really trans, you know, this is the future of operational excellence. That's what I'm creating.

Yeah. You mentioned Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it brings back fond memories. I actually before Gemba Academy, many, many years ago, I worked for a company called flowserve and they have a facility, I remember that, in Kalamazoo. So I've been there many times.

Okay, I remember that. Flowserve.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic. All right, well, I mean, so you've already sort of hinted at a little bit about your interest and your passion for AI, artificial intelligence. And you mentioned Lean as well. So I wanted to maybe we just kick things off with your opinions and your thoughts on how you see Lean and AI sort of playing together, whatever. What's your thoughts on the collaboration between Lean and AI?

So Lean has some limitations, as we all know, right. On the human side on some of the things we do. Sustainability, you know. 5.

Yeah. I wouldn't say Lean has limitations. I would say human beings.

Human beings, absolutely. The applications of this becomes challenging when humans get involved. So when AI can do some of the routine tasks much better than human beings, it, you know, the whole idea of Lean is to, you know, enhance humanity Correct. That's the whole idea is because the culture is what matters. And when Lean, you know, feels that, that that is a failure because as you correctly pointed out, it's the human failure. But Lean gets blamed. Correct. So when AI has some of the routine tasks covered for human beings, then it becomes so much easier for people to say, we are successful. Now we can really focus on what really matters. Let the things which are not, you know, human beings are not very good at on a consistent basis, keeping up things. Also, Lean is not a predictive tool and AI is a predictive tool. So when you go into a proactive mode, Lean gets on steroids and we get so much better results with that. You know, I'll give you an example is error proofing. Poka yoke. Right now, poka yoke, we need jigs and fixtures. We need some things and you are still not absolutely sure sometimes. Correct. And with AI, you can get real time feedback. You're getting real time feedback, you're helping the operator. And that is what Poker Yoke was designed to do. When it was designed, the whole idea, you know, poker yoke itself means idiot.

Proofing, mistake proofing, I would say.

Well, yes, but if you really look at the idea it was behind that was that they didn't want human beings to look like idiots when they make mistakes. That was the whole, you know, premise behind Pokayo. Now we're taking it to the next level and saying, hey, not only are we preventing it, we are giving you guidance on a real time basis and a proactive basis that makes this tool so much more powerful. And we're just, you know, it's like taking version two of Lean, bringing it into a totally different realm. And to me, that's the future. This is, you know, AI is here to stay. There's no doubt about it. Right. And why not use the power of AI because, you know, that is the true kind of as Lean evolves, this will be the right way, the right partner for it to evolve with.

Yeah, I mean, I'm all about, I mean, I'm a huge believer in AI and use it every day, obviously. I guess I would like to explore maybe before I even ask any more questions, maybe give some more examples of what you're talking about because I'm not completely sold on your premise. We have a good conversation, so I'd like to hear your ideas.

Yeah, absolutely.

What you think some Lean tools, some AI Lean tools, or however you want to talk about it, you know, so.

You know, basically just like look at a value Stream map. Correct. You're creating a value stream map. We as human beings, we can do a lot of analysis on it. We can come up with some ideas. When you actually put it into AI. AI recognizes a value stream map, so I do workshops on that and it gives you a very detailed analysis of what can be done for the future state. So it will give you all the numbers. Not only that, you know, it may take you some time to calculate that AI can do that much faster and will be, you know, obviously if you don't give the right numbers, you're going to get the wrong data or the wrong results. But if you do it right, the power of AI can really take a value stream map itself into a whole different level.

Well, okay, let's talk about that. I mean, I've done hundreds of value stream map exercises and workshops. And so like back in the day it would be, we would walk to Gemba back to front, we'd get our post it notes or whatever on the brown paper and we put it up in two, three hours. We've got the current state map drawn up with everything, all the information. Now obviously you could use things like eye graphics or whatever to draw electronically if you want to. Once you figure out the software, it's really fast and does all the math for you and so forth. So talk to me about like in your world, five years from now, we have a factory making widgets perhaps, right? Do we still have a factory making widgets or. I don't know.

Yeah, absolutely. I think we are never going to get ways.

Are there human beings in a factory?

That is a very touchy topic. You know, that is the other side of AI, which actually next week I'm going to be in Brussels on a TED Talk talking about the negative side of AI on humanity. Because I really feel there is going to be tremendous impact on humanity with AI, especially from a neuroscience point of view. So I'm going to, I just feel.

Like human beings, the trajectory I see is people won't be able to think, people won't be able to problem solve. There are, kids are going to be so lazy, they're just gonna look at their phone and ask a question.

And there people have not done scientific. I've actually done scientific research on this and I'm going to present that. So there is a lot of science behind why and, and, and you know, kind of connecting the dots and extrapolating it. You'll be able to see exactly what you know. So that's what I'm, you know, so I'm Absolutely pro AI. But if you like a tool, you also have to be very honest that there is also a negative. And Bill Gates, the question you ask, five years from now, will there be widgets being made by human beings? That's a very, very important question. And Bill Gates recently said that 10 years from now, we won't need lawyers, doctors, human beings will not be needed. So just see the impact. I mean, Bill Gates knows what he's talking about because he's seeing it at that 30,000 foot level which we don't have access to. Correct. And I'm, you know, from my research, he may be off by a few years, plus or minus, but you know, it is coming our way and humanity better wake up.

So what is a human being gonna do in 10 years? Just sit around and be overweight or maybe won't be overwe Because I'll have some widget that we can hit that.

But that is, I don't know. That is kind of something which I am trying to explain to people. We better be prepared for that. And we need, we need. You know, I don't like government intervention in these things, but at some point they need to be alert to what it can do. Right? You just have. You cannot leave humanity the set movie.

Or Wall E or whatever.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Yeah.

And Ron, just think about this. You know, just last year the US Surgeon General said social media is an addiction. Correct. It's causing mental illness, anxiety, depression, all these things for our youngsters. 25 years it took us to realize that. We saw, we saw it coming. Okay? AI is doing that in less than two years. So just extrapolate that data and see what that change is going to be in a few years. So, so we have to be alert. But again, AI in the use of healthcare, medicine, you know, problem solving, which humans cannot do, AI is a great mentor.

But is it analogous to the computer? You know, like, yes, people were scared of the computer and.

Yes, you know, exactly. And that calculator. Yeah, people thought, oh, we will forget how to do additions.

But yeah, the phone.

But you're looking at the. What? See, that's still your critical thinking, your judgment, your prefrontal cortex is still in use. What happens is when you're not doing critical thinking, when you're not doing, when you're delegating that task to AI, what is happening is your brain is not developing, it's not making the connections which are absolutely needed for what? And at least at our age, we have already made those connections. We can always go back to that highway and write that. Yeah, right.

But what 7 year old might not be.

That's exactly the point. That's exactly the point. So that is why I think the TED Talk I'm doing next week is going to be tremendously important to all of us, you know, and.

Yeah, and don't worry about spoiling your TED Talk because this podcast won't come out for almost a month. So your TED Talk will be over by then.

Oh, that's perfect. That's perfect. That's perfect then. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So, well, maybe talk about a little bit about your vision of how you see operational excellence looking five years, ten years from now, something like that.

Another good question. Operational excellence is basically going to have a total transformation. Correct. We are going to go from reactive to a predictive to a proactive model. We are going to be looking into the future and we're going to be fixing problems before they occur. That is going to be the major shift which will happen in operational excellence. So, you know, think about someone who's trying to kind of, you know, go in and kind of design some kind of a pilot line. AI can jump in and help you out tremendously. It can do all your simulations and we can do that. I've done that. Whenever I put a line, I actually simulate it.

Yeah. IGraphics is doing this many years ago.

40% improvement even before you put in the line. But this will be beyond that. This will be way beyond. The scale will change where it's going to be able to identify problems ahead of time, help you correct it ahead of time, and then help you. Real time, the real time is the key thing. Correct. We don't have tools right now. Everything is kind of, you know, there is a time lapse before something happens and you make a decision. You're, you know, that that time lapse is going to go away. You're going to get the alert and the decision will be made by AI what to do. And you look at Amazon today. Correct. They have 50% robots, 50% human beings in that operation. So we're already having that. Correct. In bigger companies, they're already doing that. And you know, as you correctly said, what will human beings do? We need to be prepared for higher level functioning. So one of the books which just came out was called the V Factor. I'm trying to make human beings understand. So look at that quote which I gave you. You are more than what you can, you know, you're more than what you, you know, think you are. Correct. The reason I say that is because we have some powerful tools built into us. We are not using those simulators. The. The visualization is such an important tool which we are not using right now. That is what, you know, Gemba. What is Gemba? What is go see. But we are just seeing. We are not really observing to that effect. A lot of my programs, when I do that, I really don't need a software to manage my. Even a, you know, a billion dollar program or a project, because I am trying to do that in my head, is the permutation combinations. And that came naturally to me. And I found out during one of the leadership assessments that that is one of my top strengths. So then I backtrack that and I said, how do I create that, duplicate that in other people? So that is my. My. I am a humanistic technologist. I really use technology to help human beings. And that is what we need to do. And because technology is going to rule us, so why not use that same technology to save us?

You said technology is going to rule us. That's a pretty provocative statement. What do you mean by rule?

It is. Look at, look at your cell phone. But doesn't it rule you? Every ping comes in and you get alert, you know?

Yeah, yes and no. I have a personal rule. Even with our kids, you know, when we get home, we put our phones in a certain place at certain time.

And we don't have phones for the.

Rest of the way. I would argue, no, it doesn't rule me.

If you. Yes. And those are the disciplines you need in life. And not everyone can put that in.

Right.

Yeah.

I think it's. Careful. It's dangerous to make, you know, statements that, you know, certain things.

I really feel like technology is. Technology is kind of. Today, it's. Anything you do. Is technology involved. What. What are you doing? Which is not technology involved. Tell me. Including your.

You go to the Magic My Kids soccer game.

Yeah. There is no technology. There are drones around. There are problems.

Play at the Keller soccer field over here.

Okay. Okay.

Church on Sunday.

That is one area.

And our priest is up there.

And you know, but they're live streaming sometimes. They're doing a lot of the things.

Some are. Yeah, yeah.

So. So what I'm saying is it's pervasive. Yeah, it's pervasive. And you know this, you know the reason it's called a cell phone, Correct. We are in that cell. We are actually in the cell. Right. As the joke is before, when the phone was the regular phone, okay. It was wired and we Were free today. You know, that phone is free and we are wired to it. So that is the change which has happened to us. And of course it has a lot of benefits. There is a huge benefit to. I mean, efficiency has improved, but conveniences has improved for us.

But yeah, you can order anything you want on Amazon later that day.

Exactly. And we are addicted to that. Right. And our expectations of supply chain has changed so much.

Right.

You know, with that, Amazon has changed our way of thinking completely on supply chain. Our expectations have changed completely.

Yeah.

So just think that is technology. What they are using is technology Today. Everything is on the cloud. Everything is, you know, now, now is the. Look at the current generation, you know. You know, look at Uber, look at Airbnb, look at all these model Netflix. Everything is technology.

What we envision Uber. Will I have a person driving a car? I mean, there's already some autonomous vehicles already autonomous vehicles.

It's just. It's just a matter of time. Yeah, it just, you know, once things fall into place, it's just a matter of flying taxis already becoming a reality in places like Dubai and other. Other places. So these are things which will, you know, and humanity. Siran, one thing you we have not understood very well. Okay, when was the first industrial revolution?

A long time ago.

200 years ago.

Yeah, you should argue even before that.

But yeah, yeah, say 17 something or 18 you around that time frame. So human beings have gone from being a craftsman to a spaceman in 200 years. But the planet has existed for 4.6 billion years. So in 200 years, humanity. So if you count that fraction, it is.000004% of the time we have been industrialized on this planet and we have had a very steep climb with technology. Where is that going to go? It can go either way. Correct. Because it's such a steep climb that we cannot managing that becomes very, very challenging. We're on a complete vertical trajectory right now with technology and especially with kind of industry 4.0 and 5.0 coming in. It has been a tsunami of technology which has come in. So if I say technology is ruling us, I mean it. Because everywhere you look, it's all technology. What we are doing here is technology. Correct. So just think about that. You know, some technology is very powerful and we need it. Humanity has improved because of it, but it can also be destroyed by technology.

Yeah.

So we have to kind of keep our eyes open on which direction we're going with technology.

Are you hopeful for the future?

I am cautiously hopeful. And that's why I'm being a voice for being alert, trying to, I'm a small guy trying to, you know, make a small change. But if that spreads, if people understand what I'm trying to say, you know, we need to, we need to go. The decision makers are the ones who are going to make that change again. It took 25 years for them to realize social media was bad for our children. How long are they going to wait with AI and other tools which are really bad for our children. Correct. How long?

I don't know. Too long.

Yeah. It'll be detrimental. Right. We lost a generation. We lost a generation into a lot of different issues. And if you see what. So again, I don't want to take us into a negative path. I'm very optimistically, optimistically hopeful because humanity has come through at every point. Whenever there has been some dangers, we have pulled through. And, you know, there are people amongst us who understand that, you know, using technology for the right things is the right way to go for humanity.

Yeah, yeah. Well, it gives you think about just in a medical profession, technology is where he, you know, healing the body.

Yeah.

Much more effectively than absolutely, you know, 100 years ago or something.

Absolutely. And look at, you know, in the area of medicine, what AI can do is customize. It can take a drop of your blood and customize a medicine for you. How powerful is that?

Yeah.

When have you. They can print your name on the capsule and send it to you within. You know, it's, it's. That is what mass customization is. Mass customization is, you know, it's not only on Nike shoes or Nike, you know, where they can make it to your size to what you want or a car. You can do that with medicine, with AI using your blood samples. With 3D printing, they can print your body parts using your stem cells. How powerful, how cool is that? That is true technology. I mean. Correct. You can have a spare Ron somewhere waiting in case something died. Yeah.

But it's also horrifying.

It's horrifying, right?

Yeah. Oh, my word.

So. So there are positive things, right?

Yeah, yeah. Well, so most of our audience right now is. What the hell are you guys talking about? We're talking about the end humanity and AI robots, you know, so. So bring it. I know you.

Obviously they'll get a kick out of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's good to change things up every so often. I, I have fun with this. So, so. But let's get back to, to some lean, some Six Sigma.

Sure.

Talk a little bit about some of the. Some of the transformations that you've been involved. Maybe one that you're. I don't know, maybe. How about this one? What's one that maybe doesn't have to be like, oh, I saved a million dollars. Who cares? Honestly, nobody cares. Like one that you're most proud of.

So there was one in Texas. I was doing actually a couple of them, I would say one of them was where they were making these plastic, you know, clamshells and other things. And they have these 1 ton rolls of plastic coming in and they were putting it on these risers, getting it to the area, taking up kind of a overhead pulley, holding onto it, putting it on the floor. It damaged the material. It sometimes injured the people quite often. And then they would put it on at the back of the machine and then feed it through the machine so that at the other end you'll have an injection mold to build those parts. Now I was running a Kaizen event with 10 people there. And we were actually focused on the front side of it where we were, you know, the. The people who were boxing it to bring it out and to put it on the conveyor and everything on a. It was becoming very tiresome for them. So as I was looking at that, I'm looking at this whole process of what they were doing. And I'm going, oh my God, this. And these people were waiting for risers. You know, it has to have a. Two people pull it from different location and put it. And they had a kind of a. At the end of the machine there was a roller which was feeding it in. I said, what if we don't use the risers? Correct. We just basically we don't use this machine which is feeding it. We just used the risers and used them to feed the machine. So the risers came in. It's a two prong. They first laughed at me. They all laughed at me. He said, we've been doing this for 20 years. You know, you. So they thought I was totally choking in the Kaizen event. And I said, no, just humor me. But worst thing is, you know, it doesn't work. So we cordoned off, we put a tape around the area. We had a couple of extra people on Kaizen, you know, we were all set on the front side. So as he. As they started putting it on the riser and rolling it, the top one ran like a champ. Not a single adjustment needed to make made. They were like their eyes were wide open. Then the lower one had some adjustments to be made. It didn't work as. Because of the angles, you know, it was not working to feed properly into the thermoforming machine. We just made a few adjustments, shimmed it up and kind of held the, the bottom riser up a little bit and boy, it just started running. They were totally shocked. And they were about to buy the, you know, half a million dollars of more risers and everything. They were. They were trying to do a lot more and this just solved a lot of their issues. And they have many more plants like these. They had 14 more plants with similar issues. So, you know, it's the. The sometimes, you know, now I'm not an expert in thermoforming. This type of. This is the first time I'm looking at this process. But that outside view and just thinking lean is why are we wasting all these steps? Correct. It transformed this division, transformed this division completely and made it so. Simplicity is the greatest thing. You know, to me, I call lean as the science of simplicity. Why is it not just simplicity? Because simplicity can also create some issues. So the science is if it's too simple, it will create problems. If it's complicated, it will create some chaos. So the science is exactly. Tune it in into that simplicity which gives you the best result. Correct?

Yeah, I guess my. The only thing that. What were your thoughts like on that. That event there where you, you had the idea. I guess my only thing I, to me would have made a story even better is if some of the team members came up with the idea. You know what I mean? Because it was. The unfortunate thing is when the smart consultant comes in and this is where.

The problem is, Ron, is that when you are staying in one area for too long, your eyes get very much adjusted to that. You don't see the waste, you don't see the problems. And that is why this power of visualization. That's why I have special exercises for them to retrain their brain. This is about your brain, right? Your brain is designed for efficiency and convenience. It is not divine, designed to take you to the. Unless you challenge it.

Well, yeah, this is where like, you know, we mentioned value stream mapping or I mean, John Shook called it learning to see.

Right, Exactly.

Winning years ago was written, right?

Yes.

Teaching people to draw the waste on the wall. They see the waste. What's a better way? You know, so, you know, that's. I guess my only thing is like, I don't like to ever go in and give the answer of I never do that.

I never do that. That's why What I said is, humor me, right? Let's try it out. It was an experiment that we did. I never knew that it would work.

Yeah, fair enough.

But it's an experiment and. And, you know, I'll give you another similar story where I was working. So I was a consultant for a company, and they were about to throw our company out because the previous consultants didn't do, you know what, they were not getting the roi. So my manager sent me in and said, so this is a wire making these wires which go into our electrical, and they were coating them. So there was ground coating, red, black, all those. So it's a kind of a mile long wire going through. And so they were going from a red to a white wire, and they had to cut the wire. They had to kind of clean out the whole hopper with the paint. And basically it was taking them almost two or three hours for a setup change. So again, you know, we're brainstorming on what we can do. And one of the ideas, I said, hey, I've never seen this process before, but what if we were to allow this paint to just run out and put the new paint in again? They laughed at me. So you can't do that. So he said, again, let's try it out. Let's experiment. So at one point we put. They had the red paint coming through, we put the white paint, and for some time we got pink wire. And then we started getting white wire. No need to cut it, no need to clean. Everything worked out. So the guy on the first day who really hated lean, he was like a hostage in my training and in my kaizen. On the last day, he stood up. When the report out on Friday, he's telling the sea level people, why didn't you guys think about this? You know, for so many years we've been doing this and wasting three hours every time we have a changeover. You guys are the smart guys here. Why didn't you make, you know, or why didn't you do this decision before? So his eyes open. He says, from next time, I want to be leading these kaizens because this is true change happening in our organization.

Yeah.

So this is how you, you know, again, sometimes they are so. Their eyes are so. And the brain is so attuned to what happens, they forget to see outside that box. And this is. This is you. This is humanity. This is the. The side of humanity which we are not understanding. That's why understanding the neuroscience of lean is also very important. Correct. And I teach that too. I look at the Neuroscience of how our brain works. Because that is very critical to understand. Otherwise, you know, we'll be coming up with the same problems and trying to solve, you know, in a different way and come up with, you know, the wrong answer. So that is my passion, is to really look at how we could take Lean. Like, one of the things I have done is I've taken Lean into the human side, the Ilene technology. So I've developed Ilene, which is actually implement using all the Lean tools to help the human beings 5s, you know, all the tools of Lean, Poka, yoke and others how can we use on ourselves. And I've actually created a course on that. So this is very important for us to look at Lean in a very different way.

Yeah.

I've also done Lean for Kids. Lean for Teens. Correct. My kids, with their friends created their own model of Lean for Kids. So how do we. Because I feel when I go and teach a CEO on 5s and simple things, which, you know, are fairly straightforward actually. Okay, why not teach them in school? Why not teach them to your 7 year old? Imagine what they will be when they grow up. Correct. Yeah, no, this is a curriculum. This is curriculum building. This has to be in schools. And I'm not seeing that. Yeah, no, I'm not seeing them. So, you know, leaders like us and Lean need to, you know, go up the chain and say, guys, yeah, you know, you're doing dodge and everything. I know that's a great thing, but do the fundamentals too at the same time. Yeah, correct.

Yeah, for sure.

If you show our, our, you know, Lean in government seems like a oxymoron, but, you know, we need that now and we are waking up to that fact.

Yeah. So good stuff. Well, hey, I really appreciate you coming in. I know it was a long drive and most people just jump on a zoom call, but I really appreciate you coming in. Maybe if you have any final words of wisdom or any last words that you want to get out there and then for sure, I want you to repeat how people can connect with you if they want to.

Sure, absolutely. I mean, you know, I don't think I have any wisdom. I am just school of hard knocks. So I think Lean is such a powerful tool. You know, I have written a paper on Lean where it said, from the White House to our house, we all need a little bit of lean. Because no one I've, you know, visited over 200 companies around the globe. I've never seen a company which is perfect, which doesn't have waste. Correct. Even Toyota, you go through today, you'll see the waste. And they are the champions of lean. So we all know that it's a journey, it's a continuous journey. And the day you say you are done with lean, you are actually starting over because you're never done with me. So that is the bottom line.

All right, and what's the best way for folks to connect with you? LinkedIn or something like that? LinkedIn?

Yeah, absolutely.

We'll put your link.

Yeah, put my LinkedIn, you know, website is pinnacleprocess.com so go out there and LinkedIn will be the best thing to connect with me. But it was a pleasure to. It was worth the drive and I would not have it any other way.

Awesome.

Thank you, sir.

All right, take care.

Thank you.

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