Multi-dimensional Takt – Germany Series

Multi-Dimensional Takt: When Workers Break Into Song on the Production Line

They’re here with Reno Schroeder, otherwise known by his DJ name Renovate, Spencer Easton, and Felipe Engineer Manriquez. They just want to capture, even if it’s just a couple of minutes, some of the excitement of meeting with Janusz Dłuhi, Saskia, Magdalena, and the team. Reno helped play the simulation. It was really fun. What was it like to tour through the BMW museum, showroom, and factory? “It was awesome.” Reno’s favorite car was the BMW M8. That was really cool to see. But culturally, M3s are pretty awesome. So the M8 and the M3 are both cool to see.

BMW is Bavarian Motorworks. And what Jason learned, and he hopes his German listeners won’t get mad, is they made it clear that Bavaria is much different than just being in Germany. So they got the whole experience. Spencer, what were some of the things that were pretty cool? “We did a simulation of how flow works on a construction site when you do what we know how to do versus getting guided a little bit towards Takt. And it was absolutely amazing. Mind blowing. And I feel like I’m just starting a Takt journey. So really excited about that.”

Another thing Spencer really liked: Janusz took them on a tour of the actual production line. They got to go out on the production line and stand on the freaking production line. Reno actually touched one of the cars. He wasn’t supposed to. He got yelled at. The German angst came out of Janusz and told Reno, Renovate, that was not something he could do. Felipe said it was the best part of the whole trip, having Reno get yelled at. He didn’t even yell. It was a stern German. It wasn’t even stern. It was so nice. He was just like “Hey, you’re not supposed to touch it.”

The Production Line That Moves With the Cars

The actual production line moves with the cars. The cars are on a track up above and they were moving along this line and the platform that the actual manufacturers stand on moves at the same rate as the cars. They learned that in each one of the different shops, the auto body shop, the engine shop, each one of them has a different throughput. In the shop where they were standing, every 58 seconds a car comes out of that shop ready for the next process from the auto body shop. It was really interesting to see how long of a line it was and that every 58 seconds they have a car coming off of it. It was beautiful.

The bottom platform moves with the cars. So when the car goes to the different stations, you can just stand there and move. When they sent the buffers, so they had enough time to do their work and it still stayed in the station area, that’s when the platform actually stopped moving. Where you actually stop moving with the car, that’s an indication that you might not have finished everything or they have time to go back and fix maybe something that is defected. They had a little bit of buffer in those stations to be able to deal with any of those variances or quality issues.

They saw whiteboard visualization everywhere. They saw some Scrum. They saw some lean visual systems. Felipe, what was your big takeaway? “My big thing was, yes, BMW uses Scrum baby for design. And in the auto works baby, in the production, it’s in play. I saw so many different versions of lean visual management. Lean is alive and well. And there was even a whiteboard dedicated to the lean journey for people in this production line, which I thought was incredible.”

Why Starting With Math Changes Everything

Spencer was blown away at something Felipe said when they were with Janusz. Felipe had said that what they’re doing is not what we see anybody else doing. He talked about how line of balance isn’t the first thing you go to. What they’re doing is completely different. When in the United States when we hear Takt, that’s not what people think. Some might have a bad taste in their mouth.

Felipe got Takt training four years ago in Berkeley. It was good. He thought it was good at the time. And it was better than what he knew. It was partnered and paired with Last Planner system. Yesterday with Janusz, they went through multiple simulations. One where they tried Last Planner first before Takt. And then a second one where they started with mathematics first. And it blew away everything Felipe thought was possible with Takt.

“We were in the zone. We were in the flow zone. I have never felt so good. So happy. There were points during the simulation where we broke out into singing while we were working.” What did they sing? They don’t remember, but it was awesome. It was like an 80s song. It never happened before. When Felipe had done Takt training before, there were some things that were kind of forced with line of balance that didn’t even solve a problem that they really had.

In this simulation where they started with math first, you get instantaneous feedback on are we breaking this up to the right level? Do we have our constraints handled? And then once they started, the amount of communication while they were in simulation decreased.

When Janusz would pause them at key moments for control, like you would do in the real field, like Spencer was saying, you pause at the end of the day, do a curb reflection with your worker to make sure everything’s stable. In those moments where you’re looking at what the work is doing, making tiny, teeny, tiny shifts of the approach to the work had massive exponential outcomes to the time it took and the flow state that each person was in. It was incredible. It was life changing, really. And Felipe got that right after Tony Robbins.

The Right Sizing of Batch Sizes: From Two Zones to Six, Not Fifty Four

One of the interesting moments: they each had 60 seconds to do their Takt area. They split it up into six Takt areas, six Takt zones, whereas normal industry stuff probably would have split it up into only two. So they had smaller batch sizes, not too small. When they tried it the first time, and “tried” is the right word for that, they had too many. They had like 54. And it really needed to be six. So we do want smaller batch sizes, but it needed to go from two to six, not two to 54.

They had a great time failing in the first one. And then on the second one, they had a great time winning with the right sizing of batch sizes, right sizing of the Takt zones. When each person got done, let’s say Felipe finished 10 seconds earlier or five seconds early. Spencer had the hardest scope. He was doing the roof. But the support from everybody else helped him succeed.

Here’s how it worked:

• Felipe was doing his work, then he would cue up Saskia and get the material staged there for her.
• When Jason got done putting in the last set of beams, the transverse beams not the longitudinal ones, he would go get Spencer’s materials and cue them up.
• Maybe a logistics company does this in real world, but they were queuing up materials so the next person was ready.

Could you imagine a system of construction where the trade partners come and they’re ready to do their best work and the materials are there packaged and ready? Anything assembled and prefabricated that you might need with the screws and the tools and the gang boxes with a clean swept area, looking all pretty and beautiful, like you’re opening up an Amazon package for your first day ready to go. That is just not what we do. Workers come in, they do the orientation, they come out and then everybody starts their treasure hunt search for the materials and everything else. And it’s chaos.

But the staging of materials, the Friday before, the Thursday before, or even early that Monday morning or on Saturday, whenever it happens, really appealed to Jason. Because if you go back to any point in your life, can you remember a time even when you’re assembling like your crib or your bed, bunk beds or whatever, or your first playground kit for your kids, and you set out the box and you got your screwdriver and you swept everything and you cleared the room out and it’s freshly painted? How good it felt to just have everything you needed there.

That’s the environment we need to set up our trades with. That’s one of the biggest things Jason took away. When they were queuing up other people, when Spencer finally got his roof done on the last area and then on time in 55 or 50 seconds came to the other one, all of his roofing material was staged there ready to go. So he was able to make his time.

How They Increased Throughput Midway Through the Simulation

At the beginning they started seeing that they could get done even with extra time in 50 seconds, not 60. They increased their throughput midway through the thing. They didn’t have to rush to finish early. Jason thinks he was the longest and he took about 50 seconds. So that’s what they set it to. They shaved two minutes off or something like that. No, it went from 15 minutes to nine minutes. They saved all this time just because they made that tiny tweak about four or five Takt zones in with the first trade.

Just that little tweak because they saw that production together, making that small adjustment, it was awesome. Which means they adjusted the Takt time once everybody could verify that everyone would make it. That’s what we do on the team. As long as you can align your supply chains and procurement with those earlier dates, then they did that as a team.

But once they had set the new 50 second rule, they didn’t start new areas until the drum beat hit, which is the key. We have to get away from “Oh, just move people randomly earlier.” We have to get away from that too. Felipe and Spencer came up with this idea: if you start to get into a rhythm where you finish in four and a half days, why not let the crew really enjoy a half a day on Friday setting up, getting their materials shaken out, getting boxes organized, making sure that you have all the inventory, grabbing the lift drawings, going through the quality checklist, doing some training?

Janusz said “Train on rain days, training days, rain days, prep days.” Jason is thinking about some of the clients they work with. When it rains, they just push through the mud and the garbage and pumping and they’re out there miserable. Why not just pause and time out? Let it rain for the first half of this day, clean it up tomorrow or this afternoon, whatever. But bring them in the shop. What can we prefabricate? What can we preassemble and load on the truck? What training can we do? What can we do to make our logistics work? If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: What’s the difference between starting with Last Planner versus starting with mathematics?

Felipe got Takt training four years ago paired with Last Planner. It was good but limited. Yesterday with Janusz they did one simulation trying Last Planner first, then a second starting with mathematics first. It blew away everything Felipe thought was possible. They were in the zone, in the flow zone. They broke out into singing while working. Starting with math gives instantaneous feedback on are we breaking this up to the right level, do we have constraints handled. Then communication during work decreased. Tiny shifts in approach had massive exponential outcomes to time and flow state.

Q: How many Takt zones should you have for a typical project?

Normal industry stuff probably splits into two zones. They split into six Takt zones for smaller batch sizes. When they first tried it, they had 54 zones, way too many. It really needed to be six. You want smaller batch sizes but not too small. Going from two to six is right. Going from two to 54 is wrong. The math tells you the right sizing. With six zones and 60 second Takt time initially, they could verify everyone made it, then adjusted to 50 seconds midway through, increasing throughput and shaving time from 15 minutes to 9 minutes.

Q: Why does the BMW production platform move with the cars?

So workers can stand and move with the car as it goes to different stations. Every 58 seconds a car exits each shop ready for the next process. When they have enough time to do their work and it stays in the station area, the platform stops moving. Where you stop moving with the car indicates you might not have finished or you have time to fix something defected. They have buffer in stations to deal with variances or quality issues. The movement creates rhythm and flow.

Q: What does staging materials properly look like in construction?

Trade partners come ready to do their best work and materials are there packaged and ready. Anything assembled and prefabricated you might need with screws, tools, gang boxes, with a clean swept area looking pretty and beautiful like opening an Amazon package for your first day. Currently workers do orientation, come out, then start treasure hunt searching for materials in chaos. But staging materials Friday before, Thursday before, or early Monday morning means when Spencer got his roof done and came to the next zone, all roofing material was staged there ready to go so he made his time.

Q: What should crews do on rain days instead of pushing through mud?

Train on rain days, training days, rain days, prep days. If you finish in four and a half days, let the crew enjoy half a day Friday setting up, getting materials shaken out, boxes organized, inventory checked, lift drawings grabbed, quality checklists reviewed, training completed. When it rains, pause and time out. Let it rain first half of day, clean up later. Bring them in the shop. What can we prefabricate? What can we preassemble and load on truck? What training can we do? What can we do to make logistics work?

On we go.