In times of rapid change and uncertainty, organizations often find themselves grappling with the need for structure and stability. The key to thriving during both slower periods and full production lies in creating a solid foundation for continuous improvement. One powerful approach is the implementation of a Daily Management System (DMS). Implementing a DMS can be a game-changer for any organization, fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.

There are many excellent resources about DMS. One of my favorites is "Creating a Lean Culture" by David Mann. In this article, I won't attempt to summarize Mann's comprehensive guide; instead, I'll provide some of the best practices and insights that I’ve learned over the years. I will focus on the why, a few of the how’s, and the cultural changes needed to successfully support an excellent DMS. If you want to gain an edge in your DMS rollout, I suggest you integrate as many of the Key Points into your design as possible.

Why Do You Want a Daily Management System (DMS)?

It's crucial that you develop a solid value proposition for any initiative before you start. A good DMS offers several key benefits:

• Enhanced and Real-Time Visibility: In a well-implemented DMS, production boards are ideally located in the path of workers. This visibility ensures that critical information about performance and issues is readily accessible to those who need it most—your frontline employees. The boards also support team huddles and shift turnovers.
• Supportive Leadership: Meetings are held with management visiting the team at their production boards. This practice is not just about monitoring; it's about providing support, understanding challenges firsthand, and fostering a culture of collaboration.
• Proactive Problem Solving: A DMS encourages proactive problem-solving and empowers teams to take ownership of daily challenges.
• Continuous Improvement: It creates a culture of continuous improvement by identifying opportunities and a defined structure for eliminating root causes of problems.
• Fostering Accountability: A DMS fosters accountability at all levels of the organization, from frontline operators to top executives.

Keep in mind that once created, there is a continual cost to maintaining a DMS. Efforts should be made to ensure you are getting a good return on both your initial and ongoing investment. 

At the end of the day, you want predictable results from your processes. Until you have effectively controlled the major sources of excessive variation, you will never truly have stable outputs. The DMS is an excellent tool that can do this over time. Exceptional gains in productivity, quality, safety, and cost metrics can be achieved through a well-designed and executed DMS. 

• Key Point 1: The true value proposition for a DMS is to achieve predictable outcomes over time. 

To achieve any level of consistency with DMS – you MUST have standard work established, timely visual controls/metrics to determine status and good leader standard work to maintain it.

• The role of the operator is to perform their standard work.
• If the operator cannot perform their standard work, supervision should be able to identify the gap, step in to support them in resolving the problem and restoring the environment back to normal.

Therefore, the primary purpose of the DMS should be to support the current condition. Your goal as a leader should be to focus on what prevents your team from running to their established standard. Can they achieve their target and have a perfect day?

Regardless of what your efforts are, you will not be able to change the result from yesterday. Your efforts today can only impact current or future outcomes.   

• Key Point 2: The primary goal of DMS is to achieve the target today.

You should have a good idea what inputs are critical for hitting your target. These would commonly be such items as: staffing, number of machines, quality of incoming materials, WIP and raw materials, quality systems in control, and the environment. A SIPOC or a detailed FISHBONE/ISHIKAWA diagram are great tools to identify them. Ensure before each cycle that they are in control – in other words “GREEN”. Any concerns or deviations should be identified as “RED”. 

You should focus only on the “RED” items. Whenever a condition changes from “GREEN” to “RED” your management or support team should be engaged. This should happen not only at the beginning of the day, but continually occurring for each cycle. Understanding when inputs go wrong and responding in a timely manner are paramount to creating a stable production environment. Each cycle is a test of your hypothesis – treat each process cycle as an opportunity to learn.

It is crucial for everyone supporting the production work to clearly understand their priorities, expectations, and deliverables. When production cannot achieve the goal – local visual controls should identify the deviation.   If front line support cannot resolve quickly, they should signal for management support in resolving the problem. Management should remain engaged until standard work is restored. 

• Key Point 3: Focus on “RED” and Recover to Standard Condition

As support groups attempt to leverage automated systems to help them identify problems, there is a growing tendency to do problem solving remotely. Many of these improvements are great, but they can leave you blind to other issues. My strong advice is to always GO TO GEMBA and validate before you start changing things. Don’t assume the problem you’re told is the actual problem that exists. 

There is often a fog in many production areas that can make problems hard to see, and the story can change the farther it gets from the source. GO TO GEMBA and see for yourself. I don’t know how many snipe hunts I’ve seen over the years when people assume. Understand the problem from the source.

• Key Point 4A: Always GO TO GEMBA to Understand the Current Condition 

Information is often associated with power in many organizations. A caveat to Key Point 4 above – do NOT allow people to speculate during your DMS meetings. Either you KNOW something because you went to GEMBA and saw for yourself, or you don’t. Whenever you hear the following phrases, be prepared to hold your ground and demand evidence:

• “I heard…”
• “Someone said…”
• “Could it be…”
• “I think…”

Most people are well intentioned and really try to help – so this is not to be critical. However, sloppy problem solving based on opinion (especially when leaders have hunches) can lead the entire team down an endless rabbit hole. 

• Key Point 4B: Facts are found at GEMBA.  DMS only deals in FACTS.

Not every problem can be immediately identified and solved. Some will require short-term countermeasures to be put in place so that production can resume. My old boss used to say, “every time someone says the word countermeasure, you should hear the sound of a cash register opening in your head”. That is because countermeasures often add significant cost to your standard process. Even worse, if you add a countermeasure and never remove it, over time your costs will escalate out of control. 

If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. Many organizations suffer from this approach. Unable to solve to root cause in a timely manner, teams will band-aid their processes with countermeasures whenever they have issues. But they never go back to remove them. Over time their once clean process is now littered with expensive duct tape holding it together.

To counter this – you should employ an Accountability Process as part of each DMS board. The Accountability process is to ensure that the problem is not “solved” until root cause analysis is completed, and the final solution is implemented. It can be as simple as post-it notes used on a weekly board by function or listed as they are identified on easel papers. Regardless of the method, you MUST drive this home. 

• Key Point 5: Use an Accountability Process to Prevent Cost Creep

So far, we have been talking only about the primary role of DMS – to maintain the current condition at GEMBA. There is a secondary purpose to support your longer-term continuous improvement goals.

We track results/metrics as part of the DMS. Historical values can be used to identify trends or repeat problems that need to be addressed. Tracking of impact by reasons for downtime occurrences, quality issues or other output metrics are excellent ways to identify and justify longer term improvement projects. It’s easy to get a support function engagement when you can show 48 hours lost per week at a constraint operation because of problem X. Recall Key Point 4B - facts speak loudly.

Most DMS’s track output metrics covering four key attributes:

• Quality
• Safety
• Cost
• Delivery

Many organizations also use tiered processes within their DMS, and some also roll them up into an organizational site OBEYA room where they conduct plant level meetings. Once again, the focus should be on “RED” with leadership focus on what help is needed. There are plenty of great videos, books, and other resources if you decide to expand your DMS to include it. 

• Key Point 6: Use Metrics to Identify Improvement Opportunities

Unfortunately, DMS’s can unwittingly be hijacked by management who, with best intentions, think they need to “know” what happens when targets are not achieved. Their desire to help, coupled with their need to answer questions from their bosses drives conversations away from our goal of creating predictable processes. Discussions go from “what” the issues are and how can I help, to “who” is responsible. If there is no process to correct quickly from these types of distractions, your DMS can lose focus and turn into another expensive and useless meeting.

There are two other major reasons that often derail DMS efforts:

• Mistaking normal variation as special/assignable cause
• Overreacting and/or focusing on results instead of inputs

All processes exhibit some normal variation. You should chart your data to understand what is normal for you. Understand the difference between your expectations and what your process can produce. Just because you don’t hit some arbitrary target is not necessarily an indication your process is failing – it may not be capable. 

• Key Point 7: Use Statistics to Make Decisions

Results are important, but they are only a single outcome based on many inputs and their interactions. Focus efforts in achieving control of your input KIV’s (Key Input Variables) and you will have a chance to achieve the output KOV’s (Key Output Variables). A good rule of thumb for results is you can claim some stability if you can meet the target 19 out of 20 times.     

• Key Point 8: Focus on Your KIV’s to Achieve Your KOV’s

In your design phase for your DMS, it is vital to establish clear rules and desired behaviors for the participants. This should include the goals, the outcomes, and the correct conversations/discussions of all in attendance. I strongly suggest you also delegate someone who WILL maintain the rules and effectively “herd the cats” whenever the meeting drifts. Discipline is key – you should consider a very experienced coach to help you through the initial roll-out phase. Someone who is not an owner, but who is just there to keep the process tight. They should be able to intervene and coach the team as they learn their new behaviors and to ensure they develop the correct habits. They are responsible for coaching the team in terms of content, pace, and adherence to the rules. Daily reflection and immediate feedback are powerful tools they can use to assist with the cultural change. 

• Key Point 9: Referees Drive Compliance to Rules 

Is Your Culture Ready for a DMS? As you can see, implementing a DMS isn't solely about processes and tools; it's deeply intertwined with your organizational culture. As you consider whether your team is ready for this transformation – an effective DMS thrives in cultures that value:

• Transparency: Is the team comfortable in sharing performance data openly, even when it's less than stellar? Is it safe?
• Accountability: Are employees and leaders willing to be held accountable for their daily tasks and commitments?
• Continuous Improvement: Is there a commitment to continually identify and solve problems rather than just firefighting? Is data or opinion the driving force for projects?
• Collaboration: Are cross-functional teams willing to collaborate and share insights to improve operations?

To develop the right culture, one of the first things you may need to address is the tone and interactions in your conversations. I alluded earlier to the need to focus on facts and the change in roles needed to support a good DMS. Gone are the days when management directed activities from a distance based on computer reports and hearsay. The goal is delivering to target, and leaders are expected to support GEMBA, not the other way around. Both leaders and team members must develop skills in having the following types of conversations:

• Data-Driven Discussions: Base discussions on observations, real-time data, and performance metrics. Verify your facts.  
• Root Cause Analysis: Coaching how to perform RCA to drive accountability from short term countermeasures.
• Positive Language: Promote a culture of constructive feedback and solution-oriented discussions. Focus on WHAT instead of WHO.
• Accountability for Deliverables: Hold individuals and teams accountable for their commitments and actions. Ensure that people have adequate bandwidth and authority. Don’t allow a few to own all the action items. Provide support when needed – asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. 

Most teams struggle during transitioning to DMS’s because they lack one or several of these traits. As mentioned before – having an impartial and experienced coach to guide your team through the rollout is critical.

• Key Point 10: Use Impartial and Experienced Coaches to Connect the Dots

Conclusion:

A well-implemented Daily Management System (DMS) can be a game-changer for driving stability and generating impactful projects for improvement during slower times. It's a strategic tool that enhances visibility, drives continuous improvement, and fosters a culture of working as a team. By nurturing a culture of accountability and continuous improvement, you can navigate challenges with confidence, ensuring that your teams stay focused on the right priorities.

Many organizations start down this path and lose momentum over time.  Most will fail, not due to effort, but due to not adhering to one or more of the key points I’ve mentioned. 

If you think that a DMS is right for your organization but are not sure how to implement it, don't hesitate to contact us at Peak Productivity. We will guide your team successfully along each stage of the initiative. DMS’s can be the transformational project that pays significant dividends for years to come. I have personally seen it work wonders and completely turn around organizations that commit to it. Call us to discover how we can help.