18:37:21

In part one of “New Spin on the ‘Stand in a Circle’ Exercise,” I described how Taiichi Ohno, the creator of the Toyota Production System, used the “Stand in a Circle” exercise to help managers identify waste in their operations. 

During this exercise Ohno would take a manager or student to the shop floor, draw a chalk circle on the floor, then have them stand inside the circle and observe an operation. His direction was simply, “Watch.” Several hours later Ohno would return and ask “What do you see?” If they saw the same problem Ohno had seen, then the exercise was over. If not, he would say “Watch some more.”

This would continue until the manager or student saw the same problem Ohno had seen, thus teaching them to observe waste. Ohno developed this exercise to help organizations identify and deal with the Seven Wastes of Lean.

In this post, I’ll walk you through a “stand in the circle” example using Companion by Minitab.

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