Proud to see an effective problem solving process and intense focused effort pay off for a team at the Port of Seattle who was awarded the 2018 Annual Innovation award! The team followed the #Honsha and #Niwaki L.I.F.T. – Learning through Improvement Focused Transformation – process to tackle a long endured traffic congestion problem on the airport drives. 

Following the process, the team first used data and a ‘Go & See’ approach to gain a deep understanding of the current situation including process mapping and identification of problems or “Angry Clouds”. Only after that intense assessment, were they able to break the huge problem into a more manageable, prioritized problem where they could find root cause and develop specific countermeasures. For the prioritized problem, this team was able to reduce congestion by nearly 50%! That is a tremendous result. From my perspective though, the most significant achievement lies in the development of effective problem solving skills among the members of the team. Those skills can now be used to continue work on other problems. Great Job Team!

Alan Parsley is a LEAN/HR executive consultant, facilitator and speaker who leads LEAN improvement initiatives at companies from a wide range of industries. Alan is President of JaxHR Consulting and serves as a Sr. Associate for Honsha & Associates, a premier international lean consulting group.

Alan gained the unique combination of operational and administrative experience over his 27-year career. Alan learned Leadership and Toyota Production System (TPS) methodologies while at Toyota’s Georgetown, Ky. Facility as well as the corporate headquarters in Erlanger Ky.