LEAN has been the by-word of most industries nowadays (and of the people managing these enterprises). In fact, some organizations have even gone to the extent of training in-house experts to become greenbelts and blackbelts. Shell Tabangao Refinery has hired a LEAN coach in 2011 and soon after, a slew of LEAN-related work has ensued. Apparently, in order to reduce waste, one has to spend time (extra time) to understand the processes that he does on a daily basis and try to see if there are areas for improvement (eliminate waste, make more efficient, combine, etc.).
I spent a considerable amount of time in the outsourcing industry – about 3 ½ years and what I hated the most was when we are asked to time ourselves when we are doing our daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly tasks. At that point in time, I thought that the exercise was really just for FTE measurement and nothing more. Fast forward to almost five years later, here I am again, being faced with the daunting work of tracking my time via LSW or Leader Standard Work. What is new this time, though, was we were asked to map out our typical month in terms of Weeks 1 to 4.
Leader Standard Work or LSW is defined as:
•A list of the normal tasks that must be done to sustain the lean management system
•Tasks typically include audits, meetings (daily accountability) and continuous improvement projects
•Focuses on the production process
•Directs the leader to check on the visual controls
•Expected to be continually improved
•Time each task should be completed (frequency)
Apparently, the reason why a LEAN organization's Leaders do LSW is for them to a.) document the current state of the best practices in LEAN management (if any), b.) use the results as a baseline for further improvement and c.) defines the expected behavior for leaders and staff.
I must admit, it was both a refreshing yet intimidating experience to actually map out what you do for an entire month because it can clearly show which part of the day, week or month that one has substantial slack. Slack does not necessarily mean it will be filled with more work, it is also a note to supervisors what times of the week or month staff can take a leave without disrupting normal operations. This is the first time that I did this, and here's what my typical month looks like.
| Week 1 | |||||
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |
| 7:00 | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting |
| 8:00 | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting |
| SVMS | |||||
| 9:00 | Monthly Forex Report | Energy/Additive Cost | Validation | ||
| Weekly S&D | for | ||||
| 10:00 | Team Meeting | East Telecon | SVMS | PD | |
| Validation | GRM | ||||
| 11:00 | for Tabangao | ||||
| GRM | |||||
| 12:00 | |||||
| 13:00 | Preparation of | Weekly E&S Meeting | |||
| MJE (Regularization) | Weekly 1-2-1 with | ||||
| 14:00 | Weekly P2S | PD Economist | Weekly | Weekly East | |
| Stocks | IMA/COA Sharing | ||||
| 15:00 | Preparation of | Meeting | Preparation of BPS | ||
| MJE (Regularization) | Telecon | entries for the month | |||
| 16:00 | Weekly | SVMS Validation for Tabangao GRM | Learning and | ||
| 1-2-1 | Bonding Session | ||||
| 17:00 | with | Preparation of BPS | |||
| RMO East FM | entries for the month | ||||
| 18:00 | |||||
| Week 2 | |||||
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |
| 7:00 | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting |
| 8:00 | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting |
| 9:00 | |||||
| Weekly S&D | |||||
| 10:00 | Team Meeting | East Telecon | Tabangao | ||
| Refinery | |||||
| 11:00 | PD Monthly C2 | Loss | |||
| Validation Meeting | Meeting | ||||
| 12:00 | |||||
| 13:00 | Weekly E&S Meeting | ||||
| Weekly 1-2-1 with | |||||
| 14:00 | Weekly P2S | PD Economist | Weekly | Weekly East | |
| Stocks | IMA/COA Sharing | ||||
| 15:00 | PD | Meeting | Preparation of BPS | ||
| Refinery | Telecon | entries for the month | |||
| 16:00 | Loss | Weekly | PSPC Monthly C2 | Learning and | |
| Meeting | 1-2-1 | Validation Meeting | Bonding Session | ||
| 17:00 | with | ||||
| RMO East FM | |||||
| 18:00 | Communications | ||||
| Network call |
| Week 3 | |||||
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |
| 7:00 | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting |
| 8:00 | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting |
| 9:00 | Monthly Margin | Tabangao MVA | Port Dickson | ||
| Weekly S&D | Meeting | Monthly | |||
| 10:00 | Team Meeting | Leakage Report Tab | East Telecon | Tabangao ROP | RPM |
| Monthly Margin | Meeting | Meeting | |||
| 11:00 | Leakage Report | ||||
| PD | |||||
| 12:00 | |||||
| 13:00 | RMO East Monthly | Weekly E&S Meeting | |||
| Team Meeting | Weekly 1-2-1 with | ||||
| 14:00 | Weekly P2S | PD Economist | Weekly | Weekly East | |
| RMO KPI | Stocks | IMA/COA Sharing | |||
| 15:00 | Monthly Mtg with PD | Slide Pack | Meeting | ||
| E&S Manager | (Monthly) | Telecon | |||
| 16:00 | Tabangao & PD | Weekly | E&S Opex | Learning and | |
| 1-2-1 | Reports | Bonding Session | |||
| 17:00 | with | (PD & Tabangao) | |||
| RMO East FM | |||||
| 18:00 | Monthly Global | ||||
| IMA/COA Call |
| Week 4 | |||||
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |
| 7:00 | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting | Daily Ops Meeting |
| 8:00 | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting | Daily PQ Meeting |
| 9:00 | SAP TMS Completion | ||||
| Weekly S&D | |||||
| 10:00 | Team Meeting | Monthly SAA | East Telecon | ||
| 11:00 | Tabangao C2 | ||||
| Pre-close meeting | |||||
| 12:00 | |||||
| 13:00 | Weekly E&S Meeting | ||||
| Weekly 1-2-1 with | |||||
| 14:00 | Weekly P2S | Ocean Loss Discussion | PD Economist | Weekly | Weekly East |
| Stocks | IMA/COA Sharing | ||||
| 15:00 | Monthly ROP | Meeting | |||
| Tabangao | Telecon | ||||
| 16:00 | Weekly | Learning and | |||
| 1-2-1 | Bonding Session | ||||
| 17:00 | with | ||||
| RMO East FM | |||||
| 18:00 | |||||
Looking at my calendar, I have a couple of new realizations.
1.) I have a lot of meetings – but since my role is virtual and advisory, this is expected. I need to rationalize which meetings are really important and which venues I can add/get value so I can prioritize other desk work/analysis over them.
2.) Some of my meetings are just too long. I need to work with some of my stakeholders on how to shorten them but still retain their value.
3.) Some of my report preparation times are too long. Since I will be one year on the job in April, I need to figure out how to make them shorter by a.) determining which ones I can outsource to the service centers, b.) which ones I can run macros for and c.) which reports are duplicate of other reports and are hence not needed separately.
4.) I have a lot of time to learn the skills of my other department-mates. Hence, if these will not be filled by additional tasks, I can schedule deep dive sessions with them so that I can act as their back-up in case they are on leave or are indisposed of.
After 4 years of working in Shell, this is the first time I actually did this and I can immediately see that there are a lot of new realizations when doing this. This is the first time I tried to gauge how productive am I (or not). When confronted with your LSW, you will get a confirmation (sometimes a stark one) of how much work do you really do and how much more you can actually accommodate. All of these is with the end of increasing productivity, which in turn, will increase profits. This begs the question – as entrepreneurs, have we really tried to map out our daily activities? Which ones are necessary and which ones are not? Which meetings/lunches really generate revenues for your business and which ones are just additional costs? Unless your daily schedule is put in front of you, you might not really know!
