May 23, 2013
The 2013 #Masters: Use of Temporary Labor
Augusta National Golf Club has some good and bad examples of how to use temporary labor for The Masters.
Masters Week has finally come and gone! All of the golf world descended upon Augusta, Georgia for April 8-14 for the 2013 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. Now we close out with a couple remaining tidbits from the week that was.
Once again, Augusta National Golf Club put on a demonstration this week with The Masters on how to run an event for a sports organization right – such a heavy emphasis on the customer experience was the overarching goal and it was certainly achieved.
However, Augusta National Golf Club wasn’t perfect. They deployed a couple of questionable operations strategies, one of which was the use of temporary labor.
The club has a full-time staff, a series of volunteers who are on site just for the tournament, and droves of temporary labor in the golf shop, the concession stands, in grounds sanitation, and with security.
The volunteers for the tournament – grounds crew, supervisors, golf course superintendents, shot charters, gallery control, manual scoreboard operators, etc. – come from miles and miles away to be up close to the action. The volunteers have (almost) all been doing these same roles at The Masters for multiple years so they are skilled at what they do. (Why do they volunteer? Besides being up close and integral parts of the operation, because of very special and unique benefits I’m not going to publish here, but trust me when I say they are special privileges.)
The temporary staffs in the golf shop, concessions operations, grounds sanitation, and security are all paid (and don’t receive the special privileges). These staffs are mostly younger kids, in high school or college in the local area (Augusta schools coordinate spring break with The Masters – have you tried driving a busload of kids through Masters traffic?) or folks looking to make some extra money. All temporary labor personnel go through training prior to the week of The Masters.
Operation of the golf shop, concessions, and grounds sanitation are very straight-forward, and so the training is pretty standard. The processes are similar to those in stores and restaurants, as well as your nearest Adopt-A-Highway sign.
However, security is a completely different animal. Lots of special rules, regulations, badge colors, permissible areas versus non-permissible, scanners, metal detectors, cross here not there, guests on lists, gallery control, and on and on. On top of that, the security personnel also play such a critical role in maintaining the customer experience at a high level, and the processes are much more difficult and non-standard relative to the other temporary operations on the course.
Because of the specialized security needs for The Masters, ANGC subcontracts the security out to Securitas. Securitas then has to account for the big spike in their security personnel demand by hiring temporary security personnel themselves. In years past the security procedures and their enforcement has been fine, but this year there was a noted lack of training and experience in handling this event. Many inconsistent applications of protocols (security guards disagreeing on procedures), unbalanced deployment across the course, disruption of experience (fans being pulled away by security guards misunderstanding procedures), and so on. I have permissions to go into certain areas of the course that others don’t, which in years past has not been an issue but this year I was stopped just about every time I stepped into non-patron areas (including being dragged to the security office) and I wasn’t alone in this frustration.
Randy Hatcher, president of MAU Staffing Solutions in Augusta, is the author of a book called “The Birth of a New Workforce” and has a great template for using temporary labor.
Graphic from MAU website
This graphic shows a general idea of how to categorize certain job functions. The key value-adding components of a workforce should lie either in the Core category (the strategic activities, and the reason your company exists to add value to its clients) and the Noncore-Critical category (a combination of strategy and support activities, the functions that you MUST have in order to properly add value to clients).
The Noncore-Noncritical category of functions includes those that don’t specifically add value to clients but are important for maintaining basic necessities like safety. These activities are almost completely tactical, plug-and-chug, replaceable functions. Notice that security falls into this category (as would concessions, janitorial, and golf shop activities).
What is important about the Noncore-Noncritical functions is that those processes need to be very specific and repeatable. They must be standardized and understood by all in those functions. Lack of objectivity in their application means that managers are spending more time in non-critical functions instead of worrying about more value-adding applications. Temporary labor should almost entirely fall into this category.
For ANGC and The Masters, there are two potential schools of thought for improvement with security.
One, as is previously defined, security protocols should be very specific and repeatable and understood by all. There should be no disagreement, the processes should be standardized, and the attention to detail and doing things one way should be great because they are in the Noncore-Noncritical category.
Two, maybe for such a special sporting event, security should NOT be in the Noncore-Noncritical category and should be bumped to Noncore-Critical (not quite Core because it is not a value-adding function to customers). In that case, not only should the processes and protocols be standardized and documented, but they should also be highly scrutinized year in and year out and experienced personnel should be placed in those roles. Outsourcing of security to Securitas should have tighter controls and ANGC should work with Securitas more to make sure only specially-trained personnel are granted positions.
I don’t know if there were any big security issues for this year’s Masters Tournament, but with the use of undertrained temporary security officers and lack of very specific security protocols in places the opportunity for problems could have reared its head.
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The 2013 #Masters: Low Scores and Standardized Work
Should historically-low scores on a hole in golf be easily converted to standardized work?
Masters Week is finally here! All of the golf world has descended upon Augusta, Georgia for April 8-14 for the 2013 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.
Last year at the 2012 Masters I was sitting with someone near the green of another hole on Sunday when we heard the roar of the crowd from the #2 green. Louis Oosthuizen had just scored an albatross (or double eagle, or three-under-par) on hole #2 – he took two shots to complete a par-5 hole by knocking his long second shot from the fairway onto the green and straight into the cup.
This was the first-ever albatross on hole #2, in this the 76th Masters.
So I was asked “Shouldn’t the best score reflect best practices and thereby become standardized work?”
It was a good question but also comes with a humbling theoretical AND actual answer – no.
Theoretically, standardized work should be a reflection of the best practices but also stand as easily repeatable. Expert precision and consistent conditions should be documented and also repeated.
In golf, such expectation is unrealistic. Oosthuizen could not have expertly predicted what should happen with his shot, given the conditions. In addition, even if he repeated his swing and stance exactly as he had last year, the conditions will have all changed – weather, moisture of the grounds, humidity, wind, etc.
And in real life…the results speak for themselves. No one else has done what he has.
If conditions and activities can be easily repeated for every stroke on the golf course, then yes, standardized work can come about. Unfortunately golf does not lend itself to standardized work. That’s why players have so many different clubs in their bags and why scores are always different.
Let’s look at a non-sports example.
A few years back I helped facilitate a Kaizen event on a manufacturing line. The injection molding press was moving to a different plant location, and the work cell layout might have to change. Based on available space (according to blueprints of the plant’s future state) we ran a time study for the assembly/quality check process that previously required two operators.
In our short time study we saw we could complete the assembly and quality check process within customer takt time using just one operator. However, that operator was running from one station to the next to complete both tasks. It is certainly possible to complete the entire process with one person, but this one person required superhuman energy and a lot of stamina to do so. With the customer expectation set for us and the costs associated with significantly altering the work cell standing higher than what we expected to invest, we streamlined the process for use with two operators but cut out a lot of other waste activity.
So just because a process CAN be completed at the highest level of productivity or performance doesn’t mean it is ideal. Standardized work should reflect what SHOULD happen most of the time, aside from blips in performance either up or down. If customer expectations or available resources for investment were to change, then the standardized work and work cell layout could as well.
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The 2013 #Masters: Coaching Is Auditing AND Facilitating Improvement
Players have coaches to help the players improve but also to maintain current levels of performance.
Masters Week is finally here! All of the golf world has descended upon Augusta, Georgia for April 8-14 for the 2013 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.
The Masters Golf Tournament is the pinnacle of the golfing world. The best of the best receive invitations to participate and make history for winning on the sport’s grandest stage.
However, every morning you will see players with their caddies out at the practice range alongside coaches. These coaches help the players see things they can’t because they are in motion – elements of swings at the tee box, excess motion within chip shots, even help with reading greens for putting.
The best players in the world don’t achieve their success alone. These expert coaches teach the best fundamentals of the game so that players can improve, but they also help the players maintain strong levels of play or spot where activities within a swing (pulling your hip, not shifting weight, not keeping the left arm straight, etc) would be delivering poor results.
The coaches are auditing the players.
If the best of the best still need performance audits, everyone else does too.
Without auditing, performance runs the risk of falling back to old levels of limited success. If players don’t get coached properly, little issues in a swing such as pulling your hip could become chronic problems that will take a long time and significant effort to correct.
Auditing is NOT a bad thing. Audits are not punitive (or they should not be). Audits should be used to help those being audited maintain high standards of performance or to help them reach the next level of success.
The result of an audit should not be a simple numerical score – it should serve as an indicator as to how performance is going at that time and be used as a standard for improvement going forward. Auditing is a measure of current levels of quality – if high quality is the ideal output, then audits should be a tool to achieve that high quality.
In addition, auditing is not improvement – all auditing can do is indicate opportunities for improvement, and it is up to the subject to implement those improvements. A golfer not listening to coaching suggestions makes the transition from good to great harder. A project team not following along with a manager or outside consultant will continue to delay sowing all of the benefits of the improvement project.
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The 2013 #Masters: Pace Penalty on Tianlang Guan
A pace penalty against Asian amateur Tianlang Guan in the Second Round of The Masters. (Photo from CBSSports.com)
Masters Week is finally here! All of the golf world has descended upon Augusta, Georgia for April 8-14 for the 2013 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.
As indicated earlier, Masters threesomes are spaced eleven minutes apart for tee times so that there is even spacing and balance between groups and they won’t interfere with each other if play goes as expected.
However, 14 year old Asian amateur Tianlang Guan was penalized one stroke yesterday because he was the cause of his threesome being so far off the eleven-minute pace and severely delaying play for groups behind theirs. Because of his penalty, he ran the risk of missing the cut and playing the final two rounds of The Masters. (Fortunately he made the cut despite the penalty.)
Many are arguing that the penalty is ridiculous because it is rarely enforced for other slow players and Guan might have been unfairly penalized because he’s a now-high profile player for being the youngest ever to play The Masters.
While that might be the case, the fact remains that the rule is in place for a reason – to maintain the pace. Previous enforcement (or lack thereof) should have either complete bearing over future enforcements, or no bearing at all.
Here’s why: there are two ways to look at rules. The first is that the rules are important and they are in place because of very specific reasons…in which case they must be enforced strictly. The fault for not enforcing it falls on the entire game of golf, because important rules should be enforced.
The second way is that we must know the reason the rule exists in the first place. If the rule isn’t important, throw it out. If someone feels a rule is important and can vouch for why, great. Otherwise, there needs to be a reason a rule stays in place and why it must be enforced.
(I love Seth Godin’s take on employee handbooks and rules.)
The “Well they got away with it, why can’t I?” reasoning for action is not a justification nor does it grant permission, but it does hint at a systematic and cultural problem that has been permitted to exist.
My stance is that he was penalized for not following a rule that is important. If golf, the PGA, and The Masters all want to change the culture of slow play, they need to start somewhere. It’s not like it’s a new rule or anything.
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The 2013 #Masters: Continuous Flow of Player Groups
Rory McIlroy after his tee shot on the first hole at Augusta National.
Masters Week is finally here! All of the golf world has descended upon Augusta, Georgia for April 8-14 for the 2013 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.
The Masters, just like most golf events (pro, amateur, charity, fun, etc), utilizes an excellent example of continuous flow of players out on the course during the tournament.
The first two days of the tournament (First Round and Second Round) consist of three-player groups (“threesomes”) spaced eleven minutes apart based on their tee times from the first tee.
Every ten or eleven threesomes the schedule institutes an “open” slot. This break between threesomes provides a couple of benefits. First, it allows the workers operating the first tee box (schedulers, announcers, materials gatherers, etc) to have a chance to pick up lunch or use the restroom. However, it also serves as a bit of a buffer for absorbing any fast threesomes in a later section to not be affected as much by slower threesomes in an earlier section.
The Third Round and Fourth Round of the tournament consist of pairings of two players. They are spaced ten minutes apart as a twosome should complete holes a little faster on average.
The threesomes and the pairings with the schedule demonstrate continuous flow because the groups are (for all intents and purposes) balanced – same sized groups, same process being followed by each group. In addition, later groups cannot move any faster than the group in front of it – earlier groups must complete their tasks before the next group can move forward. There is no working ahead and building up of WIP in golf on the course during the tournament.
Will there be waiting for later groups who move quickly? Sure. However, their wait won’t be particularly long (unless something breaks down in the process, such as a rules violation that requires closer examination of the incident…going to the gemba!).
Sometimes the cut line between the Second and Third Rounds of The Masters leave an odd number of participants for the Third Round – a whole bunch of pairings and a partner-less player left in the competition. The players’ tee times for the Third and Fourth Rounds are set in reverse order of scores – the last place players go first. Odd numbers of competitors leaves imbalance – the last-place finisher starts off by himself and finishes way early ahead of the field or the first-place finisher from the Second Round has a whole lot of waiting around for the pairings in front of him to finish.
Augusta National Golf Club employs what is known as a “marker” to make up for the imbalance. This marker is a designated player from the club’s membership who will play alongside the odd golfer so that he can maintain his ten-minutes-per-hole pace. This year, Bubba Watson teed off first in the morning (the last-place finisher from Friday) and he was paired with ANGC’s marker player.
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The #2013 Masters: On-Site Logistics and Materials Supply
Augusta National Golf Club has a pretty simple supply chain and logistics plan.
Masters Week is finally here! All of the golf world has descended upon Augusta, Georgia for April 8-14 for the 2013 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.
Augusta National Golf Club needs to provide food and merchandise supplies to the various concession stands and golf shop stands all across the course for The Masters, yet also needs to maintain the integrity of the grounds and serene beauty of the course itself by not adding extra buildings.
So what do they do? Temporary warehousing and a fleet of material handling carts!
A temporary loading dock permits box trucks on one side and material handling golf carts on the other.
Augusta National Golf Club employs box trucks as a means of providing temporary warehousing space along a long but narrow temporary loading dock. Box trucks contain concessions and golf shop merchandise for replenishment on the course, and essentially stay in place until they are close to empty and sent back off to be replenished off site (as deemed necessary). All the box trucks stay on one side of the dock and can get in and out of their spaces and the club grounds easily.
The golf carts are quickly loaded with what stands need and nothing they don’t, then quickly dispatched to the course.
On the other side of the temporary loading dock are material handling golf carts that can quickly roll to golf shops and concession stands and replenish only what those stands need. Extra supply is not kept out at the concession areas (as deemed logistically necessary) where inventory buildup at one stand might mean a stockout at another. As stock runs low, supply needs are either radioed to the temporary warehousing area or relayed to the material handling cart drivers stationed at the stands and replenishment begins.
A materials cart heads off to deliver supplies.
When trucks are close to empty, extra supply is taken off and the truck is sent back to the suppliers for replenishment as needed.
If supplying box trucks wait until they are completely empty before departing for the offsite supplier, a lag in available inventory develops between the truck departing and its return. As a result, trucks will unload remaining supplies when it gets very close to empty so that enough of a buffer exists to supply the stands before the truck returns. Some materials will then be left “outside the warehouse” but it’s a small amount that exists only to handle immediate supply needs and will be the first material consumed.
Is there a lot of transportation and motion in this process? Certainly. However, this process provides a lot of benefit.
- Inventory can be better managed in one warehousing location instead of counting what materials are at each stand and being forced into a supply lag and stockouts or excess inventory. This method makes inventory a lot easier to control.
- It’s more aesthetically pleasing to see small golf carts zip by and fit into crowded areas with patrons than to drive around big non-green box trucks that are loud and space hogs.
- Inventory buildup won’t occur much at the stands, providing a safer work environment and avoiding food spoilage.
- All inventory is out of the way of patrons (they don’t normally see this part of the grounds), all logistics situations are handled away from the patrons, and the customer focus can be on the game instead of additional outside distractions like a box truck beeping while in reverse.
It’s an efficient process, especially considering the club’s expectations for customer experience maximization.
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The 2013 #Masters: Visual Indicators
Lean organizations and sports organizations are definitely in line regarding the importance of scoreboards.
Masters Week is finally here! All of the golf world has descended upon Augusta, Georgia for April 8-14 for the 2013 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.
Visual indicators and controls are excellent tools for both communicating important information very quickly across long distances and also enabling others to act in accordance with the communicated information. Sports organizations and Lean thinking organizations are definitely in agreement at the value of using scoreboards to share information.
Critical pieces of the communication process via visual indicators and controls include properly sharing the correct data, the most important data, the most actionable data, and also confirmation that those receiving the data know what the data means, can quickly translate it into proper thought or action, and will react in accordance with what is being shared with them.
ANGC workers sharing up-to-date information about practice round tee times with the Masters patrons.
All around the course are information boards that are updated manually by course employees. Practice round tee times are not published or set days in advance and tend to be more leisurely for the players (or at least less rigid with timing or scheduling). As practice round tee times are set by the players during the practice rounds, the information is relayed from the clubhouse and other outlets to the information board workers via radio. They match up tee times (and starts on the first nine holes or second nine holes) with player groupings on the magnetic boards, and also let passers-by know about players working on their games at the practice range.
The Par 3 Contest course scoreboard not only shows low tournament scores but also closest-to-the-pin on each hole.
Not all important information is created the same, so not all scoreboards are the same. On the main course the scoreboards only feature the tournament score leaders and the scores of the approaching groups (the scoreboard closest to the 15th green shows the leaders’ scores and the scores of the group currently playing on 15).
However, the Par 3 Contest is concerned not only with low overall score but also the players whose tee shots landed closest to the pin. On the right side of the Par 3 scoreboard is a list of the players who landed closest to the flagstick and the distance away in inches. Yesterday, Nick Watney hit a hole-in-one on hole 9 so his closest-to-the-pin distance was 0 (as shown above, however fuzzily).
Augusta National Golf Club, well, they’re not perfect all the time.
The allowance of such potential dangers to exist on the course is a discussion for another day, but at least the club has taken the time to inform patrons to be wary of honey bees. I bet this sign either got patrons to look up and around for potential flying stinging insects or their homes, or to steer clear of the flowers and pine straw all together.
Digital timers indicate to concessions workers the age of the batch of perishable food in the concessions racks.
On this rack of chicken wraps ($3 and worth every penny) the concession workers use digital timers to indicate the last time the rack has been stocked. This rack uses two timers, one on the left and right side of this tray, as they have two batches of wraps in the tray. Based on the age of the wraps in the tray and the remaining quantity, concessionaires can decide how many more wraps they want to restock if they want to restock at all.
Two timers on the trays of chicken wraps.
I bet most concession stands don’t use such simple technology to monitor materials consumption, yet Augusta National Golf Club has this set up for a simple seven-day event. The overall attention to detail continues to blow me away.
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The 2013 #Masters: The #Lean Blog Podcast about Lean in Sports
Masters Week is finally here! All of the golf world has descended upon Augusta, Georgia for April 8-14 for the 2013 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.
The Lean Blog Podcast with Mark Graban has featured many dignitaries in the field of Lean and continuous improvement – authors, thought leaders, practitioners, consultants, and the like. I’m very excited to now be a participant in such a distinguished series!
Mark interviewed me for the Lean Blog Podcast about the use of Lean in sports as a preview to the 2013 Masters Tournament and the Major League Baseball season. We covered not only the business processes of sports organizations but also some of my other blog post topics like MLB’s pace of game procedures and the BCS Championship parking fiasco in Miami.
Much like the amateurs and younger professionals walking the same fairways as golf’s greats on its biggest stage, I am very humbled to have been provided an opportunity to talk further about the use of Lean and continuous improvement in sports organizations on a platform shared with Norman Bodek, Eric Ries, Dr. Jeffrey Liker, David Meier, Jim Womack, and others sporting the figurative Lean Green Jacket.
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The 2013 #Masters: Results-Based Pin Placements
From 1340TheFan.com
Masters Week is finally here! All of the golf world has descended upon Augusta, Georgia for the next six days for the 2013 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.
While you’re not supposed to believe everything you read on fan message boards (or on the internet in the first place, for that matter), here is a pseudo-rumor I have also heard from multiple reputable sources regarding pin placements during the Masters:
The hole locations are decided on by the competition committee. Usually they will go out over the course early on the day of play and select the placements according to how they want the hole to play that day. Often they will also roll a ball form different angles at the potential spot before cutting the hole to be certain that the hole will play fairly.
Each green at Augusta National only has a very few possible locations because of the extreme slopes. The areas where the hole can be made are relatively small when compared to the actual size of the greens. It takes very precise approach shots to take advantage of most of the possible hole positions.
“Pin placement” is the designated geographic location for the hole on a golf green.
Sunday pin placements for 2011 Masters (Source: golf.com)
Based on the quoted message board post (and the rumor provided on high authority), this is an example of using results-based activity planning. It’s essentially the opposite of root cause analysis – instead of starting with a problem and working backwards to identify the potential causes of the problem, you start with an intended result and work backwards to control the potential inputs or causes to attempt to achieve that result.
Here’s how Augusta National Golf Club would use results-based activity planning for The Masters. The ANGC competition committee would determine what kinds of scores they would like to see from the field. Examples of “kinds of scores” could include highness or lowness scores (scores relative to par) or scores tightly bunched together. Maybe the first couple of rounds see top scores of -9 or -10 and they’d like to bring the scores closer to par.
Based on their intended results (the scores), the committee examines what is and is not out of their control with regard to scores.
Out of their control on a round-by-round basis? The weather, the elements, the technology, outlier players with strokes of luck, Sunday pin placements (here’s why), among other things.
In their control? Pin placements on greens other days of the tournament and condition of the grounds for play.
Before each round begins, the competition committee selects pin placements on each hole the night before/morning of, and sets up the course accordingly before play begins on subsequent rounds. Traditionally, the Sunday pin placements have been placed in the same locations on each green every year. The committee uses GPS technology, control of grass height in the roughs, moisture in the surfaces of the greens, and weather forecast projections to dictate player activity hitting to the greens and on the greens, which will control the player scores.
They also use a stimpmeter, a tool that helps measure the speed and direction of putts on golf greens. A golf ball is released on an incline and the direction and final resting location help establish how a green will play in given conditions.
Based on prior year knowledge of how greens play (and subsequent changes to rebuilt greens year after year) the club can control how scores play out to better demonstrate mastery of the game of golf.
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The Designated Hitter and Poor Root Cause Analysis
History was made in 1973 – for better or worse.
Saturday marks the 40th anniversary of the first use of a Designated Hitter in a Major League Baseball game. Ron Blomberg of the New York Yankees made history as he stepped in to hit against Luis Tiant of the Boston Red Sox on April 6th, 1973.
And now, forty years later, the DH remains a heavy topic for debate in baseball circles, as it remains unused in the National League while the American League has gone from using it on a trial run to make it a permanent fixture – should the NL adopt the DH? Or should the AL drop the DH and let the pitcher hit?
What I want to know is…why do we have the DH in the first place?
The history of baseball trumpets its long-standing traditions, the symmetry, and the overall aversion to change, yet it’s baseball that features one of the biggest asymmetrical rules in all of sports (professional or otherwise).
So what problem was baseball looking to solve that led them to want to adopt the DH at all?
From this SB Nation article, here’s Rob Neyer:
Quick History Lesson: The Designated Hitter was introduced in 1973 because the American League was struggling at the gate. In 1972, one American League team (Detroit) averaged more than 20,000 customers per game; five A.L. clubs didn’t manage to average even 10,000 fans per game. The National League enjoyed a whopping 26-percent attendance edge over the American League. There were a number of reasons for the A.L.’s disadvantage, but one obvious issue seemed to be the hitting; in ’72, scoring in the American League fell back to roughly the same level as in 1968 — the so-called “Year of the Pitcher”.
To improve attendance, the American League owners proposed two old ideas: the Designated Hitter, and Interleague Play. For both leagues. The National League rejected interleague play out of hand — why help the American League? — but permitted the American League to use the DH on a three-year trial basis, while rejecting the DH for itself.
Hold the phone. This is an interesting line that has been drawn – the true reason for the DH is declining attendance?
Let’s try a little root cause analysis but first define the problem – despite playing with equal rules, the National League is outdrawing the American League. Is that the problem the AL is looking to solve? Let’s say it absolutely is.
- Why is the NL outdrawing the AL? Some possible reasons are ticket prices, team traditions and fan bases, different players and superstars, and maybe the NL hitters have better numbers than their AL counterparts.
Let’s now assume ticket prices are pretty much equal, and that fan bases remain the same as they have for years (Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs don’t go through cycles with number of fans year over year, I don’t believe). There are good players and superstars in both leagues, and there is no salary cap – salaries are irrelevant because MLB still had the reserve clause in place and in 1973 was two years away from free agency.
- So maybe the NL hit better than the AL and scoring in the NL was higher – in 1972 the NL teams averaged 3.91 runs per game and had a .248 batting average, while the AL teams averaged 3.47 runs per game and had a .239 batting average. Having recently come through “The Year of the Pitcher” in 1968 it certainly was plausible that hitting would not recover to past levels.
St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson, a major contributor to the downfall of offense in the late 1960′s
However, every MLB team had essentially the same access to the same players via draft or trade and maybe some better luck in the NL a few years prior to 1972 came to fruition with better hitting (and better attendance) down the line.
So why did the NL hit better? My guess is not because of rules, but probably because of good fortune. Even still, .248 is not a good batting average. Without doing regression analysis or testing of statistical relevance, I would chalk the hitting difference between the leagues up to random cycles.
But the powers that be in baseball decided that the discrepancy in hitting (and subsequent boost in attendance) would be solved by giving a hitting advantage to one league by permitting pitchers to not hit, and creating asymmetry in the rules.
Now, if root cause analysis is applied properly and the resulting improvements are directly linked back to those causes, those problems should start to go away. In this case, the AL should start to hit better than the NL, while the NL hitting continues to flounder. Did it work?
NL batting averages 1973-1977: .254, .255, .257, .255, .262
AL batting averages 1973-1977: .259, .258, .258, .256, .266
NL runs per game 1973-1977: 4.15, 4.15, 4.13, 3.98, 4.40
AL runs per game 1973-1977: 4.28, 4.10, 4.30, 4.01, 4.53
Those differences are not statistically significant. Yes, the AL hitting improved from 1973 on, but it did in the NL as well. The AL hitting surpassed the NL hitting, but not by much. The rising tide lifted all boats. And look at the boom in 1977 – runs per game jumped by about half a run per game…in both leagues.
It appears that the immediate effects of the DH were not significant relative to hitting. But what about attendance? Back to Rob Neyer:
Anyway, it might have worked. In 1973, American League attendance jumped 12 percent, and the National League’s attendance edge dropped slightly, from 26 percent to 20 percent. In ’73, only two American League clubs — the Indians and Rangers — failed to draw at least 10,000 customers per game.
So the gap was closed on attendance…but it did not close completely. Attendance improved but the hitting in both leagues improved as well.
Was that a result of the DH? I give more credence to luck, randomness, and “what goes down must come up.” The desired outcome – increased attendance – was realized but not because of adopting the DH.
Now, the use of the DH today is considerably different than its use in the 1970s – hitting statistics in the AL favor the aging slugger who is too slow to play the field but gets to extend his career as a DH. The strategy in the AL is different than that in the NL as well – the NL features double switches, sacrifice bunting, pinch hitters, and late-game player strategies. In the AL the use of pinch hitters is limited since you never have to worry about the pitchers coming up to bat.
Anyway, happy anniversary to Ron Blomberg. Had MLB utilized better root cause analysis, the DH might not exist and he might not have gone on to his historic achievement.
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New York Mets Triple-A Team Now 2,200 Miles Away
Starting this season, the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Mets have essentially swapped Triple-A affiliates. The Las Vegas 51s are the new Triple-A affiliate of the Mets and the Blue Jays have taken over affiliation of the Buffalo Bisons.
This swap appears to be a great benefit to the Blue Jays and not so much for the Mets. Now if the Mets need to call up a hot prospect from AAA or send a player away on a rehab assignment to AAA those player transfers will now necessitate over 2200 miles of travel. The distance between New York and Las Vegas now stands as the fifth-longest distance between a parent Major League club and the parent’s AAA affiliate. The second longest distance between clubs in 2013? About 1,000 miles separates Rochester, New York and their Red Wings from the parent club, the Minnesota Twins. That pales in comparison to the cross-country jaunt for Mets players. From the Wall Street Journal:
Click photo to enlarge (from the Wall Street Journal)
That is a lot of transportation for a player being called up or sent down. On top of that, if the Mets need to make an emergency call-up of a player in AAA to replace another injured player, the called-up player has to fly 2200 miles but also lose two hours crossing time zones. This means the player has to be ready to go at the Las Vegas airport early in the morning before an evening game, OR he has to wait another day before making it to New York. Reiterating what I just said is, again, the Wall Street Journal:
The Mets are moving their top minor-league affiliate to Las Vegas, a city some 2,200 miles away from Queens—the greatest distance between a Triple-A team and its current parent club. This will cause some glaring logistical problems, making it tougher for the Mets to make a quick call-up or send players on the mend down for brief rehab assignments.
(I also concede that Toronto’s affiliation with Las Vegas was nearly as long and also having to cross two time zones.)
Because of the time gap and the distance covered, it seems like east coast teams like Toronto or the Mets shouldn’t even consider using a west coast(ish) team like Las Vegas as a AAA affiliate. You’d think that Las Vegas would be snapped up by other west coast teams or Texas teams but they all are using AAA affiliates that are geographically logical, so in the game of Affiliate Musical Chairs an east coast team left standing had to utilize Las Vegas.
So what should a team like the Mets do in an emergency situation? Fortunately their AA affiliate, the Binghamton Mets, is also in the state of New York. The team could utilize the AA team for emergency call-ups or injury rehabilitation stints. Using the AA club is a viable emergency replacement of talent or injury rehabilitation.
(H/T to Mark Graban for sharing this Wall Street Journal article about the affiliate change last fall!)
Rutgers Basketball Coach Mike Rice Does Not Show “Respect For People”
Three months after being suspended for “inappropriate behavior and language” ESPN’s Outside The Lines shared a video of Rutgers men’s basketball coach Mike Rice abusing his players with inappropriate names and slurs and physical contact and threats. Video from ESPN:
The video is shocking and irredeemable. Rice is shown grabbing, shoving and kicking players. He is shown throwing basketballs at them. He directs a multitude of vulgar variations of “you’re a sissy” at them.
That’s not coaching. That’s bullying.
As addressed in a previous piece about MLB pensions possibly being eliminated, one of the two pillars of Lean and the Toyota Production System is “respect for people.” This doesn’t necessarily mean always being nice and kind when dealing with others, but rather finding ways to challenge those around you to perform at their peak potential and identify ways to solve problems collectively. Part of respecting others means helping find the truth and the appropriate reconciliation of identified problems, which isn’t always easy to do or handle.
There are multiple ways to help others perform at their best, and while not all of those methods are nice and kind it’s generally expected that appropriate results will follow methods that seem angry and mean to outsiders. In addition, not every method to get through to colleagues, direct reports, or supervisors will work the same – everyone is different.
Unfortunately Mike Rice isn’t delivering those results. Not only does he have a poor coaching record at Rutgers (44-51) but he has also driven many program insiders away, including player transfers. From former Rutgers director of player development Eric Murdock:
Some players were deeply affected by Rice’s treatment of them, Murdock said, adding that he watched it undermine their desire to play. “There were some players who couldn’t sleep at night, who wasn’t eating, who didn’t want to come to the gym,” he said, adding that he told Pernetti about that, too, in December.
A simple similarity can be drawn between Mike Rice and Bob Knight. However, as Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports states, “At least that bully won.” Beyond that, many players return to Indiana as big Bob Knight supporters and there is ample evidence that Knight’s players took the “student” in “student-athlete” seriously.
This isn’t to say that winning is an excuse for verbal and physical battery of players. College basketball coaches with potty mouths and short fuses who deliver results on the court and in the classroom have others see their actions as “getting through to the kids” but the fact remains that the coach is providing what is making the kids excel.
This can’t be said of Mike Rice. Poor coaching record, getting torched in the media, and players not developing that necessary trust and mutual respect with their coach means that Mike Rice is doing something wrong as a head college basketball coach.
A #Lean Look at the #Baseball Jersey Manufacturing Process
Rob Neyer of SBNation shared this great video from the YES Network on how Majestic manufactures the game jerseys for the New York Yankees.
0:15 – Early in the video we see a lot of jersey stock, grouped by team in large storage racks in distribution. It’s not clear whether these are blank jerseys or are prepared with players’ names in advance – there could be a customization shop near the distribution wing. While continuous flow and one-piece flow is the ideal Lean process setup, some seasonal processes with extended changeover times (such as producing baseball jerseys where materials are different from one team to another) consume the least amount of time when batch production is used.
1:02 – Computers for fabric cutting machines have set uniform patterns for each individual player programmed into its memory. A laser cutter is used to cut the pattern out of a piece of jersey fabric stock. However, there is a step with a paper tracing machine where the computer will draw out the pattern for the jersey components on paper first yet the laser cutter apparently does not use this traced paper pattern as a guide for cutting the pants on the fabric stock.
If the paper-tracing step is not necessary to completing the cutting process, why is it being used? The guide even says the laser is following the computer pattern and not the ink on the paper. It appears to be a wasteful step, but maybe I’ve missed something.
Also, a lesson for all of us regarding local sourcing of product – because Majestic is in close proximity to Yankee Stadium, the company is able to produce and deliver a brand new full uniform in an emergency situation (if a jersey rips or gets lost) if the order is received just six hours ahead of game time (1:00 p.m. for a 7:00 p.m. first pitch). That’s not happening with international production.
Granted, this does little to help out the other 28 MLB teams (I’m assuming the Mets also receive this privileged delivery option) but turnaround for those teams is still going to be relatively fast (within the week, at worst).
At 2:40 it looks like there is some automation from the sewing machine (sewing the pocket well?). Automation has a common misconception in that people believe it means people are replaced by robots or heavy technology implementation. Automation is mostly about allowing a number of process sequences to be completed with limited inputs and with error-proofing applied as necessary. If a single input can initiate a chain reaction of activities down the line that have low likelihoods of failing, that’s automation. It just so happens that properly-implemented and designed robots feature the built-in automation of processes.
2:50 – Hand embroidery of player’s name and sizes for containment within the pants waistband – it makes me hurt just watching it.
4:08 – A vacuum unit with two large tubes is used to quickly turn pants inside out – how cool is this? Simple yet reduces wear and tear on operators. Brilliant!
4:35 – Our host Meredith attempts to use the sewing machine to stitch the navy interlocked Yankees logo on the front of the jersey. At 4:47 Nick the supervisor inspects Meredith’s work. Are there more error-proofed or faster ways to determine whether a stitched component is within spec (such as a template or standard or visual guide) so that an individual doesn’t have to apply so much human judgment in inspection? (The supervisor inspection might be a special case for this video, but it’s a question that should be asked.)
~~~~~~~
Not being an expert or fully versed in the overall Majestic production scheme, I think there are a lot of opportunities for improvement that can be considered – more templates, more machine jigs, identification of unnecessary processes, and so forth. Overall, the sewing process appears to be very manually intensive.
It’s entirely possible that Majestic simply hasn’t been introduced to the Lean waste activities or any of the Lean tools for optimizing their processes.
Want to see more manufacturing processes?
Manufacturing Process of Baseball Bats
Manufacturing Process of Baseballs
Manufacturing Process of Wilson Footballs
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Lean or Sushi??
It’s time for everyone’s favorite game!!
Lean terms regularly applied in Japan don’t always get translated into English when the concepts are used in the United States. Reasons for this include lacking a concise literal translation from Japanese to English, or the Japanese term is used to preserve the integrity of the topic and an English translation makes it seem a little less authentic.
Either way, failure to translate can be both confusing and intimidating to non-users or individuals who are first being introduced to the concepts. It can certainly be hard to tell whether a word being used by a Lean practitioner is a Lean term or they are referring to sushi.
How confusing can it be? Take this little “Lean or Sushi?” quiz! (Print out your own quiz copy here!)
For every word, determine if it is referring to a Lean concept or something related to sushi.
Please note: this exercise is not intended to make light of the Japanese language, but rather to demonstrate that it is more important to understand the Lean concept and intent as opposed to proper application and memorization of the Japanese term in a sentence.
1. Kaikaku
2. Kazunoko
3. Poka Yoke
4. Tempura
5. Heijunka
6. Hanedashi
7. Hokkigai
8. Nagara
9. Nigiri
10. Nama-tako
11. Hoshin Kanri
12. Hoisin
13. Gemba
14. Genchi Genbutsu
15. Kim Chee
16. Mizusumashi
17. Mekajiki
18. Muri
19. Kani-kamaboko
20. Kanban
21. Koi
22. Seiketsu
23. Suzuki
24. Sumitomo
25. Yokoten
26. Unagi
27. Muda
28. Ankimo
Pencils down! Let’s see how you did!
Photo from Toyota’s San Antonio Plant Visitor Center, taken by Mark Graban
1. Kaikaku is a LEAN term that means “revolutionary change” - it is a monumental shift in how a process is completed, while Kaizen is more gradual and “evolutionary.”
2. Kazunoko is a SUSHI term for herring roe.
3. Poka Yoke is a LEAN term for error-proofing a process so that there is only one way – the right way – to complete it and it is impossible to complete incorrectly.
4. Tempura is a SUSHI term for battered and fried vegetables.
5. Heijunka is a LEAN term for production level-loading so that peaks and valleys in production are minimized and work can be better standardized.
6. Hanedashi is a LEAN term referring to machines automatically popping out completed components and setting ready for the operator to load the next one – this saves time for the operators on having to remove the components themselves.
7. Hokkigai is a SUSHI term meaning surf clam.
8. Nagara is a LEAN term meaning “while doing something” - for example, an operator could do two things at once like walking while assembling two components for preparation for the next step in the process.
9. Nigiri is a type of SUSHI with a clump of rice beneath a piece of fish.
10. Nama-tako is a SUSHI term for raw or fresh octopus.
11. Hoshin Kanri is a LEAN term for strategic deployment.
12. Hoisin is a SUSHI term for a sauce used in Chinese cooking, much like barbecue sauce.
13. Gemba is a LEAN term referring to where the work actually happens. Managers should frequently “go to the gemba” to see for themselves firsthand what is actually occurring in their processes and obtain feedback from process operators.
14. Genchi Genbutsu is a LEAN term for “go and see for yourself” – much like “going to the gemba” genchi genbutsu refers to going and seeing for oneself what issues might be occurring.
15. Kim Chee is a SUSHI term for spicy marinated cabbage.
16. Mizusumashi is a LEAN term for internal material handler running “milk routes” for replenishing supplies and is translated from Japanese as “water spider.”
17. Mekajiki is a SUSHI term for broadbill swordfish.
18. Muri is a LEAN term for overworking or overburden in processes. Muri creates excess strain and effort, and ideas should be collected on how to complete such processes with reduced wear and tear on process users.
19. Kani-kamaboko is a SUSHI term for imitation crab meat.
20. Kanban is a LEAN term for inventory management and scheduling similar to how supermarket shelves are replenished. Items are pulled from the shelves and replenished based only on what’s taken. Kanban helps prevent overproduction and excess inventory. (Here’s a link to “Personal Kanban” – interesting.)
21. Koi is a SUSHI term for saltwater carp.
Koi, or saltwater carp, are often kept as ornamental fish and not eaten because of their colorful decorations.
22. Seiketsu is a LEAN term referring to the fourth S in 5S – Standardize. This is having all operators properly sorting, setting in order, and shining in the same way to promote consistency and similarity across work spaces.
23. Suzuki, in addition to being a car and motorcycle manufacturer, is a SUSHI term for striped bass or rockfish.
24. Sumitomo, besides being a brand of vehicle tire, is a SUSHI term for cucumber salad.
25. Yokoten is a LEAN term for sharing knowledge and learning across an organization.
26. Unagi is a SUSHI term for freshwater eel. (Ross Geller has a different definition for unagi.)
27. Muda is a LEAN term for non-value-added activities inherent in processes – reduction and eradication of waste activities is one of the pillars of Lean (along with respect for people).
28. Ankimo is a SUSHI term for monkfish liver.
How did you do? Would you like to share this with others? Here are some .pdf files to use with colleagues!
Again, the key point to be made is that the concepts of Lean are more important than the terms we use to describe them. When I was first being introduced to the Lean tools we referred to the process of error-proofing as “error-proofing” and not “poka yoke”, and even today we in the United States don’t use the Japanese terms for 5S such as Seiketsu – we use Sort, Set In Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. It’s important to use terms that won’t be intimidating or unsettling – bringing down any barriers to “changing for the better” must be applied as much as possible.
(Also, while published on April Fools Day this isn’t intended to be a prank, but at least we can have a little laugh about the similarities to the language used in both “industries.”)
Special thanks to Mark Graban and Russell Watkins for helping drive the idea of “Lean or Sushi?” Also, here’s a quick article from Ron Pereira about Lean and sushi converging.
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Baseball Opening Day 2013! What Are Our Business Processes?
Photo from Augusta Greenjackets Facebook page
Baseball Opening Day has arrived! Tonight the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers will throw out the first pitch of the 2013 MLB season. Banners will be unfurled, famous dignitaries will be in attendance and shown on television, and pomp and circumstance will be heaped upon the American public.
Once the new sheen of the 2013 season has given way to routine and momentum of regular season play and the dog days of summer, maximizing the customer experience will become the priority. There are baseball organizations that go the extra mile to make the customers feel like special dignitaries all season long (and achieve season-long sellouts), and there are organizations that look at fans as a basic given (despite the empty seats).
So what are some of the customer-facing business processes that could use a closer examination for optimization?
- Facility maintenance, upkeep, and organization
Teams have to provide a stadium that fans want to visit – energy, excitement, colors, sounds, an experience – without putting them in danger of health hazards. This means the stadium needs to be clean and organized as well as safe. Clean and organized means bathrooms that aren’t filthy, concourses aren’t lined with trash and are regularly picked up, spills at concessions counters are wiped up, condiments are protected from the elements, and so forth. A safe stadium means trip and slip hazards are minimized, floors are clean, broken/sharp edges and points are repaired, stairs are safe, and anything the customer can touch or use is not going to run a risk of injury.
Beyond safety and cleanliness, other elements of the facility must be optimized. The PA system or video board should be acoustically and aesthetically pleasing. Paint should not be chipping away. Holes should not be found in the backstop screens. Seats should be functional. Bleacher labels should be clean and easy to read.
- Ticket sales operations
Once the team has a facility that fans want to visit, now they must get those fans in the gates. This means simplicity, speed, and accuracy of fans purchasing, receiving, and redeeming tickets and applicable discounts. This also means back office processes need to be prepared and streamlined so as to meet those fan expectations.
- Concessions and merchandising
It’s one thing for a team to charge high margins on food and drink, but ideally teams want to make that purchase experience as painless as possible. If fans not only have to pay high amount of food but also invest significant amounts of time waiting in lines or walking long distances to get to a concession stand that offers what they want, they will be less likely to not only make that investment but may also be deterred from future purchases or even attending at all.
- In-game promotional events and entertainment
While it’s somewhat hard to directly link quality of entertainment with process optimization, what happens if a promotional event can’t happen because the equipment required is broken? One example I’ve experienced first-hand is a mascot not being able to drive his ATV out onto the warning track because one of the ATV tires went flat overnight and wasn’t noticed until shortly before the game started, then the tire could not be reinflated or replaced in time.
This is just a start. There are many business processes that could use attention where waste can be driven out so that productivity and efficiency can be applied to improving the customer experience.
Sports
Masters Pin Flag Giveaway Winners
Finally. I can finally announce the winners of the Masters Pin Flag Giveaway, six weeks...
