If you want to get ahead, you can sprint like crazy. But how long can you keep that up?
Besides, when you can’t go anymore, even the smallest steps feel like heavy tasks. Balanced progress is not just about speed. It’s about the right foundation: fitness, technique and mentality. A triathlete swims 3.8 kilometres, then cycles another 180 and finally runs a full marathon. Preferably as fast as possible, but never at full speed. Moving forward in your operational processes – according to principles of continuous improvement – works just like a triathlon.
Why? We at KONA Operational Excellence are happy to explain that to you.
KONA helps manufacturing and warehousing organisations achieve transitions by developing, designing, moving and improving operational processes. All with the aim of optimising operational performance. Roel Nieuwenhuizen is founder of KONA and an avid triathlete himself. “I greatly enjoy making progress and helping others to do so. I´m also noticing this now that I have been doing triathlons for some time.” So even in sport, this driving force for his career emerges: achieving progress and getting a little better every day. He previously did this for years, in the field of process improvement, at Morgens Industries. With ‘his’ KONA, he leaves that predecessor behind, but continues to work according to the same core values.
‘If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself’, Albert Einstein once said. KONA therefore prefers to explain its work with childlike simplicity. “Suppose a company produces 20 bicycles and wants to go to an output of 30, 40 or 50 bicycles…” explains Roel. “At one station the frames are welded, at another the saddles are mounted, yet another station mounts the pedals. Using a value steam analysis, for instance, KONA looks with the employees at which points that process requires adjustments in order to achieve the required result. For example, in terms of lead time or quality.” The process requires a mindset of improvement, a way of thinking stimulated by the principles of Lean and Six Sigma. The same mindset is required when completing a triathlon.
“Setting a goal, structured training, discipline, perseverance and living towards that goal.
Why are you doing this?” describes Roel, who knows that a long journey like that is never without obstacles. “We really believe in those terms. You may feel unwell sometimes or get injuries, but you have to keep planning, executing and sticking to the plan. Working every day on what you want to achieve.” ‘Doing’ is the key word in this. “Paper is patient. You can theorise so much, but if you don’t act on it, very little happens.” An important concept that plays into this, that you might not associate with gruelling trials: “You have to like it!” he states with a smile.
KONA therefore employs playful elements that simplify views of the process. We go back to the factory with twenty bikes: “We rebuild them with Lego, for example,” Roel illustrates. “With that, we simulate the factory, the different stations, the products. In that simplified representation, we will look at: what steps do you take now to get from twenty to thirty bikes?” Taking the situation away from the giant factory and sketching it on a small-scale desk belongs to the art of ‘seeing in front of you’. The greatest athletes, entrepreneurs and psychologists can shake hands on this brain power: visualise your success, then it becomes more tangible than ever.
Building with Lego may sound childish, but ‘simple’ is the appropriate description. Learning to tie your laces properly also seems childish, until they are loose in the middle of your triathlon. The little things have a big effect. Working with a mini-factory of cubes leaves plenty of room for a brainstorm frenzy. “It starts as one big chaos. Eventually, we are progressing by taking steps and apply the right way of thinking to find a streamlined path to the goal in that chaos.” Laughter is also allowed in serious meetings. “In a playful way, we enthuse the group for the process to come. That’s important: before we start, you have to see the joy in improvement and change.”
It gets itchy, you clearly see what needs to be done and the finish line is almost in sight. But that doesn’t get you there. “Do it! Execution is the most important thing,” Roel stresses again. In triathlon-talk: dive into that water. Get on that bike. Start walking. The key then is to scrutinise each station. “How long does each step take? How much space are we using? How many bikes are waiting in front of a station and what is the waiting time? Then we determine what needs to change to go from 20 to 30 bikes, including by applying Lean principles.”
As an expert by experience, Roel knows that you never cycle downhill only, swim with the current or run without pain. “The most important thing is moving forward with your goal in mind,” he says. KONA stresses that the finish line has to be crossed, regardless of the moments you would prefer to stop. Otherwise, all the effort, all the training, all the pain, was for nothing. “During the improvement process, you make adjustments. What should I do differently the next kilometre? The moment you have to take detours, organisations often drop out. That’s a shame. They want to get from A to B in one go, but you can’t do that without going past C, D and E.”
Eyes on the prize, says the mentor. Preparing, trying out and improving is just the first stage. The real triathlon begins when you have completed all the training. You know what is going well and what needs improvement, now you have to show peak performance during the triathlon. “Every project you define where you want to go. Where are you now and why? Then comes the improvement phase, trial to finish. Once the project is completed, you have to make sure you hang on and secure your improvements and successes. That’s where the biggest challenge lies.”
For a triathlon, the whole environment around the athlete needs to be right. Training, team, nutrition, mentality and equipment, but ultimately you have to swim, cycle and run yourself. The same goes for organisational change. “What we do is not ‘the big KONA show’. We show you what you need (nutrition and equipment), get the noses in the same direction (team and mentality) and take the first steps (training). Most importantly, we believe the organisation can do it by itself afterwards. Even if future adjustments are required again,” Roel stresses. “You have to cross that finish line yourself.”
In preparing for your trial, KONA provides the complete picture. “The majority focus on project management or design. KONA does both. When a new terminal or plant needs to be built, we also show you how to design it. Then we help you realise it. But, at the end of the day, you have tools to do it yourself.” Because, the finish line is not an end point, but a new start.
“When I completed my first triathlon, I thought, ‘Yes! I did it’, but also: ‘What can I do better next time?'” Leaving that mindset behind is at least as important, if not more important than an improved production chain. “The most important thing is to help people realise that they can push their limits, and that they can achieve new things they are proud of.”
