Work Centre Design - Change Table

With Monkey transitioned to her big girl room and the nursery still intact, there was little to do to get ready for Baby Bear's arrival.  In the spirit of  continuous improvement, there was one area of the room that felt inefficient, the changing station.

The changing station - table, mat, shelf, whatever the physical manifestation - is a classic example of a work cell.  An area specifically designed to perform work of a similar nature.  There are many work cells in your home.  The working triangle of you kitchen is used to produce meals.  The vanity in the bathroom is used for personal hygiene.  The busiest work cell in your home is likely your entry way or mud room, housing everything you need to get out the door.

At a changing station, the product is a clean and dry bum, securely covered in a clean and dry diaper. Emphasis on securely.  The process requires speed, agility and needs to be completed primarily with one hand.  The non-working hand used to secure the baby.  Repeat, one hand on the baby at all times.

When we started out, the cell looked like this.

It really wasn't ideal for a few reason;

1. The work surface was crowded.  It was also serving as an end table and held an assortment of books, toys, a clock and a small lamp.  All items not related to diaper changing.
2. The garbage pail is across the room from the baby.  In order to keep one hand on the baby at all times, you had to find a place (on an already crowded table) to put a pile of dirty wipes.
3. You had to walk to the bathroom and back twice.  First to flush the biodegradable liner down the toilet (we cloth diaper), then back to put the dirty diaper in the pail, then out again to wash your hands and back again to finish dressing the baby.

The Toyota Production System has a focus on neatness.  Disorder hides problems; it makes work harder.  Workplace organization begins with 5S.

Sort

Straighten

Shine

Standardize

Sustain

SORT

To begin, I removed anything that wasn't related to changing a diaper.  The books, toys, lamp, clock, water bottle all found a new home. This left me with the essentials: wipes, cloths, cream, diapers, trash can, laundry bin, change pad.  Once I had eliminated things that weren't required, I found more space for things that were.  The laundry bin and trash can could all be moved within arms reach.

STRAIGHTEN

Next, I looked at the layout of the change table.  Both my partner and I are right handed, so I made the right hand side of the table the working side and kept all tools and supplies there.

A word of caution - do not place the working side towards you.

If you choose not to heed this caution, this could happen to you:

Yup.  That's me.  With baby poop down my front.  Live and learn, right?

Here's the new layout:

The trash can is now on a shelf in easy reach and below it the laundry bin.  Wet clothes can be removed and immediately put into the laundry bin.  Wipes, creams, cloths and clean diapers all have a home in easy reach.

You may notice the diaper pail is missing.  This is not because we switched to disposable diapers for baby number 2.  It's because I moved it to the bathroom, near the flushing toilet and running water.  No more walking back and forth, to and from the bathroom, carrying dirty diapers.

These simple changes improved efficiency in two ways.  First, it reduced the excess movement, primarily back and forth to the bathroom but also across the room to the trash and laundry.  Second, the efficiency came from not double handling material like laundry and dirty diapers.  They could be disposed of immediately instead of collecting it in one place and then moving them again for disposal.

SHINE

I could say I gave the shelves a thorough cleaning, wiped down the trash can, disinfected the diaper pail.  But who are we kidding, I went over everything with a Swiffer cloth and called it a day.

STANDARDIZE and SUSTAIN

With everything newly arranged, I brought in the team (my partner and Monkey, the dutiful big sister) and showed them around.  Everyone knows that only diaper changing stuff goes in this area, and which bin is for which supply.

Two months in and things are still in their place.

Until next time,

Kaizen your Life.

The Power of the Checkmark

Checklists.  The simple, often forgotten tool relegated to pilots and nuclear power plant operators.


A checklist is just what it sounds like, a list of things you check off.  It serves as a memory aid for repetitive yet important tasks.  Like preparing a commercial airliner for take-off.  Or packing for a road trip.

You would be amazed, actually you wouldn't because you've all been there, at how many people forget to pack simple things.  This is why hotel "gift" shops exist.  No one wants to spend $5 on a tiny tube of toothpaste to bring home for their loved ones.  You buy it because it's midnight, you've been travelling all day and you just realized you didn't pack any toothpaste.

Twice I have forgotten to pack, and subsequently had to buy, underwear.  Something that is much easier to do in downtown Toronto than in cottage country.

Sure, we try to make a packing list.  It is a scrap of paper that sits on the kitchen island and we write things on it as they occur to us.  The Monkey's potty seat is never on that list (replacement courtesy of WalMart).  Underwear is never on that list (thanks Winners!).  Why?  Because we use them so often we forget they exist.  Our day-to-day lives are filled with repetition that fades from our conscious mind.

This time I was going to do it better.  13 hours of travel, 4 days in rural Quebec, 2 small children.  I was going to do this right.

I created a spreadsheet and put it on our family cloud site so both my partner and I could edit it.  It was broken down into categories for each person.  It had a column for which bag things were going to be packed in.  It was a thing of organizational beauty.

It started off well.  I was confident.  We had this. (You see where this is going...)

Then we left.  I couldn't shake this nagging suspicion that we forgot something.  Halfway there, I learn what it is.  Monty, Baby Bear's favourite sleep toy.  Okay, no problem.  We can make do, "look here's your elephant!".

Then we stop for dinner.  No bibs.  No problem, my dutiful sister stuffs the plastic St. Hubert bibs in her purse.

Then we arrive, settle in, get the kids asleep.  Open up the bag of food.  No flask of scotch.  It's going to be a long weekend.

Of the 70 items on the checklist, there were issues with 7 of them.  That's 10%!

So what went wrong?

1. We stopped checking stuff off the list.  It was working well until I had to pack up the laptop and ran out of juice on my smartphone.  Sometimes nothing beats a good ol' clipboard and pen.
   
2. I didn't verify the quantity of items, just that they were there.  Thus, I only packed 4 pairs of underwear instead of 8.  Luckily there was a washing machine.
   
3. We underestimated the number of pajamas Monkey would need for the trip.  2 pairs for 5 nights, not sufficient for a 3 year old.

Turns out, all these errors are pretty common.  NASA did a study in 1990 of the human factors associated with checklists during normal operations on a commercial airline flight.  They read accident reports, interviewed pilots and watched them in action.  And saw all three of these errors.

Sometimes pilots will look at the checklist and verify the correct setting, EVEN IF IT IS WRONG.  They get so used to seeing the switch "on" that when it is "off" they actually see it a different position then it physically is.  I swore I saw Monty in the backseat of the car when we left.

Pilots who were interrupted mid-checklist by air traffic control or other aircraft and didn't have a physical way to mark off where they left off were more likely to forget where they had were.  Thus, the last three items on the kitchen packing list were forgotten.

The checklist is only a good tool if it is well designed.  Some checklists had too much detail or were not ordered in a way that made them easy and efficient to use.  Not having enough PJs for the Monkey wasn't because we didn't follow the checklist, it was because we had the wrong number on the list.

So what did I learn from this?

Save the list as a template and adjust on a per trip basis.   Keep improving it.

Print it out.  Because at the end of the day, there is no more powerful tool than a checkmark.

Bon Voyage! 

Welcome Back!

Hello Readers!

Welcome to the Second Edition of OPS@Home.  In April, my partner and I were thrilled to welcome our little Baby Bear into the world.

With the weather turning cool here in the Northern Hemisphere and Baby Bear's nap's lengthening, it's time to head back to the keyboard.

Keep an eye on this space as I bring you new stories, tips and tricks.  Starting next week with a post on checklists.

Kaizen your life!