Virtual Obeya Room


The Obeya room is a "war room" used by process improvement teams to meet and solve critical multi functional problems. 

The room walls are lined up with boards, highly visual charts and graphs showing program timing, milestones and progress to date and countermeasures to existing timing or technical problems. 

The team meets in this room regularly but team members can also visit the room, which is fully dedicated to the project, throughout the day.

What is an Obeya?



Obeya Room Benefits

  1. Remove organizational barriers
  2. Visual management by displaying all relevant data required in the improvement project
  3. Encourage a collaborative environment through regular meetings
  4. Implement quicker, more effective solutions
  5. The whole team knows what is going on in real time

Some Practical Constraints in the Implementation

  1. Some companies can't afford the luxury of a fully dedicated room
  2. Some of the team members may be located far away so they will only attend the meetings
  3. The data displayed on the walls may, very quickly, become obsolete: some team members may be too busy to physically go to the room to update their charts
  4. Some team members may attend the meetings unprepared because they didn't have the time to analyse the data in the walls before the meeting

Alternative: Virtual Obeya Room


  • The improvement team shares a folder in the cloud: Company intranet, Google Drive, Microsoft One Drive, etc.
  • This folder has the same charts and documents which were displayed in the physical Obeya room.
  • In this case each chart can be hyperlinked to other documents with more detailed information.
  • Each chart has an owner who has WRITE access and the rest of the team READ ONLY access.
  • Some alternatives for virtual Obeya:

Virtual Obeya Physical Meetings

Obeya meetings can still be held the same way with virtual Obeya  but they can now take place in any room with a large display. The room is only used during the meeting and then it can be used for other meetings along the day.

Some people have their meetings standing in front of the screen to keep them short. You may want to use a standing table to hold the portables and take notes.



The owner of each document is able to update it from a portable in the office or from anywhere with a smartphone or tablet. Even during the Obeya meeting.

The Obeya virtual room can be visited from anywhere at any time with a tablet or smartphone: for instance while visiting the line or a customer.


Some team members may be located in remote locations, in which case they can take part in the meetings with video-conference and have the same access to the virtual Obeya room as everyone else.

This alternative may be put in place for free in a very short period of time: no specific IS application is required.


Remote Obeya Meetings

A virtual Obeya makes it easier if we decide to hold the Obeya by video conference.



The participants join the video meeting and have access to all the material

In this case they already have read access to the virtual Obeya room and they can share their screen with the group when required.

Some Contents of the Obeya Room

The virtual Obeya can be organized in a folder in a company server or in One Drive, Google Drive, etc.
Ideally it could have a graphical index panel with links to all the other panels:
  • Main panel with goals, KPIs, main deadlines, improvement projects
  • Improvement project charter
  • Shared schedule of the improvement team
  • Value stream map of the process being improved
  • Process KPI evolution charts
  • Process analysis and DOE results
  • Pending problem log status

Improvement Project Charter


This is prepared to start an improvement project and kept up to date in real time.

Project Scheduling



This is one of the main files to manage the improvement project. (See Project Scheduling )

You can record the sequence of committed activities: who will do what and when.

Commitments are recorded during the meetings and confirmation of completion can be recorded by the person responsible the moment it happens with a smartphone.

Process Value Stream Map


One of the charts in the Obeya room for a process improvement project is the Value Stream Map.

It is typically constructed by the project team after a detailed visit to the line and it may require more than one visit to clarify some specific points.

With the physical Obeya room this may require travelling to and from the line and may be time consuming.

An alternative is to build the VSM with the smartphones or tablets of the participants while visiting the line:
  • The VSM is built directly in the cloud (Google Drive or One Drive) and all participants visiting the line have write access.
  • As they move along the line they all agree on who is doing what and when.
  • Typing of the process steps in the Excel sheet can be done by voice.
  • The VSM, as it is being built, can be shown to the line operators in order to validate it.
  • After the VSM is complete the same method can be used to collect process parameters (process time, WIP, etc.) in the VSM Excel visiting the line.

  • This Excel VSM we have just built, can be easily validated by other process participants who were not present in the improvement project by giving them read access to the file.

Problem Log and Corrective Actions



A key document in the Obeya room is a sheet to keep track of all the problems identified, corrective actions committed during the meetings (who will do what and when) and confirmation when they are implemented.

In the virtual Obeya this can be done with a spreadsheet where all participants have WRITE access.

Instead of committing actions "before the next meeting" you can commit date and time. The moment the action has taken place the person responsible can enter the timestamp it was done from a smartphone with a single click.

With this approach all team members have real time information on the project status at their fingertips no matter where they are.

Job Schedule Tracking




Job scheduling is critical for any business and everyone involved needs to be kept informed in real time of all the changes. Therefore the up-to-date schedule chart may be one to be included in the virtual Obeya.

The schedule needs to be always up to date to be of any use. All participants must have an easy access to update it the moment there is a change. This is easy if you can do it with your smartphone from anywhere.

Conclusions

  • Obeya rooms are very useful to keep everyone involved up to date in real time
  • A virtual Obeya could be an alternative when an exclusive physical room or a physical Obeya meeting is not possible
  • Keeping charts up to date is essential for the Obeya to be effective and this is much easier in the virtual Obeya.
  • In the virtual approach charts can be linked to the source data so that more detail may easily be obtained
  • The Obeya meeting could also be run remotely making sure that all those who need to be there are available.
  • The Obeya meeting can easily be recorded if necessary for further reference
  • This alternative Obeya room can easily be implemented with existing hardware and applications with almost no additional cost.
  • Physical Obeya meetings can also be run with the virtual approach by meeting in a room or the line and projecting in a screen. 
  • https://www.lean.org/the-lean-post/articles/how-a-virtual-obeya-can-enable-effective-teamwork/



Location: Valencia, España

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