Lean Legends | Kolbe Akers & Lukas Holland | Fastcap
In their roles at Fastcap, Kolbe Akers & Lukas Holland are on the front-line in the war against waste.
In today’s episode we talk about:
Kolbe having a front-row seat to his father’s lean journey
How Lukas went from “academic lean” to becoming a “lean maniac”
The power of asking people what bothers them
Removing places to hide
Focusing on people over profit
And their favourite lean improvements from over the years
Check it out!
Links:
FastCap website: https://www.fastcap.com/
Email address: info@fastcap.com.
Book a Lean Made Simple Tour: https://www.leanmadesimple.com/book-a-tour
Welcome to Lean Made Simple: a podcast for people who want to change their business and their lives one step at a time. I’m Ryan Tierney from Seating Matters, a manufacturing company from Limavady, Northern Ireland that employs 60+ people. Almost ten years ago, I came across this thing called “lean” and it transformed my life… now I want to share this message with as many people as possible.
This podcast unpacks our learnings, lessons and principles developed over the last decade in a fun, conversational way that will hopefully empower you on your own business journey — whether you’ve been doing lean for years or are just starting out!
Check it out on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any other podcast platform by searching “lean made simple.”
Thanks and all the best.
— Ryan Tierney
Magic Moment: “There’s no such thing as a boring task!”
Full Transcription of Episode
Lukas Holland (00:00):
Start with focusing on what bothers people around you. You don't know how to improve what you're doing or how to get started on it, just go talk to people and see what's bothering them. Fresh eyes are always the smartest eyes.
Matt (00:11):
Hey guys, welcome back to Lean Made Simple, a podcast all by transforming your business and your life one simple step at a time. We are joined here today by the source, FastCap Legends themselves. We have Lukas and we have Kolbe, really, really excited to have you guys here. Thank you for giving up a little bit of your time.
Lukas Holland (00:27):
Thanks for having us.
Matt (00:29):
We're live at the 2 Second Lean Summit, and we're just stealing these guys away from their time on stage and networking to just to get a little bit of insight. So Lukas, really simple, how were you first exposed to Lean and what was the before and after effect like for you?
Lukas Holland (00:44):
Actually, my first exposure was in college. I went to college to get an engineering degree, and I went into manufacturing engineering. Not really knowing fully what it was, but it sounded the most down my lines. And, part of it was how to run machines and part of it was all the mathematics of engineering. But the other half of it was actually Lean manufacturing and being introduced to the Toyota production system and designed for assembly, designed for manufacturer, six sigma, all of that stuff. And, I actually ended up at FastCap because one of my senior classes, they took us to tour FastCap. And they said, "You're learning all this stuff. Here's a company, that's doing it in real life. Let's go see it." And, I walked in there and was like, "This place is amazing." So when I graduated, it's the first place I applied for, and they took me, and I've been there since.
Matt (01:29):
Incredible. Kolbe, slightly different story maybe?
Kolbe Akers (01:32):
Yeah, I kind of... Mellow introduction for me. I've been born and raised into it, I would say. And, my parents have been doing it since before they knew what it was. They have just instilled a deep respect for people and things, Japanese culture in a way. Just since I was a young kid and I saw them work hard as business owners and really instilled that into their company from day one. And then, once they really got the 2 Second Lean part of it that it was all about those 2 Second improvements, it really took off.
Matt (02:03):
Yeah, it's really interesting. We just had Michael in here from Germany. He was saying he met your dad, he met Paul in maybe 97. He says, "And, this was before Lean."
Kolbe Akers (02:11):
Yeah, I know.
Matt (02:11):
So, at what point in your childhood did Lean start to come on the map?
Kolbe Akers (02:16):
Around Michael time, honestly. After that I saw them teaching it to other people and working with other companies and getting that kind of cross-training. But, I saw it in the machine shop as a young kid at first. I saw these complicated dyes and complicated process and everybody told my dad he couldn't do it, and he did it. And then it started turning into more and more products and then the coffee industry, and he strayed away from woodworking, but he kept it in this creative mind the whole time. People really loved the creative mind `on him.
Matt (02:55):
Very cool. And Lukas, for you, you came from the academic background of Lean and then you have this real world matrix experience where you're thrust into the mecca of Lean, for lack of a better term. What was it like for you to go from academia into the highly practical simple reality of 2 Second Lean?
Lukas Holland (03:19):
So, that was probably my biggest challenge actually. But first before even that, I worked jobs before college. So, understanding Lean and going into a Lean company was just this whole shift. Because, before I worked at a tire shop and so someone in the company, in corporate, understood some Lean principles and they went, they set up the entire shop with different cells that were all the same across every shop, every cell you walked into. There was a place for everything, but people weren't trained what Lean was or why it was like that. So, there wasn't everything in its place and if you wanted your tools where you wanted them, you had to go run and get to that cell that you were working in before anyone else did that day. And back then, efficiency was, "How much are you sweating, how fast are you running, how hard are you running?" If you want to get more done, you just run harder, you work harder, right?
Matt (04:11):
Yeah, yeah.
Lukas Holland (04:11):
Then going into a company that actually does Lean and understanding that, "I can create efficiency by making the job easier and still enjoying the job and getting it done," that was crazy.
Matt (04:23):
Wow.
Lukas Holland (04:24):
But then yeah, coming out of college and into the real world, it was engineering school teaches you a lot, but one thing they don't teach you is anything about how to deal with people and the human factor. And, that's the biggest part of it really. And, it's like we talk about, they mentioned it in college, but why don't we all just do assembly lines. Mathematically they're the most efficient. But when you throw the human factor in, well people get bored, so they make mistakes. People don't understand what their little cog in the machine is doing, so they don't understand how to make anything work for the next person. And, there's absolutely no improvement because they're just doing one repetitive task.
(05:08):
And so, when you throw in the human factor, all of a sudden everything's different. And so, you can't look at things with a mathematical precision mind. You have to look at it from the human side of things and what do people like and what works for them and what gets them engaged and what makes their juices flow. And the hardest part, what makes them start to think of improvements on their own too. You can't just do it for them. College would tell you you should.
Matt (05:36):
Yeah, it's crazy, and that's the thing that really has blown my mind about seeing places like Seating Matters and hearing the stories from FastCap is it's not just one guy, two guys, three guys and a dog going about making improvements. It's the whole company.
Kolbe Akers (05:51):
It's the whole family, as a whole.
Matt (05:52):
It's crazy.
Kolbe Akers (05:53):
And, the building is a result of compiled 2 Second improvements. We didn't get there overnight. I saw it from day one. So, we had walls, and we had little rooms that people could hide in and the printer room was the number one room people went to hide from problems or from management. And then the no wall aspect and then the continuous improvements built just this beautiful culture.
Matt (06:18):
So obviously, you had a front row seat.
Kolbe Akers (06:20):
Yeah.
Matt (06:21):
And, we all have things that our parents or our guardians tell us. And you're like, "Yeah, okay, fine, fine, fine." At what point for you personally in your life, Kolbe, were you like, "Oh no, this is actually something that I want to really take in my own hands and run with."
Kolbe Akers (06:38):
I have two, maybe even three answers to it, but-
Matt (06:38):
I love it-
Kolbe Akers (06:41):
... one, at a young age it came very apparent to me that it wasn't about the money, it was about the people and that my parents focused on the people, the growth of their people as a whole. I bought in then into Lean, and I understood it, and I understood how to make 2 Second improvements. Then just recently about two years ago, I completely bought in into Lean in my own life because I wanted to lead with it. And in order to lead with it, I needed to have my health in check, and that's what my speech will be about. So, we probably shouldn't touch too much on it. But, the other apparent was when my dad started putting, "Fix What Bugs You," on the back of T-shirts and it just started clicking with me, and I was like, "Yeah, all these problems that everybody has, why would you not just stop and fix it?" And, he did it with such ease.
Matt (07:30):
Absolutely.
Kolbe Akers (07:30):
Even if he struggled he would just, "Well, it doesn't matter if we do it poorly," Bob Taylor, "Everything worth doing is worth doing poorly." So, we'd try things in every way that we could to accomplish it. And, the underlying factor was his machines and FastCap, the success there, an impossible task turned possible. And then turned into an organization that pumped out all this joy into people's lives.
Matt (07:57):
Awesome.
Kolbe Akers (07:58):
That was something special.
Matt (07:59):
I mean all of the leaders that we've sat down to talk with over the last couple of days, there's a repeating theme and one word for it is humility. Maybe another word for it is getting your own house in order first. Tom Hughes, he talks about, "Improvement starts with, I." You just have to eat a massive amount of humble pie doing this Lean thing. It's very uncomfortable.
Kolbe Akers (08:19):
Yeah, I was very chaotic and in the wrong shoes to be a leader, and it took a humbling experience of a mindset change of my own in order to become a leader that people wanted to follow.
Matt (08:33):
Wow.
Kolbe Akers (08:33):
And, I only hope they want to follow me. Lukas says they do, but-
Matt (08:36):
Sure.
Lukas Holland (08:37):
They do.
Matt (08:37):
I mean that's the story of a real leader. I don't know if you want to pick out fictional or real. It's, like there is that pinnacle moment where the leader, someone out there shared with me, this is a bit of a lofty metaphor, but I've started now, so I have to commit. It's like, how do trees grow? Well first there's a seed and then the seed dies and the seed goes into the ground. So it goes down, down, down, down, down and then from that kind of rebirth then it's up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, very cool.
(09:04):
So Lukas, for you, is there one improvement that stands out in your mind as just unbelievably satisfying every time you see it or you do it you're just like, "Yes." Or, maybe you use it to explain what 2 Second Lean improvements are to people who aren't familiar with it.
Lukas Holland (09:24):
There's really so many, It's a hard to answer-
Matt (09:26):
It's impossible question really isn't it?
Lukas Holland (09:28):
There's some I've done like, a mag strip where not only did I build an awesome jig that makes it easier, but I fully redesigned the product where we can shoot the plastic part and a third the time. So, that's designed for manufacturer and then I redesigned the plastic part to work with a jig. So, I got design for assembly and then I made it fun and easy for people to do.
(09:49):
And then there's stuff like, we actually sell as a product now, it's called the Kanban Andon. But, it's just this random idea I had one day that our water spider was not getting cards back to the board fast enough from around the facility for us to produce more. I was like, "Well instead of telling him to work harder," so I always look at the process, not the person, so, "What can I do?" I'm horrible at electronics. I'll be honest, of all the engineering things, that's my worst. But, I figured out how to wire up this little light, pull a sensor and when you put the card in, it lit up a light way up in the air and then he didn't have to run around and look for cards and maybe miss a delivery spot. It was just, "Boom, I need to go get that right now."
Matt (10:27):
Super cool.
Lukas Holland (10:28):
It's easy. And then, a lot of people actually thought it was kind of a dumb idea at first, I'm not going to lie. And I was like, "You know what, let's just try it." And after a month or two of those all being installed, people would come in our building and all of a sudden even the people that questioned me, it was like the first thing they wanted to show people. Like, "Look at this when I turn in a comment card, it lights up."
Matt (10:28):
That's incredible.
Lukas Holland (10:48):
And then people started asking, "How do you make that? I want to make one." So, that's very satisfying when you have this thing that you're just not really sure, it's a little tinkering project and now other people want it. And then, I got to do the whole fun of actually designing it into a nice looking product instead of this wired together, soldered some electrical tape over stuff and designing a clamshell that worked for it and everything like that. But honestly, my favorite improvement is always the one I'm working on right now-
Matt (11:17):
What an answer.
Lukas Holland (11:17):
Because, that is where my struggle is right now. And, we like to say, "There's no such thing as a boring task if you understand improvements." Because a boring task is a task you don't want to do. It's where you're frustrated. But, it's also a task where you have time to actually engage your brain and think about, "How can I get rid of this boring task?" And once you're doing it, and you think of, "Oh, this is how I'm going to fix it,." All of a sudden it's like, that's the thing you're most excited about because every time you have to go do that task that you find boring it's like, "I'm going to get this fixed. I'm not going to have to do it anymore." And so, whatever I'm working on right now is solving my biggest frustration at the moment. And, that's always my favorite.
Matt (12:00):
Phenomenal. Kolbe, an improvement, personal, professional, lead us?
Kolbe Akers (12:05):
I'd say my go-to just off top of my head is flow and figuring out how to make things flow. So in FastCap, we start with our raw material, then our machines, then packing it, then shipping. It's in a beautiful order, but it took a lot of organization and small improvements to get it there.
(12:23):
One of my favorites to show to people, and I wish I could honor her by remembering her name, but we had a guest from Iceland, and she just walked past the back of our wood racks of our raw material. She said, "How do you put these away?" And, this was my department and my... So, I was like, "Well, we just put them away. What do you mean we know where they go?" And she's like, "Well, how come you don't put the same label you have on the front on the back so that there's no way an error can occur and put a picture of the wood as well or a sample." And I look at that every time I walk into FastCap and I see that and just seeing that new eyes can share with you such a powerful improvement that we're not putting maple in the birch or mahogany in the walnut.
Matt (13:08):
I hate it when you put maple in the birch. It's a nightmare. It's one way to ruin your day.
Kolbe Akers (13:13):
We don't want our customers calling angry.
Lukas Holland (13:15):
Well then, Yokoten too.
Kolbe Akers (13:16):
Yeah.
Lukas Holland (13:16):
People took that idea and our entire grocery aisle has that along the back for our water spider now. It makes his job easier-
Matt (13:22):
Tell me about Yokoten. What is Yokoten?
Lukas Holland (13:24):
Yokoten is just sharing ideas laterally across the company. So Kolbe came up with this idea for his rack that it needs labels on the back, and he shared a video and everyone saw it and then other people said, "Hey, that could help my job too, even though I work in a different department."
Matt (13:39):
Super cool. So, you're spreading the knowledge across different departments basically?
Kolbe Akers (13:44):
Yeah.
Matt (13:45):
Okay. Yeah. Cool. I love it. I'm learning on the job here. This is the best job in the world, man.
Lukas Holland (13:48):
Oh, yeah.
Matt (13:50):
Final question for both of you then. So for everyone listening or watching, whether they're walking the dog or doing the dishes or wherever they are, shout out to you, whatever you're doing. What advice would you give them for either starting off their Lean journey or continuing, if things are getting a little bit tough right now?
Kolbe Akers (14:10):
I mean failure is not an option it's what comes to my head right away. You just got to have that mindset and that continuous improvement will just improve every aspect of your life and bring nothing but joy and happiness to everybody around you. And, that's the ultimate goal is to pay it forward for me.
Lukas Holland (14:28):
To me the most rewarding part of Lean is being able to see other people enjoy having their job be easier. So, start with focusing on what bothers people around you. Especially if you're feeling stale and you don't know how to improve what you're doing or don't know how to get started on it, just go talk to people and see what's bothering them. And often, it's a lot easier to find ways to improve things that you're not actually the one doing because you're not as used to it. We always say that, "Fresh eyes are always the smartest eyes." And people who come through for tours, they come up with amazing ideas where we're just like, "I wasn't, even thinking there could be an improvement there." And when you do something that benefits someone else, seeing their joy is so much more rewarding than fixing your process.
Matt (15:16):
Phenomenal. Where can people connect with you guys?
Kolbe Akers (15:20):
On Signal, WhatsUp app.
Lukas Holland (15:21):
Yeah, signal WhatsApp-
Kolbe Akers (15:22):
Boxer.
Lukas Holland (15:23):
Yeah.
Kolbe Akers (15:23):
Works great for me.
Matt (15:24):
Awesome and if you were to point people to us?
Lukas Holland (15:26):
Call FastCap.
Matt (15:26):
Yeah, really?
Kolbe Akers (15:26):
Yeah, just call.
Lukas Holland (15:28):
Email info@fastcap.com. They'll forward it on to either of us, just put our name in there and say, "I have a question for Lucas or Kolbe." And, we'll get the email, give us your phone number, if you're on Signal, we'll message you directly, no problem.
Matt (15:40):
Wow. I mean, there's the offer of a lifetime there for anyone listening or watching. I highly recommend whatever you're doing, stop it and take these guys up on their offer. Because, if there's one thing I've experienced as a brand new outsider to this community is the generosity is just powerful. And, you talked about Yokoten across an organization. There's, some serious Yokoten across the entire Lean community around the world. So, I appreciate both of you and honor both of you for your contribution to this insane community that, as you say, Kolbe, is changing lives-
Kolbe Akers (16:12):
It's a culture. Yeah, a culture of people and the amazing community.
Matt (16:16):
Awesome.
Lukas Holland (16:16):
Yes.
Matt (16:17):
Guys, thank you very much.
Lukas Holland (16:18):
Thanks for having us-
Matt (16:18):
Crushed it-
Lukas Holland (16:19):
And, letting us share so knowledge.
Matt (16:20):
Awesome. Thanks guys. Really appreciate it.