Issue link: https://industrialengineer.epubxp.com/i/777540
February 2017 | ISE Magazine 49 value. By identifying the seven wastes of lean (or muda) and utilizing a few basic lean principles, Hartman was able to nar- row his crops down from 80 to 30 and cut his work hours in half, just to start. Waste not with lean Hartman started his lean journey by eliminating motion waste when his client, Brenneman, observed him pruning tomatoes. He was seen walking to a different area of the farm to re- trieve the tool, walking to the greenhouse to prune, only to return the tool to its original location. Brenneman suggested that Hartman hang his pruners in the same area in which he was using them. Hartman caught on and did this for all of his tools. "We no longer use [a] tool storage area. … We spread them around the farm and [hang] them at eye level as close as possible to their points of use. … There's no hunting for tools anymore." Hartman further eliminated waste by going through his tools and questioning whether the item added value for the customer. "This is very hard for me to do because as a farmer I love to collect tools. ... However, the reality is there's a high cost of keeping more than you need; i.e., the cost of housing that item and the cost of tripping over 10 [tools] to find the one you want." Hartman established a red-tag holding system on his farm for tools deemed unnecessary to the production system, as identified by himself and his employees. The tools are then taken to a local equipment auction on a consistent basis. "[We] literally get it off the property. You're not allowed to squirrel with this system," Hartman said. Customer satisfaction goes a long way Since lean is known to focus intensely on creating value for the customer, Hartman used three major questions to identify value for his clients: What does the customer want? When do they want it? And how much do they want? At the beginning of each year, he and his team answer those questions by taking orders from customers before ordering a single seed. "We used to see it as an annoyance to have to [call clients] just to take orders. Now we see it as part of our product," Hartman said. Hartman also recognizes value in his customers' needs for different types of produce. Where the farm only grew one type of vegetable prior to lean, tomatoes in this case, Hartman has now set up a list of wholesale accounts and the specific type of tomato that is requested for each. For example, a local food co-op client requests fairly orange tomatoes of mixed sizes based on its customer demand. An- other client of Hartman's is a local bar that serves half-pound burgers, so he provides them with large, ripe tomatoes. Hart- man also sells to a local pizzeria that requests specialty heir- loom tomatoes. "These customers could get their tomatoes from a number of places. However, they choose to repeatedly come back to us because we've taken that little extra step to precisely identify value," Hartman said. Clay Bottom Farm incorporates Toyota's lean system to align production tightly with customer demand.