Coaching is a critical component of a sound sales training campaign in an organization.  Coaches design an action plan for each sales agent based on their identified strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for growth.  The design of this action plan will show the creativity of the coach including their ability to relate to and influence the sales agent by changing their behavior.  That is the ultimate goal of this action plan, to change behavior.  The behavior change is what should move the sales needle in the positive direction for the organization. 

Here is a creative way to communicate required behavior changes and a fun and easy way to document the coaching session.  This is called the Coaching Prescription.  It is a play-off of a prescription pad that comes from the Dr. 

*Note:  This by no means is an all encompassing action plan.  This is an on-the-spot solution used to document the coaching session. 

Coaching Prescription Card

On Friday January 16th2009, I had the absolute pleasure of visiting the University of Toyota in Torrance, CA with ASTD (American Society of Training and Development). Karin Accomando, Program Facilitator at the Center for the Toyota Way ran a simulation for us on Lean Manufacturing.

Lean Manufacturing Simulation

Lean Manufacturing is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination.  Lean Manufacturing has been a competitive advantage for Toyota. 

Lean manufacturing was demonstrated to us through an application exercise of simulations.  The training environment (classroom) was set up to allow us learners to practice traditional manufacturing and lean manufacturing under very job-like conditions. 

The equipment included

This equipment made this simulation feel very ”real.”  

Training Environment

The first simulation demonstrated the productivity of “traditional” manufacturing known as “push production.” 

Round 1 Introduction; Push Manufacturing

The participants described this simulation as chaotic, unorganized, and unsuccessful.  Push production does not take into consideration all of the ‘movements’ required to manufacture.  There was a lot of productivity loss between the separated workstations, the managers needing to be at each station and no consideration for the customer demand. 

Round 1 Simulation Environment; Traditional Manufacturing

The productivity was calculated.  It cost us $32.91 to manufacture each car.  We also had 10 defective cars, 6 late deliveries to the dealership and 4 lost sales due to them not being on time. 

Round 1 Simulation; Traditional Manufacturing; RESULTS

Round 2 simulated Toyota’s Lean Manufacturing; AKA Pull Manufacturing.  The difference between these two approaches is not the goal but the prime approach to achieving it.

The environment was reorganized to improve the “flow” or smoothness of the work. The technique used to improve flow include “pull” production (by means of kanban.)  You can see the “kanban’s” in the pictures.  They were depicted on the table mats with boxes.  Kanbans are a concept related to lean and JIT (Just-In-Time) production.  Kanban is a signaling system to trigger action.  Kanbans became an effective tool to support the running of the production system as a whole. In addition, it proved to be an excellent way for promoting improvements.  In fact, Toyota can implement a manufacturing improvement in their entire organization (worldwide) in 6 months.  They are “OBSESSED WITH QUALITY.”

Simulation 2; Environment organized for Lean Manufacturing

Watch this video to see the simulation of Lean Manufacturing in progress

The outcome was AMAZING.  We reduced our cost to $10.15 per car, we had 0 defects, only 4 late cars and 2 lost sales!  Lean Manufacturing WORKS! 

Simulation 2 Results; Lean Manufacturing WORKS!

I would like to thank University of Toyota for having us.  This application activity was not only fascinating as a consumer but also as an Instructional Designer.  Simulations are an excellent application activity.  They are the 1st cousin to demonstrations but really allow us to learn in “real life” environments (well, as close as you can get).