The Obeya Room, a meeting place to improve the efficiency of a project
The Obeya Room, a meeting place to improve the efficiency of a project
The word "Obeya" means "big room" in Japanese and corresponds to a collaborative place where information can be shared to improve the efficiency of a team according to the principle of Visual Management. Roughly speaking, the goal is that people can experience meetings in the best possible way and to eliminate every unnecessary step that would compromise the whole project.
DOWNLOAD THE LEAN ENTERPRISE CATALOGUE
What is Obeya?
The Obeya or Obeya Room is a Lean Management concept that was developed in the 1970s by Toyota. At that time, the company was looking for different ways to increase productivity, improve quality, reduce lead times, and eliminate waste. All the methods and processes that were applied by Toyota were then taken up and adapted by other companies to become the Lean Management methods that we know today.
In the case of Obeya, the aim was to increase the efficiency and performance of the various participants in a project. Indeed, Toyota started from the fact that different departments (research and development, production, quality, etc.) generally work on the same project. As these different departments are in different parts of the company (different offices, different floors and sometimes even different buildings), it is difficult for them to communicate and exchange information. This leads to exchanges and back and forth between these different departments which can clearly be identified as waste to be eliminated.
The principle of the Obeya is therefore to bring together all the actors involved in a project in the same large room to meet, exchange and pool information to discuss any blockages that may be encountered, make decisions, or find solutions during meetings that are generally short but periodic.
Unlike more traditional meeting rooms, the Obeya generally works in project mode. This means that the same people are in the room and that the room is not intended to be shared with teams from another project, as the project documents generally remain in the room.
The establishment of an Obeya in a company
An Obeya is set up for a given project. This means that no two Obeya rooms are the same, because if the projects are different, the rooms must also be different to consider the specificities of each project.
Nevertheless, there are several features that are unique to the Obeya Room:
It should be large enough to accommodate the various project participants.
It should be located at a convenient range from each project participant so that it is easily accessible to all.
There are desks, tables and chairs dedicated to the different key participants in the project.
It contains office equipment and furniture such as display panels, important project documents and performance indicators (e.g., for project monitoring, objectives, milestone planning, etc.)
It also contains all the office equipment necessary for the teams’ work, such as computers, connected screens with real-time updated dashboards, printers etc.
Thanks to this organisation, all actors can make decisions together person to person without any sticking points and without the need to exchange information by e-mail or telephone. All important information about the project is available to everyone and there is no more time wasted in finding the right document or the right information. All project objectives and progress are visible to all and updated in real time.
Discover our products for setting up your Obeya Room
The implementation of an Obeya Room can be planned either upstream of a project requiring several participants, or on an already existing project to facilitate its development and completion. In all cases, Obeya is not a Lean method in itself, it must be combined with other methods such as the PDCA method or Visual Management.
Indeed, the PDCA method (or continuous improvement process) makes it possible to better solve problems by following 4 steps: Planning (Plan), Doing (Do), Checking (Check), Acting (Act). Obeya favours the application of this method because the gathering of actors and information in one place allows for the improvement of processes and work methods and thus the resolution of problems much more quickly than if the teams had to exchange between departments. Furthermore, as PDCA works in a continuous cycle (as illustrated by the Deming wheel), Obeya must be ritualised, i.e., these meetings must be integrated into everyone's schedule at regular intervals so that they form small PDCA cycles in themselves.
The expected benefits of an Obeyas
For a functional team, Obeya is a lever for transforming behaviours and mobilisation, based on the management of ongoing processes. It increases collaboration between team members. Listening and sharing are encouraged, facts are analysed, and decisions are taken with a better understanding of the project as a whole. Teams work together to find a solution to malfunctions and priorities are better defined.
Obeya is a great tool for empowering employees. They define their commitments themselves, in relation to objectives and constraints. They are responsible for anticipating their actions and issuing the necessary alerts. The manager then moves from the position of the one who knows, the one who decides and arbitrates, to a position where he must challenge his team and ensure that all the conditions for success are met.
Thanks to Obeya, the team becomes more agile. Insofar as the information is displayed, precise and shared, the team is more efficient in reacting to unforeseen events. Faced with a strategic reorientation or a change in the flow of activity, co-workers quickly and collectively find solutions to revise priorities and task planning and request the right decisions.
Finally, Obeya mobilises the team for continuous improvement. The co-workers themselves fill in the relevant indicators. They measure their actual performance level. Problems are visible. The team can then, together with their manager, define and implement action plans to resolve them. And monitor their impact on performance.
Towards a digitalisation of the Obeya Rooms?
Depending on situations and companies, the creation of an Obeya is not always possible. This is particularly the case when several teams located at distant sites are required to work together. In this case, the Obeya can be digitalised. Thanks to the development of collaborative and online communication tools, it is partly possible to digitalise the Obeya. By equipping the different sites with sufficiently large and powerful touch screens and screen and information sharing software, it is possible to centralise information in one place. Ideally in the project, a specifically Obeya's is created at each site to deploy these tools. Secondly, interactive events should be set up to allow the different teams to communicate easily with each other. This requires, among other things, good computer equipment and a good internet network within each structure. Software for monitoring performance indicators such as SESAHUB can then be installed on the network and shared between the different teams. However, it is important to note that this solution is to be favoured if the creation of a physical Obeya is impossible, as this will always be more efficient than a digital Obeya.
