Gemba Panta Rei

Last week Eric Sander joined a group of clients on our Lean manufacturing benchmarking trip. It was Eric's first trip to Japan. Eric survived a week of fish and rice. When he got back to the United States, he had a nice plate of steak and potatoes.

Here are some of the things he saw:

Lean Bolt Making

"We visited bolt manufacturer Saga Tekkosho. It was a good example of how a batch manufacturer can still implement Lean principles.

They are very clean, with well organized material flow and they empower employees to make decisions on the shop floor. For instance, in the heading department, employees are given weekly schedules and are responsible for setting up the work sequence of the orders to best minimize changeover work.

Saga only hires high school graduates. The company's philosophy is to hire people for life and train them under the Saga philosophy. In addition, they felt hiring experienced people escalated the wage scale unnecessarily."

Classic Work Cells and Good Humor Trucks

"We visited JBK who manufactures drive shafts, engines and other drive train parts. Less clean than Saga, nonetheless very well organized. JBK had the classic work cells with operators circulating on the inside of the cell, working to well timed work elements.

Of particular interest was a system of Automated Guided Vehicles that delivered parts to the engine assembly line. These are home designed carts that travel a magnetic path to the delivery point. This has eliminated fork lifts and material handling positions. As the cart moves through its route, it plays music that indicates it is coming; sounds like a good humor truck."

Building Houses the Lean Way

"We visited Misawa Techno, a company that manufactures custom homes in its factory. The process includes their sales office designing the home with the customer the factory constructing the shell and interior walls, floors and roof.

The order is received, and within two weeks it is delivered to the construction site. The assembly sequence is loaded in a computer and each workstation constructs its part of the process. Parts move along a conveyor and through the proper machine.

The key technology that makes this system effective is the gluing of the wall, ceiling, and floor surfaces to the frames. The glue is very fast drying and extremely strong, a major selling point they demonstrate by lifting a car with a glued wood block. In addition, windows and the outer facade are added.

Once the frame components are completed, they are delivered to the building site and unloaded in the order that they are constructed, which takes one or two days. Then the plumbing, electrical and finishing work is done. To support the process of building the home Misawa utilizes several Lean techniques.

Although the process is push in the factory, Misawa concentrates of removing waste from each process to make the cycle time as small as possible. Each home is scheduled and constructed as a one piece flow, one home at a time. It utilizes Kanban to pull all its materials from its raw materials and from its suppliers. Visual management is also emphasized and utilizes visual instructions, and uses andon lights.

Following the factory visit we went to the site of the model homes. These were very nicely done and in the current modern Japanese style. Misawa is the premier home builder and is noted for construction that is earthquake resistant. One model is constructed with a special ceramic facade that is very resistant to earthquakes."

Eric Sander is a senior consultant at Gemba.

Posted by Jon Miller at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The issue of policing the time people spend on bathroom breaks at Ford sparked discussions online and in forums this week. The Lean Manufacturing Blog and the Superfactory blog both posted thoughtful commentary.

Ford management reported that workers are taking more than their allotted 48 minutes per shift on bathroom breaks. This is slowing down the production line of the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator lines, according to Ford.

I've never been to the Ford factory in question, but I'm willing to wager that Ford's plan to closely monitor bathroom breaks and have supervisors keep statistics will not make things much better. Simply put, what Ford needs is a combination of mutual respect and kaizen. Let's take a closer look at these two things.

Kaizen: maintaining the rhythm, takt, and cadence of the factory

The movement of material and information in a Lean factory is like music. There is a rhythm and flow that you can see and feel. In contrast, in a factory that is not Lean there is a lot of "noise". You will often see a lot of what we call PWA or "people walking around" in the factory. It is difficult for the untrained eye to see who should be taking a walk and who should not.

When work is paced and the next person in the line depends on you to complete your job in time and build in quality, it is easier to spot the abnormalities. The line stops, or in the case of a set-position-stop line the andon flashes if the problem is not resolved by the time the work piece reaches set position.

At Toyota, the entire function of the supervisor or team leader is to keep the line running by addressing these problems. The job of the worker on the line is to perform standard work and stop the line when this is not possible. For more on the importance of this "overhead" person in keeping the line running smoothly, see my previous post.

The difference is between leaving break times and line stops up to chance and closely regulating break times and putting all work on a takt or pitch is simply huge. This is one of the true differences between companies who really get Lean and those who are still knocking on the door of Lean enterprise.

A culture of mutual respect

It's not respectful for Ford management to take this approach to a sensitive subject. You are treating adults like children. For the workers it's unfair not to return promptly to the workstation or position when break time is over. You are letting the other members of your team down, and by extension the entire company, and your own future.

Some people engage in petty theft of company property reasoning that they are not paid enough or that it doesn't harm anyone directly. Some companies turn a blind eye to this type of petty theft. It's a slippery slope from taking office supplies home or taking extra long breaks to making personal use of corporate jets or being indicted for fraudulent accounting. It all stems from a lack of mutual respect between people.

Mutual respect isn't a topic I can do justice to through a few paragraphs on a blog.

Away from Ford, the issue of break time and flexibility versus regulation is a practical question many Lean managers and consultants encounter during kaizen events and when converting from self-paced batch production to takt-paced one-piece flow. A common concern by workers is that they will be "chained" to the work position since there is no buffer (one piece flow) and if they leave the line will stop.

So what's a Lean manager to do? We say "design process around people". The first step starts with having respect for people, developing an understanding of what we are trying to achieve and why. With mutual respect and common ground, you can begin to make change.

Where this is lacking due to prolonged mistrust between management and workforce or management the union, it is very difficult to make lasting change. If there is a culture of mutual respect and an agreement to follow rules and kaizen them when they don't work, people can achieve practically anything.

It's worth repeating that the two pillars of Toyota management, and therefore Lean, are a mutual respect and kaizen, according to Vice Chairman Fujio Cho. It seems that if you have both, you can do just about anything.

Posted by Jon Miller at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Another example of a misconception that becomes common sense," Taiichi Ohno begins "is the idea that mass production is cheaper so that by the same logic low volume production must cost more. I have seen many factories but very few examples where mass production reduced the cost. In most cases increasing production volumes resulted in higher costs."

Very interesting. I like to think that I 'get it' when it comes to TPS and kaizen, but I struggled with that Ohno is saying here. But let's continue.

Ohno doesn't argue with the fact that if your capacity is 10,000 per day then the piece price will be less on a day when you have orders for 10,000 compared to a day when you have orders for 8,000. Taiichi Ohno argues that when you attempt to go beyond 10,000 per day the cost actually gets higher.

The maximum capacity of a workplace is finite. Taking the example of a press, the lowest cost to produce may be at 1,000 units per hour. Increasing production to 1,200 per hour with these assets may not result in a lower cost. A 20% increase doesn't justify adding equipment, so you work overtime. Overtime premiums can be 30% to 40% (says Ohno). The union will complain if you work too much overtime, so you need to buy another machine, which is initially run at less than full capacity until you have more orders, increasing cost.

The comment about the union needs some explanation. In Japan very few companies run a graveyard shift. Most run on one or two eight hour shifts. Part of this is because in the cities the trains and public transportation don't run 24 hours so you can't get people to and from the factories.

Another reason is that many factories employ housewives on a seasonal or temporary basis. They expect to be able to go home and take care of their school age children in the evenings. Too much overtime and it starts to affect the quality of life, and the labor union is there to keep that from happening.

Back to the misconception. This is the case when your volumes are increasing, says Ohno, but what about when your volume are declining? You can do SMED to kaizen your changeover times from 60 minutes to 10 minutes. This allows you to do multiple changeovers per hour and run smaller quantities of a wider variety of products. If you can produce 50 pieces per hour of product A (the example he gives for monthly demand), then change quickly and produce B, C, D, E, F, etc. then you can produce a mix of products at a low cost. Although he doesn't name it, he is talking about Heijunka.

Ohno argues that since you did kaizen to cut changeover times, the 50 minutes of production time (60 minute changeover before kaizen - 10 minute changeover after kaizen = 50 minutes press time) actually costs nothing. This is an accounting headache, says Ohno, but just don't use this time to run a larger lot of parts in the false belief that this lowers cost.

Ohno concludes: "As long as there is a perception in the market that a low volume product should cost more and you can charge a premium for this. If you can produce it cheaply through SMED, take advantage of this profitably cost accounting may lead you to believe that a certain product is profitable or that it is not. Products that could be sold profitably are not, and others are sold at a loss due to this misconception. This is a widespread phenomenon that is present no only in the automotive industry but in others."

Posted by Jon Miller at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Or so the full page ad taken out by the French government in the Otober 31, 2005 issue of BusinessWeek would have you believe. The ad takes no chances that the reader might not get the point, using the tag line "The New France. Where the Smart Money Goes."

With softball questions like "Are the French hard to work with?" or "What do you find attractive about doing business in France?" and "Haven't you ever felt any difficulty doing business here?" the ad misses no opportunity to tout the new France. Obviously Toyota likes what France has had to offer, since Vice Chairman Fujio Cho takes question after question and makes with a ringing endorsement of The New France.

A quarter of the page is taken up by a sketch of Vice Chairman Cho and his quote "We've had fantastic support from the French. Great teamwork and a real understanding of the concept of 'continuous improvement'." A true student of Taiichi Ohno, Vice Chairman Cho misses no opportunity to put kaizen front and center.

The first question is "Has it been difficult adapting to the French way of doing things?" which Cho answers "We have had no difficulty at all. At Toyota, our management philosophy is based on two pillars: mutual respect and what we Japanese call 'Kaizen', which means continuous improvement...[] Because inventiveness comes naturally to the French we've had no difficulty adapting the spirit of Kaizen to France."

It's a great paragraph. But I wonder what the answer would have been if the question were reversed: "Has it been difficult for the French to adapt to the Toyota way of doing things?"

This is the real question that we all face as we attempt to emulate the best of the Toyota management philosophy of kaizen and respect for people in our countries, companies and cultures, without the help of a patient and persistent Toyota management team to lead us.

Posted by Jon Miller at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week I praised Toyota's environmental efforts but a new and sharply critical ad campaign is making me reconsider.

Even as Toyota continues its advertising campaign to promote its Hybrid Synergy Drive technology with the "what if..." series, criticism comes from the green group Bluewater Network, a division of Friends of the Earth. "Is Toyota a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing?" they ask in a series of new ads.

The folks at Bluewater Network point out Toyota's environmental policies are inconsistent. Toyota is using the eco-friendly angle to promote hybrids while suing to overturn California's new regulations to reduce smog and global warming pollution from automobiles. Toyota is also opposing efforts in Congress to significantly raise the federal CAFE fuel mileage standards.

Danielle Fugere, Director of Climate Change at Bluewater Network is quoted as saying "[Toyota is] fighting against significantly increasing U.S. fuel mileage standards and suing to stop the states from cutting emissions." Fugere points out "How can they claim to be an environmental leader while undermining the very laws that would protect the planet? Toyota needs to figure out what they stand for, because they can't have it both ways."

He states "We think that misleads the public who believe hybrid technology comes with a fuel efficiency increase," Fugere said. "Toyota is not fulfilling its promise."

"Is this the same company that brought us the hybrid Prius, claiming to be an environmental leader?" the ad asks. I agree that Toyota could be doing more. Toyota is staying true to form by backing proven technology rather than gambling on something speculative and unproven like electrical vehicles or hydrogen. How does Toyota perform on fuel economy? According to an EPA report cited in this Detroit Free Press article the Toyota fleet's average fuel economy was 30 MPG 1985 and 27.5 MPG in 2005.

In the same article Nancy Hubbell, a Toyota spokeswoman said "Toyota's line of vehicles has definitely changed, but that's based on consumer preferences." Fair enough. Hubbell verifies that Toyota is part of the coalition opposing the California emissions standard, but that Toyota is only doing so because they want these laws to be passed by the federal government. That either sounds like typical Japanese long-term thinking or cynical American PR spin.

It appears that Toyota will surpass GM in 2006-2007 and become the number one producer and seller of automobiles on earth. With this type of achievement comes some responsibility, if you believe in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Toyota makes a good showing of taking their CSR seriously, but if these Friends of the Earth are to be believed, Toyota is not focusing their environmental efforts on where they could have the biggest impact - the fuel economy of their automobiles. With the output of 9.2 million expected in the year ending March 2007, making even a 5% improvement across their entire fleet would have a greater impact than promoting hybrids. Why not do both?

What's more disappointing is that if hybrid technology succeeds and Toyota continues to dominate, this will likely slow the development of alternative non-fossil fuels such as solar, bio-fuels, and hydrogen.

The comedian Al Franken was on television last night promoting his new book. One of his suggestions for the future of America was an 'Apollo Program' for alternative energy. While I don't agree with all of his politics, this seems like an infinitely better idea than our President's challenge to return to the moon by 2015 or to send a man to Mars. With the way our politicians are behaving lately, we're liable to spend taxpayer money on building a bridge to Mars.

Posted by Jon Miller at 9:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today Mark Graban posted his first trip report from his visit to NUMMI, the GM / Toyota joint venture in California. I won't give away the details, but it's a good reminder to "abandon fixed ideas" and do what's right rather than keep up appearances.

Visit the Lean Manufacturing Blog to read the first in the series "NUMMI Tour Tale #1: Why Fix the Escalator?"

Speaking of tour tales, Brad and Eric from Gemba are in Japan this week leading a group on our Japan Kaikaku Experience benchmarking trip of Lean companies. Look forward to some nuggets from their trip posted here when they get back.

Posted by Jon Miller at 8:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The October 24, 2005 Wall Street Journal article At Chrysler, Profits Don't Keep Chief From Cutting Costs has a funny title. Why would profit keep you from cutting costs?

Not everyone thinks like Taiichi Ohno, who gave chapter 14 of his book Gemba Keiei (Workplace Management in English) the title "Cut Costs When Business is Good". Chrysler chief executive Tom LaSorda is cut from the same mold. Even at a time when Chrysler is the only U.S. automobile manufacturer making money, he is requiring budgets to be trimmed by 5% to 10% this year and next.

The WSJ article points out that the burden from healthcare costs for Chrysler is less than that of GM, though still adding significant cost to each vehicle. About his choice to pursue cost cuts even in relatively good times, LaSorda is quoted as saying "When you're forced to do more with less you'll get creative and innovative and do only the things that are important." Spoken like a true believer in kaizen.

When talking about an initiative to cut out unnecessary meetings and bureaucracy, LaSorda sounds like an 'old hand' kaizen consultant. "Take people off the distribution list," he says. "If no one calls up, they didn't really need it. And you can spend your time on more important work." Try this at your company. It works.

The article give an example of a video report costing $2 million that was cut out at Chrysler. This is small compared to similar savings at GM reported by Beau Keyte, a Lean consultant on the project. General Motors has been using Value Stream Mapping and other Lean principles to cut out administrative costs reported to be as much as $3 billion per year and in one instance saved approximately $200 million by halting the printing of catalogs for dealers.

LaSorda shows he has the kaizen mindset when the article quotes him as saying
"Repeated over and over these little cuts can boost the bottom line -- and set a tone within the company."

Other major points in LaSorda's cost cutting include keeping design costs and capital investment costs down and avoiding the mistake of hiring to boost capacity during good times. It will be interesting to see if he succeeds at doing more with less, particularly on this last point.

Tom LaSorda seems to have the kaizen mindset and the Lean manufacturing chops to bring about a change of both cost structure and culture at Chrysler. There are plenty of lessons around him in the automotive industry (both good and bad) to learn from if he can keep a humble attitude and open mind.

Posted by Jon Miller at 7:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Listening to the radio on my commute last week I heard a perfect example of the opposite of Lean government. I'm always bothered by waste but this was truly disturbing.

In the highway bill signed this summer there is what is known as "the Bridge to Nowhere" connecting Alaska's Gravina Island (population less than 50) to Ketchikan (population 8,000). This bridge will be almost as long as the Golden Gate and taller than the Brooklyn Bridge. Some estimates put this and another bridge at between $450 to over a billion dollars of pork. This was the handiwork of public servants Don Young and Ted Stevens of Alaska. When I first heard this in the news this summer, feeling cynical or perhaps powerless, I shook my head sadly and moved on with life.

Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is a foe of government waste, a Lean Government Champion, if you like. Last week Senator Coburn from tried to block $453 million for the Bridge to Nowhere. He wanted to redirect this money to rebuilding the I-10 Bridge across Lake Pontchartrain which was severely damaged in Hurricane Katrina. The estimates for repair of the bridge in Louisiana run in the $600 million range.

"I believe that we should spend taxpayer dollars where they are most needed," Coburn wrote to his fellow senators asking for support. Coburn said "With the nation's debt ballooning, with the war in Iraq and all the hurricane damage, the country has to set priorities." Maybe the folks in Alaska do need that bridge. But is their need greater than that of the people of New Orleans? Senator Coburn's action seems like a sensible, rational, even compassionate thing to do. Yet Senator Coburn's amendment failed, 82-15, to block this government waste. Why?

Senator Ted Stevens, the veteran Alaska Republican could be heard on the radio losing his cool, "This amendment is an offense to me" and "I don't kid people" Stevens hollered "if the Senate decides to discriminate against our state . . . I will resign from this body." Other things were said by Senator Stevens that sounded like veiled threats. Too bad our senators didn't give him a reason to resign that day.

It doesn't take much digging to find out that this is par for the course for Senator Ted Stevens. The Citizens Against Government Waste called for Senator Stevens to resign in 2003 due to concerns that he was making a "concerted attempt to accumulate a personal fortune by wielding his extraordinary power in the Senate" as chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

In China when an official is found guilty of corruption they are swiftly executed. I am by no means advocating putting a bullet in the head of politicians who serve themselves rather than the people who elected them. However, the near complete lack of accountability in our political process needs to change. In America, the citizens are responsible for doing this.

One small sign of hope is found at the end of the Alaska Daily News article on October 21, 2005:

"Alaskans have filled the newspapers with letters, signed petitions, and sent letters to Congress offering to sacrifice the less-than-necessary bridges," Ferry, who works for the Alaska Transportation Priorities Project, said in a written statement after the vote. "It's unfortunate that the Senators from Alaska failed to reflect the compassion and common sense shown by Alaskans since Hurricane Katrina hit."

And there are small things we can do towards Lean government. In kaizen, big changes can come from a series of small persistent changes. The biggest change is the change in our minds. The first step is to take some type of action and test its effectiveness, and then try again and again. There is the Hurricane Katrina No Pork Pledge that you can ask your congressman to sign.

Essentially it says that they won't sneak in any pork along with the appropriations for hurricane relief. Diluting relief and reconstruction spending with pork would not only not be Lean government, it would be immoral.

Here is the short list of people who have signed it. If you care about Lean government, e-mail your congressman and ask them to sign this pledge.

Posted by Jon Miller at 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I came across a January 28, 2005 interview with Masaaki Imai by Gita Piramal, Managing Editor of The Smart Manager, a bi-monthly Indian business management magazine. It is titled The father of Kaizen speaks! and some good questions are posed and the answers are insightful.

The title is catchy but incorrect. Imai is not the father of kaizen. He is the author of Kaizen and Gemba Kaizen and the founder of Kaizen Institute. Nor is the following statement from the article, in any way, a reflection of reality:

"Toyota, the outstandingly successful Japanese carmaker, became one of his most committed followers." Prof. Imai observed the kaizen phenomena at Toyota and other companies in Japan and published his book on the subject in 1986. At Toyota Gemba Kaizen was active decades before that.

Who is the father of kaizen? That is a separate discussion but let's just say it was a multi-decade, team effort. The contributors range from Frederick Taylor to Lillian & Frank Gilbreth to Henry Ford to those who formulated Training Within Industry in the early 1940s as part of the war effort, to Sakichi Toyoda, Edwards Deming, Taiichi Ohno, and Shigeo Shingo.

Masaaki Imai, Norman Bodek, James Womack, and Jeffrey Liker have helped promote and popularize kaizen, Lean manufacturing and Toyota Production System outside of Japan over the past two decades through their work in writing, speaking and publishing.

Imai continues his contribution in this article. Highlights include:

On the Sufficiency of Kaizen to Make Big Changes
When asked whether kaizen, or small changes, can be enough when big change is needed in an organization, Imai responds "Kaizen is the means to achieve a corporate strategy, not the strategy" and that "The most important challenge facing top management today... [ ] ...is to establish a target about where they want to take the company in the next two, five and ten years."

Imai goes on to say that in manufacturing there are two systems, batch & queue (traditional manufacturing) and "Just in Time" or Toyota Production System (Lean manufacturing) and that the big change companies must make to survive is the change from batch to JIT.

On Wny Batch Manufacturing is Bad
"The batch production system, to which almost 99.9 per cent of all manufacturing companies subscribe, is destined to perish" says Imai, mainly because it is extremely difficult to build in quality and respond to a variety of customer requirements on-demand.

In talking about the importance of knowing what the customer wants in order to be able to deliver products through Just In Time production, Imai redefines the role of marketing:

"The customer may not know that she wants a product. The inventor has to estimate the market for it. It is the role of marketing to define the product and the role of production to make the product. Well, I think it is the other way round. The role of marketing is to dig out the potential or hidden requirement that the market has."

On China
The interviewer spends considerable space on the issue of China. In response to the question of China's "efficiency" Imai says that this is a false perception. In summary Imai he says that China is low-cost but not efficient. The appearance of efficiency has been given to them by the Japanese technology and transfer of quality control and production management knowledge.

On the Decline of the Supremacy of Japanese Business
Imai says that he Japanese model is still superior but that external circumstances such as government and market regulation, population demographics, and woes in the financial sector have made Japan's economy less functional in spite of superior management systems, particularly in manufacturing.

On Indian Management Practices
When asked about his views on Indian management practices, Imai responds:

"They are under the impression that real knowledge can be gained only by reading books and attending lectures. How often do they actually roll up their sleeves and get into some action?"

"They really need to make more effort [at getting into the thick of action]. They have immense knowledge, but what they lack is wisdom that comes by doing things yourself."

These words ring particularly true. It is not just Indian management but managers everywhere who need to "go see" to verify what they think they know and to roll up their sleeves and get into the thick of things on their Gemba.

Posted by Jon Miller at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It always horrified me to see perfectly good products being sold at a discount because they were no longer in season or in style. Why fill a dealer lot full of cars, only to sell last year's models at a discount? Why design and produce perfectly good shoes and then sell them at a discount? There's something wrong with this system. It's called push.

The producer is pushing product the market due to the belief that factory utilization is important, whether customers want the product or not. Taiichi Ohno warns repeatedly against this type of overproduction in his book Workplace Management.

Have you ever ordered "the special" at a restaurant? How special is it? It's been in the freezer a while, that's how special (unless of course it痴 the catch of the day). If you are in Dallas, you can experience a chicken dinner served on a "pull" system.

There are many examples of "technology push" where products are developed and marketed without customer pull, but instead because of a faith on the part of the developer in the superior technology. The belief is "if you build it, they will come" to borrow words from a movie.

A good example of technology push is ironically named Push Technology. When I first heard about this I shook my head at this poor naming choice. It turns out people hated it. The overwhelming popularity of search engines (pull) today, and the near invisibility Push Technology speaks volumes. Some say Push is back as RSS feeds, but even here you are really "pulling" by subscribing to specific content.

You can read another excellent article Lean manufacturing on the Fashion-Incubator blog called Push manufacturing: subverting the fit feedback loop. It reads like a chapter out of a book titled "Lean Apparel". Kathleen could write the book. The lesson here is that when you push, you lose touch with your customer.

The article talks about how the long lead-times as a result of off-shore production and shipping time leads into a sellers' market push. The customer (retailer) must take what is available regardless if the fit, color, etc. is what they want or what their customer (the consumer) will buy.

The solution, says Kathleen, is niche manufacturers and designer entrepreneurs newly entering the market. In Lean terms, these smaller players are more nimble, able to flow and pull in smaller lots cost-effectively. The trade off is that the cost may be higher as these products won't be made off-shore as easily. So ultimately as in all things it's a balance between the three elements of demand; quality, cost and delivery. The only certain way to achieve this is through pull.

Posted by Jon Miller at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dr. James Womack is not the only one saddened to see a corporation like Delphi who championed Lean so well struggle so mightily. I read Dr. Womack's article on the LEI site about Delphi, hoping for a lesson learned. I was disappointed.

Dr. Womack talks about seeing some of the best examples of Lean implementation while visiting Delphi factories around the world. The examples he gives are all Lean manufacturing implementation, not "Lean Enterprise" examples where the long-term vision of the organization was aligned with the operational model and improvement activities. What's the E stand for in LEI again?

No doubt there were great examples of Lean manufacturing at Delphi. The "Lean Enterprise" factories I walk through all have no layoff policies. They all have growth plans and are committed to people development. Many of them have 100 year visions and concrete 20 year plans. They typically haven't won any Shingo Prizes. Maybe my definition of Lean enterprise is old school. Maybe it is a cultural thing and maybe Japanese companies do have an easier time thinking long-term and becoming truly Lean than American ones do. I hope not.

In the article Dr. Womack let the leadership of Delphi off rather easily, essentially chalking up the bankruptcy filing to bad luck, or more precisely a series of factors such as energy prices, weakening SUV demand and the loss of GM (Delphi's largest customer) market share to Toyota.

What was the vision that Delphi was trying to achieve through Lean? I don't know. This may be a rhetorical question. Why do you do kaizen or work to become a Lean enterprise? "Cut out waste." Wrong. "Be more competitive." Wrong. You do kaizen in order to become a Lean enterprise so that you can make money today, tomorrow, and forever. You become a Lean enterprise to achieve your vision, whatever that may be. Hopefully it is creating good jobs, wealth, and stability in the community by profitably providing products or services the market appreciates.

As a key player in the Lean enterprise movement and a prominent speaker and author Dr. Womack has the ears of many influential business leaders. To not address this lack of vision and the failure of Lean enterprise strategy at Delphi is an opportunity lost. Perhaps the kid gloves didn't come off because Delphi is a founding sponsor of LEI.

Dr. Womack points out that Toyota beating GM caused GM to beat up on Delphi. "The irony for Lean Thinkers is that lean-leader Toyota beat GM and GM responded by beating up Delphi which has become one of Toyota's most eager pupils. If only Delphi had Toyota as its major customer!" I agree. So why wasn't supplying Toyota part of Delphi's Lean enterprise strategy? More than one consulting customer of ours has a stated goal for Lean implementation to "become a Toyota supplier". What a good way to combine long-term thinking with Lean enterprise transformation activities and a tangible business measurement for success.

"Simply fixing operations may not be sufficient if managers wait too late to start and factor costs (principally wages and healthcare costs these days) are too far out of line." I agree with the first seven words, but the eighth word "if…" is followed by more talk of operational costs and none of vision and long term strategy. Dr. Womack revisits his "think twice before you outsource to China" theme and then concludes that the key to sustainable advantage is a combination of "appropriate labor costs" with "truly lean practices in product design, operations and logistics purchasing and customer touch." To borrow his words, these things are necessary, but not sufficient.

Dr. Womack ends by making a contrarian prediction that Delphi will pull through and succeed because of the Lean foundation they have laid. I hope that this is so. But I fear that as long as they are hitched to GM this will be difficult. Any concessions GM will have to make to help bring Delphi out of bankruptcy will only weaken GM further, in turn not helping Delphi.

In my opinion simply pursuing the implementation of "truly Lean" operations as an automobile parts supplier to GM is not sufficient for Delphi. Toyota got out of making automatic looms to lead the world in automobiles. Nokia got out of tires, boots, and televisions to lead the world in mobile phones. The 3M company started out in sandpaper and is synonymous today with post-it notes. I don't know what the path is for Delphi, but the important thing is that they return to a profitable existence and remain there as long as possible in order to serve customers, the people that work for and with the company.

Delphi has many great people. They have a good brand and a strong international footprint. They have one of the best Lean operations in the United States, possibly in the world. Delphi could succeed at anything they wanted if they put their mind to it.

The lesson here is that Lean is not about changing things (how factories look and run) but changing how we think. Lean enterprise transformation changes how everyone in the organization thinks about the work they do. That's why it takes years, not weeks. This is hardest for leadership because visionary strategy and operational turnaround expertise are a truly rare combination. We also don't reward leaders for thinking long-term, if this does not maximize value to shareholders in the short term. This is why today the Lean enterprise continues to be the exception.

Posted by Jon Miller at 6:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I recently had lunch at Babe's Chicken Dinner House in Roanoke, Texas. It was a surprising place to find Lean principles at work.

They have a streamlined product offering with two items on the menu, fried chicken and chicken fried steak. They operate on a pull system. They cook the food as ordered. The side dishes are served in small portions, one of each dish per table. Refills are based on a pull system – you finish the mashed potatoes, you get more if you ask.

They have fact sheets and shirts printed with this:

"We cook small batches of each different food product to make it as fresh and good as possible. Most restaurants are in the habit (which is easier) of cooking up a lot of the products at opening – and serving out of it all evening long. We make one pan of biscuits at a time etc. It is harder and costs more but we believe it is worth it!"

It sounds like a strategy for a Lean service business. Is it working for them? The place was full at lunch, and Babe's has won the "South's Best Fried Chicken" for three years running in Southern Living magazine.

Another memorable example of Lean restaurants is at a lobster restaurant in Maine in the mid-1990s. Mr. Nakao of Shingijutsu Co. was working with the Pratt & Whitney factory in North Berwick, Maine. Mr. Nakao became annoyed at the wait for his food so he went into the kitchen and taught them about takt time and one-piece flow.

The lobster pot was divided in sections and set to a timer so that each new piece of lobster was added one at a time according to the pace of customer demand. The quantity of Standard WIP (number of lobsters) was based on cooking time divided by takt time. This cut down on overcooking and gave the restaurant manager a better ability to meet customer demand.

Back in Texas, ironically the client we are working with has exactly the type of issues (high inventory, poor quality, lack of visibility) they could avoid by producing in smaller batches, on demand. Perhaps we will take the management team out the Babe's for lunch one day.

Posted by Jon Miller at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is something I've noticed with a few of the sites I've been visiting lately. They are all part of a huge global, well-respected company and yet the Lean implementation is not as robust as we would like to see it.

A lot of us are familiar with the phrase "a lack of resources" - normally referring to people to do some work. I'd like you to think of some fictitious company. They are big and want to do Lean. I'd like for you to pretend that you are their Lean Implementer. What does Lean look like for them? I mean, what can you see? What should you have?

Should we have some Visual Management boards? (In case you were wondering, the answer is YES) What about metrics - should they be on there? (YES) What metrics? Quality, Cost, Delivery, Safety, Morale, and maybe some other funky metric we decide applies to this area? Should we include those? (YES) This may sound like a dumb question, but the more Visual Management boards, like one per cell the better right? (Right!)

OK... What about Value Stream Maps? (YES YES!) Current? (YES) Future? (YES) We should have one for each of our value streams right (Of Course!) Would we like them done in VISIO afterwards? (Well, yeah!) And I'm guessing we should print out as colored banners and laminate them too right? (Yeah!!)

All-righty then. I guess we should bang out our Lean implementation plan too shouldn't we? (You bet!) How detailed? (As close to the Nth degree would be best) You mean a bigger plan with lots of PowerPoint? (Now you're getting the idea! My boss will love that!)

I've heard that we should do 5S since it's the basic of Lean. Are we interested in doing that? (YES) I guess we should take time to make a 5S audit shouldn't we? (Uh-huh) Would 50 questions per area be a little too sketchy? (Yeah, make it 75 or so)

Now, imagine that you only have 100people in your plant and you can only do 2 things out of the 15 you just agreed to do. What do you do to keep your job?

This is a trap a lot of Lean managers at production sites owned by big companies fall into. Since the company is big, they want it all. (VM boards, laminated VSMs, you name it) because in their mind the resources are there. "Hey, we are $X Billion, we are not going to go half way. We'll do everything!" is the thinking. In reality, however, the production site is more like a small company, they don't have the resources to do all that is planned.

The answer for the Lean Implementer then becomes: "I will do what is most visible to management" e.g. boards, and hence the lack of the most important nearly invisible tasks such as training people, and making meaningful, if not pretty changes in the work area.

When we train management on the principles of Lean, we help combat this issue. We help them see that Flow is more important than boards posted up. Now they have something else to look for when they go to the shop floor instead of the boards.

Posted by Brad Schmidt at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Toyota Roof Garden, a biotech business of Toyota, has developed an air-cleaning Kirsch Pink. This new type of shrub absorbs 1.3 times more pollutants than Cherry Sage.

Clever American corporate strategy consultants might think spending resources to improve a shrub is a dangerous diversion away from core competencies for an automobile manufacturing company.

However, they would be wrong. I predict that Toyota's big winning bet on hybrids is just the beginning of what we'll recognize as Toyota's lead in the environmental business.

Toyota's "global earth charter" for environmental responsibility is also very much in line with at least 3 of Toyota's 7 Guiding Principles:

1-Honor the language and spirit of the law of every nation and undertake open and fair corporate activities to be a good corporate citizen of the world.

3-Dedicate ourselves to providing clean and safe products and to enhancing the quality of life everywhere through all our activities.

4-Create and develop advanced technologies and provide outstanding products and services that fulfill the needs of customers worldwide.

On a larger scale, Toyota has teamed up with Green Earth Center, a Tokyo-based NGO to stop desertification in China. Toyota has put out a North America Environmental Performance Report for the past 5 years.

The October 2005 update called Highlights of Toyota's Environmental Progress is a good place to get an update. There's much more on their environmental work within the Toyota website.

As an example of corporate social responsibility this is typical of the concern of Japanese manufacturers for the environment. Imagine if the second largest economy in the world with half of the population of the U.S.A. was fit into space about the size of Montana. That's Japan. Things can get polluted very fast if you don't kaizen the environmental issues.

Whenever we visit world class Lean firms in Japan on Gemba's Lean benchmarking trip we are impressed by the examples of environmental kaizen such as power generation at factories with solar panels, water purification, and zero landfill factories. Toyota, as usual, has the resources, know how and determination to take it to another level.

So what's next, self-mowing grass?

Posted by Jon Miller at 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Zealand defeated Australia 38-28 in a rugby match on Saturday October 15. This broke a 46-year jinx, as the Kiwis had not won in Sydney in 14 attempts since 1959. Kaizen helped them win.

An October 16th National Nine News article credits the use of kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, as well video footage of New Zealand痴 victory in 1959 to inspire the Kiwis to defeat the Kangaroos. Here's a quote from the article:

"It [kaizen] would apply to sport in the same way it would in an office or a manufacturing floor - you look at where things are going wrong and you look at the bigger area and do something about it."

Brilliant. After all, if Tiger Woods uses Buddhist meditation techniques to focus himself on the golf course, why not kaizen on the rugby field?

Posted by Jon Miller at 9:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a very good article about Lean manufacturing implementation in a sewing shop titled Becoming a Lean Manufacturer on Kathleen Fasanella's Fashion-Incubator blog.

We don't do much Lean manufacturing consulting in apparel (although one of our long-time clients is a customer furniture manufacturer with a cut & sew operation) so I did learn some issues about Lean and sewing. What I liked about the article is the link demonstrated between what we say are the three essential aspects of Becoming a Lean Manufacturer; the operational model, leadership, and workforce.

The jumping off point is the example of the lack of built-in quality in a traditional sewing operation. This "operational model" is not Lean. The organizational and cultural underpinnings of this lack of built in quality, as well as practical countermeasure are outlined in the article. Lean concepts such as stop-the-line (jidoka), cross-training, one-piece flow sewing in work teams, and co-location of design with manufacturing are illustrated.

Read the article. It's plain-spoken and argues convincingly for the role of leadership in linking the operational model (built-in quality through Lean manufacturing and continuous improvement) with workforce development and empowerment.

A fashion blog was not the first place I would have looked for insight on Lean manufacturing. Thanks go out to Mark Graban for spotting this one and sharing it with the rest of us on his Lean Manufacturing Blog.

So how much of Becoming a Lean Manufacturer is about people? It's at least 67% if you take leadership and workforce as two out of three. It's probably more like 88% to 99% people if you consider that the operational model (Toyota Production System) is really about how people interact with each other, how people make decisions, solve problems, and add value using material, machines, and information. Get a hold of a copy of Brown & Spear's article Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System if you don't know what I'm talking about.

For more on this theme check out also the Lean Failures blog where reasons #1 and #2 listed there come under the workforce and leadership categories for failure to Become a Lean Manufacturer.

I've also written before about the crucial link between leadership, workforce, and operational model in an article about the key role team leaders and supervisors play in implementing and sustaining TPS.

More organizations seem to be getting this. The Supplier Excellence Alliance (SEA), a group of aerospace, defense, and space primes, OEMs and suppliers working to improve competitiveness, appears to. Their Lean Enterprise System Overview focuses on the three aspects of Operational Excellence, Leadership & Culture, Workforce Development.

First, it's about people. Just compare the profitability of Toyota and how they respect and value their people with how Delphi played chicken with the UAW over bankruptcy, pensions, and wages... and everyone lost. Get "First," wrong and second and third don't matter.

Posted by Jon Miller at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"We reduced inventory" the manager of one company told Ohno, hoping for praise.

This was raw material inventory so Ohno asked "Won't the lack of raw materials cause problems for production?"

"Not at all" came the reply. Going to the factory Ohno sees increased work in process (WIP) inventory. They had reduced raw material inventory by turning it into WIP. Convenient for manufacturing perhaps, but bad for business.

Taiichi Ohno argues that raw materials should not be considered inventory. He is very direct about this and my first reaction was "?" since raw materials are still clearly inventory.

He says that if you know the price of the materials will go up, you might as well buy extra while it's cheap. Taiichi Ohno is recommending commodity speculation. Perhaps in the days of continuous growth in the Japanese automotive industry (or the days of high steel prices due to demand from Chinese manufacturing) this is sound advice. He goes as far as to say that excess raw material inventory really doesn't have an affect on the running of manufacturing company.

Raw material inventory is clearly still inventory so perhaps he is taking an advanced position. I think he means that you shouldn't focus on reducing raw material inventory when doing kaizen since there are usually bigger fish to fry. Reducing raw materials is usually low impact kaizen, and not a big challenge in Lean manufacturing. Changevoer time reduction through SMED and setting up kanban systems helps do this.

Taiichi Ohno continues with his theme of eliminating overproduction. He says it is easy for a factory to take the raw materials and produce WIP inventory to keep idle machines running, to let fast machines run at top speed rather than waiting for a pull from the downstream process, falling into the traditional accounting trap that high utilization and equipment efficiency means low cost.

"We don't produce what we are not selling" says Taiichi Ohno. Let your machines be idle rather than run under the delusion that high utilization lowers cost. When you overproduce this uses extra energy, more wear and tear on the machine, extra raw materials and racks for their storage.

Then comes the computerized inventory management system to show you where you have put all of that inventory that you produced at such a low unit cost. Ohno points out the irony of this by asking with a touch of sarcasm "Why add cost in this way after working so hard to achieve low cost production?"

Ohno has taught us that overproduction is the worst of the 7 wastes of Lean manufacturing. The unstated lesson here is that the presence of raw materials is the evidence of a lack of overproduction.

Taiichi Ohno closes the chapter by warning against making process flow decisions based on unit cost calculations. Ohno was faced with the argument, 'If a factory worker transports materials, this cost is part of the unit cost. If a logistics company transports materials, this is general overhead. We'll take care of reducing overhead if you will take care of reducing manufacturing cost.' This is a big mistake, says Ohno. There is no way to know how much this type of process will actually cost you. In fact as you fail to reduce overhead cost this drives the wrong decision even further.

Is Ohno directing these last comments towards Toyota? This book was written in 1982. That's about two-thirds into of Toyota's 55 year process of developing TPS and doing kaizen. It's speculation, but he may be giving us a very interesting glimpse into the Lean implementation challenges of those days. He may be showing us a TPS that was maturing, wrestling with integrating software tools and traditional cost accounting methods, much as many companies are today.

Posted by Jon Miller at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oman now has something called The Lean Government Award. Oman is a country located on the toe of the Arabian Peninsula with a population of about 3 million.

Oman is one of a number of states in the area who have been actively studying kaizen. For instance the Department of Economic Development (DED) reports that they are the first government office in UAE to implement kaizen (possibly the first in the Middle East).

Dr. Masaaki Imai has been active in promoting Kaizen in the Arab peninsula since at least 2003. The Kaizen Institute now has offices in Oman, Bahrain, Iran, and UAE. This September the DED of United Arab Emirates launched a guidebook on kaizen based on Dr. Imai's work.

Teams from these countries have attended study missions to Japan through programs the AOTS offers. The Association for Overseas Technical Scholarships is a Japanese non-profit that offers pretty darn good training opportunities in the area of Lean manufacturing and kaizen to developing countries. If you qualify, you should take advantage of these programs.

The Lean Government Award is one of five parameters that have been identified to gauge economic freedom by the Frasier Institute as part of a grant to produce the Arab Freedom Index. The other four are Rule of Law Award, Sound Money Award, Free Trade Award and Ease of Business Award. Hopefully this will give Lean government a high profile in the world.

If economic freedom means money flows through markets according to customer pull, Lean governments shouldn't get in the way.

Posted by Jon Miller at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's an interesting article in eWeek titled Little Things Mean a Lot. Kaizen has gone mainstream when an IT magazine uses it to make the connection between the robotic vehicle winning the DARPA Grand Challenge 2005 desert race, bugs in enterprise software, and 5S.

This year 5 out of 23 vehicles finished the 142 mile desert race. This is a lot better than it sounds, considering that no vehicles completed the race in 2004 and no vehicle made it further than 7.4 miles. The author argues that paying attention to little things is what made the difference, not making these vehicles 20 times faster. A sampling of reasons why vehicles did not finish the 2004 race:

- Brushed wall out of chute
- Flipped at mile 0.2
- Caught in wire at mile 0.45
- Lost route at mile 0.75
- Could not proceed, mile 1.2
- Went off course, mile 1.3
- Stopped on hill, mile 5.2
- Hung up on a rock, mile 6.0
- Stuck on embankment, mile 6.7
- Caught on berm, mile 7.4

See the Android World website for more details and photos of the 2004 race.

Fixing small things can be better than looking for the breakthrough improvement when it comes to complex high performance systems like software or robotic vehicles. The same is true for factories, hospitals or governments offices.

Whether it's software developers or engineers creating a new product or production line, creative energy tends to be spent on new things rather than making sure what you already have runs as smoothly as possible. While this is human nature, this does not help you win desert races or help you produce bug-free product.

Working slow-and-steady and stopping to fix what's broken so you get the most out of what you have before you invest in a new technlogy is one of the key tenets of TPS and a kaizen mindset. In Lean manufacturing terms this is making sure your factory runs like a tortoise and not like a hare.

If I could have a dollar for every machine I've seen purchased with no consideration of the OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) of the existing assets, I'd have enough to buy more than a few licenses of the OEE Toolkit.

People tend to buy emotionally and then rationalize the purchase later. Too often the facts (OEE measurement) do not support this rationalization. What's embarrassing is to find that the combined OEE or actual productive uptime is often less than 40% and that you could have avoided the purchase by doubling your OEE to 80% through kaizen focused on eliminating the losses such as breakdowns, changeover time, minor stops, and yield.

Breakthroughs are still important to achieve a higher level of performance. The relentless process of kaizen every day makes it possible to sustain this new level of performance. You can use kaizen to achieve breakthroughs but kaizen is most powerful when you have everyone focused everyday on working out the bugs and making your process or product stable.

Posted by Jon Miller at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The October 8, 2005 news article from Singapore titled Thinking Out-of-the-Box Helps Alexandra Hospital Reduce Patient Waiting Time starts out "It worked for Toyota cars, so why not for patients at hospitals?" Why not indeed?

According to the article the impact of Lean healthcare on patient flow included productivity improvement by 400% (from 22 to 70 patients seen per hour by a staff of 12) and wait times cut in half. This helped bring the cost of the health screening to $10 per patient (the article does not say what the original cost was). These are typical Lean implementation results.

The article mentions a million dollars of grant money in the Quality Improvement Fund through the Ministry of Health. It's on the table for any of you Lean healthcare consultants out there with time on your hands and an interest in helping out hospitals in Singapore.

What struck me about this article was the seeming ease with which this hospital adopted the "assembly line" concept. I have to confess having much less success at persuading hospitals in the U.S. to take a serious look at TPS. People with the letters M.D. after their name are particularly resistant to being placed, or having their patients placed on any kind of "production line" healthcare.

Let's be patient-centered for just a moment and imagine that healthcare doesn't revolve at all around physicians or their preconceptions of what a healthcare delivery process should be. A supreme example from India is Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy of Sight Savers International. Dr. Govindappa helps people get their sight back for free. This is done through a "production line" process that performs 130,000 cataract operations per year.

In American English the colloquialism "production line" or "assembly line" is a negative term generally used by artists, craftsmen, designers or knowledge workers to mean work that is impersonal, mechanical or uncreative. To people who think what they do is different each time and impossible to standardize or streamline, or that they need a lot of "mental set up" or thinking time between transactions having their work measured and paced by a production line does not seem like a good idea. This is certainly one way of looking at the world.

When I hear the words "assembly line" I get a warm feeling. Really, I do. This, I am fairly certain, puts me in the minority. Of course I think of the Toyota assembly lines I have seen or production lines at other companies who have applied TPS principles. Seeing a well-designed and well-balanced production line run can be a beautiful thing. Personally, there are very few things I would not want delivered to me via Toyota-style assembly line, product or service.

What's so bad about assembly lines? Nothing, per se. Bad assembly lines are bad if they:

- Cause repetitive stress injuries to workers
- Provide workers with no satisfaction of seeing a complete product
- Are sped up to increase output (increasing the workers' burden)
- Lack "stop the line" authority when problems are found
- Lack work balance (resulting in overproduction or waiting)

In general bad production lines are not designed around the needs of people. Unfortunately the majority of assembly lines in the world today suffer from more than one of these evils. Any tool can be misused or abused. It is still a good tool.

In a previous weblog entry I summarized how Wipro (another firm in India) is using "production line" and TPS principles for Lean Office implementation. Perhaps the English speakers in India and Singapore do not know the negative meaning of "assembly line". Good for them. Maybe they can teach us that production lines are good things again.

Posted by Jon Miller at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

While on a recent business trip to New York City I met with an old friend of mine who does human rights work. He told me a story of how he persuaded policy makers to take a position on issues of human rights by issuing statements that he knew were more extreme or radical than what the policy makers would endorse. My friend is a bit of a Marxist. He told me this tactic is similar to what is called taking the "advanced position" found in Marxist literature.

The policy maker may know that the arguments made by the activist is morally and factually correct, but be unable to take the position of my friend's organization for political reasons. The policy maker will support the position but to a lesser degree than the human rights activist initially presents. Because my friend's position was more extreme, or in advance of what his actual short term objectives were, the less advanced position taken by the policy maker was still sufficient.

This reminded me of my teachers from Shingijutsu and the "extreme" or advanced positions they would take in the early days of teaching TPS and kaizen at American companies. For example, when faced with converting a hard-edged east coast union aerospace machine shop from one-man, one-machine environemnt (complete with the CNC operator reading the newspaper while the spindle turns) to multi-process handling, standard work, visual management, and stop the line authority, the sensei would typically take the "advanced position" to the shock and horror of the middle management busy guarding their turf.

A more reasonable proposal such as "let's connect the process and create a one piece flow cell" would have been too easy to bury in objections, foot dragging, or analysis paralysis. By taking the "advanced position' the sensei could concede things like standing work or immediate and full implementation of standard work and still have one piece flow and multi process handling basic visual management implemented by the end of the kaizen week. The other elements were certainly necessary to sustain kaizen long-term but in the short term it was enough to show people that big change was possible.

A more recent personal example comes from a SMED project. The initial goal was to reduce changeover times of more than 12 hours to half of that. First I need to explain that SMED stands for Single Minute Exchange of Dies. Not double digits, and certainly not hours.

Whenever you see a changeover that is taking double digit hours, you can be certain that there is:

1) A lot of "air" (time when nothing is happening) in the changeover
2) A large number of changeover activities and an extreme lack of coordination
3) Or some combination of both

So as a responsible Lean consultant I had to point out that single minute changeover was possible. As a result of the kaizenevent, 80% changeover reduction was achieved. Not single minutes yet, but more than they believed possible.

When people have little experience with Lean manufacturing and what you can accomplish during kaizen, their immediate reaction to many of the claims made by the Lean consultant is "inconceivable" or "impossible". They think we are crazy. This is the same whether we claim to cut the 12 hour changeover to 3 hours, 1 hour or 9 minutes. In each case we must help them make the mental journey as follows:

Inconceivable --> conceivable but impossible --> possible but extremely difficult --> difficult but doable --> done.

If you are going to do that, you might as well tell them what's really possible through a successful TPS implementation. There's no need to exaggerate since there are plenty of benchmarks for the "advanced position" of Lean.

Posted by Jon Miller at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a TPM Cafe blog entry titled Making Government Work, Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa talks about how he is bringing Lean government using kaizen and other tools.

Just a sample on this Lean government blog entry: "We combined four departments of government into one administrative agency, which improved service within state government and saved money at the same time."

There's more good information at the governor's Results Iowa website, including some good improvement metrics called the Operational Scan as well as their Enterprise Strategic Plan that is reminiscent of top level Hoshin Kanri objectives (which they appear to have cascaded down to at least the departmental level).

It's great to see a governor who is using Lean to cut costs when revenues fall so the state can maintain services for citizens. Write to your senator, governor or congressman and ask them to do kaizen at your local government! It's our duty as citizens (customers of the government) to ask, it's their duty as public servants to make wise use of our resources.

Posted by Jon Miller at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)