October: A Month of Lean-free Blogging

By Jon Miller | Post Date: September 30, 2006 9:27 AM | Comments: 5

For the next 31 days there will be no mention of the word "Lean" in the posts on this blog. There will still be discussion on the subject, but no mention of the word itself. It will be an experiment with other ways of expressing or explaining what is commonly called "Lean".

What brought this on? While in Brazil a few weeks ago I was humbled by a wise man who pointed out how we had failed in communicating the benefits for the Toyota system to his team. Fortunately they are still trying to learn ways to copy the Toyota Production System, but at the moment not from us. One of the perceived root causes was the use of the word "Lean" and the many associations that come with it.

We have never thought of ourselves as Lean manufacturing consultants. Lean may be a short cut to explaining what we do to a market that looks for labels, but it is insufficient. Kaizen as an action and as a philosophy has always had more currency for us. As the words "Lean manufacturing" have come into mainstream use, we have become lazy in thinking about what it really is that clients really need and what we really have to offer. That was the humbling lesson from Brazil.

So for the month of October 2006 there will be no mention of the word "Lean" on this blog and there will be deeper reflection of what people who use this world are really trying to acheive when we use the word Lean. I have no idea what this exercise will yield. Perhaps some new insights, no doubt an awkward circumlocution or two. Tune in to find out and to contribute to the discussion.

John,

Lean manufacturing is defined and I am sure there are other reasons for the loss of this relationship. We enjoy your blog but try not to be so indirect with your blog contributions. And, unfortunately today is the first mention of the term.

Jim

ps don’t say “thanks for the advice” or the like. – circumlocution – could you repeat that?

Poster: Jim Sady | Post Date: October 1, 2006 9:43 PM

Jim,

It may be defined but it is often misunderstood.

I'm amazed that you can be sure of anything about that happened between us and our client in Brazil (the relationship is not lost, by the way).

Circumlocution = a roundabout way of saying something or an expression that uses more words than are necessary to get the idea across.

Readers are welcom to mention the term I am avoiding this month, of course.

I sincerely appreciate your feedback and requests. I hope it's OK to say that.

Jon

Poster: Jon Miller | Post Date: October 2, 2006 3:39 AM

Jon,

I have been reading your blogs for about a year now, and it has really helped me grow as a person. To comment on what you stated in your blog, I think it takes a person a while to come to this conclusion. In our business,(we are a wood manufactuer) I would do continuous improvement activities, but started to see that other Team Leads and management would/wouldn't do things because they didn't think it was the lean thing to do. So eventually I stopped saying the word Lean. What I found that was helpful to me is when I would tell them is to just find the waste and eliminate it. If you can't figure out how, then go into the Continuous Improvement toolbox and pull out a tool that will help in that situation. But don't let the word stand in your way of getting better.

Thank You,

Jermaine

Poster: Jermaine Ward | Post Date: October 3, 2006 5:44 AM

Having a physical challenge (left above knee amputee) I feel I have a different perspective on process efficiency. When a person becomes or has a sight impairment, their other senses become more in tune with their surroundings. A person with a mobility impairment is accutely aware of "walking a process" that others without an impairment take for granted. To make a process more efficient I would suggest performing it in a wheelchair, then the inefficiencies become more magnified.

Poster: Charles Anderson | Post Date: October 3, 2006 7:17 AM

I stumbled across this blog when I used googles blog search for TPS... and why did I do that ? I work in the banking industry and currently as an enterprise we are at the fringes of exploring process (in) efficiencies. As a part of this , a few of us are to make a trip to Nagoya to the Toyota factory there and hence I wanted to learn more. To my feeble mind, conceptually, it is about becoming more efficient and eventually more productive and the sooner the better . Its all about today for tomorrow.

Poster: Viki | Post Date: December 1, 2006 9:30 PM

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