Leading Lean: Missed Opportunity

Posted on April 10, 2006 by John Hunter

Leading Lean: Missed Opportunity [the broken link was removed] by Jamie Flinchbaugh:

Three elements are needed to gain the benefits from using pull production to drive problems out into the open. First, you need strong problem-solving skills. Bringing a problem to the surface is only half of the battle-you still have to correct the problem. Second, you need an infrastructure capable of solving problems. This means persuading employees at all levels to respond to problems in real time. This does not happen overnight. Third, and perhaps most important, you need a culture that values solving problems as prevention, not crisis management, and is willing to step up even if the problems seem small at the moment.

Great points. One of the counter intuitive things with lean is to make problems visible. So often people try to hide problems (which inventory can do – making it difficult to see emerging problems and to diagnose problems once they are finally discovered).

The idea that you then must improve the system as these problems are made visible is fairly obvious but is also worth emphasising since without it the problems increase.

I think the typical perfromance appraisal process adds to the desire to hide problems. As does excess mobility of management (just hide it until you move on). These show my Deming view of management leanings.

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The Art of Customer Service

Posted on April 10, 2006 by John Hunter

The Art of Customer Service [the broken link was removed] by Guy Kawasaki:

4. Don’t point the finger.
This is the flip side of taking responsibility. As computer owners we all know that when a program doesn’t work, vendors often resort to finger pointing: “It’s Apple’s system software.” “It’s Microsoft’s ‘special’ way of doing things.” “It’s the way Adobe created PDF.” A great customer service company doesn’t point the finger–it figures out what the solution is regardless of whose fault the problem is and makes the customer happy. As my mother used to say, “You’re either part of the problem or part of the solution.” (By the way, as a rule of thumb, the company with the largest market capitalization is the one at fault.)
Posted in Customer focus, Management Articles | Tagged | 1 Comment

PBS Documentary: Improving Hospitals

Posted on April 9, 2006 by John Hunter

Clare Crawford-Mason and Llyod Dobyns have teamed up on a new documentary. Previously they created If Japan Can-Why Can’t We? and the Deming Library Tapes.

Good News – How Hospitals Heal Themselves (broken link was removed)
A One-Hour Documentary Airing on Public Television Spring/Summer 2006
Reported by Former NBC Anchor Lloyd Dobyns

This rare good news documentary reports on a surprising solution to escalating costs, unnecessary deaths and waste in America’s hospitals. Doctors and nurses tell how they did their best, working overtime, while hospital conditions worsened. They were delighted to learn a new way to improve patient care dramatically and reduce unnecessary deaths, suffering, errors, infections and costs without additional resources or government regulations.
Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Health care, Lean thinking, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Manufacturing Jobs Data: USA and China

Posted on April 7, 2006 by John Hunter

Manufacturing Productivity and the Shifting US, China, and Global Job Scenes-1990 to 2005 (working paper – July 2005) by William Ward, Clemson University:

Manufacturing productivity growth from 1990 to 2004 should have taken away 7.5 million of the 17.7 million manufacturing jobs that existed in the US in 1990, while GDP growth should have added back (at the new productivity levels of 2004) 5.7 million manufacturing jobs-for a net loss of 1.8 million. In fact, the US economy lost 3.3 million manufacturing jobs during that period
…
I find that 100% of the (3.0 million) manufacturing jobs lost since 2000 were lost to manufacturing productivity growth and that 100% of the (1.8 million) jobs that should have been added back by GDP growth in the US after 2000 were shifted to other sectors of the US economy than manufacturing.

In this paper he is examines the factors leading to a reduction in manufacturing job worldwide. He concludes that job losses are mainly due to increased manufacturing productivity (worldwide, manufacturing productivity is increasing and jobs are decreasing – including China). Continue reading →

Posted in China, Economics, Manufacturing, Popular, quote | 6 Comments

How Whirlpool Defines Innovation

Posted on April 7, 2006 by John Hunter

How Whirlpool Defines Innovation [the broken link was removed]

now we say if we’re going to put any money in an innovation project, it has to sit on a migration path, it has to be something that the customer really wants, and it’s got to return an above-average profit.

I’m not sure I really agree with this description. However, perhaps within Whirlpool this is a helpful definition, as George Box says: “all models are wrong, some are useful.” Perhaps viewing innovation in this way is useful to them. Gary Hamel consults for Whirlpool and knows a great deal about innovation so who am I to judge.
Continue reading →

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Toyota Again Get Positive Press

Posted on April 7, 2006 by John Hunter

Toyota Eyes Chance to Pass by Anthony Faiola, Washington Post:

The mainstream press continues to note the success of Toyota.

Toyota has been toying with hybrid engines for the past 20 years. But the company began to seriously pursue a mass-producible hybrid in 1993. Ogiso, 45 years old and now the chief engineer on the third-generation Prius still under development, said the edict came from Eiji Toyoda, the patriarch of the Toyota family who headed the company until 1994.

Ogiso said Toyoda had grown increasingly concerned that gas-engine auto manufacturing would eventually become a sunset industry given the limits of global oil supplies and increasing pressure to curb emissions. Focused more on a long-term advantage than the short-term gains that U.S. automakers are under pressure from Wall Street to produce, Toyota put hundreds of engineers to work on creating a new engine that would double average gas mileage and cut emissions by 80 percent. Conventional engines were quickly ruled out. “We found that the only way to achieve that goal was building a whole new type of car,” Ogiso said.

Continue reading →

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Seduce Them With Six Sigma Success

Posted on April 6, 2006 by John Hunter

Seduce Them With Success [the broken link was removed – sadly ASQ continues to increase their impeding of the access to material on quality management, in direct conflict with their professed mission] by Jay Arthur:

Instead the change agents are going around talking to operational managers, learning their problems and offering to help solve them. Then, using the tools of Six Sigma, they find remarkable, unexpected solutions that reduce costs and increase speed and profitability.

Oddly enough, the people on those improvement teams seem to know how to continue solving problems. And they tell their co-workers. And the operational manager’s success makes his or her colleagues curious. Then the Six Sigma change agent gets a call to help another manager solve a problem. And so it goes until the Six Sigma system is operating well in the mission-critical elements of the business.

This is the way to get management improvement to take hold. Use successes to create a desire to improve. It is always nice if the leaders are on board, it helps in many ways. But whether they are or not, those seeking to promote management improvement need to pay close attention to how much desire exists to improve (using six sigma or lean or process improvement or quality management tools).

If most people think the efforts are just the latest fad it is very difficult to have any lasting success.

More six sigma articles.

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Lean Thinking Needed

Posted on April 6, 2006 by John Hunter

Bank Wire Transfers vs. FedEx Delivery

My goal was to give them all the paperwork, ensure I had sufficient funds, and schedule the transfer such that the money arrives in the sellers’ account on a particular date next week.

But they can’t do that. They cannot hold the paperwork for any amount of time. They’ll process it the same day I turn it in. I guess I can understand that. They’re a bank, not a scheduling service.

However, they can’t tell me which day to drop of the paperwork to ensure that the funds arrive on my target date. The teller informed me that “it usually takes 48 hours, but that doesn’t mean the funds will be available on the other end.”
… Continue reading →

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Lean Enterprise Institute Expands

Posted on April 5, 2006 by John Hunter

Lean Enterprise Institute Expands Services to Growing Lean Community [the broken link was removed]

“LEI is introducing new programs, led by new people, at a new location to improve the practice of lean, the search for lean knowledge, and how we share the knowledge across the world,” said James P. Womack, LEI founder and chairman. Based on customer research, LEI has formed into four units — Lean Learning Materials, Lean Education, Lean Enterprise Partners, and Lean Events — to align with the needs of the Lean Community, Womack said.
Continue reading →

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Womack Podcast on GM

Posted on April 5, 2006 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement, Toyota Production System

Womack Audio on Bloomberg.com [the broken link was removed] (14 minutes) via the Lean Blog, where they quote from the audio:

“What do they worry about? They worry about the fact the system is still driven out of Japan and they’re everywhere now in terms of factories, in terms of R&D, but the fact is, to put the discipline in the system, that force, that energy is still coming out of Toyota City. How do they diffuse that energy so it’s not coming from one place? I don’t have the answer. They don’t have the answer. But they think about it every day.”

Recent post on Evolving Exellence about this topic – in a broad sense: Toyota’s Achilles Heel

Related:

Posted in Management, Manufacturing, Toyota Production System (TPS), webcast | Tagged | Comments Off on Womack Podcast on GM