Nov 9 2011
More Flak on Lean Based on the Same Survey
Managing Automation published another response to the same study that claims to show that Lean does not work: Lean Manufacturing and Operation Excellence: Not Worth Their Weight?
As described in the press and their own press release, the AlixPartners study commingles Lean with “Six Sigma and other productivity programs,” which raises the following issues:
- Lean Manufacturing is based on the Toyota Production System, which includes neither Six Sigma nor Operation Excellence nor “other productivity programs,” whatever those may be.
- Lean Manufacturing is not a “productivity program,” but the pursuit of concurrent improvement in quality, productivity, delivery, safety, and morale. I know I am repeating myself, but it needs to be said until the leaders of manufacturing companies hear it.
If these press accounts are correct, the survey confuses Lean with other approaches in an open-ended list, misstates its purpose, and considers exclusively metrics of cost reduction.
The effectiveness of Lean is not an easy subject to study. Should we survey all the companies that claim to be Lean, have a Lean program in place, have been certified Lean by some external authority, or are top performers in their industry? Once we agree on this, we still need yardsticks to quantify both the effort they put into Lean and the rewards from it.
I took a stab at it a few years ago, and did my own analysis, the results of which were published as a Viewpoint in Manufacturing Engineering in 2006. I chose 40 winners of the Shingo Prize and searched Hoovers Online, for comparative performance data with their 400 top competitors. On the average, the data did not show that the Shingo Prize predicted any advantage in profitability, market share or employment growth. The AlixPartner press release says roughly the same thing, but I see it as reflecting on the Shingo Prize itself, not Lean.
The Shingo Prize is supposed to be the “Nobel Prize for Manufacturing,” but what are the criteria used to award it? You can download the Shingo Prize Guidelines and see for yourself. A team of Shingo Prize auditors visits the plants and awards points to measure “the degree to which the behaviors in an organization are aligned with the principles of operational excellence.” In other words, the plants are measured on process compliance. They score points for practices they have in place. It is like measuring chess players on the number of pawns they move, and is correlated to victory like the Shingo Prize to business performance.
Toyota did not grow based on a compliance checklist. When I visit a plant, based on what I see and what people tell me, I can form an opinion as to whether they are among the few that have the spirit of Lean or the many that are going through the motions. But I don’t know how to generate a checklist that could be systematically applied to arrive at such a conclusion, and, desirable though it may be, I don’t believe a real survey is feasible.
Jamie Flinchbaugh doesn’t like sports metaphors, but I can’t resist one here. Usain Bolt is the fastest man alive. Let us assume somebody publishes a book entitled “The Running Secrets of Usain Bolt.” How Usain Bolt actually trains is probably not trivial and certainly involves sustained effort and ferocious discipline. The author of the book, however, is concerned that a stern, eat-your-vegetables message would hurt sales, and focuses instead on easier topics, like shoes. As a result, kids flock to shoe stores thinking that wearing these shoes will make them fast, but the real ones are too expensive, so they buy cheap imitations instead. Six months later, based on their responses, a survey concludes that Usain Bolt’s methods don’t work.
Most Lean programs today are to serious implementations as cheap imitation shoes are to the training of Usain Bolt. Where they may succeed is in ruining the reputation of Lean. It is bound to happen sooner or later. As a brand, Lean has had a 22-year run so far, already longer than I expected.
November 9, 2011 @ 7:20 pm
Michel,I think the point is that you cannot tell from one plant visit, but you can from two or more. I was in a supplier plant a week after Toyota came through on their first site assessment. Management asked what to do to win their business. My advise was to demonstrate tangible and significant improvement effort in the areas noted, not worry so much on achieving specific levels–better, then better again, not best. Seems to have worked, as they have been suppliers for a few years now.
Joachim
November 10, 2011 @ 1:11 pm
The Usain Bolt scenario is a good analogy. The business world is full of manager’s who ‘buy the shoes that fast guy wears’ as a way to improve their own performance.
My own is….”Exercising and eating less high fat/high sugar foods has been shown to be ineffective as a way to lose weight because so many people who’ve tried it, fail to lose weight.”
November 11, 2011 @ 3:12 pm
I’ve seen many a misstatement and misapprehension of what lean is by media based outside the discipline. Public radio called it “the idea of having all manufacturing under one roof”, meaning some sort of simplification to get rid of multiple locations either within a company or a supply chain. That may be a specific and relatively minor manifestation of lean or an outcome that might arise from a larger overarching lean initiative, but it’s a bit like calling a healthy improved diet and life style change the art of eating all you need in a couple of swallows.
November 21, 2011 @ 2:02 am
i too like the Usain Bolt metaphor – thanks Michael
January 2, 2012 @ 8:59 am
Steve Milner, in the Lean Practitioners discussion group on LinkedIn, commented as follows:
January 2, 2012 @ 12:25 pm
Comment in the Lean Six Sigma discussion group on LinkedIn:
January 2, 2012 @ 12:27 pm
Comment in the Lean Six Sigma discussion group on LinkedIn:
January 2, 2012 @ 4:12 pm
Mark Graban
Comment in the Quick and Easy Kaizen discussion group on LinkedIn:
January 9, 2012 @ 10:29 am
Comment in the Ecole des Mines de Paris Alumni discussion group on LinkedIn:
January 9, 2012 @ 10:31 am
You are talking about the French press. France has a tradition of focusing on all the harm any innovation can do, going back to the medieval guilds that forbade any innovation. The French inventor of the sewing machine, Barthélemy Thimonnier, had his factory burned down in 1841 by tailors afraid for their jobs..Later, to preserve sailor jobs, the French government subsidized the use of sail for freighters into the 1930s. Today, about the spread of electronic media, instead of the opportunities it creates, all you hear about is how it threatens the survival of print media…
As I understand the France Telecom story, employees were driven to suicide by management tactics to persuade them to resign, which have nothing to do with Lean.
The “Japanese method” argument is an excuse for inaction that I used to hear commonly 20 years ago but not lately. The reality is that there are no Japanese methods, but methods that were invented by specific individuals who happened to be Japanese but whose nationality is irrelevant. They must be evaluated on their merits, regardless of where they come from.
The most useful thing the French could learn from the Japanese is the ability to learn, adopt and metabolize ideas from elsewhere. Just stick around there for a while, and you will find out that they are just people. I lived there for four years a while back.