Dec 1 2011
Steven Spear on Problem-Solving with JIT: Not Bad for an Academic Paper
Steven Spear’s The Essence of Just-in-Time:Imbedding diagnostic tests in work-systems to achieve operational excellence is a working paper from Harvard Business School in 2002 focused on the interaction between JIT and problem-solving. It is an important topic, only briefly alluded to in Lean Logistics and covered in more detail in When to Use Statistics, One-Piece Flow, or Mistake-Proofing to Improve Quality, but there are many other improvement opportunities besides product quality, and shining a light on their relationship with JIT is useful.
Spear’s paper is worth reading because he did his homework: it is based on research that involved immersion in a Toyota supplier support team, visits to seven Toyota plants and 12 suppliers in Japan and the US, and working as an assembler in a non-Toyota plant for comparison. I recommend in particular sections 4 to 7. Section 4 is a case study of mattress manufacturing at Aisin Seiki, from which the following sections draw general conclusions.
You have to look past the other sections, which mainly reflect Spear’s membership in the academia tribe. His research is described as an “ethnographic study,” which conjures up the image of an American or European spending 15 years among the Guaranis of Paraguay recording what they are willing to share of their language and culture. That this vocabulary should be used in a study of Lean reflects how alien the world of manufacturing is to academia.
As an academic, Spear is obligated to reference other academics, but not non-members of the tribe, no matter how major their contributions. For example, the only Japanese author in the bibliography is Takahiro Fujimoto, from the University of Tokyo, but neither Taiichi Ohno nor Shigeo Shingo appear. Section 3, on Methods, opens with “Many scholars argue…” With all due respect, the arguments of scholars don’t amount to a hill of beans in Manufacturing, because, unlike Computer Science or Biology, it is not a field to which they have contributed much. From Taylor and Gastev to Ohno and Shingo, the key innovators in Manufacturing have almost all been self-taught, Lillian Gilbreth being the exception with a PhD. Why was Spear’s research not done in an Industrial Engineering department, where its content would normally place it? As I found in my own ethnographic studies of academia, the need for grants pushes researchers in other directions, like genetic algorithms.
December 1, 2011 @ 10:26 pm
Michael,
Despite my own PhD I tend to be very skeptical of academic studies of organizations and over-theorizing about how organizations work. In fact, the ongoing challenge to theorists, especially system thinkers, is that Toyota developed out of practice and not theory. (I have literally had online arguments with a system theorist who insisted that lean doesn’t work because it isn’t founded in good theory!) Toyota’s lean habits were developed before Ohno and Shingo put some theory to them. We learn lean from going to the radical workplace of a Toyota or a Komatsu and seeing how differently and efficiently they build things and run their organizations.
But in analyzing Steven Spear’s work, I think your cynicism is misplaced. I find Steven Spear to one of the few lean authors who really understands and can describe Toyota and lean practices in depth. His dissertation is actually my favorite lean writing of anyone’s, because it details how Toyota pays more attention to the *connections* between departments, than to the performance of the departments themselves. This is still such a revolutionary practice that no one else even discusses it, and rarely practices it.
I also find Spear’s latest book, The High-Velocity Edge, to be the most accessible introductory book for organizations wanting to learn about lean. If in his HBR articles Spear is citing too much, or not enough about Japanese authors, I think that’s really a nit. Spear’s work is advancing practical, informed knowledge about fully lean practices, when more and more false and lite lean is being promoted as transformative.
Tom
December 2, 2011 @ 12:11 am
I am not cynical about Steven Spear’s paper. I actually like the meat of it, and said so. And I don’t blame him for all the academic filling he had to surround it with, because I don’t think he had a choice.
The document is a working paper from Harvard Business School, not an HBR article. My comments don’t apply to Spear’s HBR articles, and the one on Decoding the DNA of the Toyota System is excellent. HBR is targeted at businesspeople, not academia.
The academic literature is not ignoring only Japanese authors but essentially all outsiders. In manufacturing, it is a serious omission, because all the major contributors are outsiders. In particular, it means that students are not taught what they should be and are encouraged to pursue research in wrong directions. I am exaggerating a bit because I know some exceptions, like JT Black at Auburn University or Gursel Suer at Ohio University.
I think pulling all the strands of TPS together into a consistent theory is worthwhile, and I don’t think it has been done. The problem is that the self-taught inventors are no good at theorizing, while the good theoreticians don’t really know or understand the system.
As an introduction, I have been recommending Kiyoshi Suzaki’s New Manufacturing Challenge, and it is still good, but it dates back to 1987 and has not been revised since. So maybe it is time to use something else. I have asked Steven Spear for a copy of his book.