Dec 23 2013
Pinnacle Misses the Mark with Lean Manufacturing | Gunther W. Anderson | Iowa Labor News
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
“…There is a difference between lean manufacturing and just plain cutting corners. Pinnacle is attempting to achieve a similar end result (increased profits and productivity) without investing the time, effort, and resources necessary to achieve those results through true lean manufacturing practices, and they are doing so at the expense of their workforce…”
This union member’s criticism of his company’s implementation of Lean is remarkable for being so constructive. He does not dismiss Lean Manufacturing as just another ploy by management to squeeze more out the workers.
Instead, he blames his company’s management for being Lean in name only. He quotes Mike Thelen and David Meier on what Lean is supposed to be, and contrasts it with what the company actually does.
Not having heard management’s side of the story, I have no idea of the extent to which his points are valid. The tone of the article, however, shows the author as a thinking man who wants to improve the way he works, exactly the kind of people you want around when genuinely implementing Lean.
See on iowalabornews.com
December 24, 2013 @ 4:31 am
From the article it does seem that the company is trying to right size before they got the value stream / process flow correctly lined out. In addition there needs to be more education of and involvement of the both leadership and the workforce in what 5S and VSM is and why it is important. There are some old traditional union / management issues here that need to be worked through ( a good place for interest based bargaining ). To be successful in lean there is lots of front end education work that does not immediately pay off. Obviously this one person has a lot to say and thinks that no one at Pinnacle is listening, so they found another way of communicating.
December 24, 2013 @ 10:08 am
Again, not having any other information about the Pinnacle company, I react only to what the article tells me about its author, and he seems like someone I would like to work with.
June 29, 2014 @ 6:55 pm
I was actually quite surprised at the response this editorial received from some members of the management team in my plant. For example, one of our Team Managers told me that the points I made were, in his opinion, fair and valid. He gave me a bit of a ribbing for bringing up the pads on the Spreads Packer issue because even he recognized that directive as arbitrary and counterproductive, which is why he never made his specific team (of which I was a member at the time) follow it despite the order coming from above him.
The Continuous Improvement Manager gave me the cold-shoulder for a few weeks after this was printed. We’d never been friends exactly, he and I, but we’d at least shared a professionally courteous working relationship prior to this. We’re back on speaking terms now. Smiles and nods and “good mornings” when we cross paths in the halls.
The Plant Manager said he was pleased to see that I was taking an interest in learning more about Lean Manufacturing, but that he thinks I may have a misunderstanding of what the company’s intentions are in some regards. That’s fair. I don’t pretend I’m privy to every motive behind upper management’s decisions. I can only report on how those decisions are perceived by the rank and file and how our daily routines are impacted by them.