About Michel Baudin

Consultant, trainer, author on Lean Manufacturing

Posts by Michel Baudin:

Nov 3 2018

PechaKucha To The Rescue | Cécile Roche | Thales Group

Cécile Roche

Cécile Roche‘s day job is to run Lean & Agile for the Thales Group. In her spare time, she writes and teaches short courses at engineering schools in France. Her latest book is a Travel Guide to Lean Engineering that she co-authored with her colleague Luc Delamotte. The latest two-day class she taught on this subject didn’t start well but she was able to recover by having the student prepare PechaKucha — that is, presentations of 20 images, shown each for 20 seconds.

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Oct 19 2018

Fake News | Becky Morgan | Target Online

Becky Morgan

“Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite were our rocks. Now the Internet funnels so many opinions and sources that it is difficult to know who and what to trust. More fundamentally, it has become difficult to agree on the facts. Your company is likely steeped in fake news too. It may be coming from the leadership team, from informal leaders, or from external influences. The confusing part is that those same groups can be the source of factual news. Who should people believe? It’s extremely hard to be ‘aligned’ or ‘operationally excellent’ or ‘world class’ if we can’t even agree on the basics.”

Source Target Online

Michel Baudin‘s comments: Becky is saying that communications inside a business organization are full of lies and she proposes remedies that are changes in individual behaviors: don’t make things up, facilitate open discussions, listen actively, build discussion skills, etc. But why do people lie at work?

Management mendacity persists through generations

Most don’t like to but find that they must in order to earn promotions or even keep their jobs. In The Project Game, we examined how managers rate project leaders as too timid unless they plan for the shortest task durations that don’t violate the laws of physics. To get or keep their assignment, the leaders make these claims, miss deadlines, and work desperately hard to finish. By surviving in this game, they secure promotions and carry on the same practices with the next generation. They may prefer to follow Becky’s recommendations but they can’t.

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Oct 12 2018

For Lean Production to Work, a Company Needs to Be All In | Ellen Rosen | The New York Times

 

“For a company in Chesterfield, Mo., it involved something as seemingly simple as attaching a trash can to an employee’s chair. For one in St. Louis, it meant leaving the cover off an electronic temperature controller. For others it’s meant gathering employees from the chief executive on down for what’s known as Kaizen events — based on the Japanese word for continuing improvement. What do these seemingly unconnected efforts have in common? They are approaches to what is known as lean manufacturing — or, more recently, lean production — aimed at streamlining production processes, enhancing employee engagement and increasing profits.”

Source: The New York Times(10/11/2018)

Michel Baudin‘s comments: Thanks to Kevin Hop for drawing my attention to this article. Like him, I do read The New York Times regularly and usually appreciate the quality of its reporting. This article, however, does not measure up. It reflects the conventional wisdom on Lean manufacturing which, if anything, explains why so many implementations fail.

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Sep 3 2018

10 Lean Manufacturing Ideas for Machine Shops | Shahrukh Irani | Modern Machine Shop

Machined Workpiece

“Lean manufacturing as it is traditionally practiced is of benefit to machine shops, but the extent of its benefit is often limited. The Toyota Production System on which lean manufacturing is based was designed for assembly plants that produce automobiles by the thousands. While an assembly plant focuses on low-mix, high-volume production, a typical machine shop focuses on high-mix low-volume production. A machine shop and assembly plant cannot expect to realize the same lean benefits with the same lean tools.”

Source Modern Machine Shop

Michel Baudin‘s comments: Shahrukh and I have long disagreed on these issues and I still take exception to many of his general statements. On the other hand, I agree with most of his recommendations.

Machining is not all about High-Mix/Low Volume

While there may be many small machine shops doing high-mix/low-volume production, the bulk of machining is done in larger Automotive and Aerospace & Defense shops that don’t fit this description. Automotive machine shops remove small amounts from hundreds of thousands of aluminum castings/year with product lives on the order of 4 years; aerospace machine shops, large amounts from forgings in exotic alloys in the hundreds/year with product lives in decades.

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Aug 14 2018

BOMs at Toyota | Discussion on LinkedIn

I shared the BOM rap post with the TPS Principles and Practices group on LinkedIn, in order to tap into the TPS knowledge in this group, and this is what I learned from Todd McCann, Carey Boggess, Jeff Merriss, Hein Winkelaar, and Gary D. Stewart.

My thanks to all for their valuable input on the control of BOMs within Toyota and the uses BOM data is put to. What these responses did not address, however, is the information model for the BOMs, including what items are in and how BOMs are structured at Toyota, as opposed to other companies.

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Aug 5 2018

Why I was wrong about 2- second Lean | Dan Markovitz

 

“It’s time to admit that one of my consulting approaches has failed. I’m a huge fan of Paul Akers’ 2 Second Lean philosophy. It’s simple, easy to understand, and has an intrinsic appeal: “fix what bugs you.” “Figure out how to do your job two seconds faster each day.” Who wouldn’t sign on to a lean program that promotes that mindset?

So off I went to my clients, with Paul’s videos embedded in my PowerPoint presentation, ready to show them how 2 Second Lean is the answer to their productivity problems, their low employee engagement and morale scores, their mediocre customer service, and their too-high defect rates. And I failed.

When I look back at the clients I introduced to Paul’s method, I have to be honest and admit that a more traditional, kaizen event-driven approach would have served them better. 2 Second Lean didn’t hurt them, but they didn’t reap the rewards that they wanted, and that I promised. 

I missed the most obvious fact: 2 Second Lean is simple. But it’s not easy. The commitment required of the president is enormous.”

Sourced from Marcovitz Consulting

Michel Baudin‘s comments:

Is the approach simple or simplistic? Perhaps, the mistake is assuming that a single method is all you need, whether it is the “2-second” approach or the oxymoronic “Kaizen event.” It’s the panacea fallacy. To improve a factory, you need a range of different approaches, from tiny improvements an individual can make within his or her area of responsibility without asking anyone’s permission to projects like line redesigns that may occupy dozens of people for months.

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