Oct 14 2017
Why Many Japanese Organizations Think Six Sigma Is A Joke | Ian Moore | Nipponica
“Six Sigma as a problem-solving methodology causes many hang-ups for Japanese managers. Many Americans seeking training in Six Sigma in Japanese organizations face resistance with little explanation as to why. This often leads to frustration and contempt towards management. They write off the Japanese resistance to the training as resistance to change, preventing growth and feeling unrepresented.“
Sourced through Nipponica
Michel Baudin‘s comments: In this post, Ian Moore makes the case that rejection of Six Sigma by Japanese organizations is rooted in the national culture, which is ironic, given that Six Sigma’s Black Belt concept was borrowed from Japanese martial arts with the obvious intent of creating the perception of a connection to Japanese culture.
“…As a lean thinker, I can start by asking myself, 
“Maturity assessments are a kind of qualitative audit during which the current ‘maturity’ of an organization is compared to a maturity reference model and ranked accordingly to its score.[…] The maturity assessment is usually quite simple: a questionnaire guides the assessment, each maturity level being characterized by a set of requirements. It is close to an audit.
Oct 27 2017
Jidoka At GE And Amazon | Marc Onetto | Planet Lean
Sourced Planet Lean
Michel Baudin‘s comments: The experience of an executive like Marc Onetto is always a good read. What he recounts, however, has everything to do with the TPS approach to quality and nothing to do with Jidoka. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate its value. I have seen plants where assembly work is continued on units known to be defective, with a repair area to fix them at the end. I have heard managers justify this practice with the mistaken assumption that it allowed them to ship faster and I have seen the improvements that result from stopping it, in line with what Onetto describes.
But we shouldn’t forget that Jidoka is not about employee empowerment but about automation. Regardless of whether it’s translated as “automation with a human touch” or “autonomation,” it’s still a form of automation. Onetto recounts being made to watch Sakichi Toyoda’s Type G loom stopping when threads broke but that’s not all it did. It also had automatic shuttle change, which solved the problem of what to do when shuttles run out of yarn that had bedeviled loom engineers for decades.
See Jidoka isn’t just about “stop and fix”, Jidoka versus automation, or check out Working with Machines
See on <Scoop it link>
Share this:
Like this:
By Michel Baudin • Blog clippings • 3 • Tags: Andon, Automation, Autonomation, jidoka, Toyota, TPS