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Jan 24 2022

Does Amazon Use Lean, Six Sigma, or Lean Six Sigma?

In 2019, Christoph Roser posted six articles on his blog about the inner workings of Amazon Fulfillment Centers, based on visits to locations in the US and Germany. His blog is called AllAboutLean but the word “Lean” appears nowhere in his articles about Amazon. “Six Sigma” does not appear either, and Christoph does not mention meeting any black belt.

In addition, in  Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon (2021), Amazon alumni  Colin Bryar and Bill Carr make no reference to Lean, and all they report about Six Sigma is using DMAIC to define metrics.

Yet you find some published descriptions of Amazon as a showcase for Lean, Six Sigma, or Lean Six Sigma but, if you consider them without confirmation bias, the evidence is underwhelming. The keywords appear, along with a few more, like “Operational Excellence” or “Scrum.”

Based on the small amount of published data, the leaders of Amazon, starting with Jeff Bezos, “learned a bunch of techniques, like Six Sigma and lean manufacturing and other incredibly useful approaches.”

In other words, they learned everything they could get their hands on while staking out uncharted territory. Then they developed their own system. Now they are sharing with outsiders a few homilies but no details, as is their privilege. Their system is to retail as Toyota’s is to manufacturing. It’s not reducible to Lean, Six Sigma, or Lean Six Sigma.

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Dec 25 2021

Always the Hurricanes Blowing

Atlantic hurricanes hurt people and destroy property around the Gulf of Mexico every year. Whether climate change is increasing their frequency is a serious question. Don Wheeler just had a column on this subject in the latest Quality Digest. It’s about Torturing the Data. He argues that we should be careful about not force-fitting models to arrive at pre-ordained conclusions.

His way of not torturing the history of hurricanes in the Atlantic is plotting yearly counts on, what else,  an XmR chart. It’s just as he would for hole diameters in metal plates coming off a production line in 1945. Hurricanes and holes in metal plates, however, have different backstories.

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Oct 27 2021

Culture Change | MIT Sloan Management Review | Rose Hollister et al.

How the authors see it: “We define culture as a shared set of values (what we care about), beliefs (what we believe to be true), and norms of behavior (how we do things). […] We developed a set of culture transformation principles that maximize the likelihood of success:

  • Recognize that responsibility for culture can’t be delegated.
  • Start with the “why.”
  • Define the target cultural values and behaviors.
  • Engage and get input.
  • Build a bridge to the future desired culture.
  • Build a culture road map.
  • Reinforce the desired culture in all organizational systems.
  • Rapidly reward the emerging culture. “

Source: Hollister, R., Tecosky, K., Watkins, M, & Wolpert, C. (2021) Why Every Executive Should Be Focusing on Culture Change Now, MIT Sloan Management Review, Reprint 63137

Michel Baudin‘s comments: I define culture more simply as “the way we do things around here.” You don’t change it by making it the goal of a change program. To do it, first, you change the work, and then employees’ perceptions follow.

Redesign shop floor layouts to facilitate flow, develop multiskilled operators, hire employees for whole careers and retain them through thick and thin, engage them in solving problems,…

Over time, employees realize it’s not idle talk about lofty goals but concrete changes to their daily experience, including teamwork. Then it becomes “the way we do things around here,” in other words, a new culture.

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Oct 22 2021

Introduction to Manufacturing: Textbook Authors Meet in Zürich

Torbjørn Netland and I met in person at ETH in Zurich on October 21-22 for the first time since 2019! In the meantime, we had met every week on Zoom, exchanged messages on Slack, and edited each other’s writings.

TorbjørnAndMichel
“This is what we want to say.”

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Jul 31 2021

Follett in 1924: Use Operators’ Knowledge

Mary Parker Follett

 

Almost 100 years ago, Mary Parker Follett wrote: “And our aim in the […] organization of industry should be […] so to organize the plant that the workmen’s experience can be added to that of the expert; we must see just where their experience will be a plus matter, and we must plan to have the workmen learn more and more of the industry as a whole.” 

Source: Follett, M. P. (2013 reprint). Creative Experience. United States: Martino Fine Books. (p. 20)

Michel Baudin‘s comments: Today, we would say “manufacturing” rather than “industry,” and “operator” rather than “workmen.” This is the earliest text I have seen that recommends engaging shop floor operators in improvement activities and training them to understand the broader picture. 

Taylor wanted to control operators so that they couldn’t collude to curtail output. The Gilbreths wanted to make their work easier. Follett wants to tap into their knowledge and combine it with the experts’ in order to achieve better outcomes. And she also believes in their ability to learn.

In these few words, she showed more respect for the humanity of the operators than I recall seeing from her immediate precursors and contemporaries. 

 

#maryparkerfollett, #respectforhumanity, #traceyrichardson

 

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Dec 17 2020

QRQC at Valeo | Rob van Stekelenborg

“Recently, Michel Baudin […] invited practitioners to further contribute to the knowledge on QRQC, among which myself. As I feel a brief answer on LinkedIn would not do justice to the richness of QRQC, I decided to dedicate a post to the topic. Without ambition, however, to try and be complete in this post, which I feel is not possible with a vast topic like QRQC. But let’s dive in and share some of my experiences with and views on QRQC, the way I experienced and lived it at Valeo at the time.”

Source: Dumontis

Michel Baudin‘s comments: Thanks to Rob van Stekelenborg for stepping up and sharing all of these details.

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