Mar 21 2018
The Battle for the Soul of Lean | Michael Ballé | The Lean Post
Michael Ballé: “I’ve been a student of lean for 25 years, and the more that I learn the more I believe that […] lean is a profoundly disruptive way of working. From the time that this new approach was popularized decades ago, there have been two completely different ways to look at the same tools, materials, and stories. Some of us saw Toyota as a disrupter, a small bankrupt company that became the dominant automaker in a saturated market ruled by U.S. corporate giants, by doing something radically different. Others, however, were fascinated by Toyota’s ‘operational excellence’ as a means of safe, incremental improvements—they would cherry-pick tools […] to leverage productivity gains without ever challenging either the strategy or the attitudes of top management.”
Sourced from The Lean Post
Michel Baudin‘s comments: I have been a student of TPS for 38 years, and see it as the best way we know today to make cars and auto parts. And, yes, it has been successfully adapted to other manufacturing industries and even to some service businesses. Lean is a marketing label coined 30 years ago that, in the best cases, has been used to describe TPS or adaptations of TPS in situations where explicit references to Toyota would be problematic, for example at Toyota competitors or in hospitals, where the last thing you want to do is convey the impression that you treat patients like cars. In the worst cases, consultants have slapped this label on approaches unrelated to TPS, just to leverage Toyota’s credibility.
“The factory is getting a facelift, thanks to a raft of new technologies designed to make manufacturing more efficient, flexible and connected. Daniela Costa […] outlines three key drivers of this development, which could provide more than $500 billion in combined savings for manufacturers and customers.”
Mar 26 2018
Visit to Honda’s Kumamoto Plant | Christoph Roser | All About Lean
“The Honda Kumamoto plant was established in 1976 and is the largest Honda plant in Japan by area. It is their main plant for the production of motorcycles in Japan including their engines, but it also produces garden power tools, generators, and four-wheeled scooters.
A major earthquake in Kumamoto in April 2016 damaged the plant, and it reopened and scaled up production again during the summer of 2016. employees in the plant, 8% of them being women.”
Sourced from All About Lean
Michel Baudin‘s comments: Another insightful report from Christoph Roser’s “grand tour of Japanese factories.”
#Honda, #JapanFactoryVisits
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By Michel Baudin • Blog clippings • 0 • Tags: Honda, Japan Factory Visits