Jul 19 2017

Telling Good Lean Consultants From Bad Ones | Michael Ballé

 

“There are no good lean consultants. I’m not saying there are no good consultants. Of course there are; same bell curve as in every profession…”

See it in Gemba Coach

Michel Baudin‘s comments: 3 years ago, in What to Expect from Lean Manufacturing Consultants, I wrote an article on this subject from a different perspective. This article’s opening boggles the mind, starting with the easily debunked assumption that performance is distributed along “a bell curve in every profession.”

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bac

Jun 30 2017

From Observation To Knowledge

Two weeks ago, 718,890 French 18-year olds spent four hours writing philosophical essays as part of the Bac nationwide exam they must pass to graduate High School. Among the topics offered to the humanities students was “Is observing enough to know?” They must elaborate on the meaning of the terms, argue for and against an answer, quote the philosophers they were taught, and draw conclusions. And it is written long-hand, without any illustrations or hyperlinks. I couldn’t compete with them, but this particular topic resonates with me because of my time observing factories.

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Jun 20 2017

Productivity and Technology

Journalist Charles Duhigg has a new book out on the subject of productivity and was being interviewed about it on NPR. I heard him express as a general principle that new technology never increases productivity when first implemented because organizations and individuals use it as a new way of doing exactly what they were doing before. Over time, productivity does increases as users discover new tasks or methods that the technology enables but were beyond the imagination of its early adopters.

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Jun 13 2017

Future of Lean: is robotic motion/transportation waste? | Christian Hohmann

Christian Hohmann

“Motion and transportation count among the 7 basic muda or wastes, that should be eliminated or at least reduced to their bare minimum in order to be leaner.

Now, with the probable rise of robotics, will robotic motion (and transportation) still be considered a waste?”

Sourced through Chris Hohmann’s blog

 

Michel Baudin‘s comments: It’s a valid question, but one that should be asked about handling and transportation automation in general, not just robots. It is also one that is not properly answered with the simplistic theory of value and waste that has been reiterated in the English-language literature on Lean for 20 years.

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Jun 9 2017

Coddling Forbidden | Bodo Wiegand | Wiegand’s Watch

Bodo WiegandBodo Wiegand heads Germany’s Lean Management Institute. In his latest two newsletters, on Wiegand’s Watch, he explains how management should not coddle organizations but instead lead them.

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May 31 2017

Flattening the Organization- Problably Not the Answer | Gregg Stocker

“One of the misconceptions about lean thinking is that it automatically leads to flattening the organization. Many people think that layers of management are always a bad thing and start removing layers as a way to empower employees, speed up decision-making, and improve innovation. While there is no shortage of organizations that suffer from too many layers, it should be noted that flattening does not necessarily lead to improved performance. Many organizations that flattened their structures have experienced little more than burned out managers, frustrated employees, and high turnover.”

Sourced through Lessons in Lean

Michel Baudin‘s comments: For the second time in a week, I am clipping a post from Gregg’s blog but I can’t help it if I find his writings worth sharing. In my experience, “flattening the organization” is particularly harmful on the shop floor. I have heard managers brag about their structure being “lean” because they had only 1 supervisor for 100 operators. This isn’t what Toyota does in car assembly, where operators work in teams of 4 to 6 and you have a first-line manager for 4 to 6 teams. This means that the number of operators for a first-line manager ranges from 16 to 36, with a mean that is actually around 17. This low number is designed to allow the first-line managers to help operators in their professional development and to lead improvement projects. A supervisor with 100 direct reports can do neither.

#LeanManagement, #First-LineManager, #ShopFloor, #ContinuousImprovement

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