Dec 13 2016
To what extent should managers be able to do the work of their subordinates? And, if they are, how should they use this ability? This is not a topic I have seen addressed in the management literature, perhaps because there are no generic answers. The manager of a car repair shop is typically a mechanic who can do everything the technicians can, but the manager of an opera company usually can’t sing.
By Michel Baudin • Management • 0 • Tags: Management, Manufacturing Management, skills
Dec 5 2016
I found the following reader’s question in another blog:
“I’m new to Lean and reading all I can find about it, but is there something specific I need to look out for; is there something I should know that I won’t find in the books?”
It’s been centuries since the book was the state of the art in communicating knowledge, and readers needed technical support on how to use one:
Millenials may be the last generation for which “book smart” is synonymous with educated. But books, even printed books as opposed to ebooks, are still essential to learning, and in particular to learning Lean.
By Michel Baudin • Answers to reader questions • 1 • Tags: Books about Lean, Lean
Nov 22 2016
Few terms cause manufacturing professionals’ eyes to glaze over like “probability.” They perceive it as a complicated theory without much relevance to their work. It is nowhere to be found in the Japanese literature on production systems and supply chains, or in the American literature on Lean. Among influential American thinkers on manufacturing, Deming was the only one to focus on it, albeit implicitly, when he made “Knowledge of Variation” one of the four components of his System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK).
By Michel Baudin • Data science • 1 • Tags: Deming, Lean, Manufacturing, Operations Research, Probability
Nov 18 2016
“Twenty-five years ago, I tried to coach adult college students to seek and solve problems using the classic Deming PDCA Circle. In classrooms, students were unused to identifying their own problems rather than having them pre-defined. The first time through this exercise, over half did not reflect on a problem to seek root cause. Instead, they went shopping for a gizmo, a program, or a recipe to fix the problem – a quick-fix mentality.”
Sourced through the Compression Institute
Michel Baudin‘s comments: 33 years ago, Robert W. Hall wrote Zero Inventories, the first original, technically meaty book in English about Lean Manufacturing, and I have had great respect for him ever since.
By Michel Baudin • Blog clippings • 1 • Tags: PDCA, problem-solving
Nov 17 2016
In Toyota’s Guiding Principles, last revised in 1997, Michael Ballé sees more than “goal-oriented efficiency.” While I would not use a phrase like “goal-oriented efficiency,” the principles do not strike me as anything beyond strategic guidelines to ensure the long-term, worldwide viability of the company. If they serve this purpose, great, but a car manufacturer is the wrong place to look for philosophical enlightenment.
By Michel Baudin • Blog clippings • 0 • Tags: Lean, Toyota, Toyota Guiding Principles
Dec 19 2016
Lean As A Regenerative Value System | Robert W. “Doc” Hall | Compression Institute
“Lean thinking needs transformation, major expansion, and a basic shift in objectives – from improving operational efficiency to something much bigger: Continuous Regeneration of ourselves, our human economy, and of the natural world. All three depend on each other. To do that we must learn to think more than technique deep.”
Sourced through the Compression Institute.
Michel Baudin‘s comments: While I agree with Doc Hall that there is more to life in society than manufacturing or even business operations and that we need to continuously rethink the conclusions we have reached on “ourselves, our human economy, and of the natural world,” I don’t see much value in putting all of these deep meditations under Lean, which I see as nothing but a convenient label to enable car companies to adopt Toyota’s system without referencing a competitor, and to allow organizations outside the car industry to borrow and adapt concepts from this system.
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By Michel Baudin • Blog reviews • 1 • Tags: Creative Destruction, Industry 4.0, Lean, Piketty, Protectionism, Rank-and-Yank