Sep 20 2016

Does Respect For Humanity Mean The Same As Respect For People? | M. Ballé [Review]

Sourced through LEI

“Dear Gemba coach,

Does respect for humanity mean the same as respect for people? I hear that the literal translation of the Japanese phrase “respect for people” is really respect for “humanness” – whatever that means?

I honestly don’t know, but it’s a very interesting point. I don’t know a word of Japanese,…”

My comments: It’s odd that a  Gemba coach should admit to not knowing a word of Japanese. This career choice, perhaps, implies an effort at mastering this language.

 

“…but Jon Miller, who does, makes a similar point here: he says the original Toyota phrase really means ‘holding precious what it is to be human.'”

My comments: Yes, Jon Miller grew up in Japan, speaks Japanese like a native, and has done a great job translating  Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management.  With only four years of immersion in Japan, I am not at his level, but I know the language well enough to read the manufacturing literature and tell the difference between respect for people and respect for humanity in the TPS sense. Here are a few posts on this subject:

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By • Blog clippings • 4 • Tags: , , , ,

Sep 12 2016

Question On Optional Components | Arvind Janarthanam

“Greetings! First of all, I am thankful to this blog. It has helped me out with my queries.

I’m working as a scheduler and we are facing sudden change in the optional parts that we supply to our customer. The reliability of the forecast we have is coming down. Most of our parts being imported is affecting our cost due to last-minute freight. Can you please suggest an approach to arrive at the minimum number of stock we could maintain against each options(based on past data) so that we strike a balance between the inventory and availability.

Arvind”

Michel Baudin‘s response:

Dear Arvind:

You tell me you are a scheduler, but many of the actions that can improve the procurement of optional parts are beyond the range of what a scheduler can decide. You are also asking a generic question, to which there is no generic, universal answer. All I can do is lay out a few possible courses of action.

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By • Answers to reader questions • 1 • Tags: , , ,

Sep 10 2016

How to Pick the Fastest Line at the Supermarket | New York Times [Debunk]

Inside a Whole Foods in Brooklyn (New York TImes)

“[…] Choose a single line that leads to several cashiers

Not all lines are structured this way, but research has largely shown that this approach, known as a serpentine line, is the fastest. The person at the head of the line goes to the first available window in a system often seen at airports or banks. […]”

Sourced through the New York Times

Michel Baudin‘s comments:

No! Research shows no such thing. The serpentine line does not reduce the customers’ mean time through the system. Little’s Law tells us that, in steady state, regardless of how the queue is organized:

{Mean\, time\, in\, system = \frac{Mean\, number\, of\,  customers\, in \, system}{Mean\, service\,  rate}}

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By • Laws of nature • 4 • Tags: , ,

Sep 10 2016

Is Leader Standard Work A Thing?

It is a recurring expression in forums, conferences, and papers about Lean Leadership, but unclear because of the ambiguity about both leaders and standard work.

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By • Management • 3 • Tags: , , , , , ,

Sep 2 2016

Why I don’t like Lean houses, except one | Christian Hohmann | LinkedIn Pulse

Christian Hohmann

“I never liked the (Toyota inspired) Lean houses and their many variants. First all these models are generally understood as prescriptive rather than descriptive, thus those new to Lean tend to adopt and copy one model without necessarily understanding its real meaning. The building blocks of Lean houses are principles, methods and tools, reinforcing the feeling that it’s all about “techniques”.

The house building metaphor also suggests a beginning with sound foundations, robust pillars and when the roof is atop, the organization is done. We’ll see later it is not in this way. To add to the confusion, with the broad choice of variants, which is the right one to look at?”

Sourced through LinkedIn Pulse

Michel Baudin‘s comments:

tps-house-300x244I share your reservations about the many “Houses of Lean” floating around, but my main concern with them is vagueness. The descriptive versus prescriptive confusion that you bring up is one concern. In one diagram I am looking at right now, “Heijunka” sits on top of “Stability” and underneath “Pull System,” “Takt Time” and “Continuous Flow.” Whatever it is intended to mean, it can’t be that you should implement Heijunka as soon as your processes are stable. Given that there are very few companies outside of the Toyota supply chain that have even implemented Heijunka, it is clearly an advanced topic, not to be tackled until you have done many other things, including items listed above it.

The basic operation when drawing a house of Lean is stacking. It has a well-defined meaning in computer networks, where you talk about “protocol stacks.” For example, the worldwide web sits on top of the internet, and it means that, behind the web face it shows you, your browser uses the internet protocol to communicate with the world, in ways that would be unintelligible to you. The meaning is obviously different in a “House of Lean,” but what is it? And what does it mean to draw a manager inside?

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By • Blog reviews • 1 • Tags: , , ,

Aug 31 2016

Teaching Adults: The Example Of New Plant Design

I have recently been involved in discussions of methods to teach adult learners and the ways if differs from teaching children or young adults. My personal experience is exclusively with adult professionals in a continuing education mode, and I provided examples from my recently most successful course, on New Plant Design, developed in 2005 at the request of the Hong Kong Productivity Council, and given more than 15 times in China since, and twice in Russia, although never in the US or Western Europe.

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By • Management • 1 • Tags: , , , ,

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