Jul 9 2016

The Value Of Surveys: A Debate With Joseph Paris

Joseph Paris and I debated this issue in the Operational Excellence group on LinkedIn, where he started a discussion by posting the following:

“Riddle me this…

If the Japanese way of management and their engagement with employees is supposedly the best, yielding the best result, why is there such a lack of trust among employment across the spectrum; employers, bosses, teams/colleagues. From Bloomberg and EY.

Japanese Workers Really Distrust Their Employers preview image

Japanese Workers Really Distrust Their Employers

Lifetime employment sounds like a great thing, but not if you hate where you work. That seems to be the plight of Japanese “salarymen” and “office ladies.” Only 22 percent of Japanese workers have “a great deal of trust” in their employers, which is way below the average of eight countries surveyed, according to a new report by EY, the global accounting and consulting firm formerly known as Ernst & Young. And it’s not just the companies: Those employees are no more trusting of their bosses or colleagues, the study found.

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By • Data science • 2 • Tags: , , , ,

Jul 6 2016

The 5-Day Kaizen | Bob Emiliani

Bob Emiliani
Bob Emiliani

“The classic 5-day kaizen was likely created in the late 1980s by Shingijutsu kaizen consultants from Japan as they established their practice in the United States and beyond. Traveling the long distance from Japan to the east coast of the U.S. meant that kaizen consultants should obviously spend more than a day or two at their client’s location before they then return home to Japan. It made sense to stay for a period of time in which many abnormalities could be corrected by facilitating several kaizen teams at one time. Five days seemed about right…”

Sourced from: BobEmiliani.com

Michel Baudin‘s comments:

So the Kaizen Event craze started when the convenience of a Japanese consulting firm met American managers’ quest for instant gratification…

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By • Blog clippings, History • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Jun 30 2016

Hardship Accounting Of Jobs

France is implementing a new law requiring “hardship accounting,” for the purpose of giving special pension benefits to employees whose jobs impose physical, environmental and rhythm constraints beyond a given threshold in 10 categories. This is causing a dispute between employers, who balk at the detailed record keeping required, and the government, which insists that a duly voted law must be obeyed. What I find disturbing in this tug-of-war is that I hear no voice saying that the existence of hardship jobs is abnormal and that they should be eliminated. Giving special treatment to the holders of these jobs is better than nothing, but it is an immediate countermeasure, not a long-term solution.

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By • Management • 3 • Tags: , , , ,

meeting-of-colonists-protesting-british-treatment-before-the-american-revolution

Jun 28 2016

Google’s Rules For Effective Meetings | Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg

In How Google Works, on pp. 163-165, executives Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg give rules for running meetings, that are worth pondering, because they clearly know the topic. They rules are for a software organization, but it doesn’t mean they are not relevant in Manufacturing.

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By • Management • 0 • Tags: ,

Jun 23 2016

Lean 2.0: Faster, Better, Permanent | Jim Hudson | Lean Expert Academy

From leanexpertacademy.com – Today, 10:16 AM

“The Lean that we all grew up with came to us completely wrong. Messengers Jones and Womack not only mislabeled it, but misinterpreted it too. In their roles as observer-reporters, they described what they saw through the old management paradigm and pretty much interpreted and documented everything from that perspective. They did that really well and Lean Thinking became the “go-to manual” as a result. But it wasn’t the right thing, so they pretty much missed the engine of Toyota’s management system. The result? 30+ years of misfires from nearly all corners of the earth, as leaders and consultants took what Jones and Womack observed and tried to implement it.”

Michel Baudin‘s comments:

I agree with your assessment, but I am not so sure about the remedy. About Womack and Jones, I would say that they authored one good book: “The Machine That Changed The World,” and leave it at that. To them, manufacturing was a spectator sport, and they shared the results of a worldwide benchmarking study of the auto industry.

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By • Blog clippings • 17 • Tags: , , ,

Jun 18 2016

The Truth About Kanban | Bill Waddell

Bill Waddell, intellectual sparring partner for almost 20 years now, has put out this video revealing “The Truth About Kanban”:

Michel Baudin‘s comments:

This video is just Bill’s talking head against the background of a brick fireplace with a few books on top, notably “Toyota Kata.” It contains no moving pictures of Kanbans in action and all you learn from viewing is in Bill’s words, and I have a few quibbles with these words.

I usually get impatient with this kind of video, because voice is a slow medium, and you would get the same information five times faster reading the transcript. But I have never met Bill in the flesh, and I was curious to hear his voice. It’s a good radio voice, albeit curmudgeonly, reminiscent of a younger Tommy Lee Jones.

Now, about the content, Bill makes three main points:

  1. What you use for a pull signal doesn’t matter.
  2. You can use Kanbans with long lead time items.
  3. The Kanban system is a mechanism to drive improvement.

I agree with Point 3, but find Points 1 and 2 problematic.

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By • Blog clippings • 12 • Tags: , ,

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