Feb 3 2015
Frederick Taylor is an easy target. In a tweet last November Michael Ballé, as “@Thegembacoach” attributed to “taylorism” practices that I have never seen advocated in Taylor’s writings. Enough of Taylor’s own work is questionable that we don’t need to pile on other people’s bad ideas. Along with the chaff , however, there is wheat, and we have more to learn from the enduring part of Taylor’s legacy than from what has been discredited.
Feb 1 2015
According to Chip Chapados, the concept of one-piece flow emerged from the need to rapidly detect defects in engine castings when Kiichiro Toyoda was reverse-engineering a Chevrolet engine in 1934, and it was originally called “one-by-one confirmation.”
Jan 30 2015
“In the beginning Toyota created TPS, then came Motorola in 1986 with their six sigma process. In 1988 John Krafcik coined the term Lean in his paper entitled“Triumph of the Lean production system” which was quickly popularised by Womack, Roos and Jones in 1991 with the publication of their book “The machine that changed the world”. Then in 2002 Michael George and Robert Lawrence junior published their book entitled “Lean Six Sigma: Combining Six Sigma with Lean Speed”.
Ever since this point organisations have been attempting to mesh the 2 methodologies into one business improvement technique and failing.”
Source: www.linkedin.com
Troy speaks from experience. Mine is similar, but I am not as negative on Six Sigma as he is. I think of Six Sigma as an approach that is useful within a range of applicability and is limited in scope.
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
Jan 22 2015
This is a perennial topic in all groups related to Lean. In the TPS principles and practice discussion group on LinkedIn, Bertrand Olivar and Kris Hallan recently started new discussions on the sustainability of Kaizen event results and on the means of achieving them. Most contributors hold extreme positions, the majority saying that Kaizen events are a panacea, and a growing minority that they are worthless.
In this you-are-with-us-or-against-us atmosphere, it is a challenge to get a hearing for the nuanced position I hold, which I summarize as follows:
Because it is a recurring topic, I have already accumulated the a trail of posts about it, that are referenced at the end.
Jan 20 2015
“Where people put the effort into it and understand the principles and why they work fully, Hoshin Kanri can unlock enormous potential throughout an organisation.”
Source: www.linkedin.com
Great article. As a condition for success in implementing Hoshin Planning, at least in Manufacturing, I would add timing. The organization must be ready for it, and it is, for example, after a number of successful, local improvement projects have led people to say “These are great, but what do they add up to? And where do they lead us?” Hoshin Planning can then help them figure out their own answers and provide a structure for moving forward.
In the list of failure causes for Hoshin Planning, I would also add the lingering influence of Management-By-Objectives (MBO), which keeps managers obsessed with gaming metrics instead of doing the work. I think it is what you mean when you say that Hoshins should not be formulated in terms of metrics, but it should be made clear that Hoshin Planning replaces MBO; it is not an add-on to it.
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
Feb 7 2015
One-piece Flow for Information Products?
Organizations that produce documents — whether they are publications for sale, standard tests for schools, legal templates, or work instructions for production — face challenges that differ from manufacturing, because data and materials don’t flow the same way. The production of a document by a team is a process of collaborative editing, not a fixed sequence of standardized operations.
With electronic documents, you need a revision management system to prevent inconsistent updates, you need to cap the number of documents in process to control lead time, and you may need to improve the work flow or increase the team size if saturated.
Tools like 5S are irrelevant in this context, because the work takes place inside a computer network, not in the physical office, and setting up an effective network — with the right software properly configured — requires information systems professionals at the state of the art. What looks like rework in this context is a collaborative editing process that must be managed, not eliminated.
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By Michel Baudin • Information Technology • 0 • Tags: Data Flow, Document work flow, Metadata, Office Lean, One-piece flow