Feb 12 2015
How Do You Address Employee Resistance to Lean Manufacturing? | Larry Fast | IndustryWeek
“In the first six to 12 months, get the turkeys out. Don’t drag your feet.”
Source: www.industryweek.com
The problem with this approach is that, at the outset of Lean transformation, management doesn’t know what it’s doing. It’s not the managers’ fault, but the skills of leading a Lean transformation in this particular organization have to be learned along the way.
More often than not, the author’s version of “addressing the issue early” means firing loyal employees for disagreeing with something you later realize was wrong. And the message it sends is not one of commitment but of a mixture of brutality, incompetence and disrespect.
Feb 16 2015
Buy More Robots? | Adams Nager | IndustryWeek
“More robots means lower unemployment and better trade performance. […] The United States does not lose jobs because there is not enough work to be done but rather because U.S. industry is not competitive with foreign producers. More robots will help fix this.”
Source: www.industryweek.com
It doesn’t mean robots are bad, only that they are not a panacea. Toyota’s Global Body Line is designed to use welding robots where they are justified, and manual welding where not, using the same fixtures.
In an auto parts plant in Japan, I remember seeing a machining cell with old machines served by robots. A few yards away were new, automated lines that didn’t use robots.
It looked very much as if the old cell with new robots was the result of incremental automation, and that the lessons learned had been applied in the design of the new lines.
Robots are tools. If you know how to use them, they will help you; if you don’t, buying more is just a waste of money.
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
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By Michel Baudin • Press clippings 0 • Tags: Automation, Autonomation, GM, Robot, Toyota