May 21 2013
Lean and increasing sales | Bodo Wiegand
The following is a translation of the latest installment in Wiegand’s Watch:
And what is always forgotten…
In almost every company I see, I find Lean Enthusiasts who want to introduce Lean and the mindset of their colleagues – preferably by yesterday, but no later than immediately. That this should take 2 – 3 years and not without sweat and hard work, appears barely acceptable.
But what is forgotten almost all Lean projects, is the answer to the question: “What do we do with the increased efficiency, what we do with the capacity that is freed up?”
Do we fire employees? As the most obvious alternative, do we start at the same time a sales compaign? Why not?
I have found that, in steady state, Sales always sells just as much as they think can be produced, never more, as it would frustrate customers , and usually less,because you never know what Production will put out next.
This week, we have performed a setup time reduction seminar. The bottleneck machine was a cold press, which took 2.5 hours to set up and then produced for 15 minutes. We put the set-up under a magnifying glass during the seminar and reduced the set-up time to 30 minutes, so that the capacity will be tripled in half a year. The subsequent operations Rotate and Roll work 5 days in 2 shifts. By goint 24×7 and other improvements we could double the capacity of the entire plant.
When, before starting the actual project, we discuss it in a leadership workshop and I demand a parallel initiative from Sales, I often get the following answer: “First do it, we really don’t know what will actually be accomplished” – but then it is too late.
If you do not involve Sales in your project, you put your colleagues’ jobs in jeopardy.
So please do not forget it.
The author, Bodo Wiegand, runs the Lean Management Institute, the German LEI affiliate, and blogs at Wiegands Warte (Wiegand’s Watch).
May 22 2013
Turning Success into Mediocrity | Bill Waddell
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
“… the lack of interest [in Lean] comes through loud and clear when you read the none-too-subtle message in this interview with Melissa Cook from Microsoft, ironically titled with a quote from her, Microsoft Director: ‘Manufacturing Is A Hotbed Of Innovation’. She is all about creativity, speed and innovation so long as it happens within the ERP framework. Her examples of manufacturing’s creative culture is simply the evolution of MRP: ‘going through MRP, MRPII and ERP. Manufacturing is a hotbed of innovation’…”
For decades, Microsoft has made money from selling buggy and functionally mediocre software to customers who couldn’t tell they had alternatives. And once Microsoft dominated a market, their products were a standard and mandatory if you wanted to exchange data with anyone you did business with.
With this background, I don’t find it surprising that the Microsoft people should consider ERP a success story. In manufacturing, a first generation of ignorant managers was sold the MRP bill of goods. It didn’t produce the expected benefits, but then, a new generation came on board that was the perfect mark for Closed-loop MRP, and the pattern repeated itself on a larger scale with each generation all the way to ERP.
It is a marvel of marketing that the failure of each generation of this type of software has not hurt the marketability of the next. And I think the key reason is that new managers are born, if not every minute, at least at the end of every academic year.
See on www.idatix.com
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By Michel Baudin • Blog clippings • 0 • Tags: Enterprise resource planning, Lean manufacturing, Manufacturing, Manufacturing resource planning, Microsoft, MRP