Jan 14 2019
SpaceX Laying Off 10% of Workforce | Bloomberg
“[…]’To continue delivering for our customers and to succeed in developing interplanetary spacecraft and a global space-based Internet, SpaceX must become a leaner company,’ SpaceX said in a statement Friday.”
Source: IndustryWeek
Michel Baudin‘s comments: So that’s what “Lean” has come to mean? Laying off people makes you “leaner.” When you see this kind of statement, you understand how “Lean implementation” can make employees worry. I have heard managers brag about being Lean by having one first-line manager for 100 shop floor operators. Never mind that that ratio, at Toyota, is more like 1 first-line manager for 17 operators.
#lean, #layoff, #spacex, #toyota
Mar 31 2019
Industry 4.0 versus Manufacturing Improvement (Part 1)
There is a lesson that manufacturing leaders seem determined to learn the hard way: flooding factories with new technology does not improve their performance.
Roger Smith learned it at GM in the 1980s. Elon Musk, for all his other achievements, admitted by tweet to making the same mistake at Tesla last year.
To really improve manufacturing performance, you start with, as Crispin Vincenti-Brown put it, with “what happens when the guy picks up the wrench.” You work with that person to make the work easier, faster, safer, and less prone to deviations and errors. In doing this, you apply, as needed, technology you can afford that operators can work with.
This is hard work but it pays off. It is a key lesson learned from Toyota, TPS, and many companies that implemented it under the “Lean” label. But it’s an eat-your-vegetables message. The lure of a technological shortcut is irresistible.
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By Michel Baudin • Information Technology 17 • Tags: Digital Transformation, Industry 4.0, Lean, TPS