PDCA

Jul 23 2018

What is the science in Lean? | Jeffrey Liker | The Leadership Network

“Scientific thinking can be defined as the intentional coordination of theory and evidence, whereby we encounter new information, interpret it and, if warranted, revise our understanding accordingly. In fact, we learn the most when we explicitly state what we expect and compare it to what actually happens. […] This is where practicing PDCA comes in, and Toyota’s view on being scientific.[…] Just explaining the concept of PDCA is not enough to change behavior and mindset, and there are not many master teachers like Ohno to go around — who have an intuitive feel for what to ask next to push the right buttons to help the student learn through practice. This is the reason for the Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata — to have a structured approach to learning and teaching scientific thinking so it can be deliberately practiced by anyone..”

Source: The Leadership Network

Michel Baudin‘s comments: Is there science to Lean, TPS, or, more generally, manufacturing? There is definitely technology and there is management. Technology is about getting inanimate objects to do what we want them to; management, about working with people. Science is not about getting anything done but about understanding how nature works.

Continue reading…

By • Blog clippings • 2 • Tags: , ,

Nov 18 2016

The Art of the Question | Robert W. “Doc” Hall | Compression Institute

“Twenty-five years ago, I tried to coach adult college students to seek and solve problems using the classic Deming PDCA Circle. In classrooms, students were unused to identifying their own problems rather than having them pre-defined. The first time through this exercise, over half did not reflect on a problem to seek root cause. Instead, they went shopping for a gizmo, a program, or a recipe to fix the problem – a quick-fix mentality.”

Sourced through the Compression Institute

Michel Baudin‘s comments: 33 years ago, Robert W. Hall wrote Zero Inventories, the first original, technically meaty book in English about Lean Manufacturing, and I have had great respect for him ever since.

 #PDCA

By • Blog clippings • 1 • Tags: ,

Apr 5 2013

How Toyota brought its famed manufacturing method to India | The Economic Times

See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing

“…Nakagawa, who has been a TPS practitioner for four decades, doesn’t believe in seeing things on his computer screen -he prefers to go where the action is. “Can a computer smell? Genchi Genbutsu is very important because only on-site will your sensory organs be alert – smell, sound, vision,” he says….”

Michel Baudin‘s insight:

Perhaps, Mr, Nakagawa has not heard of Google Nose, the app announced on April 1.

In all summaries,TPS has two pillars, but never the same. In this article, the pillars are “respect for people” and “continuous improvement.” To Ohno, they were Just-in-time (JIT) and Jidoka, with JIT covering production control, logistics, and supply chain management, while Jidoka was a complete approach to the engineering of production lines where humans interact with machines.

You could try to implement Ohno’s JIT and Jidoka without respect for people or continuous improvement, but it would not work well. Conversely, if all you focus on is respect for people and continuous improvement, you won’t get TPS either. You need both, and, perhaps, two pillars are not enough.

Broadly speaking, the two pillars in this article are about management; Ohno’s pillars, about technology. As TPS is based on the interplay of management and technology, perhaps these are its real “two pillars.”

See on economictimes.indiatimes.com

By • Press clippings • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,