Dec 1 2011
Steven Spear on Problem-Solving with JIT: Not Bad for an Academic Paper
Steven Spear’s The Essence of Just-in-Time:Imbedding diagnostic tests in work-systems to achieve operational excellence is a working paper from Harvard Business School in 2002 focused on the interaction between JIT and problem-solving. It is an important topic, only briefly alluded to in Lean Logistics and covered in more detail in When to Use Statistics, One-Piece Flow, or Mistake-Proofing to Improve Quality, but there are many other improvement opportunities besides product quality, and shining a light on their relationship with JIT is useful.
Spear’s paper is worth reading because he did his homework: it is based on research that involved immersion in a Toyota supplier support team, visits to seven Toyota plants and 12 suppliers in Japan and the US, and working as an assembler in a non-Toyota plant for comparison. I recommend in particular sections 4 to 7. Section 4 is a case study of mattress manufacturing at Aisin Seiki, from which the following sections draw general conclusions.
You have to look past the other sections, which mainly reflect Spear’s membership in the academia tribe. His research is described as an “ethnographic study,” which conjures up the image of an American or European spending 15 years among the Guaranis of Paraguay recording what they are willing to share of their language and culture. That this vocabulary should be used in a study of Lean reflects how alien the world of manufacturing is to academia.
As an academic, Spear is obligated to reference other academics, but not non-members of the tribe, no matter how major their contributions. For example, the only Japanese author in the bibliography is Takahiro Fujimoto, from the University of Tokyo, but neither Taiichi Ohno nor Shigeo Shingo appear. Section 3, on Methods, opens with “Many scholars argue…” With all due respect, the arguments of scholars don’t amount to a hill of beans in Manufacturing, because, unlike Computer Science or Biology, it is not a field to which they have contributed much. From Taylor and Gastev to Ohno and Shingo, the key innovators in Manufacturing have almost all been self-taught, Lillian Gilbreth being the exception with a PhD. Why was Spear’s research not done in an Industrial Engineering department, where its content would normally place it? As I found in my own ethnographic studies of academia, the need for grants pushes researchers in other directions, like genetic algorithms.
Dec 22 2011
The Lean Body of Knowledge
Efforts at implementing Lean have become pervasive in manufacturing, branching out from the automotive industry to electronics, aerospace, and even food and cosmetics, not to mention efforts to adapt it to construction, health care, or services. As a consequence, the knowledge of Lean, proficiency in its tools, and skills in its implementation are highly marketable in many industries.
There is, however, no consensus on a body of knowledge (BOK) for education in the field, and my review of existing BOKs and university courses confirms it. A consensus is elusive because Lean emerged as the accumulation of point solutions developed at Toyota over time, rather than as the implementation of a coherent strategy.
As Takahiro Fujimoto explains, there was no individual thinker whose theories started the company down this path. Decades later, we are left with the task of reverse-engineering underlying principles from actual plant practices. Those who have attempted it produced inconsistent results because they have gone at it like the six blind men with the elephant: their personal backgrounds, mostly in business school education, management, or even psychology allowed them to see different slivers of the Toyota system but not the whole, giving, in particular, short shrift to its engineering dimension.
In the following paragraphs, first I explain what I think the Lean BOK should be. Then I review five programs offered in the US by universities and professional societies and highlight where they differ.
My view of the Lean BOK
A well-rounded program for manufacturing professionals would provide Lean skills to all the professionals involved in designing and operating manufacturing plants. Organizations that are successful at Lean do not rely on one department to “do Lean” for everybody else. Instead, Lean is part of everybody’s job. There are basics that everybody needs to know, and then there are different subsets of skills that are useful depending on where you work in the plant.
Beyond the common background, the knowledge should be organized around functions performed by people. In this way of thinking, Visual Management, for example, would not be a stand-alone subject, because factories don’t have “visibility managers.” On the other hand, plants have assembly lines, machining or fabrication shops, shipping and receiving departments all in need of visual management. As a consequence, visual management is part of the training of professionals in assembly, machining, fabrication, logistics, quality, maintenance, etc. And each one only needs to know visual management as it is relevant to his or her position.
Over time, Lean should migrate into the mainstream of manufacturing and industrial engineering, and lose its separate identity, both in industrial practice and in engineering and management education. This has been the fate of successful innovations in manufacturing in the past. For example, the “American system of manufacture” to which we owe interchangeable parts is now only a subject for historians. It is not the object of a standard or certification, and nobody explicitly undertakes to implement it. That is because its components — engineering drawings, tolerances, allowances, routings, special-purpose machines, etc. — have all become an integral part of how we make things. Likewise, in Japan, TQC is no longer a topic, as its most useful components have just fused into the manufacturing culture 30 years ago. This is what must happen to Lean in the next 30 years.
Lean proficiency should be built around manufacturing functions, not Lean tools. From foundation to superstructure, we see the following hierarchy — originally defined by Crispin Vincenti-Brown — and structure the body of knowledge accordingly:
A hypothetical participant who would master all of the above would understand both the philosophy and the tools of Lean, their range of applicability, and their implementation methods. He or she would possess the following skills:
This BOK is dauntingly large, and new wrinkles are added daily. Fortunately, you don’t need to master all of it in order to be effective.
Review of existing BOKs
I took a look at a few of the existing training programs offered by various institution, for the purpose of identifying the underlying BOKs. Table 1 shows the list. My comments follow.
The University of Kentucky program
The University of Kentucky’s program includes Core Courses — a train-the-trainer program — and Specialty Courses — for professionals outside of production operations. Some but not all the specialty courses are targeted at functions within the organization but others are about tools. Just the core courses add up to three one-week training sessions, while each specialty course is typically a one- or two-day workshop.
From the University’s web site, however, I cannot tell when, or if, participants ever learn how to design a machining cell, or an assembly line, or how to reduce setup times. In the core courses, it’s great to talk about mindsets, culture, and transformational leadership, but where is the engineering red meat?
The specialty courses address planning, improvement methods, logistics, supplier development, and other unquestionably important topics, but offer nothing about manufacturing or industrial engineering.
The University of Michigan program
The University of Michigan has a program of two one-week sessions with three-week gaps between sessions. This program does cover cell design, materials handling and factory layout, and even rapid plant assessment, that are certainly relevant engineering topics, but I didn’t see anything about the design of lines that are not cells, autonomation, or the Lean approach to quality. There is a module about integrating Six Sigma with Lean, but there is a lot to Lean Quality that has nothing to do with Six Sigma, such as mistake-proofing.
There is also some coverage of logistics, organization, and accountability, but not as much as in the University of Kentucky program.
The SME
The SME has published a document entitled Lean Certification Body of Knowledge, in which the major headers are:
Organization and People issues are treated in 1. and 3. The first two line items under Cultural Enablers are “Respect for the individual” and “Humility.” I am not sure how you can teach this or test for it, particularly humility. It is followed by techniques that have to do with implementation. The topics in 3. have more to do with management once Lean is started, but it doesn’t say it in so many words.
All Engineering and Logistics is lumped under Continuous Improvement, which is clearly a misnomer because many of the Lean techniques in these areas are radical innovations that have nothing to do with continuous improvement. Inside this section, the choice of topics and their structure is surprising. For example, the only method of data collection considered is the check sheet, and it ranks as high in the hierarchy of topics as poka-yoke or one-piece flow.
As the name suggests, Business Results covers metrics and accountability.
The weight of the different areas varies with the level of certification. At the Bronze level, for example, Continuous Improvement counts for 60%; at the Gold level, only for 15%.
The University of Dayton
I have ties with this institution from having taught courses there for many years, and I am still listed among their Experts. But I am not involved with their GetLean Certification program. It is an 8 to 10-day curriculum with a core of 5 days on the following topics:
The choice of topics may seem odd. For example, you might wonder what Fundamentals of Negotiation is doing in a Lean training program, or why Root Cause Analysis only appears under Human Error Reduction. What about root cause analysis of process capability problems?
Auburn University
Of all the Lean programs reviewed here, Auburn University’s probably has the deepest roots, through the influence of JT Black, whose passion for Lean goes back to the late 1970s.
The list of subjects they cover is as follows:
If anything, this program has too much of the red meat that is lacking in some of the others. It could, without harm, emphasize Logistics and Management a bit more.
Conclusion: no consensus
Even when considering the programs solely on the basis of their published syllabi, it is clear that their graduates will have received vastly different instruction, and that the designers of these programs have no common view of what the Lean Body of Knowledge is.
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By Michel Baudin • Management • 12 • Tags: Lean, Lean manufacturing, Management, Strategy, Takahiro Fujimoto