Domestic Quick Turnaound Sox Shirts

Article Link --> Chicago Tribune | After Sox victory, firms go to work

I'm in Chicago and saw this in the Trib. The World Series shirts are printed immediately after the winner is determined, which eliminates the waste of printing up shirts for both teams and having them shipped from China. It's no surprise that, for quick turnaround and just-in-time, there's no substitute for local production. Sure, the shirts were probably made a long time ago in Vietnam or another low-cost country, but the "postponement" strategy allowed the shirts to be finalized at the very last minute.

How would you organize and structure your business/factory if everything had to be done in such short to-order bursts?

NUMMI Tour Tale #4: The Pull Gift Shop

NUMMI Tour Tale #1: Why Fix the Escalator?
NUMMI Tour Tale #2: The Power of Reynolds Wrap
NUMMI Tour Tale #3: The Power of Why

Back to stories about my tour of the Toyota/GM plant in Fremont CA.

The NUMMI lobby has a “virtual” (my term, not theirs) gift shop display of items available for purchase. To buy items, such as hats, pens, or coffee cups, you call a number using a provided phone. In effect, you “pull” items that are delivered to you at the end of your tour. No inventory, other than display items, is kept in the lobby. Tour guests don’t have to carry items with them on the tour tram. Seems to work out just fine.

Maybe it would be a more interesting illustration of lean practices to have a small quantity of each item on display, with a working kanban system used to replenish items from their hidden gift shop “supermarket”?

NUMMI Tour Tale #5: Nobody is Perfect

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Lean Design Example -- A Coffee Lid

In search of a mid afternoon coffee fix on Friday afternoon I came across this cup lid and couldn't help but be impressed with the number of Lean features that make up the design.

The obvious feature is it's use of both pull-back tab and straw openings. This lid is equally served for topping hot and cold beverages. Not so obvious however is the size of the lid and it's interaction with cups of various sizes for hot and cold beverages. The lid fits on 8oz, 12oz and 16oz cups.

While seemingly simple, this lid along with it's associated cups, have enabled all sorts of opportunities to eliminate waste. There is no need to have inventory of lids all with various sizes and purposes. There is no need to have these lids all available at the beverage dispensing point, or to keep them organized. And perhaps the biggest impact from the customer's perspective, there is never any wasted time searching for the 'right' lid.

I found this simple cup lid to be a fantastic example of the power that can be contained within lean product design. If only everything were so simple.

We are now also "www.leanblog.org"

If you'd like a name that's easier to remember or link to, you can also now use www.leanblog.org (NOT dot-com) to get to this site. Links to old articles/posts remain the same.

NUMMI Tour Tale #3: The Power of Why

NUMMI Tour Tale #1: Why Fix the Escalator?
NUMMI Tour Tale #2: The Power of Reynolds Wrap

I think, by now, that Toyota is pretty famous for it's "5 Why's" approach for root cause problem solving. Asking why five times, in succession will likely get to the root cause of any problem. I've seen it applied to safety investigations, for example -- why did the worker trip and fall? Usually, it points back to training and leadership issues, but that's another story.

One thing I noticed at NUMMI was that you can "ask" why but it's also important to "explain" why. Many of the signs and visual controls I saw included a "why" element to them. To me, this seems to illustrate the idea of having respect for your employees and your workforce. This idea is also illustrated in NUMMI Tour Tale #1: Why Fix the Escalator?

At previous companies, not as lean as NUMMI, it was pretty common to see a box of parts tagged with a sign that said, sternly, "DO NOT USE." Sometimes there was an important manager's name associated to illustrate who is making that pronouncement.

At NUMMI, a box was labeled with a sign that included the "why." The sign said something like “using these parts would result in brake failures or problems for the customer.”

Again, another "wow" moment. For one, NUMMI put the situation in customer terms. Do not use these parts, because there would be a negative impact on the customer. It didn't say "do not use the parts because I say so (and you wouldn't understand the reason anyway)". Secondly, if the line was in a pinch and had no other parts, it seems less likely that someone would feel pressured into using those parts, being reminded of the customer and a potentially dangerous situation that would be created.

So, my challenge is to explain "why" as much as possible. Not just asking why, but explaining why. I hope you can take that challenge on for yourself. Why are we doing lean? Why is it necessary to standardize our workbenches? Why is it important to get these parts off MRP and onto a kanban system? I bet we would all do better by taking the time to explain why.

NUMMI Tour Tale #4: The Pull Gift Shop

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Detroit Free Press Headline Writer Disagrees with Consumer Reports, Apparently

Article Link --> "Asian vehicles rank low in survey"

Or do they? You can't accuse the media for being biased toward Toyota in this case. It is the Detroit Free Press, after all, though. The headline clearly doesn't match the text of the article, where the list of "Most Reliable 2006 Models" includes only TWO cars from Ford and GM, out of about 30 on the list. The list is full of Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Lexus, Infiniti, etc. There are a million ways to measure vehicle quality, but is there a way of measuring headline quality?

"Asian models rank low" means a few Nissans are "among the least reliable." Toyota Avalon, Acura RL, and Honda Odyessy are "average". That "average" is dragged down by the European models, as well as Ford and GM.

That's like saying "Chicago Sports Teams Rank Low" because the Cubs, Bears, and Bulls stink.

Too Long in the Loo

By Luke Van Dongen:

This link is to an article in today's Detroit News. I've been hearing reactions to this article all day - it really seems to have struck a nerve with people.

I'm not sure exactly how I feel about the stance that has been taken at Ford to curtail the problem of employees spending time off the line for washroom breaks that are in addition to the contractual breaks union employees are entitled to. To be sure, we are human and as such need to deal with these matters on a daily basis. But I have also been in a position where I had to effectively deal with people working on an assembly line who needed to be relieved during scheduled production time. I know first hand how challenging this can be. There are no manpower provisions to cover bathroom breaks, and getting people off the line without negatively affecting throughput is sometimes impossible. This is even more true when it becomes obvious that certain individuals are abusing the system. Adding more fuel to the fire, absenteeism rates of greater than 10% are also common, making it even more difficult to juggle resources effectively around other 'needs' that arise.

I don't believe that such a stance to crack down on additional breaks would be necessary if the regular volume of reliefs, and average time taken were not beyond what can be effectively managed. The fact remains that some manufacturing jobs, particularly in assembly, require that employees perform their task each and every cycle to maintain flow. Not every job can be a 'free effort' job.

Is there anyone who has experience in a TPS facility who can comment on how necessary unscheduled breaks are handled within that system in assembly operations?

10,000 Visitors!

The blog has now had 10,000 visitors since the launch in March. October is the 8th straight month of increasing visits. That's definitely an statistically significant upward trend that passes the SPC "Shewhart Rules" test. Thanks Professor Deming.

I have enjoyed working (it's a fun hobby, not "work") on the blog and have appreciated the kind feedback I have gotten from visitors and readers. I am happy to have taken on some collaborators (Mark E. and Luke) and I look forward to this growing and evolving over time. If you have any suggestions, click "comments" below or email me (link to the right).

NUMMI Tour Tale #2: The Power of Reynolds Wrap

NUMMI Tour Tale #1: Why Fix the Escalator?

The NUMMI tour guide told an interesting kaizen story as we went past the body weld area. Car bodies are held and transported on metal carrier racks that re-circulate through the welding process. The bodies move on to painting and the racks cycle back all day long. The racks get greasy and dirty from the process (Note: It's not grease, see comment at the end of the post), so workers were cleaning the racks by hand with wire brushes. This took 4 hours to do, once a week, shutting the line down, I assume.

An operator had an idea to instead cover the rack bases with plain old aluminum foil. After a week, they remove the dirty foil and replace it, which takes only 1 hour instead of 4. The team member received a cash bonus for the suggestion.

I think that was a clever idea, one that saves the company money, even with the cost of aluminum foil factored in.

But, could one push farther to a root cause here? Why are they having to clean those racks? Is there anything that can be done to prevent the racks from getting dirty, or slowing that down? I'm not a welding expert, so I can't say, but it's interesting to think about.

Go To NUMMI Tour Tale #3: The Power of Why

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Toyota "Bucks Trend" by NOT Outsourcing

Auto Week

This article eventually reaches the conclusion I jumped to early on. Of course Toyota doesn't outsource as much as the other automakers. Toyota's own internal production can be cheaper and with better quality, I assume, than their suppliers.

Think back to Ford, they were completely vertically integrated under Henry Ford. From a Value Stream perspective, this makes sense for many reasons, including:

• Avoiding paying an extra layer of profit to an outside supplier
• Internal production can be located closer, typically, reducing supply chain inventory needs
• Being in the same company can improve information sharing, problem solving, muda/waste elimination, and coordination

The article takes the mainstream mindset of "of course it MUST be cheaper to outsource" since all these other companies outsource to "save" money. But are companies really saving money? Many outsourcing decisions fail to consider the total supply chain cost. Just because Supplier X has cheaper labor, it doesn't mean you will automatically reduce your total cost and long-term cost by outsourcing.

Some great quotes here, they speak for themselves.

Outsourcing parts simply to meet the changing industry norm is viewed warily by Toyota executives."I don't believe we can outsource our responsibility to the customer," Seizo Okamoto, president of Toyota's truckmaking operations in Princeton, Ind., told Automotive News.

.....

Norm Bafunno, vice president of manufacturing at Princeton, say Toyota may outsource other components as vehicles are redesigned and, like the Tundra's fuel tank, "where it makes sense." But that will mean that potential suppliers will have to compete against a very efficient competitor: Toyota itself.

.....

"Toyota is as vertically integrated today as GM was 30 years ago," efficiency expert Ron Harbour, president of Harbour Consulting Inc. in Troy, Mich., told Automotive News. "But the difference is, Toyota can make all of its integrated parts operate efficiently together. For Toyota, it works."

.....

"Sure, a supplier could make a given part with lower wages," Liker told Automotive News. "But labor costs are only part of the equation. Let's assume that a supplier's workers earn 25 percent less than Toyota's. Toyota could easily find ways through its practice of continuous improvement to eliminate 25 percent of its own labor cost. And once that's out of the way, what real advantage does the supplier have to offer?"

.....

Toyota is simply following a different model, says Dave Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor."There isn't one magical business formula in the auto industry," Cole says. "Vertical integration works for Toyota. It doesn't work so well for the others."

NUMMI Tour Tale #1: Why Fix the Escalator?

I really enjoyed my tour of the NUMMI plant last Friday. I'll post my summary thoughts and impressions from the tour, but I wanted to post a few of the more interesting stories first.

In a back part of the factory that led up to some offices, there was a very old looking and HUGE escalator that must have been at least three stories tall. It was bigger than your standard escalator and must have been there since the plant opened in the early 1960's.

The escalator was turned off and blocked off (we had stairs, and I assume, an elevator for anyone who needed it). There was a small State of California safety notice that had originally shut it down, I assume.

You might wonder at first, this is Toyota, the home of TPM. Can't they keep an escalator running?

A very large permanent sign above the escalator said something like:

"Sorry for inoperative
escalator. It would cost
$120k to repair. We feel
money could be better
spent on other things.
Please accept our apologies."

Wow. The frugality and practicality of TPS was illustrated by that sign, our tour group thought. Rather than a knee-jerk reaction of fixing it when broken, somebody asked that powerful question: "Why?"

• Why fix the escalator when it's in a far back corner of the plant?
• Why fix the escalator when we have a perfectly good set of stairs, which are healthier to use?
• Why fix the escalator when somebody who can't walk might have to use the elevator anyway?
• Why spend the money there when it could be used to improve safety, quality, or the production process?

This wasn't the sequential "5 Why's", but I think you see what I mean.

How often do you spend money because you "should" or because of history rather than really questioning that spending? "Why" is a very powerful word, a theme that will continue through my stories.

Another question I'm challenging myself with: If this had been a GM plant, would I be criticizing them for being cheap?

Go To NUMMI Tour Tale #2: The Power of Reynolds Wrap

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Customers First

Below is a link to Knowledge at Wharton article. Yes, it's one more about the current plight of the US auto industry, but I found it to have an interesting tie to previous discussions in this forum around Lean Consumption.

Car Trouble: Should We Recall the U.S. Auto Industry?
(You may need to register with Wharton to gain access to the article, but it is free)

The article points to the fact that the quality gap between US and Asian manufacturers is largely closed, and is not likely to be a determining factor for consumers in the near future. The problem instead will be that Detroit does not make customers their top priority by staying with tired models in the hope that people will buy them.

There are some exceptions to North American products, but these are based on producing a few 'hit cars' rather than orchestrating a fundamental long term approach to build stronger companies. This short term focus is held up to do nothing more than provide minimal relief and distract automakers from dealing with other issues.

Then comes the tie in to Lean Consumption. The article proposes that differentiation will be at the dealer level, where customers interact with their purchase. Here's a direct quote from the article, including reference to a book published just last month:

"Another researcher at IMVP, Matthias Holweg, a lecturer at the Judge Institute of Management at the University of Cambridge in England, believes that U.S. automakers can learn a lot from European companies. He says the automakers that will come out on top in the industry's second century will not be those that opt for larger and larger scale (an approach that Wagoner has said GM must pursue) or achieve efficiencies on production lines. In a book titled, The Second Century: Reconnecting Customer and Value Chain through Build-to-Order, Holweg and co-author Frits K. Pil of the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh argue instead that manufacturers will lose ground unless they design and build vehicles as if customers really mattered. In their view, that means building cars to order, as European companies often do. "

I've added this title to my reading list. I'll plan on posting some comments once I get through it. It would be interesting to directly compare theories with Womack & Jones...

UK Soaps 'deter teenagers from factory work'

Guardian Unlimited Money | Work |

So this is a problem in the UK? The U.S. has enough factors deterring kids from engineering and factory careers without TV shows making factory life look "boring, dirty and smelly".

"A survey of teenagers by Newi found 96% of girls had not considered a manufacturing career, but 61% of boys had."

I've always joked that manufacturing needs a TV drama, probably starring Heather Locklear and/or David Caruso, to make it seem exciting, but fat chance. TV loves shows about lawyers, doctors, and cops.... that's about it. Maybe somebody could be real creative and weave a show around a factory, even if it wasn't "CSI: Engineering" type stories. The show "The Office" on NBC is set in a paper distribution company, but that's about as close to a factory as we get on TV.

I guess the shows in the UK really show factory life as it is, in many plants.

Soap opera factories are full of "working-class people doing repetitive badly-paid work at the mercy of an autocratic sexist boss", according to a report published by the North East Wales Institute of Higher Education (Newi).

NUMMI opens new training facility at plant

Milpitas Post - Local

I saw the plant on Friday, it was pretty cool. Some excerpts from my visit notes are below, I should be posting the whole thing soon:

Before entering the Gemba, you walk past a “Simulated Work Environment” where new employees are trained on fundamentals of TPS. There is a small scale u-shaped line with wooden model vehicles. Kanban racks, position markings, and work instructions are posted just as they would be in the factory.

It's interesting to hear about the committment to training. The article says, in part:

Robin Coonen, training center manager, said employees began using the new building two weeks ago.

She said, as of this week, 88 percent of all NUMMI employees had been trained in the TPS. The company hopes to have all employees trained by the end of the year.

Are you doing as well training all of your employees on your process and the fundamentals of TPS?

Evolving Excellence Blog

Evolving Excellence

I've linked to them before, but there are a couple of excellent posts on the Superfactory Evolving Excellence Blog. Check them out!

Thanks Cliff mentions the Travel Channel show "Made In America." I agree, although the show is fluffy, its great to see inside great American factories like Harley Davidson and others.

Upgrading in the Desert discusses the rise and fall of a Weiser Lock plant and issues facing manufacturing in Tucson AZ.

The most hard-hitting comments come in regards to Delphi in this post "And You Thought Martha Was a Crook."

There is a lot of good lean blogging going on right now, which is very exciting to see!

Bad Visual Controls at Baggage Claim

This is at the Terminal B baggage claim at DFW airport. There are three lights. And two signs. You tell me, which sign corresponds with which light? The baggage claim was already going, when the light on the right went off. It wasn't the "E-Stop Indicator" because the bags kept coming. Maybe it's a "more bags are coming light", but it's still not obvious. The lesson learned for visual controls in a factory is that they must be obvious to an outsider. Be careful if the person putting the visual controls together knows an area too well. Otherwise, they will make assumptions that a new person won't necessarily be able to figure out. In this case, it just caused a chuckle to me, but it could be more serious in a factory.

"Just-in-Time" Workforce to replace baby boomers?

This is an interesting article around the coming demographic shift in manufacturing, and the expected overall decrease in manufacturing workforce.

A "Just-in-Time" workforce is suggested as a possible solution to fill the void. There's no direct correlation in the article, however it seems as though the suggestion is that the pool of employees for such a JIT system would be retired workers who still wish to be employed on a temporary basis. This would be more like pulling employees from inventory than having a true JIT system, but would certainly help to quickly fill a need.

The article also raises the lack of apprenticeship programs and a general negative bias towards manufacturing jobs as issues.

Combining these ideas might be the best option yet - develop skilled workers at a rate that will fill the need as the need arises.

Touring NUMMI on Friday

I'm getting a chance to tour the NUMMI plant in Fremont CA, the joint venture between Toyota and General Motors. I'm very excited about it and will post some thoughts over the weekend. Anybody already been there and have perspectives on the plant?

A Different Take on Lean and Delphi

Kaizen and Lean Manufacturing thoughts | Gemba Panta Rei

Wow, on Womack and Delphi, this blogger didn't pull any punches. Jon Miller says, basically, "Who cares how nice the factories look, how "lean" they look, if the business is failing?" He criticizes Womack for having "kid gloves" with Delphi management and their role in the bankruptcy and failed business strategy.

I agree, though, with Womack's point that lean may have helped Delphi delay bankruptcy. If Delphi had a fundamentally bad business model, I don't know what "lean manufacturing" OR "lean enterprise" could have fixed.

Reassembling Delphi: CEO aims to repair auto business

Reassembling Delphi: CEO aims to repair auto business

This was in Monday's WSJ, but this is a free version. As a follow up to Luke's post on Delphi, here is an interview with CEO Steve Miller, who recently renounced his salary and is taking $1 to lead Delphi out of bankruptcy.

Updated: Toyota Recalls Record 1.27M Vehicles

Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Here's one for anyone who would accuse me of only reporting good things about Toyota. They aren't perfect, but I assume they would admit that.

From today's WSJ:

Japan's largest car maker in sales has long had a reputation as one of the world's most quality-conscious companies, consistently winning top accolades from such arbiters of quality as J.D. Power and Associates for its ability to make cars that run longer with fewer problems. But the company has been rushing to meet surging demand for its products in markets at home and abroad by building a slew of factories all over the world.

Toyota's senior managers have repeatedly expressed concern over how the company will keep a handle on quality as it produces everything from minicars in Eastern Europe to minivans in Thailand to large pickup trucks in Texas.

It will certainly be interesting to see how Toyota meets this challenge.

Leading from Within

Weigh In - weighin - CIO

I was pleasantly surprised that this was in CIO Magazine, which is mainly about IT topics. Not a bad article on change management and leadership within TPS/lean.

Motivating Employees With Catchy Slogans

WSJ.com - Cubicle Culture

Free version of article

I always wonder if I should post links to WSJ articles, since I know not everybody has a $$ online subscription. But, I bet your boss reads it (or someone up "above" does). Sometimes they might take awful ideas they read over their morning coffee and try to implement them.

So, be warned "catchy slogans" are promoted in today's WSJ.

Actually, the column is somewhat balanced, in discussing pro's and con's of giving projects "catchy" titles or promotional slogans.

Mr. Lucas remembers one initiative, code-named "Shark," that was supposed to kill a competitor's product. It didn't. "It was dead in the water," he says.

Jane Genova, a former speechwriter at IBM and Chrysler, which also had its share of slogans, thinks there may be a correlation between having slogans and poor corporate performance. "I've never been at a place where it wasn't made fun of," she says.

Of course, if your boss only reads headlines, you might get a bunch of new slogans. But, if your boss only reads headlines, I bet your lean efforts are superficial at best.

Click on "comments" to see another priceless anecdote.

W. Edwards Deming always preached against slogans. Point #10 of the Fourteen Points was:

Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force (problems with quality and productivity are caused by the system, not by individuals. Posters and slogans generate frustration and resentment)

As always, the alternative, according to Deming was "leadership." Let's have more leaderhip, fewer slogans. Be a leader and explain why lean is important part of your company's vision. That will do more for lean than slogans will.

Lean not enough at Delphi

The link above is to an e-newsletter from Jim Womack.

In this newsletter, Womack comments on his experience and observations at Delphi facilities stating, "I have walked through dozens of Delphi facilities in many countries and in my recent walks I have seen some of the leanest practices I have ever found outside of Toyota City."

What follows is some intersting commentary on what happened to Delphi, despite their increasingly lean and efficient operations. Just goes to show that lean can't get bring success without a strong business model with a cost structure able to keep the enterprise in the same competitive landscape as rivals.

Enjoy!

Lean Consumption Concepts in WSJ?

WSJ.com - In a Dizzying World, One Way to Keep Up: Renting Possessions

Monday's WSJ had an article about the trend of people "renting" possessions, a concept that is explored in the book "Lean Solutions". The idea being that people want their problems solved rather than necessarily wanting the hassle of owning and maintaining things.

Think about Netflix, mentioned in the article -- sure it's an alternative to Blockbuster, but it's also an alternative to owning DVD's. If the problem is "need entertainment", then Netflix solves that in a pretty elegant way (DVD's arrive automatically in the mail after you send one back). But, it requires that you do "unpaid work" (in Womack and Jone's terminology) of ranking and listing movies on their website, plus you only get 3 DVD's at a time, which is hardly a substitute for a DVD collection. I don't think Netflix is "solving hte problem completely." It seems like a video on demand service that made "every movie available at every time" might be a more complete solutioni, and one we'll see someday, I bet. The solution would be provided more completely without you having to own and maintain (and upgrade!) DVD's.

The article also talks about people "flipping" fast moving technology by selling items on eBay, such as iPods, when the latest and greatest comes out. Is there a "lean consumption" service possible that would manage your portfolio of tech devices for you, even transferring data between them? What if, instead of buying an iPod, you contracted a monthly fee to always have the latest and greatest iPod, and that company automatically put all of your music (and now video?) on there for you? Instead of $399 for an iPod, would you pay $20 a month over a 3-year period to always have the latest and greatest? Somebody might. Maybe it's cell phones or PDA's or PC's, but there's something to think about.

Exiting Ford Field - The Implication of Design on Flow

Well, the Lions almost did it. The offence was ugly, painful for even the most die hard of Lions fans to stomach. The defense was sensational however, and they were able to keep the team in the game right up until the last 30 seconds. The game was lost when Carolina scored and the Lions were unable to convert on their last drive. No surprise for most, but it did pose a new challenge for the fans.

Not only were the fans forced to reconcile their disappointment with their 'love to hate' team, but they also had to find a way to negotiate their way out of a mostly full stadium. The close game had kept most fans in their seats to the end, deferring the usual slow trickle of fans leaving throughout the 4th Quarter. The poor play of the Lions did not serve its usual function of relieving pedestrian congestion on the way out.

I'm commenting without any hard stats, but I'm sure most Detroiters will agree that this is likely the first such occurrence in the short history of Ford Field. Complicating the situation even further, Wireless Giant was giving out T-shirts just outside the stadium.

As I moved through the 'herd' and listened to the heckling of the crowd I was surprised at how quickly the subject of jokes and jibes shifted from the performance of quarterback Joey Harrington to the terrible layout of exit paths from the stadium.

Fans from both the upper & lower decks converged at one large curved exit with several doors facing a number of directions around the curve from South to East. On top of trying to find and make their way to the free t-shirts, some fans exiting the South side doors needed to head East. Of course the inverse was also true as well as several people who weren't exactly sure which way they needed to head.

One sure lesson that can be taken from the slow moving mob of a mess that ensued is in the power of free t-shirts. The other lesson, more applicable to this discussion is how the flow was restricted by the physical layout of the stadium.

The same constraints can be seen in manufacturing environments. Physical layout is as critical an element when designing for one piece flow. Put quite simply, if there is no where to go you won't have flow - even if the next stage in the process is "pulling".

I can also think of several examples where the reverse is true and physical layout affects the efficiency of queuing processes. (like waiting to go through security on the way into the stadium!)

I wonder if there will be any lessons learned from yesterday's game that will help Super bowl organizers before the Big Game in Detroit this February? Of course this assumes that there is a continuous improvement mindset and that their view of customer satisfaction includes time after the game when beer concessions are closed.

"Perptual Improvement" for Solectron

MercuryNews.com | 10/16/2005 | Electronics maker Solectron adopts Toyota's laser-like focus on perpetual improvement

Here is another story about Solectron's lean journey. The phrase "perpetual improvement" struck me. The phrase "continuous improvement", of course, is the commonly used term. I wonder if Solectron people used that or if the reporter, not knowing anything about lean, chose those words.

Either way, I sort of like "perpetual improvement." It has the same "ongoing" ring to it as "continuous" does. But, the idea of a perpetual motion machine is intriguging to me. If you have an effective continuous improvement, shouldn't it be self sustaining and perpetual, somewhat self-fueling? If your employees are making contributions and being recognized for it, that should tend to drive more of that same behavior.

Most "kaizen" or "continuous improvement" efforts usually start out well. But something kills the momentum (the list is long, but lack of leadership or inconsistent leadership are among the top reasons). How can you make your improvement efforts truely "perpetual"???

Beyond the headline, the article is worth reading too! An excerpt:

Conversations around Solectron have been laced with Japanese terms ever since Marc Onetto, executive vice president for worldwide operations, arrived on the scene. Onetto is a former protege of Jack Welch at General Electric and a true believer in Toyota's kaizen approach to manufacturing. He joined Solectron in 2002 after 15 years at GE in the medical equipment division.

``We're trying to make the supply chain responsive to the customer, which is really hard in the electronics industry,'' said Onetto, 54. ``There's a tendency to stockpile components in warehouses and write them off when they're not wanted. But kaizen is all about eliminating waste and accelerating the supply chain.''

Standard Work for Baseball Umpires??

Ump Reflects on Controversial ALCS Call:

If you don't know now what happened at the end of the Angels/White Sox game two, the game story is here.

What's amazing to me is that baseball umpires are given so much personal leeway in how they call a game. It reminds me of hearing people in a factory say "well, it's easier for me to do it this way" instead of adhering to standard work practices. Much of the confusion on this play came from how the umpire gestured, somewhat weakly, leading to confusion over whether he only called "strike 3" or also called the batter out.

"Eddings said he planned to change his style to more clearly reflect the difference between calling a strike and calling a batter out.

Mike Port, baseball‘s vice president of umpiring, told The Associated Press on Thursday that Eddings did nothing wrong and that umpires are not required to audibly call 'No catch.'"

I can't believe a major umpire is allowed to have "a style." "His" style was unclear to everyone watching, which is a major weakness in his performance as an umpire.

The NFL does a great job, for the most part, of turning its referees into "robots" who do things the same way (except for the occasional enthuasiastic "first down!" call). Major League Baseball has been working for a long time on trying to standardize the strike zone, with mixed results.

It seems like MLB and the umpires could spend all winter hammering out their "standard work" to prevent problems like this in the future. A key lean manufacturing tenet is that all communication and visual controls should be "clear and unambiguous". That wasn't the case here, is that the case in your factory? At least you don't have millions watching on TV!

By the way, check out the "Management by Baseball" blog, interesting reading.

Blue Collar Urban Legends

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Business (Blue Collar Innovation)

The snopes.com website is the authoritative source for urban legends and debunking those internet rumors that go around. Here, they have a collection of factory type urban legends about people at the lowest level of an organization who make amazing suggestions for the company, the "why didn't I think of that?" variety.

This is fun reading, but it's also a good reminder to think about getting full participation from your employees. That doesn't necessarily mean a formal "suggestion program", but rather getting out there (as an engineer or manager) and listening to your employees. How many of your problems could be fixed by listening to the expert who's out there every day as opposed to a high-priced Six Sigma black belt who will study the problem for months on end?

There's much untapped potential in our organizations, let's figure out how to bring it out.

5 Second Takt Time for New Dell Plant

BetterProcess Podcast and Blog: PC every 5 seconds...



Thanks to the BetterProcess blog for this article. The new Dell factory in NC is talking about 5 second takt times, then eventually 2.5 second takt times. Well, they don't say "takt." That's a whole other discussion on "is Dell lean" or "is Dell a TPS company?" Let's leave that for another day.

Dell isn't like a car plant, with a single line. A 5-second takt time doesn't mean that standard work is divided up among workers in 4-5 second increments on a moving line. Dell uses quite a few parallel lines for kitting parts and parallel build stations for actually assembling the PC's. It's impressive, but it's not like a high-speed automated line that moves that fast.

What is impressive, however, is pulling the material necessary to build more than 10,000 PC's in a day. Again, we can argue if it's "lean" to have suppliers stage two weeks' of material just outside the factory. The new Lean Solutions book has an interesting (and accurate) discussion of Dell, are they "lean" or not. Maybe I'll discuss that another day.

Luke, Welcome to the Blog

You may have noticed in the post below that we have a new posting member of the Lean Manufacturing Blog, Luke. We have a mutual acquaintence in the lean world and I've invited him to contribute to the blog. He is now the third member, including myself and Mark Edmondson. I'm happy to have different voices and perspectives on the blog and hope it continues to grow.

Industry Competitiveness: Where Do We Stand?

Here's an interesting editorial commenting on the position of the US in the latest Global Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum that I found particularly interesting.

Industry Competitiveness: Where Do We Stand?

At the very outset of the article, the author is quick to point to increased productivity in US factories through the employment of automation and Lean Manufacturing as the problem for American workers. This started me thinking about the implications of implementing lean considering only short term goals. Are North American laborers facing increasing layoffs and huge cuts to pay and benefits because increases in productivity have striped away their jobs or have we not planned ahead effectively enough to employ these resources to grow the business? It just seems so foolish to not have a plan.

There are some good links to the Global Competitiveness Report and some other sources at the end of the article.

Profit Comparison - Toyota vs. "Big 3"

I was pulling this data together for a lean overview presentation that I'm doing. This quote, from a Toyota handbook, helps illustrate that Toyota, for all of its high-minded goals and purpose, is in business to make money.
“The Toyota Production System is a framework of concepts and methods for enhancing corporate vitality. It enables companies to achieve continual gains in productivity while satisfying customers’ expectations for quality and prompt delivery.”

Toyota net income was just over $10B USD. (click on graph for a better image).