Last week, I posted about Deming's 14 points and I got an interesting question from a blog reader, Brian:
I found # 10 confounding: "Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets."
Slogans are sometimes used to communicate change. While they are just a tiny ingredient in a large recipe for communicating change, they can be effective.
We use targets in our Lean improvement workshops so the team can measure their success at the end of the week.
Is Deming really for eliminating these or am I not understanding his intent? Are some of our Lean practices in opposition to his principles?
Here is my take on it, based on my experience and study of Dr. Deming's teachings. First thought is that when I visited NUMMI in 2005, I saw a lot of large banners with slogans, including their annual Quality Slogan. I thought this was surprising, considering the influence Deming had on Toyota, but someone explained that slogans are OK as long as they aren't "empty slogans." I would never put up signs during a hospital Lean project that exhort people, "Quality is YOUR responsibility." No, it's management's responsibility. We have to improve systems, not exhort people.
I agree that slogans and sayings can be helpful. One team I'm working with now has really embraced the expression, "Don't let best get in the way of better." We don't have it on signs all over the place. Is it a slogan? I guess. Is it bad, I don't think so, since the expression encourages them to take a PDCA approach, try something and see how it works, rather than obsessing over a perfect solution.
Now for targets... my take is that targets and measures for improvement are a good thing. I consider them "goals" more than "targets" and I think there's more to that than the choice of words.
For example, in a project, we expect to improve testing Turnaround Time from XX hours to XX minutes, based on analysis of the process and knowing how much waste there is. Tracking the improvement goals isn't a bad thing. What would be bad is setting an absolute "you must hit this or be punished" target for a project team or staff. Setting quotas such as "you must draw blood from 10 patients per hour, or else" would be a very bad thing, something that Dr. Deming railed against.
What we're trying to avoid is the old "Management by Objectives" sins of managers just hitting targets and then waiting to see the results. We need managers involved in managing and improving the process, not just hitting targets that are often unrealistic. If you set quotas or targets and threaten punishment (or lack of reward) then people will distort the data or they will distort the system - something we really want to avoid.
I hope that helps. What are YOUR perspectives on the use of slogans and targets? I hope we can agree that exhortations are bad, right?
I didn't mean for this to become "beat up on the Detroit Three" week... this comes in waves. If you don't like these posts, my short-term focus on the auto industry will probably subside for a few months again.
Chrysler is crowing about efficiency gains -- matching Toyota. That may be true if you're looking at a single narrow metric -- direct labor hours per vehicle. This metric isn't a proxy for a company's overall financial performance, as the long-term profit and outlook gap between Chrysler and Toyota is huge.
Hours per vehicle (or hour per anything) is easily skewed. You can add automation (which might cost more) or you can outsource work to vendors, so it doesn't count. Don't get me wrong, efficiency is important, but it's not worth fixating on any single metric. You can improve hours per vehicle in positive ways -- by designing the cars so they can be built easier or through shopfloor "kaizen" efforts.
Chrysler LLC tied Toyota Motor Corp. as the most efficient automaker in North America, while General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. joined in virtually erasing the productivity gap between Detroit's Big Three automakers and their Asian rivals, according to the 2008 Harbour Report North America.
Matching Toyota's vaunted manufacturing efficiency stands in paradox to another report released this week showing Chrysler lagged the industry for initial quality -- even as Ford and GM made progress in that regard against Japanese companies.
That's why I would give the labor productivity news a big "Who Cares?" as a response. If Chrysler was doing so well with Lean (or the Chrysler Operating System), quality AND productivity would be improving together.
Chrysler says it's already rolled out quality-improvement initiatives so it can match its productivity gains. All three Detroit automakers are challenged to produce their vehicles in North America profitably -- something none achieved in 2007.
The fact that Chrysler focused on productivity and THEN rolled out quality initiatives... that seems like a bad sign. When I was at GM, circa 1996, we had a new NUMMI-trained plant manager. Our factory was at the bottom of the barrel, among powertrain parts makers, of productivity AND quality.
As a somewhat naive engineer, I asked the plant manager in a group meeting, "Which are we going to be focusing on first, quality or productivity??"
He answered in a very patient manner, "You can't separate the two. We'll be improving quality AND productivity. They go hand in hand. Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, you improve them all with these [Lean] methods."
I put "Lean" in brackets since that was a dirty word in GM at the time. We had to call it "competitive manufacturing" and we certainly couldn't call it TPS.
It's a shame Chrysler wasn't simultaneously catching up to Toyota's quality levels while they made isolated productivity gains.
I've been making my way through the book Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way at a regrettably slow pace. There's such good stuff in there... the chapter on "Servant Leadership" is outstanding. Page 320 includes a few statements/quotes that were "drilled into the minds and hearts of leaders at Toyota":
"The team member is the expert."
"Focus on the problem, not the person."
"Mistakes are okay as long as people learn from them."
"Take care of the people building the cars."
"You work for your team members."
So simple, so brilliant.... so hard to adopt if you just "don't get it" or "can't get it."
Is it that difficult compared to implementing Lean methods like "kanban"? It sure seems like it... if statements like those above seem wrong or rub you the wrong way, can you be successful with Lean? A subtitle for the chapter could have been, "Get your ego out of the way", don't you think?
Toyota's 40,000 factory workers in Japan are all engaged in kaizen, or continuous improvement, as a core part of the quality control (QC) activities.
No surprise there... Lean and kaizen are tightly linked concepts, they go hand in hand. But...
Prompted by a ruling over a death from overwork, Toyota Motor Corp. will pay full overtime to factory workers engaged in after-hour kaizen activities designed to improve efficiency and product quality, sources said.
Japan's top automaker now pays compensation only for up to two extra hours a month because it considers employees are engaged voluntarily in kaizen activities.
But the company decided Wednesday to regard kaizen as part of the workers' job requirements and start paying allowances on June 1 to cover all activities done after hours, the sources said.
It's kind of hard to reconcile Toyota's "respect for people" concept with the idea of not paying employees overtime for working on kaizen activity. I certainly can't claim to be an expert on Japanese business culture, so maybe somebody can enlighten us a bit on how this had been an accepted practice?
Toyota considered it "voluntary," however:
Some employees and their families have said the workers are effectively forced to engage in QC activities because the results and achievements from the activities are included in their evaluations.
The article continues:
Toyota plans to encourage workers to review and simplify QC activities so that overtime work will not exceed two hours a month.
A senior Toyota official said the revision will inevitably push up labor costs.
So is Toyota asking employees to limit kaizen activity or to be more efficient in how they conduct it? Of course labor costs will go up, but I thought the point of kaizen was that the improvements should pay for themselves through quality improvement and cost savings... plus it develops the workforce. Does it seem a bit short-term focused to want to be limiting kaizen?
I'm not normally a reader of The New Yorker, but I thank Norman Bodek for pointing this out as we recorded a new podcast episode (to be released in a few weeks).
The article does a good job of relating Toyota to the "innovation" buzzword:
Calling Toyota an innovative company may, at first glance, seem a bit odd. Its vehicles are more liked than loved, and it is often attacked for being better at imitation than at invention. Fortune, which typically praises the company effusively, has labelled it “stodgy and bureaucratic.” But if Toyota doesn’t look like an innovative company it’s only because our definition of innovation—cool new products and technological breakthroughs, by Steve Jobs-like visionaries—is far too narrow. Toyota’s innovations, by contrast, have focussed on process rather than on product, on the factory floor rather than on the showroom. That has made those innovations hard to see. But it hasn’t made them any less powerful.
With all due respect to Steve Jobs (I'm typing this on a MacBook), the Jobs/Apple story plays into the myth of the typical American CEO who "does it all." Innovation and brilliant ideas come from the top... big huge breakthrough ideas. For example, the Motorola CEO (Ed Zander) was given credit for developing the RAZR phone, even though the product was created before his arrival at the company (and of course there was a whole design team involved).
Normally, the media doesn't give enough respect to process and ordinary people. This article touches on "kaizen" and employee suggestions in a very clear way.
From the end of the article:
They’re also phenomenally difficult to duplicate. In part, this is because most companies are still organized in a very top-down manner, and have a hard time handing responsibility to front-line workers. But it’s also because the fundamental ethos of kaizen—slow and steady improvement—runs counter to the way that most companies think about change. Corporations hope that the right concept will turn things around overnight. This is what you might call the crash-diet approach: starve yourself for a few days and you’ll be thin for life. The Toyota approach is more like a regular, sustained diet—less immediately dramatic but, as everyone knows, much harder to sustain. In the nineteen-nineties, a McKinsey study of companies that had put quality-improvement programs in place found that two-thirds abandoned them as failures. Toyota’s innovative methods may seem mundane, but their sheer relentlessness defeats many companies. That’s why Toyota can afford to hide in plain sight: it knows the system is easy to understand but hard to follow.
I think the article really nailed it. Be sure to visit the link at the top of the posting for the full article.
Prof. Jeffrey Liker keynoted a Lean event in Oklahoma and is quoted as saying:
Maybe the cowboy and the samurai best illustrate the chasm between Eastern and Western corporate cultures, author Jeffrey Liker offered Thursday during the Southwestern Lean Conference.
The cowboy is identified as an iconoclast, the epitome of self reliance and going his own road, he said, while the samurai is all about serving the boss and working as part of the team.
"They're pretty different," Liker, author of the "The Toyota Way" and other books about the company, said of the contrasting cultural views. "This is a big challenge for the West."
What do you think about that? Are we incurable "cowboys" (and cowgirls) here in the West?
Anyway, I'm not trying to start a "Liker v Bodek" battle, but it's an interesting contrast in perspectives.
Liker made some other excellent points:
"When you have a quality problem, it's almost always a management problem," Liker said.
This is true in factories or hospitals. Rather than blaming individuals, we have to look at the system and the processes that could have led to the error. Good reactions include error proofing, not just blaming or punishing people.
He also talked about leadership, again contrasting East v. West:
Managers under the lean manufacturing system must constantly adapt to change and need time to quietly analyze problems before choosing paths. Toyota also provides management mentors who guide their proteges directly for years at a time.
Managers who buy into the Toyota way understand the Western and Eastern contrasts more clearly and are able to bridge the two sides, Liker noted. For instance, the Western view sees the world as logical and even tamable, while the East believes the world is still partially concealed, threatening and something that forces personal adaptation.
What are your thoughts and experiences with this? Toyota is able to train Western managers and workers to work under their model and system... is this East v. West? Or is it like Dr. Deming said, "people will work under any system..."?
I'm by no means an expert on Japanese or Eastern culture... I do realize there are differences, but does talking about the differences give people in the West an excuse to say "we're not Japanese, so we can't do this"??
Interesting read here in the latest issue of Fast Company about a hospital in Thailand and one of the visionaries, Ruben Toral, who wants to globalize healthcare. The idea of patients flying halfway around the world for elective surgeries, taking advantage of lower labor rates, isn't exactly new.
"For someone such as Toral, the hypertrophied medical-industrial complex is just begging for a dose of disruptive innovation. He calls his vision the "Toyota-ization of health care," a metaphor so vast that it contains multiple readings, some fit for industry conferences and others he'll cop to only in confidence."
I'm not really sure what he means by that, Toyota-ization. Maybe one analogy is to compare the current American hospital industry to the Big Three automakers in the 1970's? Toyota, Honda, and others brought new competition to the market, bringing better quality AND lower costs. Much as the Big Three didn't believe you could have high quality and low cost (many thought Toyota was "dumping" products illegally below cost i the U.S.), you often have people in healthcare who don't believe you can have high quality and low cost.
There's often a mindset that healthcare is immune to "offshoring." Not that I'm advocating the practice of shipping people halfway around the world for medical care, but it will be interesting to see if this creates a crisis -- creating competition that creates more of a need for change. This can maybe spur improvements in quality AND cost in U.S. healthcare? These "medical tourism" hospitals are supposedly very clean and safe, run to very high standards.
"In order to ensure continuity of care," he goes on, "you'll never leave the system. What could be better than telling an American patient they're going overseas to an American-owned hospital? They're going to discover the same supply-chain advantages Toyota did when it created just-in-time manufacturing. We're going to have the same thing -- just-in-time patients. Hospitals are not going to spend any more money or any more time in the movement of that patient through the system than is necessary. They're going to get the patient in, get them on that global platform, and get them back. Now, how do they do that in a fast, efficient way where quality is kept, efficiency is gained, and prices don't go up? It's classic manufacturing and logistics."
The supply chain efficiency he describes sounds like local efficiency -- the idea of reducing waste reducing waste (eliminating patient flow time that is more "than is necessary"). But what about the supply chain at the global level? Toyota's approach is to be close to the customers. This approach, shipping customers halfway around the world, seems more like the notion of building product in China, shipping it halfway around the world. That's not necessarily Lean. Wouldn't it count as more movement than necessary, getting on a plane from Texas and flying to Thailand?
Toyota builds factories close to their customers (as evidenced by their North American expansion). Wouldn't a truly Lean medical model involve high quality care close to the customer, without waste or unnecessary time or expense? Flying everyone to Asia doesn't seem like a root cause solution to our problems with healthcare costs and quality.
It's interesting to think about, this global "patient chain." What would happen if the only care provided here in the U.S. were true emergency care? What if anything planned or non-emergent were being done in high-quality facilities in low-cost countries?
I'm not sure what it is, but I'm not sure it's "Lean" or something worth invoking the name of Toyota for, as Toral does. What do you think - about medical tourism, in general, or the somewhat shaky association to Toyota?
It's kind of neat to see a column about the "5 whys" method in a general business publication (link above). The consultant and professor in the article gives proper credit to Toyota and Taiichi Ohno, but curiously calls it the "Japanese Manufacturing Technique" (as if that's a proper name). I've near heard that phrase... something he coined rather than just "Lean Manufacturing" or the "Toyota Production System?"
Anyway, the article gives a good example of a 5 Whys analysis from Ohno. In my experience, 5 Whys is hardly ever that neat and tidy (you can hit some dead ends or have multiple branches in the answers), but you can get some real breakthroughs.
Going through a 5 Whys exercise with a hospital group once, we asked "Why are hand hygiene practices not followed 100% of the time?" One real breakthrough was a comment "Our hands and arms are full when leaving a patient room sometimes." We asked why that was, and kept asking why -- turns out that carts were not always available, so the follow up would be a 5S initiative around proper storage locations for carts and having the discipline to keep them there. Instead of browbeating nurses for not washing, our job was to make it easier for them to do the right thing. We thought that was good problem solving -- or more effective than hanging more signs at least.
The linked article also talks about some of the downsides of asking why, especially if you're challenging technical experts or "lords," as he calls them. People can get defensive. You really have to watch your tone of voice when asking why. I've found it's better to ask "Why is it that...." instead of "Why do YOU..." because people take the latter as direct criticism.
Asking "why?" in private or 1x1 can also be less embarrassing than asking someone in front of a group. You always have to be aware of politics and sensitivity. Most of us aren't an Ohno, being comfortable yelling or screaming at someone.
What are your experiences with the 5 Whys, good or bad?
Here is LeanBlog Podcast #41 with Dr. Jeffrey Liker, Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan. Dr. Liker is most recently the co-author (with Michael Hoseus) of Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way and many other books, which can be found here on amazon.com. This is part 3 of our recent series. Today, we talk about the development of managers within a Lean organization.
For earlier episodes, visit the main Podcast page, which includes information on how to subscribe via RSS or via Apple iTunes.
You can use the player (use the VCR-type controls) below to listen to a "streaming" version of the podcast (or click here for the streaming audio and RSS subscription). The streaming link is faster for one-time listening (hardly any delay to start listening). Or you can use the download link to put it on your iPod or other MP3 player.
From a listener: Many companies shift managers around almost constantly. How does Toyota develop their managers in a way that helps encourage "respect for people?"
Other companies where Toyota can find similar leaders: NUMMI, Subaru
Developing vs hiring leaders -- does your culture just evolve or do you teach the culture?
3 years is typically the rule of thumb for how long a manager should be in place, more important, though, is who is there in the workgroup who provides leadership? Is there someone to pick up the leadership gap if one person leavfes?
Toyota does rotate leaders to develop people
With the "quality people value stream," you should be developing people every day
One of the most fascinating trends out of there is the spread of Toyota folks into other old-line automakers or parts suppliers -- Gary Convis, Jim Press, and Jim Farley, to name three. What impact can they have outside of Toyota? It remains to be seen and it's a story worth following. How much impact can one man have on the culture of an entire organization, even if they're at the top?
The big news this week was the hiring of retired Toyota executive Gary Convis as CEO at Dana, a parts maker and auto supplier. Convis is one of my favorite role models and examples of Lean leadership. Even though Dana has had some success with Lean practices (including some Shingo Prizes), it didn't save the company from bankruptcy.
Toledo automobile-components supplier Dana Corp. will announce Thursday the hiring of longtime Toyota Motor Corp. manufacturing whiz Gary Convis as its new chief executive.
I'd argue that "manufacturing whiz" only scratches the surface of his leadership talent. When you see quotes from Convis like this (from previous articles):
•
“You respect people, you listen to them, you work together. You don’t blame them. Maybe the process was not set up well, so it was easy to make a mistake.”
That type of mindset and leadership should translate well to an entire company. Will Convis be able to stem the tide of traditional blaming and strict top-down leadership? Will Convis be able to spread the "respect for people" philosophy throughout Dana? Will he have the runway to be able to do that? Or will Wall Street and the investors want short-term focus? Will Convis be able to live the Toyota Way? Will he even try, given this is Dana?
Back to the WSJ article, it gives the required analyst quote, for whatever dubious value they add to the conversation:
Lehman Brothers automotive analyst Brian Johnson said the paring of Mr. Convis with Mr. Devine should give the company a management team that is capable of strengthening relations with customers and Wall Street.
He said Mr. Convis's immediate challenge is "delivering the performance improvement" and driving the company "to a leaner manufacturing philosophy."
Well, duh, of course Convis is supposed to help improve performance. You might think, from his choice of words, that this analyst doesn't understand the Lean approach. "Leaner?" Lean isn't an end point, it's a philosophy and a business system. What does "leaner" mean? That Dana will have MORE of a long-term focus than Toyota? What the heck does that mean? It would be more accurate to say something like "driving the company to more fully implement the lean manufacturing methods and philosophies." Or how else would you put it?
Either way, I hope Convis is wildly successful at Dana. That would be a nice data point to prove that the Toyota Production System works well in other companies.
The second related story is about Jim Farley and his move from Toyota to Ford. It's a fascinating profile - we learn, among other things, that he is a cousin of the departed comedian Chris Farley (there is a passing resemblance).
More importantly, Farley shares his passion for Ford and his drive to help save the company.
Now Farley isn't leading change from the top, but he can influence the culture. Hopefully, he can bring the customer obsession from Toyota:
Mr. Farley rode the fast track at Toyota. He moved to Europe in 1995 and helped introduce versions of the Yaris minicar and the Corolla compact. He also became obsessed with what cars people drove and why.
“I used to walk parking lots all the time, all over Europe,” he said. “When I’m in a new situation, my formula is to really find the truth in things, to observe and get close to the truth.”
The truth, as he saw it at Toyota, was all about the customer — unlike at some other automakers that let executives dictate what cars to build.
“One of the many things that Toyota does really, really well is that it can put the voice of the customer right there at the table in front of the chairman of the company, in a way that even he can’t change it,” he said.
Farley learned to go to the "gemba," to actually observe and talk with customers. This is a long-standing pattern in Toyota (including the stories of Japanese employees coming to the U.S. to drive minivans across the continent to understand customer needs here).
It also sounds like he will open up channels of communication:
“At Ford, it was like the boss was always right,” he said. “But it is fascinating how quickly the people I work with were able to shift to where they had their own opinions and expressed them.”
Tie that back to the Convis quote. Convis is a servant leader. He listens to his employees. That's the magic. I hope that's what they can both help bring to Dana and Ford. If it can work there, it can work anywhere.
When I first read this headline, I misread it, thinking it was about the "fear of inventory" (something that seems like a Lean concept... not being sure how being afraid of inventory would kill innovation).
Turns out, the book's concept is that some companies fall in love with their products (the way an inventor might tend to do). This love for their product (or pride in their own inventing ability) can blind them to the market or to feedback - they cannot see the need for improvement. Interesting concept, but this portion stood out:
"Q: How does the Toyota Production System weed out Inventoritis?
A: Toyota's system is a consistent set of processes and principles applied over a long period of time. These 'lean' methods serve to reduce inventoritis and its downsides.
One aspect of the Toyota Production System is the idea of eliminating and not just reducing waste. In the traditional U.S. manufacturing system, the production line has slack built into it so that there is extra time and production line materials and resources available to ensure that the line stays running. In the Toyota system, there generally is not. There is obviously little or no tolerance for the waste that comes from people infected with inventoritis being able to influence the innovation process.
Toyota also has a very good knowledge management system. There are systems at the company for constructively gathering feedback from anyone and everyone throughout the organization, processing the information and applying it to the manufacturing process. Part of this stems from Toyota's deep respect for its people, one of the main pillars of the Toyota Production System."
I'm having trouble seeing the connection between what sounds like "inventory"-itis" in that second paragraph and the topic of the book. I think their main point about Toyota is that they have effective mechanisms for getting feedback from EVERYONE in the organization, not just executives. So maybe the idea is that Toyota is not in love with their production system in a way that blinds them to opportunities to improve?
One other quote from the author was interesting - he says you should "assume your product or idea is terrible." Toyota is often their own worst critic. Internally, the embrace the open discussion of ideas and problems, which is the first stage in problem solving and improvement. Most companies have a culture where problems are hidden and discussion is suppressed -- since making problems visible doesn't fit with their view that the company must be "perfect."
How do you interpret that article or the ties to Toyota and its production system or Lean?
Here is LeanBlog Podcast #39, once again featuring Dr. Jeffrey Liker, Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan. Dr. Liker is most recently the co-author (with Michael Hoseus) of Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way and many other books, which can be found here on amazon.com. This is part 2 of what will be a 3-part podcast series, so be sure to check back. Today, we talk about some of the challenges that organizations face in trying to adopt a Lean Culture.
For earlier episodes, visit the main Podcast page, which includes information on how to subscribe via RSS or via Apple iTunes.
You can use the player (use the VCR-type controls) below to listen to a "streaming" version of the podcast (or click here for the streaming audio and RSS subscription). The streaming link is faster for one-time listening (hardly any delay to start listening). Or you can use the download link to put it on your iPod or other MP3 player.
Will Dr. Liker be writing more about companies who have gone through the Lean culture transformation, examples other than Toyota, ala his earlier book, Becoming Lean: Inside Stories of U.S. Manufacturers?
Bob Emiliani's book on Wiremold: Better Thinking, Better Results Case Study and Analysis of an Enterprise-Wide Lean Transformation
Why is it so hard to find examples of companies that have really adopted a Lean culture?
Thoughts on the impact of top American leaders departing Toyota (Jim Press and Gary Convis)
If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at leanpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the "Lean Line" at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id "mgraban". Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast.
I heard an interesting quote a while back (and I can't remember the source!). The speaker said something to the effect of:
"The more we try to copy Toyota, the less Toyota-like we are becoming."
In my Lean career, I've heard so many stories of companies copying Toyota or doing something because they read it in a book. A friend recently told me the story of a company that implemented U-shaped assembly lines, "because that's Lean." When pressed for more of an explanation, he couldn't get one.
My friend (who is very experienced with Lean from other companies) then explained to them how a U-shaped cell is particularly handy when a single operator is running multiple machines... but this company had stationary assembly employees (that weren't balanced anywhere near Takt time).
That shape and layout might also be a benefit for a single supervisor to help a team that's located inside the U, for improved communication, but this company's supervisors were in meetings and their office most of the time. So what was the benefit? Why spend the money re-configuring the line?
When you copy, you're more likely to miss the mark than you are if you actually think through situations yourself. That's why Toyota execs like calling TPS the "Thinking Production System." There's no substitute for thinking, learning from experience, and PDCA... but too many companies want quick answers and copied solutions.
I always challenge my Lean client teams with a few ideas. First, quit asking "What does Lean say we should do about....?" Lean doesn't say anything. Lean is a set of concepts and principles that we have to think through. I've often said, "A U-shaped layout is the best thing, unless it is not." You have to think about it and consider different alternatives. What Would Toyota Do? Think!
Another thing I challenge them with is always being able to explain "why" we are doing something. "What problem are we solving?" should be the focus, not "What Lean tool are we implementing?"
There are no easy answers, just thinking, and Plan-Do-Check-Act. I guess that's one reason why I never get bored with this stuff.
"Lean Manufacturing has us analyzing process flow and delay times at each activity within a process. And while Lean Manufacturing principles help speed things up, they don't really focus on quality control. Think of it as 'improving process speed.'"
It's a huge pet peeve of mine when people create the dichotomy that "Lean is about speed and Six Sigma is about quality." Hogwash.
Lean and the Toyota Production System are primarily quality-focused systems. Lean and TPS are focused on the waste of defects and rework and the methodology gives approaches for preventing errors and improving quality (poka yoke).
The "Toyota House" diagram's two pillars are Just-In-Time (flow and speed) and Jidoka (quality at the source). The two ideas are connected -- improving flow (in itself) ends up improving quality and improving quality improves flow.
If you hear someone say "Lean isn't about quality," it's tempting to tune them out as they don't know what they're talking about. Have some people implemented something they called "lean" in an environment that didn't care about quailty? Sure -- but that's not an indictment of the Toyota Production System.
The author I linked to DOES make some good points on a related topic about how you can't just rely on measurements. Deming made this point, that sometimes the important things CANNOT be measured (as opposed to the common misquoting of Deming supposedly saying "You can't manage what you can't measure." It's a good point that I don't often see made... but I almost quit reading when I read the false statement that unfairly characterized Lean.
Here is LeanBlog Podcast #37, once again featuring Dr. Jeffrey Liker, Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan. Dr. Liker is most recently the co-author (with Michael Hoseus) of Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way and many other books, which can be found here on amazon.com. This is part 1 of what will be a 3-part podcast series, so be sure to check back.
For earlier episodes, visit the main Podcast page, which includes information on how to subscribe via RSS or via Apple iTunes.
You can use the player (use the VCR-type controls) below to listen to a "streaming" version of the podcast (or click here for the streaming audio and RSS subscription). The streaming link is faster for one-time listening (hardly any delay to start listening). Or you can use the download link to put it on your iPod or other MP3 player.
In the book, seeing a "day in the life" of a Toyota supervisor.
Get a clearer picture of the "respect for people" principle throughout the book
Thoughts on implementing Lean the "wrong way."
If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at leanpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the "Lean Line" at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id "mgraban". Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast.
Here's a recent article on Toyota's globalization -- how to grow and spread The Toyota Way quickly, yet effectively as they expand around the world.
“It’s extremely important to have the same common Toyota Way infiltrated to employees in all corners of the world,” said Katsuaki Watanabe, the company’s president. “But on the other hand, in each corner of the world, in each region, there are inherent characteristics that need to be respected.”
One thing that I found interesting was the illustrations of how Toyota uses innovative technologies for training employees in doing quality work:
Such training is essential in places like China, where Toyota found that some of its newest employees had never driven the cars they were hired to build.
At Motomachi, more than 3,000 tasks on the assembly line have been translated into video manuals that are displayed on laptop computers above 30 simulated workstations, situated where their functions would be carried out inside the factory.
The videos show everything from the correct way to hold a screw to the best way to hold an air gun so that a worker’s hand will not tire in a few hours.
I think it illustrates how the Toyota Production System evolves. I've had people insist before that Toyota does standardized work instructions with paper and pencil -- therefore, everybody should. It sounds like the Toyota of the past did that... why should anyone copy their own methods exactly, instead of progressing with new technologies (such as video). Toyota isn't stuck in their own past, why should we be?
There's also a story in there about how Toyota has moved to "kitting," the practice of delivering a tote of parts for a specific vehicle instead of storing many parts line side, to be selected by employees. A side benefit is that older employees, who are still guaranteed in Japan, can perform less strenuous material handling jobs while younger employees can do the assembly work more quickly.
I'm Jason Turgeon, the newest addition to the Lean Blog team. Mark and I have had an email dialog going for a few months about the intersection of green and lean, and he's invited me to post on the topic. So over the next couple of months, I'll try to put about one post a week up discussing the link between these two topics, which are intrinsically linked at many levels.
But first, a brief introduction. My interest in lean comes from a lifelong fascination with innovation and improving systems. Before I discovered lean thinking, I made a nuisance of myself at many jobs, where I continually disrupted my bosses with constant suggestions for improvement and a somewhat over-the-top willingness to ask "why?" Now that I have the tools of lean to channel my energy into, I think I'm a good deal more effective in my daily efforts to make everything around me just a little bit more effective, but I am by no means an expert in lean systems. Lean is something I'm new to and I'm enjoying learning about it and looking forward to the chance to apply it.
I have a BS in Environmental Geology from Northeastern University in Boston, where I live. I work for the US Environmental Protection Agency, where I specialize in improving energy efficiency at drinking water and sewage treatment plants. EPA has done a fair amount of work to link green and lean, although it hasn't really caught on inside the agency yet. The agency is looking at lean both from a manufacturing perspective and with an eye to making government itself more efficient. I also run Textbook Revolution, a website I started in college to combat the ludicrously high prices of textbooks. The textbook game is another old world industry that could really benefit from some lean thinking, but that's a whole 'nother topic. I'm also a big fan of live music, and I write on the growing movement to green the music industry at GreenBase, the green blog of JamBase.com.
Subaru and Zero Landfill Status:
So now that you know who I am, let's dive in. This week's focus is on an article in the Feb 18th USA Today that Mark alerted me to. The article describes the efforts of a Subaru plant in Lafayette, Indiana, to eliminate waste from the factory, a quest known as "zero landfill status," and discusses several other companies doing the same thing. Of course, the elimination of waste is one-half of what lean is all about, so this fits in perfectly. The article quotes Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott:
Wal-Mart CEO Scott set a zero-waste goal for the cost-conscious retailer in 2005. "Think about it," he said at the time. "If we have to throw it away, we had to buy it first. So we pay twice. Once to get it, once to have it taken away."
To figure out how to eliminate waste, management took a page from the "go and see" playbook--they took all of the trash out of a dumpster and spread it out on the factory floor to get a sense of what they were throwing away. Then they went to work figuring out what could readily be recycled and what could be reused. They took steps to rightsize, like using a smaller roll of steel for parts that are stamped, reducing the leftover steel by over 100 pounds per car. Management also spent a lot of time designing systems to make recycling easier, like sorting all the plastic shrink-wrap together.
Subaru also went for the other aspect of lean--respect for people. The article says that the waste elimination program has reached "an almost religious fervor" among employees. Unfortunately, there is no discussion of just how the plant got this buy-in. In the same vein, the plant has worked extensively with its suppliers to coerce them into taking back reusable or recyclable materials. The styrofoam inserts that protect engine parts get used 5 times before they get recycled. And because many of their suppliers are close, often within an hour's drive, they are sending recyclables back in trucks that would have otherwise been empty, reducing waste in transportation as well.
"Old" and "New" Environmentalism
But what does all of this mean from an environmental perspective? To start answering that question, it helps to know that there are really two separate environmental camps out there, with dozens of splintered subfactions. The "old environmentalism," as I like to put it, was based on nagging and regulations. Old environmentalists are always pointing out what other people are doing wrong, begging government to pass more laws to restrict other people's behavior, and generally making life unpleasant for those around them. This is the group I work for. Old environmentalists are prone to saying things like, "if we could just convince every American to change one lightbulb to a compact fluorescent, we could save x, y, and z." To be brutally honest, it's not much fun to hang out with this group of people.
"New environmentalists," a group which I try very hard to be in, are much more closely aligned with lean thinkers. New environmentalists, inspired by books like Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution and Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, are constantly on the lookout for a better way to change the planet. Those of us in this camp would prefer to align economics and the environment, working withbusiness instead of trying to regulate it out of existence. Our arguments for government intervention tend to be at the more macroeconomic level, for instance suggesting that we redesign tax laws to punish wasteful behavior and reward good behavior. New environmentalists believe in the concept of "sustainability" not as a poorly-understood buzzword but as a way of life, a game-changing philosophy in which everything we do, everything we buy, everything we use contributes in a positive way to the world, both now and in the future.
Subaru: Reducing Waste but still Wasteful?
Getting back to the question of Subaru's waste-reduction, I think that old environmentalists are probably very happy about Subaru's work. Why look--they've eliminated almost 100% of their waste! They have a very high recycling rate! They've done what we asked, and saved money in the process!
But from a new environmentalist perspective, Subaru's work is only the first baby step towards true sustainability. It's a good step, to be sure, and the company deserves praise and recognition for it, but if they stop there, it's not good enough. From our perspective, the stuff in the dumpster is just the tip of the waste iceberg. Cars are perhaps the single most visible element of a wasteful, unsustainable lifestyle, and as such are emblemic of the larger societal shifts we need to see if we're going to avoid some pretty painful global collapses in the not-too-distant future.
Let's look at the waste that's left in the system three ways. At the more granular level, cars are still woefully inefficient. Even a Toyota Camry Hybrid (this plant makes Camrys for Toyota, but the article doesn't say if the Hybrid is one of them) only gets about 30 mpg in real world driving. As the authors of Natural Capitalism put it:
The contemporary automobile, after a century of engineering, is embarrassingly inefficient: Of the energy in the fuel it consumes, at least 80 percent is lost, mainly in the engine's heat and exhaust, so that at most only 20 percent is actually used to turn the wheels. Of the resulting force, 95 percent moves the car, while only 5 percent moves the driver, in proportion to their respective weights. Five percent of 20 per-cent is one percent- not a gratifying result from American cars that burn their own weight in gasoline every year.
Natural Capitalism devotes an entire chapter to a discussion of how to make the automobile more efficient at delivering the service we want--comfortable, safe, reliable transportation--while at the same time using less natural resources. They argue that using steel doesn't make any sense in a modern automobile. Steel, to them is a "monument." By switching to modern plastics and carbon fiber, we could have cars that are just as safe, just as fast, and much, much more efficient, without having to do anything involving hybrids or biodiesel or hydrogen. Consider:
The conventional car is heavy, made mostly of steel. It has many protrusions, edges, and seams that make air flow past it turbulently. Its great weight bears down on tires that waste energy by flexing and heating up. It is powered by an internal combustion engine mechanically coupled to the wheels. Completely redesigning cars by reconfiguring three key design elements could save at least 70 to 80 percent of the fuel it currently uses, while making it safer, sportier, and more comfortable. These three changes are:
1. making the vehicle ultralight, with a weight two to three times less than that of steel cars;
2. making it ultra-low-drag, so it can slip through the air and roll along the road several times more easily; and
3. after steps 1 and 2 have cut by one-half to two-thirds the power needed to move the vehicle, making its propulsion system "hybrid-electric."
As you can see, there is a lot of waste left in the car. But what about what happens to the car when its useful life is over? Today, most automobiles end up in a metals recycling facility, where they are crushed and shredded. The economically useful metals are sorted for recycling, and everything else--the seatbelts, the plastic dashboard, the steering wheel, all the leftovers, collectively known as "fluff"--is trucked to a landfill. Making cars more efficient is a fantastic first step, but efficiency isn't the only end goal. In Cradle-to-Cradle, the argument is that being less bad is not the same as being good. They say that reducing the amount of waste is not good enough. In a properly designed system, one that mimics nature, there is no such thing as "waste."
The "C-to-C" take on auto manufacturing would have the Subaru plant churning out cars that were designed not to be shredded at the end of their lives, but to be dissassembled and turned back into new cars. BMW long ago started designing for disassembly, making it easier to take cars apart and reuse their components. The next logical step would be to figure out how to turn these parts, say the body panels from one car, back into top-quality body panels on a new car with a minimum of energy. The auto manufacturer that does this will have a huge competitive advantage. Why stamp out new steel doors for each car, at tremendous environmental and financial cost, if you could have a plastic door that was reconditioned using an environmentally benign painting process and put back into service on a new car at a fraction of the cost of a new steel door?
The third take on the Subaru factory, and the most extreme, is that the factory shouldn't be producing cars at all. Automobiles, as I've said, are emblemic of waste and over-consumption. If the rest of the world suddenly starts looking like America, we're going to be in a lot of trouble, fast. This has already begun in China and India, where they began by modeling their vision of success on our ways. As car ownership has spiked, transportation and infrastructure headaches, air pollution, water pollution, the destruction of land for roads and parking lots, and all the other negatives that come from automobiles have also risen.
The mayor of Bogota made worldwide news when he made strides to take back the city streets from cars and give them to people (see the video at the end of this post for an inspirational look at how things could be better). Now there are hundreds of miles of real bike lanes and pedestrian avenues--not a stripe on the side of the road, but full lanes off-limits to cars, separated from auto traffic by vegetated buffers. And every Sunday and holiday, the city shuts off dozens more miles of road to cars, opening them up to cyclists and pedestrians.
The more extreme environmentalists would say that no matter how little waste goes to the landfill, the factory is inherently wasteful. They would prefer to see it transformed into a factory that produces clean, modern, efficient, and comfortable public transportation. It could be light rail or it could be a bus that becomes part of a really useful bus system, one that people enjoy riding, like the one that transformed Curitiba, Brazil. Or it could be something new, something that none of us have thought of yet. But even if you don't agree with that point of view, there is still plenty of room to eliminate waste, both in the design of the car and the cars disposition when its useful life is over.
So kudos to Subaru for taking the first steps on the path to sustainability. Let's see if the company can follow through.
It's disappointing when a publication with the wide audience of BusinessWeek misrepresents the Lean and Toyota Production System concepts. But hey, at least they really are a weekly publication, unlike our pals at IndustryWeek (sorry, haven't made that joke in a while).
The article talks about attempts by Chrysler, with the leadership of Jim Press, formerly of Toyota, to turn the business around. Unfortunately, the article equates "leaner" with getting smaller -- fewer models, fewer plants, and fewer dealers.
The sub-headline reads:
By cutting models and dealerships, Chrysler aims to be a leaner, more productive, and more profitable business
It's all talk of "eliminating redundancies." Sure, Toyota only has one minivan and doesn't compete with itself, unlike Chrysler who competes with their own Dodge. It might be very necessary for Chrysler to take those actions, but couldn't someone other than a Toyota person have figured that out? It's a similar struggle that GM has had, with divisions and dealers competing with each other (hence the death of the Oldsmobile brand).
It's too bad that the article didn't talk about attempts to further transform the Chrysler culture and workplace. They already had a pretty good Lean leader in Tom LaSorda, now they have another in Press. Is Chrysler going to do more to motivate their employees to participate in kaizen (continuous improvement)? Can Chrysler get more customer focused?
The article *does* talk about sacrificing short-term sales for the long-term sake of the company (again, something that GM has also struggled with). Do you think that's the influence of Press or, again, is that something that other leaders (such as Nardelli) could have come up with on their own? Principle #1 of "The Toyota Way" does focus on the long-term, even at the expense of the short-term.
Adopting the Toyota culture might not be enough to save a business like Chrysler... but it would also be interesting to hear if they're trying to make the organization operate more like Toyota. Who is writing about that? Anyone have any articles or links to share?
Chrysler can get as small as they want (or as small as the market requires)... but that's not going to turn them into Toyota.
at a regrettably slow pace. There's such good stuff in there... the chapter on "Servant Leadership" is outstanding. Page 320 includes a few statements/quotes that were "drilled into the minds and hearts of leaders at Toyota":
" and other books about the company, said of the contrasting cultural views. "This is a big challenge for the West." 
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Case Study and Analysis of an Enterprise-Wide Lean Transformation 
. This is part 1 of what will be a 3-part podcast series, so be sure to check back.
and 
, are constantly on the lookout for a better way to change the planet.