HeraldNet: Leaning on a role model:
Another lean transformation snapshot story:
“Three years ago, Buck Knives was manufacturing the old way, using long, specialized assembly lines that resulted in the need to store large amounts of partially completed knives that were not yet ready to be shipped or sold. This unusable inventory – work in progress – had a considerable amount of labor invested, took up floor space and needed to be tracked.
Buck Knives was introduced to lean manufacturing by its executive vice president of operations, Phil Duckett, and began to transform its lumbering, inventory-laden, inefficient assembly lines into a quicker system.”
I like how the CEO is quoted calling it a “philosophy” (hopefully, he is coming to believe in it), not just some cost-cutting tools.
I hope the CEO also truly embraces this:
Many of these solutions are about enabling those who do the work. “One of the goals of a lean organization is to push down the ability to say, ‘Yes',” Buck said. “The closer the decision can come to the person doing the work, the more efficient the process.”
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Mark's new book is The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation.
He is also the author of Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More, the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, and the anthology Practicing Lean.
Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus.