No. The claim that “Lean is for speed and Six Sigma is for quality” misrepresents both methodologies. Lean — based on the Toyota Production System — improves safety, quality, delivery, cost, and morale (SQDCM) together, with built-in quality (jidoka) as…
Ford spends roughly $100,000 a year on each of its first-line production supervisors. The title on the job posting is “Process Coach” – language borrowed directly from Lean thinking. The role description talks about Sounds great, right? Online job board…
The Real Lesson from Japan Wasn’t Tools — It Was Trust and Listening TL;DR: When a group of Ford and UAW leaders traveled to Japan in 1981, they went looking for secrets — faster machines, tighter processes, smarter tools. What…
TL;DR: I learned SQDC the hard way at GM–first under cost- and throughput-obsessed leadership, then from a NUMMI-trained plant manager who showed me why safety and quality must come first if you want performance (and cost) to truly improve. Two…
The following material was cut from my latest book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. It just didn’t fit the flow of how the book turned out. You’ll hear a story from one of…
I absolutely loved the first season of the show “Ted Lasso” (available streaming through Apple TV+). If you’re not familiar, here is a preview: Unlike my “Lean Whiskey” collaborator Jamie Flinchbaugh, I don’t follow soccer, a.k.a. football — American MLS,…
Jay Hodge taught the Toyota Production System at a General Motors stamping plant in Indiana — then got a call from Toyota asking him to come work for them. In this episode, he shares what he learned about lean culture,…
Lesa Nichols worked closely with Hajime Oba at Toyota’s Supplier Support Center (TSSC) and later became a production manager at Toyota’s powertrain plant in Georgetown, Kentucky. In this episode, she shares lessons from Mr. Oba on overburden, learning from mistakes,…
The other day, I stumbled across an old article that I remember, as it was published in the Wall Street Journal in 2004. The WSJ normally has a paywall, but this article is old enough that it’s free to the…
Recently, I blogged about a quality catastrophe that I lived through at GM just over 20 years ago, at the now-closed GM Livonia Engine Plant.
Bluntly, the quality problems were caused by poor management and the side effects of their decisions. Even though they constantly blamed workers, management directly interfered with workers and engineers being able to do the right thing for quality.
Here is Part 2 of that story... the first quality "spill" took place in April 1996. As I wrote about last time, Angry high-horse memos were sent out by management. Workers were told to have pride and to pay closer attention to quality (as if those had been the problems).
My first job out of college was as an Industrial Engineer at the General Motors Livonia Engine Plant. Blogging didn't exist then (I didn't even have email or internet access at work) or I might have started my writing career then. Oh, the stories. I've shared some of them on this blog over time.
I've blogged about papers from the Don Ephlin files, a former UAW national leader. I have my own small collection of documents and artifacts from my days at GM that I thought to keep in a folder. I still have that folder today.
A few of these memos tell the story of a quality and productivity death spiral that eventually led to our plant manager being replaced. And, by "replaced," I don't mean fired or given an early retirement. He was, at least in title, PROMOTED to a role at GM Powertrain headquarters. Thankfully, the new plant manager, Larry Spiegel, was one of the original "NUMMI commandos" and he made a huge difference to the plant and to me, personally.
Last week, a nurse manager downloaded the free first chapter of my book Lean Hospitals and wrote this message in the contact form:
"Interested to see how the disconnect between management and the staff supervised can be helped. Too many managers refuse to help those they supervise. A growing number have never done the work that they are in charge of getting done. Patients and residents feel it, not healthy. Poor PR. It does get back to the consumer. Difficult to fix at that point."
In my experience working with many hospitals, her comments resonate with me. Identifying problems like these doesn't mean Lean provides easy solutions for organizational transformation.
