One core aspect of lean manufacturing is continuous improvement, or kaizen in Japanese. This concept emphasizes ongoing, incremental enhancements to processes, products, and services. Yet, there are commonly differences between how Toyota does kaizen and how the rest of the world does kaizen. These mostly relate to who does most of the kaizen activities. In Western companies, kaizen is usually driven by management. At Toyota, most of the improvement originates from and is handled on the shop floor. Let me explain…
Leadership
A Common Mistake in Doing Lean: Skipping the Details!
Lean manufacturing is a great set of philosophies and tools to improve your production system, or for that matter any kind of operational system. Yet, many supposed lean implementations fail. One of the various reasons for failure of a lean project is a lack of attention to detail. Let me explain:
The Soft Power of the Toyota Production System—Yokoten, Nemawashi, and More
When we are talking about lean manufacturing, we often focus on the tools like kanban, 5S, SMED, and many more. Sometimes, but harder to grasp, is the underlying culture and philosophy of continuous improvement and PDCA. Part of this culture is what you could call the soft power of the Toyota Production System. This is a form of decision making in contrast with the “hard power” more common in Western companies. Let’s have a look:
Training Within Industry—Second-Line Supervisor Job Instructions
Training Within Industry and its modules Job Instructions, Job Relations, and Job Methods are well known. But (thanks to Mark Warren) I just recently learned about another module: Job Instructions for Second-Line Supervisors (nowadays called managers). This is a hierarchy level higher, and the goal is to support and guide the shop floor supervisors on how to use job instructions. Let me dig deeper:
The Danger of Management by Numbers
One of the main hindrances for proper lean manufacturing is, in my view, management by numbers. While few managers actively do management by numbers, a quantitative measurement is still often preferred. The problem is if you can measure the cost but not the benefits of something…which often happens in lean manufacturing. Now let me rant a bit…
Adding Another Axis to the Qualification Matrix—Products
In my last two posts I talked about the qualification matrix, where you match the skills of your people to the skills needed for your business. This can be expanded with another axis, as for example the skills needed for certain products. This connects your people to your products through skills. It is also more useful for products where a single person assembles an entire product.
How to Use a Qualification Matrix
In my last post, I described how to build a qualification matrix (also skill matrix, competence matrix, or Q-Matrix). In this post I will go into more detail on how to use a qualification matrix. By itself, the qualification matrix is a pretty simple but useful tool. This post will help you to get the most out of it.
This is NOT Lean: Lean Staffing
In this post I would like to talk about another term that claims to be lean: lean staffing. It is NOT lean! It is an abomination. It is pretty much the opposite of what, in my opinion, lean stands for. It is a complete lack of respect for humanity. Let me explain you what it is, why it is terrible, and how to prevent this. Note that this post may include a rant here and there.