A Little About Lean

Tulisan ini adalah salah satu hasil evaluasi dari lean games di kelas supply chain management kami sekitar 2 minggu yang lalu. 

Read the text below and fill in the gaps using the words given in bolds.

1. Lean vs Modern and Results vs. Process

Lean managers manage by Process by knowing at all times the condition of their process (which produces the results) so problems can be solved and improvements implemented before rather than after the fact. This is based on the knowledge that a good process will produce good results.

Of course, in order to succeed the Lean manager must deeply understand the process in question. This is the big impediment to managing by process in most Modern management organizations, where traditional managers often seem to have only the vaguest notion of how processes work and are currently performing. I’ll have more to say below on the practice of understanding processes.

Modern managers manage by Results to make their efforts look effective at the end of some reporting period (when the problems have already occurred). Unfortunately, there has never been a metric invented that can’t be gamed in some way to make the Results look better than they really are. As a car dealer once told me about the customer-satisfaction metric used by the car company supplying his vehicles, “It’s a lot easier to fix the score than fix the store, so that’s what I do, and I’ve been very successful.”

2         2. Lean vs Modern

Modern line managers improve processes by outsourcing problems to staffs or consultants.

Lean managers improve processes by directly leading improvement activities in dialogue with everyone touching the process, bringing in staff or consultants only as necessary on major technical issues. This practice is how Lean managers gain deep knowledge of the process they are managing, and it seems so obvious that I marvel that I need to write it down. Yet I have walked through company after company in recent years where the Modern managers had neither the knowledge nor the intention to improve anything. They did, however, have advanced skills in delegating to staffs and outsourcing to consultants

3. Lean vs Modern and Answers  vs. Questions

Modern managers give  Answers  to their direct reports about the nature of a problem and its solution.

Lean managers pose  Questions to their problem owners about the nature of the problem and the best available countermeasures. Doing this automatically transfers responsibility for the problem from the higher- to a lower-level manager, who is closer to the problem.

In authority-based management, the higher-level manager maintains the illusion of being in control and accepts responsibility for subordinates’ results, even though the best thing to do is usually impossible for the higher-level manager to know.

4         4. Lean vs Modern and Plans vs. Experiments

Lean managers treat every Plans as an Experiments with rigorous and continuing PDCA. This approach leads to a focus on discovering quickly how the Plans is working (the C) and then—the truly important action (the A)—rapidly devising and implementing countermeasures as the plan, if it is like most Plans, encounters problems.

Modern managers make grand Plans, on the assumption that they will work because they are lengthy and detailed. The lower-level employee’s job is then to carry out the plans, which should work because they have been carefully devised by knowledgeable people. This approach often leads to a focus on measuring compliance and determining who to blame when a plan fails.

5         5. Lean vs Modern and Formal education vs. On the job learning

Modern  managers seek Formal education to advance their careers, often outside the firm in management schools or inside the firm through executive education at a corporate “university.”

Lean managers pursue On the job learning within their organization by participating in frequent A3 cycles throughout their careers, mentored by managers at the next higher level with longer experience in the enterprise

6. Lean vs Modern and Data vs. Facts

Modern managers make decisions remotely, analyzing Data, usually in conference rooms far away from the gemba. (This is often called “conference-room management.”)

Lean managers make decisions on the gemba at the location of the problem, turning Data into verified Facts The now famous mantra of “Go see, ask why, show respect” captures the spirit of gemba-based decision-making.

7. Lean vs Modern  vs Go fast to go slow vs. Go slow to go fast

Lean managers Go slow to go fast by taking time at the outset to fully understand the process and its purpose, through dialogue with everyone involved (often including the customer and the suppliers) and by fully understanding the root cause of problems and the most promising countermeasure before taking action.

Modern  managers Go fast to go slow because problems are never fully understood and the quick countermeasures put in place don’t (and, in fact, can’t) address the real issue, leading to time-consuming rework.

8         8. Lean vs Modern  vs Vertically  vs. Horizontally

Modern  managers focus Vertically  on the organization, with all the functions and silos oriented toward the CEO at the top. This fits in perfectly with authority-based management, my first point of contrast above.

Lean managers focus Horizontally on the flow of value across the organization, from the initial concept for the product and the raw materials to the customer. This can only work by utilizing responsibility-based management where Lean managers think horizontally to solve problems by dialoguing with many departments and functions over which they have (and can have) no authority.

9        9. Mura, Muri vs Muda

And in most companies we still see the Mura of trying to “make the numbers” at the end of reporting periods. (Which are themselves completely arbitrary batches of time.) This causes sales to write too many orders toward the end of the period and production mangers to go too fast in trying to fill them, leaving undone the routine tasks necessary to sustain long-term performance. This wave of orders—causing equipment and employees to work too hard as the finish line approaches—creates the “overburden” of Muri This in turn leads to downtime, mistakes, and backflows—the Muda of waiting, correction, and conveyance. The inevitable result is that Mura creates Muri that undercuts previous efforts to eliminate Muda.

10. Waste: TIM WOOD

Overproduction  is the worst form of waste. It leads to excess inventory and hide other forms of waste.

Defects  are often expressed as either yield of good parts, such as 95% yield, or as defects per million opportunities.

Defects  may cause rework.

If a process goes beyond the specification for a product, then the process is wasteful. This is called overprocessing

Walking to printers and fax machines, excessive clicking or searching for supplies in a messy cabinet are all examples of waste of motion.

Many experts add a eighth, human focused, form of muda:  not using the capabilities of workers.

If a machine that is critical to a process goes down, the process cannot continue until the machine is back up and producing good parts. Until that happens, the operators are forced to wait.

Source: Lecture Supply Chain Management at Saxion