Lean Leaders Continue to Struggle Moving the Needle by Martin Nazareth, President of OpEx Solutions
Recently, OpEx Solutions had a Leader Strategy Session, as a part of the CenTex OpEx Consortium events, with a focus on “Performance Metrics”. Operations and operational excellence leaders from several organizations attended the session. While not surprising, it was sad to hear after almost twenty years of Lean and Six Sigma implementation we have not moved the needle on a sustained basis. In the process we have not only spent millions and billions of dollars, but, also lost precious time while the undistracted companies and countries have moved ahead. Many companies who implemented Lean rigorously, religiously and with a sense of urgency have been recipients of the prestigious Shingo Prize awards, but are struggling to survive. Delphi had probably won the highest number of Shingo prizes and filed for Chapter 11 in 2005. Some others who followed the similar path were Kodak, Xerox, …      Lean and Six Sigma concepts can be very helpful if they are used correctly; however the issue is the way they are implemented. A few points stand out as significant issues in our operational excellence journey: Tool-based implementation, especially using Japanese terms for tools that were learned from Americans, has led to disruption and distraction from operations’ focus on the mission and vision of the organization. Lean and Six Sigma expertise has been weighted more than process and technical expertise. At Delphi, Kodak, Motorola and other companies, many industrial engineering departments and industrial engineers disappeared when Lean and Six Sigma were introduced. Most companies have resorted to radical improvement rather than continuous improvement. While we heard it loud and clear from the Japanese that continuous improvement (kaizen) played the most significant role in their progress, we Americans resorted to radical improvement using the same term —“kaizen”. Radical improvements included stripping off one-piece flow lines and replacing them with U-cells, forcing U-cells in job-shop environments and forcing one-piece-flow cells without adequate volume. It is not too late to get back on the right path and the experience gained is not a total waste. The operations people are hurt, but are more forgiving than we can imagine. One of our clients recently stated: “… radical changes under the Lean initiative set us back ten years …”. While they feel like reinstating the pre-Lean condition, they are accepting the current state and want to move forward rather than backward. OpEx Solutions has learned a lot from prior mistakes and corrections made by some of our clients and members before our association. Here are ten points to consider for moving the needle: Understand the Lean and Six Sigma principles, concepts and pre-requisites rather than mass-training on tools. Apply principles to align with your operational environment with minimal change using only the needed tools.    Read More>> Toyota Leads Kaizen CenTex Consortium Learning Event  Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas, Inc., hosted a CenTex OpEx Consortium Learning Session on October 10, 2012 at its plant in San Antonio, Texas. Twenty nine people from eleven different organizations participated in the session. Famous for it's Toyota Production System (TPS), Toyota is the name everyone thinks about when when kaizen (continuous improvement workshops) is mentioned. Lunch was followed by a presentation of how Toyota does kaizen and how it should be used for most effective results. After the presentation, a riding tour of the plant was taken and then it was back to the meeting room where a quick benchmark was done and individual questions were answered by Toyota. This is one in a series of Learning Sessions hosted by Toyota for the CenTex OpEx Consortium. The next session (available only to members of the Consortium) will be on March 7, 2013 and will focus on Standard Work.