It is vitally important for lean people to know nothing when working on improvement. This sounds like a crazy idea, but it is another 100-percent turnaround from traditional management thinking.
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To do this, it’s necessary to do three things:
• Understand how lean thinkers go about radically improving their business
• Engage everybody to make improvement
• Increase and capture knowledge
Here’s the big-picture diagram:
If a traditional company has a significant business problem, it calls in the experts. The experts study the problem and work out how to solve it. They then develop a project plan with a Gantt chart to show how they will implement all the changes needed to get to their solution. (Although project management Gantt charts usually can’t be read by people over 40 years of age, but that’s another issue.) This same team will parachute into various parts of the company and implement the changes required to solve the problem. Sometimes these projects are successful, but often they fail or they fail to sustain over time. Also, these projects usually don’t get finished on time.
Two fundamental assumptions are at work here. The first is that the experts know what must be done. The second is that the solution can be implemented successfully. Lean thinking rejects these assumptions, and the problem-solving approach starts from a position of knowing nothing. There are a variety of lean-style problem-solving methods, and the most common is called plan-do-check-act (PDCA).
Lean thinking and change are based on data rather than expertise. We never go into an improvement event with a plan of how to achieve the improvement. We know what problem must be solved, and we know how much improvement we want to achieve. We then step through the PDCA process and make the changes that the team has proven to be the most beneficial.
• The plan step identifies the problem, specifies the level of required improvement, and gathers data related to the problem.
• The do step is where the team analyzes the data, identifies root causes, and develops multiple solutions.
• During the check step, the team experiments with the most promising solutions, measures the results, more deeply understands the process, and decides which changes will be implemented.
• The act step formalizes the changes through standardization, ensures sustainment, and identifies the next needed improvement. There is also a reflection time where the team reviews its work and identifies what new knowledge has been created during the improvement.
• The process is then repeated to build on the knowledge. People learn through repeat practice, and through many small projects built around data, analysis, and experimentation.
Companies using PDCA make faster and better improvement progress, and they formally capture learning and knowledge that can be applied throughout the business. Companies that do not rigorously use PDCA (or similar methods) soon revert to the traditional “expert driven” method of improvement; this “expert-lead improvement” goes back to Frederick Taylor and the scientific management movement of the 1920s. This results in slower improvement, fewer successful projects, lack of formal knowledge capture, and the same old top-down projects that don’t empower the people in the company. During his keynote address for the Instituit Lean Paris Conference 2014, Dan Jones focused on two primary issues: Engage everyone to do things they could not previously do, and learn through problem solving and repeated practice.
Although PDCA is a superior method of problem solving, the more important issue is that lean companies don’t start off with a plan of what changes to make. They know clearly what they need to achieve as a business, but they don’t prescribe solutions. The important changes develop through the PDCA approach based on data, experiment, and standardization. The work is not done by distant “experts” but by the people working day-to-day in the processes. These may be sales processes, production processes, child care, patient treatment, accounting, administrative, and all other processes within lean organizations.
It is essential for lean to be applied everywhere across the company
The methods of lean and the PDCA process must be used throughout the organization. Many companies approach lean halfheartedly and only use lean methods in the operational processes—e.g., the factory, clinic, construction site, software development. True lean includes the use of lean thinking and methods in every process and every location throughout the company.
I sometimes work with companies where only some of their locations are “going lean.” Equally common is for the lean work to be happening in the factory but sales, for example, aren’t involved. This leads to dysfunctional flows and a focus on cost-cutting instead of growth.
Similarly, if the factory people are working with lean thinking but the accounting and measurements are traditional, the performance reports will push back against lean improvement because the measurements will drive anti-lean behaviors. These traditional measurements and accounting methods were designed for 1950s mass production-style management that, in turn, was developed from Taylorism. They aren’t bad or wrong; they’re just designed for a management system that is the opposite of lean.
Lean thinking requires a broad application of lean across the entire organization using a formal PDCA for problem solving and improvement.
Lean leadership at every level
All important things take leadership, and lean is no exception. Lean thinking is entirely the opposite of traditional management. It takes leadership to change the deeply engrained paradigms.
When lean first came to the West during the 1980s, it was largely run by factory leaders. As time went by and people recognized that there was something far deeper going on than just different manufacturing practices, the pressure came to make lean a process led and managed by the company’s most senior leaders. There are many lean failures when the people “in the trenches” pursue lean without the understanding or support from their senior leaders.
Recently it has been seen that for lean to prosper, all company leaders must be actively leading lean. Everybody from the executive team, the frontline workers, and the middle managers at every level must be fully aligned. Alignment with lean means consistent understanding and lean thinking across the entire organization.
Now, life isn’t as clear cut and simple as this suggests. But the companies that become lean powerhouses are the ones with a full focus and alignment on lean thinking and methods.
Lean management starts here
True lean starts with the five principles of lean:
1. Focus on customer value.
2. Work by value streams, not vertical departments.
3. Make everything flow without stopping, at the pull of the customer.
4. Everybody works on lean improvement.
5. Pursue perfection. Lean is a long-term strategy.
All lean improvement succeeds from data, analysis, experimentation, and control. No one knows in advance what to do; the PDCA process takes us there. Our leaders must be trained, aligned, and focused on lean thinking at every level and position. And lean must be on-the-go at every part of the company, all the time.
First published April 30, 2015, on the BMA blog.
Comments
Lean - when you don't know anything
Nice article Brian,
"When you don't know anything' a good start is understanding the As-Is "Product Realization / Core Processes" of a business. These should be contained within the ISO 9001:2008 and under 2015 FDIS version, under "Operations". That requirement is the ONLY one with flowchart "Chevrons".
Prof M Imai "Kaizen" suggested that one starts with current processes and procedures and just getting people to do what is the 'documented procedure' will achieve a minimum of 15% improvement. So instead of starting with PDCA he recommended SDCA - Standardise then DCA, then move onto PDCA.
The Ford Motor Coy asked Dr Deming about this PDCA or Shewart Cycle. Could Dr Deming change it they asked? He rightly attributed it to Shewart (modified from the original Shewart cycle) but mostly attributable to Dr Deming.
The good doctor said it was Shewart's but in modifying it to PDCA, he wondered what Ford and Mr Petersen wanted to change it to?
Ford had implemented Control Charts (in SPC) and were having great success as we know in stabilising their processes 'Voice of the Process' stuff. However, to achieve Process Capability and Voice of the Customer outputs and then outcomes, they wanted to know could PDCA be changed to PDSA - Study. Reference Dobyns and Crawford -Mason's book "Quality or Else". They 'discovered' Dr Deming.
So it was said that Ford had problems with their people 'Checking' their work 'Tick and Flick' if you will, as in reality they were Studying the Process. Hence why it was changed and used in AIAG texts on APQP + CP 3rd edition for the Auto sector as PDSA and not PDCA.
So when you don't know anything in Lean aka Industrial Engineering, one's ISO 9001:2008 and soon ISO FDIS 9001:2015 QM Standards are very good so long as you have the required "process-approach" and supported flowcharts and documented procedures and of course Statistical 'Process' Control VoP and VoC process performance records.
Using the IE / Work Study Flow Proces Charts in analysis the Value and non-Value Adding activties within a Process too would also deliver better Value from Lean Value Stream Mapping activities, as it is the only tool as ILO's Work Study, Work Simplification (A Mogensen) and Industrial Engineering fraternity know, that can define value in a process.
As everyone is now aware, ISO FDIS 9001:2015 will have PDCA and when asked - the Committees found that just getting this basic method through would be fine across so many countries, fair enough and a great disciplne as you described.
Michael
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