Begin at the End: A Good Lean Strategy Starts with Defining Your Ultimate Goal

Begin at the End:
A Good Lean Strategy Starts with
Defining Your Ultimate Goal
A LEAN MANUFACTURING WHITE PAPER
ïÜáíÉ=é~éÉêTABLE OF CONTENTS: PAGE
The Lean Paradox .................................................................03Traditional Approaches to Lean...............................................045S .......................................................................................05Kanbans...............................................................................05Kaizens ................................................................................06Value-Stream Maping.............................................................06A Better Approach.................................................................07Summary..............................................................................10THE LEAN PARADOXYou already know the statistics-lean can allow you to becomevery profitable and competitive. It will shorten your lead-times,reduce inventories, cut operating costs, free up resources, The benefits of leanand more. But, countless surveys have confirmed that most are too important tolean initiatives are abandoned outright or fail to deliver expect-ed and needed results. One well-known lean business consult- allow poorly defined
ant estimates that the failure rate is 98% (as measured by little Lean strategies or
impact to the bottom line),1 and we have found little reason to ineffective executiondoubt these findings. What is it the 2% of companies know that to continue to be thethe others do not? Are these successes confined to a restricted norm.list of industry sectors, or even narrower list of company types?Are only "lean experts" capable of leading an organizationthrough a successful implementation? Our own studies suggest that lean CAN apply toany business-to any manufacturer, service company, educational institution, etc. Wefind no data to indicate that employing lean principles cannot be a very effective busi-ness model for practically any organization. Furthermore, we find the failures alarm-ing-the benefits of lean are too important to allow poorly defined lean strategies orineffective execution to continue to be the norm.
1Waddell, B. (n.d.). Delphi's sobering message to us all. Retrieved Feb. 21, 2006, from Superfactory.comWeb site: www.superfactory.com/articles/waddell_delphi.htm.
| 3TRADITIONAL APPROACHES TO LEANUpon review of some of the more disappointing experiences with lean, we identifiedseveral "generic" complaints, excuses, and issues. Following isthe typical list given as pitfalls or reasons for lean failure:
Our Research indi-. Lack of management support cates that many of. Poor metrics these are the result. Not enough training of an inadequate lean. Resistance to change strategic plan.. Ineffective communications. Not able to sustain initial efforts. No buy-in from supervision. Not expanding improvement from the initial efforts to other departments. No buy-in from workforce
There are two significant observations with the above list. First, it could apply to anystrategic initiative-from a business merger, to putting in place a new informationsystem, and anything in between. Second, these aren't very specific-they tend to besymptoms of more deep-seated issues. Our research indicates that many of these arethe result of an inadequate lean strategic plan. In order to help put these into context,let's review some of the more traditional approaches to starting a lean implementation.
4 |5S5S. Many companies begin lean by employing a technique called 5S, or WorkplaceOrganization. The "5" and "S" come from the five Japanese words; seiri, seiton, seiso,seiketsu, and shitsuke. The English equivalents (keeping the "5S" theme in mind) are:sort, set, shine, standardize, and sustain. Essentially, this is a process to organize awork area, focused on improving efficiency, safety, layout, and flow. 5S produces someimmediate and obvious results. Workplaces are indeed better organized. Tools andmaterials are maintained in well-defined locations. Operators notice that their jobsbecome somewhat easier. Supervisors find that it's simpler to visually identify prob-lems-inefficiencies, excess inventory, misplaced equipment, etc. And, there may evenbe a marginal increase in productivity. But, the benefits are difficult to sustain,improvements tend to be isolated, and impacts are difficult to quantify.