Lean? What do you mean?

by R.T. “Chris” Christensen

I find it funny yet tragic when companies get all hot and heavy about lean manufacturing, but fail during implementation time because of question marks. They either leave basic questions unanswered or don’t heed the answers they’re given.

Such companies’ approach to lean implementation is similar to the old Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First” routine. My intent in this column is to alert you to these shortcomings so you don’t fall into the same traps that others did.

Lean really does work, but like anything else, you must be careful.

Who’s who?
The major factor that companies overlook in implementing lean is the “Who” (thus, the aforementioned Abbott and Costello reference). I see agendas, plans, programs and executive workshops at companies. They are enthused with the savings they can gain from implementing a lean program. These programs accentuate and focus on the savings lean can derive — a.k.a. the profitability probability. These staffers go about, counting their chickens before they hatch. They plan for savings while failing to address the key question: Who is going to do the work to generate the savings? Who is that “Who”?

Companies that leave that question unanswered plod on blindly, then give up, saying, “These concepts we’ve read about really don’t work.”

The truth is they don’t know who “Who” is.

Look into your operation and find this person or people. It just might be your maintenance staff. This is the department, in concert with all the other key people, that moves the shop around to get at the guts of your lean program. Talk to them. You just might be surprised to hear what they have to say.

Do you know what’s what?
Even if you take the time to find “Who,” that doesn’t guarantee success. You may know that “Who” is going to do the work, but what about the “What”?

It’s amazing how hard it is to get people to focus not on what the savings are, but how to get them. Many times, people miss the analysis on how to generate the savings. They read what others have done and don’t do their homework to see if the ideas fit into their plant. They don’t know what they are going to do or if it even applies to them.

For example, I gave a presentation on lean a few months back at a large corporation. I was to take the podium following a speech by the company president. In his talk, this gentleman told the gathering of employees that they were going to implement lean, starting with kanban inventory. He presented success stories of how much money companies saved by implementing kanban. He saw how others generated savings by implementing it to control their inventories and thought, “If it worked for them, it should work for me.” In doing so, he failed to look at the “What,” as in “What technique will generate the savings/improvement that you’re seeking?”

He didn’t understand that kanban provides an automatic replenishment system for ordering production materials. He didn’t understand that for a kanban to work well, he’d need a stable, repeatable, fairly high volume of the same part number. He had a process that used a high volume of a similar product (coils of steel), but they were all of a different part number and not interchangeable. What he had was a company that produced a custom product in high volume but not from any common parts. They used coil steel to produce the product that they stamped, but each order was different, with different steel requirements in size, shape and alloy.

The coils of steel were only in house for a week and were gone when the order was complete. They really couldn’t carry inventory of any particular steel, as they might not use that same coil of steel again for years or, for that matter, ever again. The president did not understand that his business was, in reality, a gigantic job shop, and that the cheapest way to order steel was to buy enough coils for that job and have them all delivered at once.

Delivery time was his key, not inventory control with the use of kanbans. He was batch, not flow, manufacturing. In his case, kanban was not the tool of choice.

Why ask why?
Finally, there is “Why.”

This article appeared in the August/September 2003 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright 2003.

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