While we lean practitioners seem to have earned a reputation of distain for high-speed automation, industries like mass production consumables, and the food and beverage industry, would not be viable without that approach. These plants are capital intensive, and the main focus of the people is to keep the equipment running. I hinted at some [...]
A great insight from a client today. The target condition at this point is simply to establish some degree of transparency of the current condition on a status board without having to resort to probing questions to elicit what is working, and what is not. The observation was: “We’ll know we are succeeding when we [...]
This video by Charles Duhigg is promoting his book The Power of Habit . I haven’t read the book but there is a lot of study that draws the same basic model. A habit is based on an urge to do something that triggers a reward (dopamine shot) in your brain. Every time it happens, [...]
Coincidently my experience this week ties in nicely to the last post. I have a couple of teams working to develop pull systems through their respective work areas. The conventional approach (I suppose) is a lot of PowerPoint about kanban, some exercises, developing a future state value stream map, then devising an implementation plan. An [...]
The key points addressed today (Day 3) at the Toyota Kata seminar were: The PDCA cycle – small experiments that the “learner” develops to advance toward the target condition. The coaching cycle (or kata) – an introduction to the role of the coach, and how coaching is structured in practice. A fairly brief discussion on [...]
I am taking the Toyota Kata seminar this week in Ann Arbor. There are two programs offered: A one-day classroom overview of the concepts in Toyota Kata. The one-day classroom overview followed by two days of practice on a shop floor, for a total of three days. I am taking the three day version. Impressions [...]
On Monday MIT hosted a webinar with Steven Spear on the topic of “Creative Experimentation.” A key theme woven throughout Spear’s work is the world today is orders of magnitude more complex than it was even 10 or 15 years ago. Where, in the past, it was feasible for a single person or small group [...]
Chapter 4 of The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership lays out the picture of a company where continuous improvement of operations is the primary focus of the management system. Note here that I said “focus of the management system” rather than “focus of the managers.” I believe there is a crucial difference which I will [...]
Chapter 3 of The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership is titled “Coach and Develop Others.” Where in Chapter 2 the authors were outlining the individual leader’s responsibility for self-development, now they are describing the environment and the process of supporting and focusing that drive. Rather than just outline the chapter, I want to dig into some [...]
One of the graphics in Bill Costantino’s presentation really struck me, but my thought was out of context so I wanted to make a separate post about it. It was the concept of the “current knowledge threshold” illustrated here: As I interpret it, the red line depicts the “we know how to do this” area. [...]
