I am starting to read a review copy (courtesy of McGraw-Hill) of Jeff Liker and Gary Convis’ new book, The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership. (The hot link goes to my Amazon page.) In the spirit of one-piece-flow, I am to share key thoughts as I go rather than save everything for a thousand word [...]
Hopefully that title got some attention. In Toyota Kata, Mike Rother frames a PDCA coaching process around five questions. The first three questions are: What is the target condition? What is the current condition? What problems or obstacles are preventing you from reaching the target? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could build a machine [...]
On the way to the airport a few days ago a couple of thoughts occurred to me that I wanted to toss out there and see how you all responded. This is one of them. What separates an expert from a master? Actually I need to ask in more prejudicial terms. Some people who are [...]
“Sustaining the gains” is a frequent topic of discussion in the continuous improvement world. Often the discussion degenerates into a rant about “management commitment.” But in the real world, people generally don’t sabotage improvements on purpose. (Though I have seen it happen, but only once.) The mechanism is far more subtle. Before we get into [...]
5S audits, standard work audits, and for that matter ISO-900x audits, are a frequent source of questions in various online discussion forums. At the same time, the topic of “leader standard work” comes up frequently, as it did in a recent question / comment on “ Walking the Gemba.” I think the topic is worth [...]
the very first thing to do if a machine starts producing scrap material is to shut it down. It is better to make nothing because that is a cheaper alternative than making stuff you can’t use.
On a world-class automobile assembly line, the actual work is continuously being compared to the planned work. In each work zone, there is a planned sequence of tasks which are expected to produce a specified output. If there is any departure at all from the planned sequence, if things get behind the planned timeline, if [...]
“Stop the line if there is a problem” is a common mantra of lean manufacturing. But it is harder than first imagined to actually implement. The management mindset that “production must continue, no matter what” is usually the first obstacle. But even when that is overcome, I have seen two independent cases where peer social [...]