CHAPTER 10
Summary
When we manage large-scale improvement, we need the personal creativity and initiative of many other people. Therefore we always manage large-scale improvement indirectly. We manage improvement by creating within people the capability to cause improvement and by creating around people a culture that provides appropriate direction for those improvement efforts and a culture that provides social support for people as they practice improvement.
This book explains that while change is complex, there are a limited number of principles driving change and that to achieve change the manager must focus on creating a “Lean Work Design.” This is a systems design which seeks to eliminate waste by creating a system, whose work force is itself capable of making the required changes. The purpose of this volume was not to identify specific tools to do this, but instead to provide the theoretical background and understanding that serves as the basis for selecting a particular tool. The tools themselves are discussed in Volume 2 of this series.
We see in Ford’s thinking his strong belief that a standard is something not to be directed from above. Whether it be … top management, or a plant manager, the person who establishes the standard should be someone who works in production. …. And I agree. (Ohno 1988, p. 99)
The previous quotation from Taiichi Ohno was also given in Chapter 1. It is repeated here to emphasize the importance of people in any change. Even small changes are very important to implementing organizational change. This quotation from Ohno means that Toyota clearly recognizes the importance of involving people in improvement. The improvements have to come from those who are doing the work. That means the work design must include paths by which those doing the work are engaged in the improvement of the work.
Lean operations give us a new understanding of waste. With this new understanding, we find waste in all the ways work is done. With the principles and processes of Lean, we know how to reduce and eliminate waste, including the reduction and elimination of errors (defects). (Black and Miller 2008, p. 13)
Waste is defined as any expenditure of time, money, or other resources that does not add value, that is, contribute to the efficient delivery of healthcare to the patient. (Black and Miller 2008, p. 13)
The preceding quotation emphasizes a key point from Chapter 2. Lean work design is important to a company because it increases the value added by the company’s processes. It does this by eliminating waste. The previous quotation was taken from a book about the use of lean in healthcare to emphasize that waste exists within all systems, whether manufacturing or services, and that waste can (not to say must) be removed and eliminated, thus increasing value.
A major point in Chapter 3 is that the work performed in companies is actually always part of a system. It is important that the employees recognize that they are part of the system and that improvements or changes to their part of the system will influence the other parts of the system. It was suggested in Chapter 3 that employees use SIPOC (Supplier of Input for Processes for Output to Customers) diagrams and process flow charts to understand how the step that they manage influences the other parts of the system. It is important that the lean work design includes methods to ensure that all of the improvement is carefully managed, but still allows for autonomous change. The following quotation describes how this can be done.
Autonomous action is not unmanaged, it is just not closely supervised. In fact, autonomous improvement needs to be a very carefully managed process. (Floyd 2008, p. 58)
Management can ensure sufficient progress and maintain safety by establishing rituals of practice to make the conduct of autonomous improvement visibly apparent and constrained by established limits. This visibility will enable an unobtrusive, but formal, management and technical review process that will ensure appropriate oversight of the changes without getting in the way of progress. (Floyd 2008, p. 59)
The advantage of the flow chart is that it provides an overview of the system, and allows for the inclusion of measurements that the work team can use to determine if the changes they are suggesting actually improve performance. Creating and showing the flow chart engages the team not only in analysis of their own immediate area and its current problems, but also is a ritual that ensures that they see the system as a whole.
In Chapter 4, Little’s Law provides a clear means to understand the relationship between inventory, throughput rate, and flow time. This drives employees and others managing the system to identify the bottleneck, since the bottleneck controls the throughput rate.
Chapter 5 expands on the lesson in Chapter 4, making clear the need to reduce variance. It clarifies the relationship between variance, the inventory level, and the utilization level. It is important to recognize that a system needs less (often costly) safety capacity to achieve a given throughput if there is less variability in the system.
Chapter 6 demonstrates that buffers can be used to diminish the negative effects of variability on the system. Buffers can also be used to make improvement in the system visible as the level of buffers is decreased.
More important than anything else is securing the understanding and consent of everyone in the plant, especially of the people on the production floor. Indeed, that is the key point that will determine ultimate success or failure. (Shingo 1989, p. 224)
Chapter 7 addresses the importance of leaders developing systems to ensure that everyone in the organization understands and supports the changes being implemented. The preceding quotation by one of the developers of many parts of the lean work design emphasizes the importance of people in the lean system.
Chapter 8 explains that the organizational structure is an important means of communication and coordination within an organization. One of the changes that lean introduces to the organizational structure is the use of teams, which are empowered to make changes within their own work. This means that there has to be a method to ensure that the teams are aligned with the goals of the organization. To do this they must understand their role in achieving these organizational goals.
Chapter 9 specifically addresses the need for clear, concise communication within an organization. It must be clear what the goals are and that goals must be understood. In addition, it is important that there be standard ways of indicating when there are breakdowns in a process.
We hope you not only gained valuable insights reading this book but also enjoyed it. This book set out to introduce the main principles for a lean work design. It does not provide ready-made solutions, but rather it provides the building blocks for a lean work design. We cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of developing a habit of continually watching real-life processes to discover and understand the underlying principles. We close out this book with the following thought from Taiichi Ohno, one of the pioneers of the Toyota Production System:
With any problem I ask why five times. This Toyota procedure is actually adapted from Toyoda Sakichi’s habit of watching. We can talk about work improvement, but unless we know production thoroughly we can accomplish nothing. Stand on the production floor all day and watch—you will eventually discover what has to be done. I cannot emphasize this too much. (Ohno 1988, pp. 77–78)
References
Black, J., and D. Miller. 2008. The Toyota Way to Healthcare Excellence: Increase Efficiency and Improve Quality with Lean. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press—Foundation of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Floyd, R.C. 2008. A Culture of Rapid Improvement: Creating and Sustaining an Engaged Workforce. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group.
Ohno, T. 1988. Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production. Published in Japanese by Diamond, Inc., Tokyo, Japan, 1978. Translation into English by New York, NY: Productivity Press.
Shingo, S. 1989. A study of the Toyota Production System from and Industrial Engineering Viewpoint. 1st revised ed. Cambridge, MA: Productivity Press.