I started working with Lean in 1985, but back then it wasn’t called Lean; it had other names, like Total Quality (TQ) and Continuous Improvement.
At Bendix Communications Division, a group of us called the “hats” team began working with our GM, David Passeri, to find a way to improve our batch circuit-board facility. At that time, Jim Womack’s book, The Machine that Changed the World and Joel Barker’s Business of Paradigms video came out. These two methodologies were our springboard to starting Lean.
Eventually, under the direction of Vic Chance, Dan Daino, and Jim Robinson, we completed the conversion from batch to one-piece flow and turned the plant into a world-class Lean facility, where we eliminated the stockroom building, and were even benchmarked by Harley Davidson for self-directed work teams.
While at AlliedSignal, now Honeywell, I was exposed to a variety of different five-day kaizen event-implementation approaches by TBM and Shingijutsu, JIT institute, and others. We were also exposed to more analytical approaches through Demand Flow Technology based on a book called Quantum Leap by the World Wide Flow College of Denver, Mark Jamrog’s SMC group’s 14-step model, University of Tennessee’s Lean Demand Management class by Ken Kirby, AlliedSignal’s four-day Total Quality training by Coopers and Lybrand, AlliedSignal Lean Training from Mike Chan, along with Honda’s Five Best Practices, GM Synchronous, and most recently the WCM approach being used by Fiat and Chrysler. I have received much training in change management and personality styles from a variety of sources over the years. I have also read well over 500 books on Lean, Six Sigma, and Total Quality.
In late 1997, I started Business Improvement Group, LLC (BIG), in Baltimore, MD. I used my past learnings to develop a simple model for Lean implementation, called BASICS, which is based on the sum total of my learnings above. We have continued to evolve, research extensively, and prove out this model for over 20 years.
Successfully implementing the BASICS model will improve quality, decrease safety risk, increase productivity, improve your working capital, increase your inventory turns, produce bottom-line savings, and improve cash flow.
BASICS is an implementation methodology for converting any batch process to one-piece (OPF) or small-lot flow and is also used for ongoing improvement to OPF lines and transactional processes. PDSA is still used for standard problem-solving.
I constructed the BASICS model (Figure 0.1) to provide a practical guide to approaching a Lean implementation. The foundation for this model is derived from much of my past experience but is primarily based on Frank Gilbreth’s, Taiichi Ohno’s, and Shigeo Shingo’s books, among others (see Bibliography).
Figure 0.1 The BASICS six-step model for Lean implementation—short version. (Source: BIG Training Materials.)
For more detailed information, see The Lean Practitioner’s Field Book (Productivity Press, 2016).
The target audience for this book is anyone, anywhere, who wants to make an improvement, big or small. Most of us, whether we realize it or not, have a deep-down need to find better ways to do things.
Some of you have already implemented Lean and checked that box. But companies that really “get it” understand that Lean never ends and becomes a way of life.
Our Lean system implementations typically run six to ten weeks and we normally achieve productivity increases over 50% based on paid labor hours/unit and several hundred percent when looking at pieces per person per day.
Our line conversions from station balancing to baton-zone balancing can typically be accomplished in one to two weeks where we achieve 10%–30% or more increases in productivity.
Ranging from manufacturing to healthcare, we have saved clients millions of dollars in cost avoidance in new construction and savings at the gross-profit level as well as significantly increasing their cash flow and working capital.
This book has a proven, time-tested approach and methodology that will help you implement and sustain Lean thinking. Our approach has some subtle yet very powerful differences from traditional kaizen event-based implementation models. Our clients have profited greatly from this approach and some would not be in business today or would not have weathered the great recession of December 2007 to June 2009.
Because they embraced these techniques and realized true savings to their gross margins and bottom lines, our clients look at our BASICS approach as a strategic and highly effective weapon against their competition.
Charlie Protzman