Misquided Pragmatisim and its impact on Lean Manufacturing

                                                                                                     

It has been a well over a decade since the Toyota Production System (TPS) was introduced on a wide scale to American industry. Since that time acceptance of the process has grown. But during the same period the U.S. has gone through the greatest surge of plant closings and layoffs ever experienced, including the days of the Great Depression. The U.S. auto industry, once the single greatest indicator of America’s manufacturing’s strength and vitality, is currently facing its toughest challenge since infancy. GM and Chrysler have managed to survive with the help of government funding and by downsizing significantly, and seem to be making a comeback of sorts. As an entity, however, manufacturing in the U.S. has and continues to decline at a near alarming pace.

At first glance this would seem to say that “Lean Manufacturing” (America’s steadily evolving rendition of TPS) has done little to protect the status of America’s manufacturing base, as we’ve known it for decades. On the other hand there’s little doubt that the various “tools” of the process, such as Kaizen and Kanban, are perceived by a wide range of U.S. industry as having substantial value. In fact, manufacturing operations that were and still are being transferred to emerging economies, generally move with the understanding that the principles and techniques of TPS will be applied at the new location. But if a poll were taken of a cross section of high to mid level manufacturing professionals in the U.S. - and the participants felt they could be completely honest in their response - it’s fair to say the majority of them would in no way view Lean as the panacea for saving U.S. manufacturing or in fact even among the top three most important influences. But could Lean indeed serve that purpose?                                         

That is undoubtedly is a question that has and will be pondered in corporate offices and board rooms across America. Lean itself can’t be the complete salvation needed due to many strong influences, including NAFTA and other agreements under the label of “free trade” (which if classified “fair trade” would take on an entirely different perspective.) But while we have little control over such matters, getting the best out of Lean is something entirely within our means.  In order to do so, however, the single biggest challenge rest with overcoming “Misguided Pragmatism.” 

Pragmatism is defined in Dictionary.com as: Character or conduct that emphasizes practicality – generally stressing practical consequences as constituting the essential criterion in determining meaning, truth or value.                                                                

Misguided Pragmatism come to bear when management accepts the need for change but holds a strong predisposition related to the way business has always been conducted. As a result, the typical position taken is to experiment with Lean and see how it works. When this occurs (and it unquestionably occurs more frequently than not) it’s a clear sign that the general mindset isn’t in tune with irreversibly changing the system of production. The mindset needed of course is a strong unerring commitment - aimed at pursuing a complete change to a factory’s system of production, with all the might and energy that can be applied - and never look back in the process of doing so.

What has and is happening in the world of golf makes a good analogy for comparison. The golfing industry has flooded the market over the past decade with numerous “tools” of the trade (i.e., new clubs, new balls and other gadgets) which theoretically serve to improve one’s game and score. But the fact of the matter is while golf equipment can make almost any player a few stokes better, it doesn’t make a bad golfer good!  The same holds true for Lean. Focusing on using one or any number of the tools of TPS may allow a firm to score a little better, but it won’t make a business a winner. Where the focus needs to be, for both the golfer and the manufacturer, is on strengthening inherent ability, and this can only come by consistently “practicing” the right kind of fundamental techniques.               

The key is to clearly understand what the ultimate mission of the effort is designed to both accomplish and compliment. If the ultimate mission (spoken or otherwise) is to make certain that some of the tools of TPS are utilized, efforts will be made to compliment the insertion of such applications as Kanban, SMED, Poka-Yoke, etc. On the other hand, if the ultimate mission is to make certain that the entire system of production is fully and completely revised, efforts will be extended to using many of those same tools, but only when and as needed. Most important, work will be done to insert special initiatives and incentives that serve to compliment that objective.                   

While there’s indeed a cross-section of American industry that has made some excellent accomplishments with the insertion of Lean, industry as a whole simply hasn’t taken the process far enough to meet both existing and pending challenges of the future. The automotive industry is a prime example. This particular sector of manufacturing has generally been recognized as a strong proponent of Lean. That recognition has principally come as a result of pushing suppliers extremely hard to adopt Lean practices, in order to gain improvements in supplier lead-time and delivery - all of which is aimed at establishing a platform for price reduction.  Had the auto industry’s ultimate mission been directed at making a complete and irreversible change to its system of production and taking the process all the way, we might be looking at an entirely different picture.

“All the way” essentially boils down to taking the complete journey and striving to mirror TPS as close as possible in application. With respect to how the thrust of Lean has generally been applied in the U.S., however, it’s comparable to investing in a lotto ticket and hoping to hit the jackpot. That investment could be Kanban - or Kaizen - or TPM - or any combination of these and the other tools of TPS, not withstanding other popular improvement techniques that have grown out of the effort, such as Six Sigma. The hope seems to be that by steadily applying efforts at gradual improvement, at some point a company will eventually hit the jackpot and magically arrive where it needs to be. We need to make certain that it’s clearly understood this simply will not get the job done.  Making the “arrival point” a complete and thorough change to a factory’s system of production clearly defines the mission and helps those involved stay on track in accomplishing the end result required. But what does it take to make this happen?                

The Sizable Task Of Changing Mindsets: In order to have a chance at making a full and effective application of Lean happen on a large scale across America industry, changing the mindset of manufacturing leaders, departmental managers, first line supervisors and the general workforce itself, is absolutely crucial to the task – mane of whom have long been praised and patted on the back for largely doing the opposite of what’s called for under a solid approach to Lean.  

As I pointed out in a recent book of mine: Progressive Kaizen: The Key to Gaining A Global Competitive Advantage*: “Bobby Jones, the golfing great, once reportedly said the greatest hazard to clear is the three inch space between the ears. To a large extent that same description could apply to the principle obstacle the U.S. faces in its quest for manufacturing excellence. Where problems and difficulties exist with a full and unerring acceptance of Lean, it usually boils down to an unwillingness to completely destroy an old and obsolete system of production and replace it with a truly global competitive method of manufacturing.”  (*Published 2011 by Productivity Press.)

While management in the U.S. has been literally bombarded with hundreds of different recommendations and opinions regarding the best implementation strategy to employ, very little direction has been extended which serves to adequately address the critical importance of changing or perhaps better put, strongly influencing the basic mindset of both high level and middle management, who in turn hold the responsibility of driving Lean forward to fruition.                                            

The primary mission of Lean is generally accepted as driving waste and inefficiency out of an operation - wastes that still permeate a sizable portion of American industry and serve to make it less than totally competitive. But the best implementation strategy in the world will be of little avail if management doesn’t truly understand the importance of making a full transition happen in the fastest manner possible. Something everyone who’s had exposure to Lean has heard time and again is that the job is never ending. But if there’s a distinct flaw with that cliché, it’s that it has been taken far too literally. While the job is indeed never ending, with respect to making continuous improvement to an operation, laying a foundation which serves to establish a proper platform for Lean implementation is far from that. 

Fully achieving this rests with sound direction related to strategy, along with various tactics aimed at largely erasing pragmatic proclivities and establishing a much clearer path to the accomplishments required. Unfortunately, extremely good intentions have led manufacturing operations to expend time, energy and resources on a largely restrictive application of Lean. They tend to become so wrapped up in doing the very best job possible with a particular tool or technique that they often lose sight of the larger and more important objective. However, the best job possible simply can’t be done with any of the tools or techniques involved, until they’re complimented with a proper foundation for improvement

Setting the Initial Groundwork Required:  Establishing the proper foundation for an aggressive application of Lean can actually be far less difficult than imagined. It can come as easy as issuing a simple straightforward mandate for the factory. What follows that mandate isn’t always easy, but it is entirely manageable. In addition, assurance is given it isn’t something that holds the potential of shutting down a factory or jeopardizing customer orders. The mandate noted is: “From this point forward, all production inventory and stock throughout the factory must be “pulled.”  No inventory can be sent to the next operator or department unless duly called for.

The directive is aimed at effectively inserting a “Pull Production” approach across the entire facility. Such a mandate can be established in any factory regardless of how much actual Lean oriented change has taken place, assuming everyone is brought to understand the intent is to set a practice in place that compliments the mission of fully changing the entire system of production and. most important, letting everyone involved know there’s no intention of turning back.

This simple mandate establishes a policy that says unless the next operation in the chain notifies the producer that parts are needed (which could be as close as feet away from the user to as far as miles, in some cases) the inventory becomes the property of the department producing that inventory and can only be sent to the user in the exact quantity specified. Doing this immediately takes the old “out of sight, out of mind” paradigm out of the picture. But even more important is that it establishes a need at every level in the chain to aggressively work at making the right kind of change happen in a factory. 

When using the mandate noted, management has to prepare itself for questions, such as to where to store any un-called-for inventory produced under the old (and still intact) system of production. The challenge given in response to that is for each area to devise its own means of temporarily dealing with the situation. Assurance is given that it won’t be long before the Lean coordinator is flooded with requests for assistance. On the other hand, this would be next to sheer heaven to most Lean Coordinators, who are generally faced with twisting arms and otherwise pleading for participation in the process.

It probably goes without being said that not everyone will stand in applause to such a mandate. There will those that would state it would simply create too much ciaos and confusion for the factory. It’s important to strive to bring them to understand that completely changing a factory’s system of production simply can’t happen without some amount of ciaos and confusion. The only question that actually needs to be addressed is: Is it something manageable?  But even with that accomplished, there will some who’d complain that such a policy would leave the factory looking highly unprofessional, if not downright “tacky,” especially considering WIP inventory would be stored throughout the factory with no apparent theme or order. What management should ask in response to that position is: “Exactly who are we trying to impress?”  If it happens to be important visitors, pride should be taken in explaining what’s actually occurring in the factory and pointing out that  over time it will lead to higher productivity, reduce lead times and an ability to better serve the customer.                           

      

The Task Ahead For Lean Professionals and Practitioners: In order to place proper attention on adjusting mindsets before a good portion of America’s manufacturing base slips beyond repair, the mission we face is to gain the attention of operational management and strive to solidly convince them of the sense of urgency needed, in both large and small operations throughout the U.S. This won’t come from one voice crying out in the wilderness. It has to come by being universally accepted by the highest and most influential professionals in the field of Lean Manufacturing, and then thusly carried forward.

                  

As things stand, no amount of additional material and instruction on the value and how-to of Kaizen, Point-Of-Use, Poka-Yoke, SMED, TPM, or any of the other tools required in making it happen will serve to do the trick. The time has come for professionals and practitioners in the field of Lean to place an increased focus on council and direction aimed at effectively shaping the mindset of America’s manufacturing managers and leaders. Coupled with that must come sound suggestions related to precisely how to start things moving in the right direction (such as the “mandate” noted.) Those suggestions can be challenging. But they also have to be viewed as workable. Anything that has the least potential of stopping or seriously slowing down production will typically be met with solid resistance.

What must and certainly should take place across American industry is a conscious effort aimed at setting the kind of groundwork in place that promotes attention on fully changing the way manufacturing has been conducted for decades, which in turn has had an extensive impact on the overall decline in industry effectiveness. Unfortunately, chipping away at the problem, which seems to be the accepted means, simply won’t get the job done. There has to be a unified effort aimed at thoroughly eliminating an old and misaligned system of production and replacing it with a truly globally competitive approach. America’s manufacturing future is truly at stake.             

                 

John W. Davis

President, WFM Associates

 industry.