Get Lean Inspiration through Our Blog

PDSA: the Plan within the Plan

The good ol’ Plan, Do, Check and Act (PDCA), who hasn’t heard about it? A managerial concept as old as the road to Methusalem it seems. We make a plan, we execute the plan, during the execution we keep a close eye on the ball and of course we take corrective action when things do not go according to the plan. Easy! When teams start improvement initiatives it seems as if immediately we are flooded by action lists, Gantt charts and project meetings. But is it really that easy? In fact, when taking a closer look and with a Lean eye, the plan in fact comprises two plans: the plan as a hypothesis and the plan as the actions to be taken to implement and evaluate the hypothesis; the plan within the plan as it were. “I beg your pardon?” (more…)

October 5, 2012 0

Lean Culture: Inseparable of what Lean ís!

Culture is often indicated as one of the most important aspects of the Lean journey towards perfection. At the same time, culture seems to be one of the most elusive aspects. Norms, values, convictions, morals, attitude, behavior, habits and leadership are examples of themes that are discussed when we talk about culture. Some posts and articles also discuss the importance of national or local culture, and question whether Lean is not too much interconnected with Japanese culture to become a success outside of Japan. Already in 1983, a Dutch article about kanban by Wortmann and Durlinger concluded that it would not be possible to fully implement kanban in the Netherlands due to cultural differences related to moral, employee involvement and team awareness. Still, it is my own experience that organizations that are seriously following the Lean road create such strong cultures of their own, that in the end these organizational cultures transcend national or local cultures. (more…)

September 5, 2012 0

Worthless Discussions and the Socratic Method

One of the most difficult aspects of accompanying organizational transformations like when a company starts off on their Lean journey, is restraining your zeal. And this is particularly the case when statements are made and opinions are ventilated that run counter to the principles and ideas of the (internal) consultant or coach or even the Lean principles for that matter. The Socratic method of motivation, however, presumes interaction without any presuppositions, without any value judgment. It stresses non-value-based, or one could say “worthless”, interaction. It isn’t about the values and norms of the coach, but about the ball being in the organization’s court. It is an important approach in creating an autonomous Lean organization, but in some situations also not the only one. (more…)

May 15, 2012 0

Talking About Waste: a Waste of Time?

Waste. With all the attention for Lean nowadays, you would think that the discussion about waste would be concluded by now. Still, on the Internet, the debate about waste categories recently reared its head again. The most well-known acronyms that are used to indicate the categories of waste are TIMWOOD, NOWTIME, DOWNTIME and CLOSEDMITT. The thing that strikes me time and again is that most of these categories actually point at practices that lead to waste; the causes of waste. What is being wasted, however, apparently seems to be of less importance. But isn’t that just the point? Where does the waste of energy go, for instance, in most of these categories? In this post I break a lance for another approach in the hunt for waste; the one from the point of view of available resources. (more…)

March 30, 2012 0

Pull and Push in the Supply Chain

The (customer order) decoupling point (CODP) or order penetration point is one of the most well-known logistical concepts. It indicates the inventory location in the value stream up to which the customer order penetrates. The CODP is one of the key design decisions in structuring the value stream and its management. For instance, the CODP separates the part of the value stream that is order- driven (downstream of the CODP), from the part that is forecast-driven (upstream of the CODP). But is that necessarily true? Doesn’t kanban, in fact, represent a good example of managing the upstream part of the value stream based upon consumption rather than forecast? And aren’t a lot of companies still clustering their customer orders downstream of the CODP or working with lot sizes, resulting in products manufactured too early, too late or just too much? This blog post nuances the existing control dogma in relation to the CODP. (more…)

February 22, 2012 1

Lean Evolution: Experiencing the Effects of Lean

Over the last year I have worked with a client on introducing, developing and securing Lean Management on various locations in the Netherlands and abroad. Recently, a more formal evaluation with top management and the management of the involved locations took place. It’s always interesting then, to hear how Lean Management is actually experienced across an organization. Through this blog post I thought it would be nice to share some of these experiences with my readers. Lean Management is sometimes interpreted as only a technique, although I think that in the end it involves a complete turnaround in the way people think and act with consequences for the associates, managers, the mutual relations and collaboration, processes and problem-solving, performance and customers. (more…)

January 9, 2012 0

Stop Leaning Supportive Functions

Regularly, people ask me how Lean can help in improving a company’s functional support departments. In many cases organizations already have begun introducing Lean thinking in these functions and are teams progressing with their 5S efforts, setting up team performance boards and introducing daily huddles around these, and initiating improvement teams. Well done! But I’m always left with a feeling that these companies are missing the point of becoming a truly Lean organization. Doesn’t Lean start with customer value? And the value stream that provides this value? Plus the teams that work in the value stream making it all happen? I think we should stop applying Lean in this way to these support functions, and that we should go back to the basics: customer value, value stream and autonomous teams! (more…)

December 5, 2011 0

The Failing “Undercover Boss”

The “Undercover Boss” which is also televised in the Netherlands is an interesting show: the managing director or CEO of an organization goes onto the shop floor in disguise to find out what actually is going on in his or her organization. And in some matters the “undercover boss” immediately takes action. What a feeling of power that must give… At the end of the show the surprised associates meet with the real person behind the person in disguise: their boss. By the way, it is interesting to see that even without disguise, the boss is not always recognized… The “undercover boss” then solves the problems that were surfaced and rewards the employees for their efforts. All very desirable and worthwhile, but the question that arises is of course: “Why in fact only in such a TV show?” (more…)

September 30, 2011 0

Seeing with a Mission: the Visual isn’t the Solution

Ah, but we can do that as well! We can see the solution in front of our eyes – we think – and we can just copy that what we have seen! Back in our own organization we’re ready to go and clean up our mess, change our lay out, paint some nicely colored lines on the floor, put some whiteboards up, put some markings on our machines, and install some of these fancy heijunka-boards and kanban-launchers, and off we go! Easy! Or is it really? After a while it seems that our results are lagging behind what management expected from all this Lean stuff. And that it doesn’t “feel” the way it felt while we were visiting that other company. It is because in fact, that what you can see, the visual, isn’t the solution. It’s only a symptom… (more…)

August 10, 2011 0

Resp-Act, for a Trust-Based Lean Organization

Respect is the foundation for trust and productive collaboration between team members, team members and their leaders, as well as between teams and organizations. However, I sometimes feel that respect and trust are seen as a non-tangible concept that should be discussed between people and when done, “we’ll see whether it improves”. An open atmosphere is being created to enable people to put their concerns on the table, on why they feel trust among the team is lacking. But generally these meetings do not seem to be very productive in building trust, as no action is being built in. I always feel that Lean, however, can often provide the concrete vehicles, processes and behavior that can actually build trust through what I call resp-act… (more…)

July 10, 2011 0

Looking for Inspiration, Ideas

and Fresh Perspectives?

Read our Blog Posts

and Let Us Know Your Thoughts