elec2017 - john bicheno - lean the forgotten the ignored the possible

The Fourth

European Lean Educator Conference

November 2017

The Forgotten, The Ignored, The Possible

John Bicheno

Why this talk?

Has ‘Lean’ been hijacked? (or drifted away ?)

I hope not, but....

• First, the pioneers had valuable thoughts that it would

be a waste to re-learn

• Second, what a waste to ignore several valuable

contributions.

• Third, we stand on the brink of a new Lean

opportunities....and threats..

BUT FIRST...

Last years’ ELEC was near Bletchley.

The Codebreakers

•An eclectic mix of

skills

•Hierarchy downplayed

•Clear purpose but little

‘standard work’

•Excellent

communication• Vs. German codebreakers

Alan Turing and first computer

Gorden Welchman and beginnings

of internet

This years’ ELEC is near Arnhem Nijmegen

Failures of the Battle

•Refusal to listen to the

evidence

•Guarding own ‘silos’

and reputations

•Over ambitious

•Not making good use of

available resources A Bridge Too Far

Let us try to avoid these!

The forgotten...

The Fathers of Lean? Ford and Taylor

• ‘Nothing could have been further from Taylorism than Ford’s

assembly line. Whereas Taylor designed ideal shovels, Ford

abolished shoveling by using electric cranes, moving belts, and other

devices as aids to continuous flow manufacturing. Taylor retrained a

worker to to do the same job more efficiently; the assembly line

redefined and simplified jobs. Taylor offered workers incentives to do

piecework more quickly; Ford made piece rates pointless...Instead

workers received a high fixed wage...Taylor maximised efficiency...

Ford transformed the means of production. Taylor saved time; Ford

sped up time..’

Bicheno at ELEC 2017 6

From David Nye, ‘America’s Assembly Line’,

MIT Press, 2013, page 34

But in a complex world, Taylor is increasingly irrelevant….

…so, bring on the women….

Mothers of Lean: Lillian Gilbreth, Mary Follett

Toyota Founding Concepts?

• First published in 1859, still available

• ‘The spirit of self help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigor and strength’

• By learning to be more efficient, employees could improve the quality of their own lives and those of co-workers. They could also improve the quality of life for the people who used the products they made, which were consequently of more use and value.

• ‘The greatest results in life are usually attained by the exercise of ordinary qualities… they who are the most persistent, and work with the truest spirit, will usually be the most successful.’

• Self Help - many great mean of humble origins, and self taught – who learned by doing and observation


The book is on

display at

Sakichi Toyoda’s

birthplace

The guys who (re)started it all

Bicheno at ELEC 20179

Richard Schonberger and ‘Doc’ Hall(both have been to LERC, Cardiff)

1982

(8 years before ‘The Machine’)

Ignored (or misunderstood)

Schonberger and Inventory Turns

...and

Toyota in

Formula 1:

Agility?

Culture?

Location?

Ignored? Open Book Management

Real ‘Respect’ ?

But

“Just as empowerment without

sharing fails, so does sharing

without empowerment.”

Gen. Stanley McChrystal

Ignored: Yerkes-Dodson (1908)

perf

orm

ance

stress

This, with Parkinson (see next), is the

Great office and service challenge!

Parkinson’s Law (1957)

• ‘Work Expands to fill

the time available for

its completion’

• Ronald Reagan, when governor of California, asked Parkinson to explain why the number of painters on San Francisco's Oakland bridge increased from 14 to 72 once a labour-saving paint sprayer had been introduced.

• Parkinson's Law has been applied in many different contexts. There is the IT version, for instance: “Data expands to fill the space available for storage.” Or the road transport version: “Traffic expands to fill the roads available for it.”

• NHS administrators have grown from less than 10% in the 1950’s to more than 40% now.

Misused? ‘The Cult of the Expert’

• Business Schools as

‘Temples of the Cult’

– Parachute in

– Quick gains & rewards

– Quantitative and $

– No Gemba interest or

experience

– ‘Superficial response

through case studies’

(Mintzberg)

Gemba experience: the path to promotion?

Now, landsmen all whoever you may be

If you want to rise to the top of the tree

If you soul isn’t fettered to an office stool

Be careful to be guided by this Golden Rule

Stick close to you desks and never go to sea

And you all may be rulers of the Queen’s Navy(The First Sea Lord’s Song)

(Gilbert and Sullivan 1878)

Ignored? Kingman’s Equation


lead

tim

e

30% Utilisation 100%

Zero variation

Small uncertainty

Moderate variation

High uncertainty

L = (C2a + C2

e)/2 x ( / (1- )) x te + te

• Causes of muda

• 100% (!)

• Arrival variation

• = load/capacity

Muri Mura

Resource Efficiency and Flow Efficiency


30% Utilisation 100%

(Resource efficiency)

The Lean

Sweet

Spot

Lead

tim

e (

Flo

w e

ffic

ien

cy)

Process time

Can’t both be

achieved

simultaneously,

but can

be approachedFocused

application

of Lean

tools

For instance..

(Modig and Åhlström)

Extending Kingman brings them together!

Real Demand + Unnecessary Demand Utilization =

Load =

Capacity = Base Capacity - Waste

Glenday (Sieve) Pareto

(80/20 & RRS)

Seddon

(Failure Demand)

Hopp and Spearman

(Flow and interactions)

Hinckley

(Mistakes)

Ohno

(Waste)

Goldratt

(Bottlenecks)

Shingo

(SMED,

Pokayoke)

…Utilization and Leadtime is NON LINEAR!

Ignored: Operations Research

Three quick stories.....

• Chip placement and the Travelling Salesman problem

• Supply Chain and ‘Transportation’ / Linear

Programming

• Healthcare Hospitals and DEA (Data Envelopment

Analysis)

Why Six Sigma?

Why not O.R.?

‘The Science of Better’ (INFORMS)

The Possible : Opportunity..and Threat

Lean: CI and Disruption


Tools

Era

Six

Sigma Era

Quality

Era

‘People’

Era

‘System’

Era

Lean Product

Design

‘Design

Thinking’

‘Lean Service’

AI

Lean Startup

& MVP

RPA

3D Print &

Addit Mfg

Agile IT

& SCRUM

?

AR

Blockchain

Disruption

is needed

?? ?

Lean : Reaching out ?

LeanBehavioural

Economics

Creativity

TRIZ and

VE / VA

Value = Benefits / (Costs + Harms)Ideality and Trends

Someone has already solved it..

System1 (Hunch, intuition))

To System 2 (Analysis, Probability)

Rational to Biased

Kirton’s Adaptor-Innovator Theory

Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Moore’s Law has years to run...

• Doubling of transistors every 2 years (18

months ?) since mid 1970’s

• Slowing to every 4 years?

• Some predict it has years to run. Intel CEO

in 2017 said it was ‘alive and well’

• Think about your phone capability

– 2 X by 2020; 4 X by 2023 (!!)

• Implications for Lean

– E.g. In 2016 a CNC operator in

Birmingham UK showed me how he

links with a ‘club’ of other operators

throughout the world….on his phone.

Flexible Adidas sole

emerging from 3D PrinterBut a more powerful tool would be

wasted without a mindset re-think

What is possible is not necessarily efficient

• ‘Efficiency remains important, but the ability

to adapt to complexity and continual

change has become an imperative.’

– Gen Stanley McChrystal, Team of Teams,

Penguin, 2015

• Learning from Nelson and Trafalgar

– Not the battle plan itself, but the preparation of

Captain’s independent thought, fostered for

many years prior to the battle

• Avoiding the Perry Principle

– The more visible something is, or the easier it

is to communicate, the greater the temptation

to control.

Converging Themes?

Waterfall

IT Design Factory SchedulingPeople and

MotivationProjects

Agile

SCRUM

and Sprints

Stage

Gates

Big

Transformation

Plans

Kaizen

Blitz

Kata

Optimization,

OR, LP

MRP, TOC

Batches

Kanban

Heijunka

DDMRP

Change

whole

culture

Top down

KPI’s

Small wins

CPA,

PERT

Last

Planner

Simultaneous

and

Concurrent

Eng.

Set BasedLean

Startup


Small Wins and Agile

• Lean Startup

– Build, Measure, Learn

– Minimum viable product

• Sprints vs.. Waterfall

• ‘Show me the evidence’

• Lean ‘UX’


Some References (outside of Lean)

28

Kata

Deliberate

Practice

‘Small and

varied Wins’

‘Yet’ and

Belief


Dan Gilbert:

‘Pathways in the Brain’

‘The more you do something..

Duhigg

‘Habit’

Amabile on

Small Wins Motivation

Kahneman on

Confirmation Bias,

Israeli recruits, +++

Carol Dwek

on Mindset

Colvin on Talent

The 10k hour rule,

With feedback

Some References (Lean)

29

Kata

Deliberate

Practice

‘Small and

varied Wins’

‘Yet’ and

Belief


Maurer on

‘Kaizen: One Small Step…’

Spear on Experiments

& Jack Smith

Ohno on

Thinking People

Graupp

On JI

NUMMI and

Workforce

transformation

Rother

Mann on

Leader

Standard

Work

TWI

(JR)

Koenigsaecker

On repeated kaizens

Glenday

‘Economics of Repetition

Lean: Back to the Future?

Lean(Manufacturing

and Service)

Systems Theory

Behavioural

Economics

TRIZ and VE

Operations

Researchand Analytics

Six Sigma

Accounting for Leanand Measures

AgileSoftware

and Projects

Lean Designand Design Thinking

TPM

DDMRP

Factory

Physics

TOC

TWI

AutomationAI, AR, RPA, 3D, Robots

The future of (Lean) is past

(Adapted from Rus Ackoff)

Summary of Trends (and hopes!)

• Growth to sustainability

• Exponential to S curve

• (External) Implementing to (Internal) Leading

• Big kaizen to many small

• Narrow Lean to Encompassing Lean

• Humble Experts

• Projects to Ongoing

• ‘Team of Teams’

• Individual improvement to Team improvement

• Linear to Feedback

• Rational economic man to behavioral man

• Shop floor to design office

• Closed book to open book

• MPS to buffers

• From manager to gardener

• Cradle to grave to cradle to cradle

• Free, Perfect and Now

A threat to conventional mindset ?

So, back to Bletchley and Arnhem

Selective standardisation

Training: more on teams, less on individuals (Kata, TWI)

More flexible, participative organisation

Learn from the military: Away from the Perry Principle

Learn from Agile: Sprints, Scrum: The power of small wins

Reaching out: the power of OR, TRIZ, Behav Economics

Brain pathways + Small Wins + Belief

As the world changes, so must Lean

The Fourth

European Lean Educator Conference

November 2017

The Forgotten, The Ignored, The Possible

John Bicheno