various articles about lean sensei

8/8/2019 Various Articles About Lean Sensei

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Articles about Lea

Various articles and clippings about LSI from newspapers and websites

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TEL (604) 264-1000

[email protected]

www.leansensei.com



42BUSINESSVANCOUVERJune 11–17, 2013 opinion

suck em’ up

Podium

DaviD Chao

The principle of lean

philosophy or thinking saysthat companies must shed

everything that does not add

true value to end customers

If you don’t know anythingabout “lean,” Six Sigma orTPS (Toyota Production

System), you’d better pay atten-tion – because virtual ly everyindustry, from every corner of

this earth – is embracing thesenew principles to lower cost andimprove efficiency and quality.

In fact, t hese “processimprovement” philosophies ortools are spreading like wild fi resand are now inf luencing every-thing from the way McDonald’s flips burger patties to the wayBoeing builds aircrafts.

First introduced by the auto-makers, these proven company-wide methodologies are making

it possible for car companies todevelop new vehicles 20% to50% faster, reduce defects byanother 40% or more and mar-ket feature-rich cars w ithout in-creasing price to t he consumers.

Haven’t you noticed that inrecent years, car manufacturersare bringing out technologiesand features faster than you canblink?

So what do these terms mean?What is lean ? No, it doesn’t

mean that Jenny Craig is sud-denly involved in car designor manufacturing, but thereis a definite paral lel betweenthe weight-loss clinic and leanmethodology: both focus onreducing unwanted waste fromyour system. In Jenny’s case,that “waste” refers to “fat.” In abusiness situation, the “waste”refers to anythi ng that is viewedas “waste of time” by the finalbuying customers (that is, non-value-added time).

The principle of lean philoso-phy or thinking says that com-panies must shed everythingthat does not add true value toend customers. That means theyhave to consciously work towardremoving wasted time, space, ormaterials from the whole cycleof designing and manufacturingcars so that we – as end custom-ers who buy them – get morebang for the buck. Lean is ap-plied through teams who work

together to generate ideas forreducing waste.

The original lean concept wasfirst developed by Henry Ford,who applied this thinking toproduce Model Ts at astonishingrates – at least by early 1900sstandard.

Toyota then took the basicconcept and worked on it formore than 40 years, creatingthe flawless Toyota ProductionSystem, or TPS for short. The

TPS philosophy is so widelyused around the world that evenemerging countries like Viet-nam, which likely produced yournewest Nike shoes or Old Navy T-shirt, now embrace lean andTPS as key business d rivers.

Here in Vancouver, hundredsof organizations are alreadyinvolved in lean transformation– from manufacturing, ware-housing, banking, insurance andhospitals to schools. Companiesand organizations are apply-

ing the concept of lean and TPSto dramatically i mprove theirspeed, quality and service whileimproving their company’s cul-ture and even their corporatestrategy.

And we are excited to hear thatJeffrey Liker and Mike Hoseus (the authors of the bestsellingTPS books called the ToyotaWay books) are coming to Van-couver to speak about the latesttrends in lean, Toyota Way and

Chewing the fat about lean production Letters

Readers need to armthemselves with awide range of energyinformation to avoidfalling prey topartisan power points

Re: “Peddling non-partisan

power points” (Timothy

Renshaw’s Public Offerings

column – BIV issue 1232; June

4-10)

What a refreshing read!

It surprises me that we

have a lack of non-politicized

information on energy in

Canada.

My impression was that the

U.S. was the king of politi-

cized debate.

Just goes to show that

you should research before

making up your mind. I’m

definitely going to follow up

on some of the points in this

article.

In particular I want to know

more about what Mr. Michael

Cleland is saying.

Time for everyone to get

informed so that when the

partisan hacks push their

agendas at you, you can re-

spond intelligently.

Adrian L. Jacob

Vancouver



Lean manufacturingFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lean manufacturing or lean production, often simply, "Lean," is a productionthat considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation o

for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working f

perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, "value" is defin

action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. Basically, lean is on preserving value with less work . Lean manufacturing is a generic process ma

philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) (hence the

Toyotism is also prevalent) and identified as "Lean" only in the 1990s.[1][2]

It is rfor its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes to improve overall

value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The stead

of Toyota, from a small company to the world's largest automaker,[3]

has focuse

attention on how it has achieved this.

Lean manufacturing is a variation on the theme of efficiency based on optimizin

is a present-day instance of the recurring theme in human history toward increasefficiency, decreasing waste, and using empirical methods to decide what matterthan uncritically accepting pre-existing ideas. As such, it is a chapter in the large

narrative that also includes such ideas as the folk wisdom of thrift, time and mo

Taylorism, the Efficiency Movement, and Fordism. Lean manufacturing is oftenmore refined version of earlier efficiency efforts, building upon the work of earl



transferring of Toyota culture down and across Toyota can only happen when m

experienced Toyota Sensei continuously coach and guide the less experienced le

champions. Unfortunately, most lean practitioners in North America focus on thand methodologies of lean, versus the philosophy and culture of lean. Some exc

include Shingijitsu Consulting out of Japan, which is made up of ex-Toyota man

and Lean Sensei International based in North America, which coaches lean throu

Toyota-style cultural experience.

One of the dislocative effects of Lean is in the area of key performance indicato

The KPIs by which a plant/facility are judged will often be driving behaviour, b

the KPIs themselves assume a particular approach to the work being done. This issue where, for example a truly Lean, Fixed Repeating Schedule (FRS) and JIT

is adopted, because these KPIs will no longer reflect performance, as the assumpwhich they are based become invalid. It is a key leadership challenge to manage

impact of this KPI chaos within the organization.

Similarly, commonly used accounting systems developed to support mass produ

no longer appropriate for companies pursuing Lean. Lean Accounting provides

Lean approaches to business management and financial reporting.

After formulating the guiding principles of its lean manufacturing approach in th

Production System (TPS) Toyota formalized in 2001 the basis of its lean manag

the key managerial values and attitudes needed to sustain continuous improveme

long run. These core management principles are articulated around the twin pillaContinuous Improvement (relentless elimination of waste) and Respect for Peop

(engagement in long term relationships based on continuous improvement and mtrust).

This formalization stems from problem solving. As Toyota expanded beyond its

base for the past 20 years, it hit the same problems in getting TPS properly appl

other western companies have had in copying TPS. Like any other problem, it hworking on trying a series of countermeasures to solve this particular concern. T

countermeasures have focused on culture: how people behave, which is the mos

challenge of all. Without the proper behavioral principles and values, TPS can bmisapplied and fail to deliver results. As one sensei said, one can create a Buddh

and forget to inject soul in it. As with TPS, the values had originally been passe

a master-disciple manner, from boss to subordinate, without any written stateme

way. And just as with TPS, it was internally argued that formalizing the values wstifle them and lead to further misunderstanding. But as Toyota veterans eventua



then having the spirit to face that challenge). To do so, we have to challe

ourselves every day to see if we are achieving our goals.

2. Kaizen : Good enough never is, no process can ever be thought perfect, operations must be improved continuously, striving for innovation and ev

3. Genchi Genbutsu : Going to the source to see the facts for oneself and m

right decisions, create consensus, and make sure goals are attained at the

possible speed.

Respect For People is less known outside of Toyota, and essentially involves tw

defining principles:

1. Respect Taking every stakeholders' problems seriously, and making eve

to build mutual trust. Taking responsibility for other people reaching the

objectives. Thought provoking, I find. As a manager, I must take responsfor my subordinates reaching the target I set for them.

2. Teamwork : This is about developing individuals through team problem

The idea is to develop and engage people through their contribution to te

performance. Shop floor teams, the whole site as team, and team Toyota

outset.



C M Y K PAGE G1

Forexciting

opportunitiesvisit

staffmax.ca

CAREERS AND JOB OPPORTUNITIES G8

SATURDAY,JUNE 6, 2009

IT may seem like a paradox to say that Westeel, a

company best recognized for making the galvanizedmetal grain bins that punctuate the prairiescape, doesnot function in a silo culture.

But within the last three years, Westeel has success-fully knocked down any former barriers to communica-tion and changed the way employees express ideas andinfluence operations. This culture shift has allowed theorganization to reach a new degree of automation in itsfive plants and set unprecedentedsales records — all while at itshighest level of employment in its104-year history.

Mark Humphrey, vice-president

that collects valuable feedback and use those suggestionsto improve our products. Recently, the customer commit-tee provided input into the design of a new floor systemfor our grain storage bins. This floor system has 40 percent fewer parts than the previous design which allowsfor faster installation. Previously, two of the major cus-tomers on the customer committee purchased floorsfrom

VIEW FROM THE TOPThe heads of some of Manitoba’s most successful

companies talk about their business and people challenges.

Shop-floorempowerment Employees urged to come up with solutions

[email protected]

Westeel’s Mark Humphrey with huge rolls of steel that his company fabricates into grain storage bins.

I

T’S been an interesting few weeksin the news world.

We watched in awe as the speakerof the British House of Commonsresigned amid agrowing ethicsscandal among itselected members— the first suchresignation inthree centuries.Many of theseparliamentarianshad charged out-rageous personalexpenses to thegovernment.

At the sametime, Canadians were treated to sixdays of former prime minister Brian

Mulroney squirming in the witnesschair at the Oliphant Commission ashe was pounded by questions aboutthe ethics surrounding his clandestineacceptance of envelopes stuffed withmoney. National opinion polls showedthat people not only saw his behaviouras unethical, they perceived it to be

illegO

knobacbehhimto le

Wing the uneparlers.ior tamoemplongdingcousca

behlimioccu

WORKING WORLD

BARBARABOWES

Give your employto make ethical d



Vancouver, Surrey, Abbotsford and Kelowna. For example,

who would have imagined that a process designed to

improve the manufacturing industry could be applied to aproperty management firm? That's exactly what happened

when Friesen recently decided to adopt "Lean Sensei, " ~a management approach originally used by heavy industlY toreduce redundancy and optimize production flow.

Lean philosophy can be as simple as breaking down anoffice duty such as invoicing or payroll into a series of steps

in order to identify wasteful or repetitive actions. It's also

called process mapping and at Eaywest this frequently

BAYWEST MA



Reprint f rom Business in Vancouver M

Profile: Tony Woodruff

Tuesday, 10 April 2007

Fire sales: FPI president Tony Woodruff heads a rapidly growing Delta-based fireplac

manufacturer that emulates the successful business practices and corporate culture

Motor Corp.

Mission: To expand FPI by producing quality fireplaces

Assets: An understanding of Toyota Motor Company’s principles and 14 years’ exper

FPI

Yield: Steady growth to $83 million in annual revenue and 450 employees worldwide

Glen Korstrom

Outfitted with 10 fireplaces, FPI Fireplace Products International Ltd.’s boardroom ha

potential to become one overheated corporate venue.

Fortunately for the Delta company’s management, however, those fireplaces remain

As FPI president Tony Woodruff points out, lighting them up not only gets the boardr

“toasty,” it also activates air conditioning around the fireplace manufacturer’s 200,00

foot building and chills many of its 350 local employees.

For flame, visitors can instead look to the boardroom’s six framed Norman Rockwell-

photos depicting happy families sharing warmth around wood stoves and open fires.

For corporate heat, they can consider FPI’s growth over the past half dozen years.

Woodruff has increased his Delta-based company’s annual revenue from $60 million

when he assumed the top management job from CEO and founder Robert Little, to m

$83 million and 450 worldwide staff last year.



In standardized U.S. dollars, FPI’s growth is closer to 70%, he said.

The loonie’s rise against the American greenback was enough to make Woodruff con

shifting some manufacturing to Bellingham.

But after speaking with manufacturers who have factories on both sides of the borde

conferring with Washington State economic development representatives, he change

mind.

“You would have to drug-test your people regularly down there. Here, we don’t do th

said. “The quality of the labour pool in B.C. is better.”

Woodruff decided that a better strategy would be to buy land adjacent to his Delta fa

the end of a cul-de-sac in the Tilbury Business Park, where he plans to build a 40,00

foot factory.

Other Woodruff growth strategies include:

creating an eight-employee Australian subsidiary;

negotiating a joint-venture with a Chinese company in Shanghai; and

offering RRSP matching, profit-sharing and other perks to retain workers and redu

recruitment costs.

Through it all, he has tried to understand how Toyota Motor Corp. has become the w

fastest-growing large auto-maker and emulate its corporate culture.

“We think Toyota is the greatest manufacturing company in the world,” Woodruff sai

“They’re light-years ahead of anybody else.”

Business coaches at Vancouver’s Lean Sensei International help FPI managers adopt

techniques that Toyota has used to improve efficiency.

Lean Sensei president David Chao has worked for Toyota-related businesses in Japa

North America. He helped FPI boost its efficiency by suggesting that the company im

Kanban system, which would streamline raw material orders and enable FPI to lower

levels by 25%.

“They’re far from perfect, but they’re significantly better than a lot of Vancouver

f t i i ” Ch id



suggested that the company has implemented.

“Muda is a Japanese word for waste and they define it broadly,” Woodruff said of peo

both Toyota and Lean Sensei. “They look at waste from the point of view of the custo

What will the customer pay for? What does the customer see as valuable?

“Everything else that the company does, which does not contribute to the customer’

experience, they say, is waste.”

Woodruff might implement one expensive Toyota practice: having a button that any

can press to immediately shut down operations, start a siren wailing and cause light

to indicate a problem.

When senior Toyota managers hear their siren, they drop everything and investigate

problem is because they don’t want the plant to be shut down for one second longer

necessary, Woodruff said.

The lesson here is that more important than restarting production is to ensure that w

don’t pass a problem down the line.

“The worker knows that it’s not about how many products they produce in a day, bu

many perfect products they produce,” Woodruff said.

Other aspects of U.K.-born and Oxford University-educated Woodruff’s demeanour m

that he emulates Japanese business practices. He bows his head slightly when he th

guests for their visit. And when he walks through his manufacturing plant, he shows

for each worker by asking what he or she thinks of one of Woodruff’s recent decision

The 55-year-old worked as a Deloitte and Co. accountant in London in the 1970s. Th

giant transferred him to Chicago, where he soon joined General Binding Corp. to get

management experience.

He moved to Vancouver in 1989 for a two-year stint running GBC’s 100-employee Ca

division. When GBC recalled Woodruff to its Chicago head office, Woodruff and his w

realized how much they loved living in Vancouver.

They returned, and Woodruff joined FPI in 1993 as its vice-president of sales and ma

He compares FPI’s founder and CEO to Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, because L

more interested in product development and customer service than day-to-day mana



Pacific Energy Fireplace Products Ltd. and bigger players such as Ontario’s CFM Corp

Iowa’s HNI Corp.

“We face the same factors,” said Pacific Energy president Paul Erickson. “There’s the

materials, the price of labour, the U.S. dollar impact. We ship to roughly the same

marketplaces in North America so freight costs would impact them as they impact us

of like Chev and Ford.”

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Shorter wait times aim of plan patterned after Toyota system



With the Toyota-inspired model, though, it took less than five days to implement seemingly small changes th

shorter waiting times for potentially life-saving procedures, more pleasant — and efficient — hospital visits f

safer procedures.

“It’s not about some bigger agenda. It has nothing to do with anything other than what it should be about —

Piper Shalley, a nurse who works in the pediatric intensive care unit.

At B.C. Women’s Hospital, a Toyota-based five-day workshop was able to reduce by 90 per cent the time fr

mother is ready to be discharged from the hospital to when she exits the building and heads home. Before th

discharge process took an average of 10 hours. Now, it takes about one hour.

Court-ordered psychiatric patients used to have to wait 10 days to be admitted to a bed. Since the workshoaverage of 3 1 ⁄ 2 days.

At the BC Cancer Agency, staff were able to reduce by 83 per cent the time from when a doctor made a re

the patient got in to see a specialist. Before the workshop, the average wait was 42 days. Now, it’s seven.

The changes cost the system next to nothing.

Changing small processes

So far, the Provincial Health Services Authority — which includes BC Women’s and Children’s hospitals, the

Agency and the BC Centre for Disease Control — has completed 45 Toyota-inspired projects.

All levels of staff have been included, from front-desk clerks to doctors to vice-presidents to the CEO. Grou

people are thrown into a room together, presented with the details of the problem, instructed on how to map

they brainstorm solutions, implementing one of them by week’s end.

“It’s not a matter of changing the world. We’re just changing small processes,” said Dr. Kevin Elwood, a tub

specialist at the BC Centre for Disease Control. “It’s not magic.”

During the two workshops that have been done at Elwood’s clinic, the focus was on “improving workflow pr

said. Basically, that meant cutting out unnecessary physical and procedural steps, cleaning up the filing syst

the appointment system.

The results have been shorter waiting times for people needing to get a skin test for tuberculosis and for tes

“Now, you walk through and it looks like nuns have come through and cleaned up the place for us,” he said.

But there were no nuns — and no magic — involved. J ust a variety of staff plucked from different levels of t

outsider who could ask all the naive, basic questions that those entrenched in the system likely wouldn’t see




Several other B.C. health authorities, including Vancouver Coastal and Providence, have also been using To

methods to tighten up workflow and eliminate waste. The philosophy is commonly referred to as “lean mana

was first applied in earnest to the health care system at the beginning of the decade.

Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle is considered one of the leaders in applying the lean philosophy to

hospital began implementing lean strategies in 2002 and within three years, it had saved more than $8 millio

expenses.

By increasing efficiencies, the hospital was able to scrap plans for several expensive expansions, including n

suites, a new hyperbaric chamber and new endoscopy suites.

It was able to reduce the number of full-time equivalent staff positions by 36 per cent, through attrition and restaff to other positions. There were no layoffs.

The Seattle hospital saved 53 per cent on inventory, reduced set-up time for surgeries and bed moves by 8

reduced the distance that staff travelled during their shifts by 44 per cent.

The reasons for implementing “lean” strategies in B.C. hospitals are compelling. Our aging population, comb

and nurse shortages, means that more has to be done with less.

“We believe there’s higher clinical efficacy and outcomes by virtue of the fact that we’re more efficient. We’r

things more efficiently,” said Larry Gold, president of BC Children’s Hospital and the Sunny Hill Health Centr

“And from a taxpayer standpoint, we’re using our resources in as an efficient and effective way as we possib

Improving safety, care

But lean strategies are also aimed at improving patient safety and care. A 2004 study published in the Cana

Association J ournal found that an average of 7.5 out of every 100 hospital admissions results in an adverse

an infection — but close to 70,000 of those each year are potentially preventable. One in every six incidents

events results in the patient’s death.

A key objective of the lean philosophy is to reduce such occurrences.

It can be hard to understand the reasons for the overlaps, redundancies and inefficiencies in the health care

when you consider that the system has grown from a point of necessity, rather than profit. Additionally, it ha

layers added with new medical advancements, new funding and more patients. It is natural that there would

improvement.

Dr. Paul Bach, an anesthesiologist at St. Paul’s Hospital’s heart centre, had something of an epiphany in his t

the medical system upon walking into the waiting room one day.




Bach was involved in an imPROVE project that aimed to reduce the waiting time for patients to be assessed

surgery. Before the project, patients were waiting an average of 71 minutes to see the proper doctor. After

time was reduced to 15 minutes.

“We increased the number of cardiac patients we see by about 25 per cent, from 600 to more than 800, in

increasing our staffing level or appointments — all because we just got more efficient,” he said.

“There have been lots of benefits, not just patient wait times. It’s translated into seeing more patients, seeing

efficiently and making their surgical journey a much safer one in the long run.”

(St. Paul’s Hospital is not part of the Provincial Health Services Authority, but the heart centre was involved

project because the health authority administers and funds all cardiac services for the province, regardless odelivered.)

Executives within the health authority talk eagerly about how imPROVE is part of a larger “culture shift” with

organization.

Some skepticism

The hope is that by placing the reins of change in the hands of front-line workers, they will feel empowered.

feel more empowered, the hope is that they will take increased ownership of their jobs.

“There’s a much higher level of satisfaction with staff,” Gold said. “Effectively, we’re getting the right care to

with the right set of resources, at the right time.”

Naturally, there was some skepticism and hesitancy about imPROVE when it was first rolled out in late 2007

But for those front-line workers who have been immersed in one of the workshops, it’s clear that these are n

initiatives.

“I would just say that I was very impressed,” said Shalley, the pediatric ICU nurse. “It was focussed on the p

focussed on the people who are required to care for the patient.”

There is no end-date for the imPROVE process. The idea is to continually re-evaluate and redesign process

the health authority, with improved efficiency and safety as the key objectives.

“Eventually, what we would hope is that five years from now, we’ll be able to say, ‘We made fewer medical because of this process’,” Christilaw said.

[email protected]

©Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Can Lean Save Canadian Manufacturing?



CAN LEAN SAVE CANADIAN MANUFACTURING?

“ Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that c reated them”

By Jacob Stoller | February 24, 2009When GM announced the imminent closing of its Oshawa, ON, truck plant last J une, company executives

blamed declining sales. As if to prove this point, many newspapers carried photos of car lots full of unsold

SUV’s and trucks. There’s another explanation for these rows of vehicles, however—GM had created a

huge inventory of products that nobody was willing to buy.

This distinction, while it may sound trivial, is essential to the core of Lean. According to Lean, any

manufacturer, whether it be an auto giant or a small job shop, should build only what customers want,

when they want it, and at the best possible price. Everything else is waste. A Lean expert, looking at aphoto of a car lot would not say that too few were sold, but that too many were produced.

Lean, unfortunately, is not a magic bullet, and it would be a gross over-simplification to say that Lean is a

cure-all for the ills of North American manufacturing. To its credit, GM, Ford, and Chrysler have used Lean

methods extensively to cut costs and narrow the productivity gap between themselves and J apanese car

manufacturers, but this hasn’t been enough. Delphi, GM’s auto parts spin-off, won numerous awards for

its application of Lean methods, only to go bankrupt in 2005. Many Canadian metal shops use a number of

Lean methods, and yet are still struggling.

Lean, however, does offer a powerful vision for companies that need to reduce costs and improve quality

in order to stay competitive. At a time when costs of fuel and materials, are rising, and Canada is

competing with regions that have low labour costs, the practice of eliminating waste is likely to become a

matter of survival. “What Lean does in a nutshell,” says Larry Coté, president and CEO of Lean Advisors

Inc., “is allow you to do more with less.”

Practicing Lean Lean methods like Kaizen and 5S are used frequently in Canada, but few companies are applying the

Lean philosophy broadly to their businesses. “People are taking it like another program,” says Anders

Nielsen, owner at Gardiner Nielsen Associates. “It’s like dieting. Here’s your list of what you can eat—just

follow it and you’ll get thin. Well, that’s probably not true. You need to be more involved, you need to

understand it, you need to live and breathe it. There’s no kind of quick and easy way to do this.”

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produce, how do you treat and relate with the customers, how do you produce the product, and how do

you deliver the product.”

According to Michael Ewing, program director, Lean Six Sigma, Centre of Excellence at Schulich School of Business, this broader view needs to include all aspects of the business, including finance and

partnerships. “For a metal fabrication shop, Lean must be considered as a strategy versus just a

series of activities,” says Ewing. “It requires looking back at the P&L and balance sheets and focusing on

the elements of the business that are eating your lunch. Lean must be applied across the supply chain and

practiced by your supply chain partners—one weak link, and the system fails.”

Cultural Barriers

Lean relies heavily on input from those closest to the manufacturing processes. According to Nielsen,North American managers, used to a hierarchical style of management, often have difficulty seeing shop

floor workers as problem solvers. “We kind of believe that managers have all the answers,” says Nielsen.

“In the consensus style of J apan, a manager isn’t somebody with the answers—it’s somebody with the

right questions, the right strategy. The J apanese rely on individual people to understand the strategy and

to apply it wherever they are working. Whereas in North America what I see is the average shop floor

employee or lower management are simply saying ‘tell me what to do and I’ll do it to the best of my ability,

but I don’t really need or want to understand the business strategy. I just want to follow a program.’”

As a result, North American manufacturers fail to build the kind of organizations they need to make

sustainable long-term improvements. “One of the primary reasons why we’re struggling in North America,”

says David Chao, president and founder at Lean Sensei International, “is because Lean is being used as a

tool to achieve certain cost reductions that go against the principles of Lean thinking. Instead of looking

after the people, developing the talent, looking strategically at the right place to cut costs, reduce defects,

and increase the flow, they say, ‘okay, let’s make a short term obvious cost reduction’. So they cut the

training, cut investment in people, close down the plant, reduce the work hours, etc.”

The benefits of these cuts are usually short lived, according to Chao, and errors and defects tend to

subsequently arise. The worst part, however is that these measures effectively kill any culture of

continuous improvement.

“People begin to associate Lean with layoffs, or Lean with cost reduction,” says Chao, “and the whole

principle of Lean, which is developing people and constantly challenging them to do better, is out the

window then. Because once people begin to associate lean with nothing more than cost cutting, why

would they feel motivated to improve anything? They will say that if they improve their process by 10 percent, then 10 per cent of their people could be let go a few weeks later. There’s no incentive for people to

improve then—in fact, they may begin to resist and fight back any attempt to improve because they are no

longer associating positive changes with Lean thinking. The most important factor is to ensure that people

of all levels embrace Lean because they know that Lean makes the organization and people stronger,

more motivated and more customer-focused”




shops always think is that every product is a different product group. It’s not. Every job shop we go into,

they all have three or four product groups, and therefore they only have three or four value streams.”

Coté believes that with job shops, it’s the leaders, not the workers that have to make the most painfuladjustments. “Usually in the job shop there’s an owner that runs the place and is the president and CEO,”

says Coté, “and that person of course probably learned the trade back in the 1970s and 80s, and did

what we all did—applied continuous improvement to different areas. The problem was that we didn’t

understand the whole system end to end.”

For Lean to make a real difference in Canadian manufacturing, there will have to be some fundamental re-

thinking on the part of many individuals who are nearing retirement, and who just came out of an era

where, thanks to a low Canadian dollar and a booming US export market, flow and waste were not highpriorities, and the motto for most was probably “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Lean offers a real alternative for today’s challenges. “It’s there if they want to do it,” says Coté. “The

problem is do they really have the will and the passion to actually change?”

Coté is highly optimistic for those who opt to take the leap. “This economic crisis is the best thing that

could happen to Canada and the US. Y ou watch. Because the real drivers of our economy are going to

survive. The 21st century leaders are going to be the ones that are still around. This economic crisis isgoing to weed out the weak ones.”

©Rogers Publishing Ltd.



The Florida Times-Union

October 11, 2004

Lean is the word in the business world

By GREGORY RICHARDS

The Florida Times-Union

Jerry Bussell has found what he believes is the key to manufacturing success. And now he wit with the rest of the city.--------------------------------------------------

Jerry Bussell, the vice president of global operations for Medtronic Xomed, is a big support philosophy, placing signs around the company to keep employees thinking "lean." Kaizen Cof those signs, as kaizen means continuous improvement. JOHN PEMBERTON/The Times------------------------------------------

Five years ago, Bussell discovered lean production, a Japanese philosophy of removing wasteful actions and procedures that don't add value for the customer. He persuaded his bosses at Medtronic Xomed, a Southside manufacturer of products

that treat ear, nose and throat diseases, to implement the system. The results wowedeveryone involved: The system slashed production time and defect rates, saving thecompany tens of millions of dollars. And it made employees happier by allowingthem to take charge of their work.

"I had never seen such an integrated strategy that was simple, made sense, could bewell understood and that you could drive the type of results that you could," saidBussell, Medtronic Xomed's vice president of global operations. "The speed thatyou could get improvement without spending a lot of money was just staggering to

me."

Although it is becoming the rage among some American businesses, most haven't made muwith the strategy, which was developed by Toyota Motor Corp. in the 1950s. So, Bussell thnot help Jacksonville's businesses become "lean"? And why stop there?

Last year, with assistance from the First Coast Manufacturers Association and WorkSource job-training organization, the Lean Consortium was born. Although there are a dozen lean c

Canada and a handful in the United States, none strive to be as far-reaching.

Besides transforming businesses, the group would like to see the theory's principles seep degovernment, schools and the culture of Jacksonville in hopes that the big payoff would be mcompanies are drawn to the region.



Utilizing the lean manufacturing system, assembly line stations on the floor at Dura Automdesigned around the workers, funneling parts within reach to minimize movements and incr productivity. JON M. FLETCHER/The Times-Union ---------------------------------------------

Now, 15 other First Coast companies are learning what terms like muda, kanban, kaizen anmapping are all about. The group ranges from CF Machine & Tool Inc., a 10-employee We part manufacturer, to cigar manufacturer Swisher International Inc. and the Jacksonville Sh both with over 1,000 employees. Besides size and industry, the organizations are each at diof implementing lean thinking.

To become a member, the companies have to make a three-year commitment to the consort

annual fees that range from about $500 to $2,000, depending on the firm's size.

The consortium works in several ways. Monthly, it holds an "Introduction to Lean" class, agroup studies ways members can better organize their operations. Another monthly event isshame," where attendees walk through a member's facility to point out processes needing imand to celebrate accomplishments. It also holds quarterly sessions about mapping business allow companies to see inefficiencies.

But increasingly, the companies are starting to look to each other for guidance as to how to their businesses, said Amy Erickson, the consortium's facilitator.

A top lean thinking expert is advising the group. The consortium has hired David Chao, whhis base in Canada several times a year to visit First Coast companies.

Cindy Hildebrand, CF Machine's president, said she wouldn't have been able to begin to ma business lean without the consortium.

"I wouldn't have known where to begin," she said. "It's just been incredibly helpful having tgroup."

Lasting performance

Business process reengineering. Total quality management. Taguchi methods.

--------------------------------------------------Medtronic Xomed assembly technician Kim Keo reaches for a part she neassemble a nerve integrity monitor in her pod. Several workers share spacstart and finish the unit passing from one worker to the next. JOHN PEMTimes-Union --------------------------------------------------



Art Smalley, a faculty member at the Lean Enterprise Institute, a Boston-based non-profit rtraining organization, said he was "pessimistic" about lean production's future 10 years ago

"I didn't think American management could stay attuned to anything for more than a few ye Now he thinks differently. "Toyota's been doing this since the 1950s. If they've been doing years and nothing's displaced it, I think it'll be true for us."

Lean production's holistic approach to improving quality, cost and delivery is "timeless," SmPrevious methods focused on only a portion of those needs.

About 55 percent of companies nationwide are involved in lean in some way, said David D

editor at trade magazine IndustryWeek. But, he said, many of those companies are just getthad stalled in their efforts.

The practice is much more widespread in other countries, said Chao, the Canadian lean expand in Canada, for instance, there are many consortiums focused on lean, he said. In the Unsuch groups are very few.

"That's probably because the U.S. mentality is very competitive," Chao said. "They don't w

ideas and leverage with other companies. They're afraid they're going to lose their competitadvantage."

In Japan, he said, competitors share information freely because they believe it will help the Not embracing lean quickly means great risk for companies, given heightening global comp

"Lean is the standard now -- it is no longer an option," Chao said. "Either you become lean methods or you say goodbye to your future."

Companies that have fully embraced lean have shown spectacular results. Butreaching that level is not easy, and it's an unrelenting process, say industryofficials.

Medtronic Xomed, for example, one of the First Coast companies farthest alongin implementing lean thinking, has used the philosophy to turbocharge itsoperations. The company has moved assembly areas right into the warehouse, eliminating tshuttle parts and finished goods all about the complex. It compressed work areas into "cells

worker within arms' length of another, making it easy to correct any problems. And they'veemployees the authority to control how products are built, with the management staff acting

"Who knows how to do the job better than the people who are doing it?" Bussell said. "We We don't do these things."



Powered by lean processes, Toyota has become the world's second-largest automaker, behinMotors Corp. And in its fiscal year that ended in March, it reported a profit of nearly $11 bithan General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler Corp.'s earnings combined.

"I've never seen anybody who's really serious about implementing lean who doesn't get veryresults," said Peter Ward, chair of the management sciences department at Ohio State Univ

Sure, cutting waste sounds easy. But doing it right -- and doing it constantly -- is a lot of wo

Among the challenges companies face when implementing lean: Getting top management tconverting staff members in middle-management jobs from bosses to coaches; and dedicati

money to employee training.

"If you're tough enough to do it, you gain a competitive advantage," said Ward, who has dowinning research on lean production. "Because it's hard work, it's hard to duplicate."

But the hard work required to get a company to think lean involves brain power, not brawn"Part of lean is making people's jobs safe and easy. We don't want people working faster -- them working steady at the right pace. If we want them to do more, then we have to improv

There's also no end point, for there's always waste to trim. "It's almost like putting a brand nglasses on after years and years. And all of a sudden you can see things -- you can see wastnever seen before," Bussell said.

Lean Jacksonville

The Lean Consortium's goal is to get the entire city thinking lean.

Bussell, who speaks passionately about lean, said he envisions several lean consortiums in JMaybe one focused on small businesses. Another on banking and yet another directed to no

Already, four companies are on a waiting list for a second consortium. Once 12 to 15 compan additional consortium will be formed, said Erickson, the consortium's facilitator.

Eventually, Jacksonville's public schools may teach lean thinking, just as in Japan, where scare taught the principles of teamwork and self-reliance, Bussell said. First Coast colleges w

courses on it and it would become a fundamental part of city government. Already, JEA anOffice have begun implementing lean.

"It becomes part of the DNA of Jacksonville," he said. "We are the best. God, we have so mus in the city, such progressive leaders and people who are so dynamic. I just need to get thof some people ho ill r n ith it "



It could be a brand for the region, just like North Carolina's Research Triangle Park and CalSilicon Valley, said Lad Daniels, president of the First Coast Manufacturers Association anJacksonville's City Council. Already, Bussell has trademarked the term "LeanJax" and regis

site of the same name.

Jerry Mallot, the executive vice president of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of CommeJacksonville would aid efforts to draw companies to Northeast Florida in two ways: By shocity is on the forefront of management techniques, and by demonstrating the preparedness oworkforce.

"It's definitely an element that makes us more attractive, and that companies appreciate and

said Mallot, who is the city's point person on attracting businesses.

Story by: gregory.richardsjacksonville.com, (904) 359-4649 This story can be found on Jacat http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/101104/bus_16863653.shtml.

Lean Consortium members

Ameritape Inc. -- specialty tape distributor

Atlantic Marine Inc. -- shipyard

CF Machine & Tool Inc. -- machine part manufacturer

Crane Resistoflex -- hydraulic component system manufacturer

Dura Automotive Systems Inc. -- automobile parking brake manufacturer

Florida Custom Marble -- cultured marble products manufacturer

Enkei Florida Inc. -- aluminum wheel manufacturer

Goodrich Corp. -- composite and acoustical components manufacturer

Jacksonville Sheriff's Office

JEA -- utility

Kaman Aerospace Corp. -- aircraft structural component manufacturer

Medtronic Xomed -- specialized surgical product manufacturer

various articles about lean sensei

Documents