the walls of one of the great pyramids. Though the EF symbol looks intriguing, its meaning has nothing to do with advanced manufacturing technology, but everything to with people and philosophy. This symbol is also called the “Takahashi Triangle” after Denso chairman Takahashi, who retired as a Toyota senior executive. Driving it hard through DMMI is its President Akio (Alex) Shikamura, a true disciple of TPS. Certainly having a true believer at the top has been a key driver for deep change. It is called EF Activity, not EF Program. What activities did DMMI begin in the name of EF? In the past they had many excellent technical programs to improve performance, including engineering-led kaizen through 1996, Total Industrial Engineering (TIE) from 1996 to 1997, and TPS concepts in 1998 (small lots, kanban). From 2000 to 2003 DMMI realized they needed more team member involvement so they created a program called WOW (wipe out waste). And each program had a major impact on manufacturing performance. But still, they realized they were significantly behind Toyota plants. So in 2002 they started EF activities with the following purpose: Chapter 19. Lean Implementation Strategies and Tactics 421 Build a fellowship Passionate image that upsurges the sense of connectedness through improvement The fellowship is formed naturally if people share the awareness. Greeting will take place naturally through the fellowship and with a sense of connectedness. “Horizontal” communication Warm job site image with active communication due to improvement Effective explanation to the associates refers to how close the point of view between supervisor and the associates. Thus, it is called horizontal communication, instead of top-down Improvement awareness enhancement Cosmic image with infinite improvement Humans want to be creative. It is very important to put the idea into action, instead of merely suggesting the ideas. It will lead them to think worth working since their own abilities develop with the consequence of the improvement. The basic of worthy to work Awareness sharing Threatening image to show awareness in order to promote improvement. With team members’ or organization people’s awareness, everyone will share “what the issues at job site are.” It is a very significant leader’s role and will lead to value of the job site. Improve them yearly in terms of what the mission is and how to depict them in numerical value. If the activity achieves the level that they can compare horizontally at the job site, the mood will be created at the job site that whether they are superior to others and working harder. Figure 19-12. Symbol for Denso’s Efficient Factory activity 1. Increase the “kaizen mind” of all associates. 2. Create a common target (vision). 3. Reduce costs by eliminating waste throughout the value stream. EF focused on associate involvement to reduce waste throughout the entire product stream, from supplier DMMI to the customer. They realized that to bring TPS to the next level, they needed to invest in TPS experts in the plant. They selected Andris Staltmanis to lead the Manufacturing Engineering Department to a higher level of TPS. Andris has 18 years of production engineering and manufacturing engineering experience and was one of the originals at Battle Creek. In Yamanouchi Yutaka, vice president of Production Control and Planning from DENSO in Japan, he had a sensei to teach him. However, it was understood that the key to success was production ownership. Joe Stich (general manager of Production) was also well versed in TPS and needed to drive this activity from within. For deployment, they split the plant into three focused factories: HVAC (heating, ventilation, air-conditioning), condensers, and radia- tors. Within each of these they selected a product family to become a model line—to go and see and improve. At first Manufacturing Engineering facilitated the model area, and then responsibility was gradually transferred to Production. The approach included basic process kaizen, floor management improvement, and value stream improvement. Some of the tools used were visual control, standard- ized work, small lot size, frequent delivery and pickup, and a heijunka (product load leveling) board. Bryan Denbrock, section leader in the M.E. Department responsible for implementing the high-level model system in the HVAC plant, described establishing plantwide heijunka as particularly challenging due to the variety of products and customers. With the target of becoming a “world class” company, the HVAC model line created a system for finished goods production. This model line served as the tangible reference example for the rest of the plant. The finished goods are shipped from a warehouse to the customer. Three hours worth of customer orders are brought to a large customer staging post. While the product is being staged for the customer, the kanban are removed. These kanban are then taken to the heijunka post. Kanban are arranged in order to level the production signal, which has a pitch of 10 minutes. This means every 10 minutes the material handler brings an order (kanban) to Production to collect the required product to be replaced in the warehouse, which represents what the customer has actually purchased. The warehouse kanban are exchanged THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK422 with the production kanban, and creates the next 10 minutes worth of production. This paces the one-piece flow assembly line. 5 When this heijunka process is applied throughout the plant (using the visual management boards known as heijunka posts), it’s possible to see the state of the whole process for a whole day in one place. It is natural within the Toyota philosophy to use the material handler—or “water spider,” as they are sometimes called—in this capacity, since they can see the entire material and information flow in their route. By creating this leveled condition throughout the plant, all forms of work can be standardized based on the 10-minute interval. This sim- plifies each operation, and it becomes immediately apparent at a glance if the standard is being followed. Once this condition is met, highly capable individuals who can carefully observe, understand, and think can understand the condition of the entire plant. The heijunka post levels production across many part numbers. To achieve this, changeovers (fixture changes on the assembly line) were reduced to less than the takt time (takt time equals available work time divided by customer demand). A two-shift assembly line is changed from 90 to 125 times per day. The takt level is achieved through conveyor line spacing and the rebalancing of work elements for the team of associates on the assembly line. Internally there is a two-way kanban to an intermediate parts store (withdrawal) and then to a manufacturing process (production) for the parts pulled for use by the final assembly area. Kanban are brought to the store 88 times per day. Achieving these kinds of pickup and delivery frequencies requires a fine-tuned process that is highly stable. Even small problems will disrupt production and show up almost immediately. For this reason, for a company to be successful with these interruptions it must be committed to fixing problems immediately and then following up with permanent countermeasures. In terms of the continuous improvement spiral in Figure 3-4 (Chapter 3), the plant is several iterations down the spiral of stability, flow, standardization, and advanced production leveling. Performance results on the model lines have been impressive. Product cost has been greatly reduced, while quality and delivery have risen to noteworthy levels. Most important, DMMI can utilize the success of this activity on other existing assembly lines. DMMI team associates have been directly involved and are transitioning to a new level of “kaizen mind.” This allows the company to foster a new culture where associates’ kaizen power can be tapped and implemented quickly. Chapter 19. Lean Implementation Strategies and Tactics 423 5 In fact, the process is similar to that shown in Figure 19-5, though the assembly is a true one-piece flow, and there are no FIFO lanes in the process. Lean implementation is a learning journey, even in advanced stages. Every experience is an opportunity to learn and grow. But you have to take the time to check and then think about what actions will improve on what you’ve already done. We’ve heard statements like the following when preaching this learning perspective: “But we are in business to make money. This is the real world.” Toyota is making lots of money. But it took decades of work to get to the point where they benefited from early investments in learning. When we give this advice—to make the necessary investment—it’s obvious to us that there’s waste everywhere and the company can benefit from better quality, shorter lead times, more flexibility to respond to change, and increased productivity. Making some up-front investments in learning will greatly multiply long-term savings. Remember in the 4P pyramid, the base is “thinking long term, even at the expense of short-term financial considerations.” Organizations that view lean as a short-term cost-cutting program are never going to achieve what is possible. They will never become high-performing organizations. Many companies are anxious to spread lean quickly to the enterprise and extended enterprise levels. Simple analysis will show that most of the costs are typically in supplied parts. And it is well known that the impact of upstream processes like product development have multiplier effects on manufacturing that are far greater than the investment in product development. So why not start in those areas right away? Our experience is that starting enterprisewide and extra-enterprise level programs prematurely does more harm than good. There are a number of reasons for this: 1. Lean is easier to see in physical operations. Remember that much of the early stages of lean are about learning. It is also, unfortunately, about politics—selling the decision makers who hold the purse strings by getting visible, measurable results. This is easiest to do in routine physical processes. In pure service organizations it’s easiest in the most routine parts of the business, for example, order entry, or the test labs in a hospital. 2. There is a risk of overtaxing resources. Management is likely to assign only so many people to lean. Focus on those from whom you’ll get the best results and learning. Even if a separate staff is assigned to a “lean office,” they’re better off first spending some time in the trenches work- ing on the core value-adding operation. They will start to understand lean at a deeper level, and much of that learning will transfer to the office environment. 3. Lean service operations should support the core value-adding opera- tions. You can lean out a support function by making it more efficient, THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK424 but any lean project should start with the business purpose: Who is the customer? What do they need? If the customer of the service operation is some type of physical transformation process, first go see what that will look like when it’s lean, so you can understand how to support it. When Glenn Uminger was asked to set up the accounting system for the Toyota Georgetown plant, he first spent a year doing TPS projects on the shop floor, which dramatically changed the way he looked at and developed the accounting system to support TPS. It was simpler, less cumbersome, and leaner. 4. There is a risk of turning lean into the latest “program.” Often, the best lean consultants and experienced lean people are assigned to the manu- facturing or core value-adding process in a service organization. Support functions are left to largely fend for themselves based on a short training program. The continuous improvement group does a superficial job, and lean starts to look like the program of the month. Doing it right is more important than doing it early. 5. Trying to lean out suppliers before you’ve done it yourself is hypocritical and dangerous. What right do you have to teach lean to your suppliers if you’re not lean yourself? You need to earn that right. Also, since the lean supply chain is a hierarchy of many different elements that must be in place, if you start “developing” suppliers before you have mutual under- standing and trust, suppliers will view the development as your excuse to hold them up for price reductions. What we’re preaching is patience. Think about the Buddhist monk teach- ing a young disciple, or the karate teacher, or for that matter any good teacher of a complex skill like a sport or musical instrument. You do not begin by play- ing the sport or playing songs. There are tedious exercises necessary to prepare yourself. You need basic muscle control and concentration. A top golf instruc- tor taught by one of the world’s great golfers said he spent the first three months learning golf without ever hitting a ball. Think of the Ohno circle. Stand in the circle and look. This need for patience and discipline extends to the problem-solving process. Do not race in and start implementing solutions. Take the time to find the true point of cause and then ask the Five-Whys for the root cause. Take the time to teach each employee step by step, using job instruc- tion methods, before throwing them into the work routine. Take the time to check and audit and develop countermeasures to learn and improve. Make many little improvements, not just the big, visible ones. This patience takes vision for what can be in the long term. It takes a philosophical understanding of the purpose. It is the hardest part of lean. But in the long term, the payoff is remarkable. Chapter 19. Lean Implementation Strategies and Tactics 425 THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK426 Reflection Activities Most of the readers of this book will be part of organizations that have done something with lean in the past. Many will have done quite a bit over a number of years. For those with some experience we would like you to reflect on where you have been and then develop a plan for what you should be working on next in the “process level” of the 4P model. For those complete novices here is an opportunity to work out a plan. This is a reflection that will need to be done together with a team from your organization— a team of decision makers that can legitimately set a direction for your lean initiative. 1. Take some time to list the process improvement activities you have worked on in the name of “lean.” 2. Classify the most important lean activities in the 2 x 2 matrix of Figure 19-11. Where has most of your activity been located? 3. Now classify the most important lean activities in the matrix in Figure 19-11. Where has most of your activity been located? 4. Now think about how you can build on what you have accom- plished. Where should you go next in the models in Figure 19-10 and 19-11? For example, if you have mostly focused on tools or hot projects it may be time to undertake a value stream model line. If you have a good deal of experience on the left side of Figure 19-11—the tool side of the matrix—it may be time to work on the people development side. Note the les- son from Denso that working on the people side still means involving people in concrete improvement activities at the process or value stream levels. 5. Develop a high-level work plan. You can use as a framework the simple conceptual diagram in Figure 19-10 with some rough dates. Can We Avoid Politics in Lean Transformation? Changing to lean is a political process. There, we said it. Everyone knows poli- tics are bad, right? Politics is what happens in organizations that are not being run rationally. A good, healthy organization is one in which reason rules and everyone is aligned toward a common goal. We have described Toyota as a utopian environment where everyone shares common goals, which start with the customer. So if you want to learn from Toyota, you should start with the assumption that everyone is working toward the same goals, right? Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Or as a harsh Japanese sensei exclaimed: “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” (As a young, petite woman translated from Japanese to English, to the horror of an American). What do we mean by a political process? We mean that in any real-life organization, even Toyota, there are different people with different interests and agendas. Those who are passionate about any change in the organization have a vision. This vision will be embraced by those who see it as supporting their interests and opposed by those who do not. The degree of support and opposi- tion will vary depending on a number of factors, such as how strongly it sup- ports or violates interests, how strongly the interests are held, and the degree to which the organizational culture supports alignment around common goals. The political process is how these different interests work themselves out over time. Those leading the change would like to simply have everything fall into place like moving pieces on a chessboard. In reality there are always compro- mises to navigate through the murky waters of other people’s interests. Push too hard, violate too many interests, and you will create a block of organized resistance that can stop the change process in its tracks. Leading the Change Chapter 20 Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click here for terms of use. Politics is about power, and power is the ability to get things done even against the will of others. Think of different people as having different pots of power: Once the pot is empty, you’re done. That’s a gross simplification, but power does need to be used sparingly. A wise leader knows when to give in, when to attempt to persuade, when to call in a favor, and when to use the for- mal hierarchy of authority to get official orders. Some leaders intuitively know how to use power, and others bobble it continually. Leadership is about power. A leader needs to lead and is only a leader with followers. Getting people to follow you in a direction they are going anyway is not being a leader. The challenge is to get people to follow in a direction they might not otherwise go. Leaders must have a sense of direction. We sometimes call that a vision. Then they must share the vision and get others to buy into it and actively help achieve it. If they do this, especially when followers would not have done it on their own anyway, this is the definition of power. There are a number of sources of power as described in the classic typology by the father of sociology, Max Weber 1 : 1. Rational-legal. This is formal authority. You are the boss in the formal hierarchy and can order things to happen, and others are supposed to obey. You have the legal right to give the orders. Your position confers the right onto you. This is often thought of as bureaucratic power. 2. Coercive. You can threaten negative consequences of failure to comply. 3. Reward. You control some type of reward and offer it contingent upon being followed. This could be a tangible reward like money or an intangible reward like praise. This was not included in Weber’s original typology but it is the flip side of coercive power—instead of a threat, it is a promise that certain behavior or results will yield a certain reward. 4. Charismatic. When you have charisma, people simply want to follow you. There is some sort of animal magnetism that exudes a force that moves people to do as you request. 5. Traditional. It is the way things are done. It is part of the cultural heritage that on Sadie Hawkins day the girl asks the boy to dance and he should agree. It is part of preservation of our values and social norms. A good leader is apt to use all of these sources of power at one time or another. Generally we think of someone as being a leader, rather than merely an administrator, if they have at least some degree of charisma. Any bureaucratic manager can use the first three sources of power. Give them a title and access to THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK428 1 Max Weber. From Max Weber, translated and edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946. formally sanctioned rewards and punishments, and they can get a lot done. But the leader is the person who has a variety of tools available and knows when and how to use them. When should I use my formal position? When should I use the hierarchy to threaten punishment? When should I use my personal charisma to meet with people one-on-one and influence them? When should I make a speech to the team that leaves them crying? When should I preside over a formal ceremony and draw on the power of tradition? Effective leaders learn over time how to use all of these sources of power effectively. Ineffective leaders are like kids with a loaded gun randomly aiming and firing. We’ve had many opportunities to see large multinational companies imple- ment lean as a corporate approach, companies like Ford, General Motors, Delphi, PPG, Boeing, Northup Grumman, the U.S. Air Force and Navy, United Technologies, and many more. In all cases there’s a clear trend: Some individual manufacturing plants take off with lean and get way ahead of the pack, and many (often most) lag behind and implement lean in ritual and superficial ways. Visit individual plants and check them out. What’s the difference between them? The answer is always leadership. In at least 90 percent of the cases where the lean effort has been successful, there’s a plant manager who believes in lean, has a vision, and knows how to lead. In the remaining 10 percent, another high-level manager in the plant—perhaps the manufacturing or assistant plant manager— has led the charge and the plant manager did not interfere. Leaders know how to lead, and leading means using power effectively. How do we teach that? There are many debates about what can and cannot be taught in business school. We say leadership cannot be taught in business school. The real question is if it can be taught at all or whether it’s in our gene structure. In any case, companies can do a number of things to foster leadership, including: ◆ Carefully selecting leaders ◆ Mentoring potential leaders by effective leaders ◆ Providing opportunities to challenge people to allow leaders to emerge ◆ Providing leaders the support and tools to be effective These are all things that Toyota does extremely well, from the team leader to the group leader to the general manager to the chief engineer, and to the executives of the company. Leaders are carefully groomed and carefully selected. Every leader knows one of his or her most important jobs is to develop people, and among those activities is developing future leaders. Everything about the Toyota Way is designed to challenge people to grow, and in that environment leaders emerge and blossom. And the tools of the Toyota Production System (TPS), the culture of the Toyota Way, and the unified management framework of senior exec- utives, provide a fertile ground for natural leaders to be effective. Chapter 20. Leading the Change 429 Leadership from the Top, Middle, and Bottom Change is impossible without effective leaders. 2 But where in the organization should those leaders be located? The answer is that leaders are needed at the top, middle, and bottom. Let’s go into each of these levels, and then look at what’s involved in becoming a lean teacher, or coach. The Role of the Top Behavior in the trenches of the organization is a reflection of the leadership of the top. We saw in Chapter 11 that the leaders at Toyota are hands-on. They’re on the floor or in the engineering offices or wherever the real action is. They have learned the art of genchi genbutsu, understanding how to observe deeply and see what is truly going on. Wherever they go, they are coaching and teaching. But like all leaders, they too must work through other people. In fact, this is the definition of a leader—they have followers. We would not expect them to do a lot of the detailed design or implementation. So what exactly is their role? Figure 20-1 shows a typical structure for a lean transformation. Each of the roles in the diagram is necessary, with the Executive Sponsor involved in two aspects of the process. On the one hand, he or she provides the resources nec- essary—resources that include but are not limited to money—and on the other has all the sources of power available to make things happen. Remember, this is a political process. There is always resistance to change. There are people who will see their interests or the interests of their departments threatened by the change. Let’s consider an example. At one defense client that repairs aircraft, the labor hours of all repair workers have to be charged to accounts. To get shop floor workers involved in lean proj- ects, they had to be taken off of their normal work and assigned to teams to par- ticipate in kaizen events. Implementation was aggressive, so a number of projects were conducted in parallel involving dozens of workers. There was a lot of pressure to get the aircraft out significantly faster to support the needs of the customer. The results of the lean transformation were impressive and moving this facility toward becoming the fastest in the business. The results were poten- tially worth tens of millions of dollars. But in the meanwhile the workers’ time was charged to a lean account, which was falling further and further into deficit. An executive operating committee for the base was pressuring the head of the plant to stop the lean activities. Under similar circumstances an engine repair facility on that base had stopped lean events. This leader might have succumbed THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK430 2 Many of the ideas and figures in this section were derived from the work of Bill Costantino, for- mer Toyota group leader and private consultant. [...]... onto the part, but into the chip separator, for the coolant to be reclaimed and the chips recycled This is a subtle technical difference that requires the kind of attention to detail characteristic of the Toyota Way 447 448 THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK Another example of the technical differences between the two lines was the misapplication of the concept of one-piece flow by the X10 team By applying the. .. ridicule the student, who learns that he or she is inferior and has to work hard to become adequate Some hired sensei—experienced lean consultants— find they need to be kinder and gentler and go too far They know if they are overly critical they may lose the job So they become a member of the group and do a lot of the work themselves 438 THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK In most situations, the approach of the. .. the line over 200 hours annually The X10 team also reaffirmed the decision of previous X10 teams to keep the two metal-coating processes at an outside vendor, though their quality had taken a turn for the worse This would increase work in process levels by 15 percent, but they would not have to invest in the $95,000 equipment and associated training 443 444 THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK They concluded the. .. management These are the people Toyota tends to find and make team leaders There are many ways to involve them The lean coach can seek them out and informally talk to them But a better way is to formally involve them in the change process The kaizen workshop is one great format for involving these natural leaders If you break the larger group in this kaizen event into smaller subgroups, you might even make these... centrifugal force and gravity would throw the chips away from the parts and jigs They were not sure if this would work, and looked to Yoshina for some sort of reaction Upon hearing this, Yoshina nodded in agreement 441 442 THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK The next issue concerned the footprint of the machining line There was not much room in the proposed A1 area, but the team wanted to follow Yoshina’s recommendation... rhythm with the Vendor 5 machine To complete the system, the dozen pieces of work in process would act as a buffer, just in case the automatic load/unload mechanism and the manual load/unload operator got out of sync with one another As for how the tool actually hit the metal, the X10 team decided to clamp the piece of metal to be machined in place, then move the tooling up and down above the piece in... sends along to “help” them do their jobs better To people in the middle, lean is one in a long line of great ideas from management coming to them by way of staff Middle management has another peculiar characteristic Despite the formal power of people at the top of the organization, middle managers have the power to either get things done or stonewall They can be the difference between the success or failure... considering the complex interactions between these and the machines themselves Yoshina, as an experienced practitioner of the Toyota Way, knew that spending a few dollars more on good tooling and jigs now would yield a lower total cost over the lifetime of the product While the X10 line was created by mixing several brands of machines in a way that had caused problems in previously installed X10 lines, the. .. Simultaneously, the X10 project engineer was responsible for coming up with the best X10 line concept possible to be added to the two other X10 modules already operating in the newer plant Chapter 20 Leading the Change Though the two lines produced pistons for different product families, the process used to create them was similar on paper Machine builders had already been selected for both the A1 and X10 lines... using the term “middle manager” broadly to include everyone from the first line supervisor to the department heads Their jobs are to turn the great ideas of the people at the top into concrete action and results This means they must affect the lives of people at the bottom and work through these people They must deliver daily production, be accountable for quality and service, and deal with all the “experts” . Simultaneously, the X10 project engineer was responsible for coming up with the best X10 line concept possible to be added to the two other X10 modules already operating in the newer plant. THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK4 40 . coach. The Role of the Top Behavior in the trenches of the organization is a reflection of the leadership of the top. We saw in Chapter 11 that the leaders at Toyota are hands-on. They’re on the. bureaucratic sense, but in the Toyota Way sense of genchi genbutsu. The sponsor must go and see to truly understand the status of the improve- ments. THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK4 32 TIP Schedule Regular