Why Lean Efforts Often Struggle

Can we be honest? Lean manufacturing (or Lean office, or other "Lean" work systems) is NOT rocket science. The essence of Lean is to produce the highest quality products or services safely, to eliminate waste in the system, to empower self-directed work teams to run the day to day operations of the business and to aggressively implement maintenance systems. Typically, Lean involves value stream mapping, process flow tools, customer input, the DMAIC approach (or equivalent), reducing lead times and some form of descriptive statistics and data displays.

There are two major reasons why so many organizations are struggling to successfully implement Lean. First, Lean is an operational philosophy. Most Lean roll-outs look at the processes and systems which must be in place for success, and rightly so. But for success to “happen,” empowered teams must effectively solve problems, make decisions and implement plans on a daily basis. Problem solving, decision making and planning are tactical skills. Without proper and adequate training focused on these tactical skills, Lean has a low probability for success.

Second, management is often unwilling to (or unaware of the need to) create the performance systems necessary for the newly empowered teams to be successful. Because empowered teams must now perform tasks that have typically been within the manager's purview, they need to have performance systems which support them doing so. Often, when Lean is implemented the organization just “throws the teams in and sees what happens”. This is a recipe for disaster. When the team approach is designed using the elements of Performance System Analysis, the “throw ‘em in and see what happens” syndrome is avoided. The entire job environment is structured in advance to make the team successful.

In essence, Lean (as typically implemented) is asking people to do

• jobs that they have never done
• in a performance system in which they have never worked
• with tactical tools they have never learned or been expected to use.

And we're surprised when we do not get the results we expect. What a shock!

Lean works, if properly rolled out. One of our clients has a glass coffee table in the lobby of one of their manufacturing facilities. Inside the glass of the coffee table is literally the second product in a new line of products they produced using the Lean philosophy and our tactical tools. A plaque next to the product tells all who visit that this is the second one produced. What the plaque does not say is the real story. The first one produced was sold to a customer, put into service and it worked perfectly! That is what lean, with good performance systems and tactical tools for teams, can do.

The good news is, if you have read the above, you're probably already doing a lot of things that are necessary to produce quality product at a profit, so you don't need a wholesale renovation of your operations. You DO need to prepare your employees with the tactical tools (problem solving, decision making and planning) they need for success. You MUST create performance systems that clearly lay out the teams desired accomplishments, remove roadblocks and provide timely performance feedback.

So, how is your Lean initiative progressing?