Assembly Planbook - June 2008 - (Page 72)

Leading Lean Jamie Flinchbaugh Partner The Lean Learning Center Novi, MI Those Darn Corporate Guys he plant lean team is huddled around the table. The corporate guys are coming in tomorrow for an assessment. The mood is somber. Will it be easy for us to pass, or will we get hammered with deficiencies? Will it be helpful, or distract us from what we need to do? Are we their customer, or are the corporate guys our customers? This tension is common. Corporate leaders ask “How do we get the site folks engaged in the bigger picture of what’s going on with lean?” Site leaders ask “How do we get a little breathing room from those corporate guys?” Both are right, and a little dose of empathy helps. The real answer comes from focusing on a common lean concept: Value. What provides value? A lean transformation requires striking a difﬁcult balance between leveraging the efforts of the whole organization and enabling local ownership and drive. These are not mutually exclusive—the best companies have both. Without a focus on value and balance, there is neither leverage nor ownership, and most of the tough questions derive from this scenario. As an example, I was talking with the site general manager of a very large company with a successful lean program. He clearly had a strong sense of ownership for improvement at the site, and believed that most of this site’s progress was on its own. When T I asked how they ﬁt into the corporate initiative, the response was that they had enough improvements that they could “feed the beast” and keep the corporate guys “off their backs.” Clearly there was a fundamental breakdown here in the premise of what’s of value. A lean transformation requires striking a difﬁcult balance between leveraging the efforts of the whole organization and enabling local ownership and drive. Let’s make two important assumptions. First, most corporate initiative leaders have good intentions to help the organization as a whole move forward. Second, most of the site folks aren’t feetdraggers. Whichever group you’re in, if you carry the inverse of these assumptions with you, the relationship is bound to fail. Everyone must put two fundamental questions on the table. First: “What is of value?” Second: “Will our actions practically provide that value?” Begin addressing these questions by considering the deﬁnition of adding value. To add value, an activity must be valued by the customer who is willing to pay for it, change the product or service, and be done right the ﬁrst time. One of the more criticized actions of corporate groups is the dreaded audit for lean improvement. Would the site pay for the program out of its own budget? Does real change to the organization occur because the audit happens? These are important questions if you are going to focus on value. One organization did exactly that and after several conversations on audits with scoring, the organization took the approach of cross-site assessments instead. There are no scores, only feedback. It is a structured process so that the sites can learn and improve. The assessors collect ideas that can be used for improvement and the sites receive feedback from experienced lean practitioners. The feedback is intended to be actionable so that real change is more likely to take place. The most critical part is that each site gets to determine if and when it uses the assessment process. With a focus on value instead of scoring the sites accomplish something much different in both intent and reality than most organizations. We must also be pragmatic in answering these questions. Does a system where people submit ideas and others get to use them provide value? Well, only if people use it. It’s not enough for something to be good or useful. It has to be applicable. Would you use it? After all, lean does begin with you. Whether you agree or disagree, Jamie will welcome your comments. Contact him at jamie@leanlearningcenter.com. 72 ASSEMBLY / June 2008 www.assemblymag.com http://www.assemblymag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Assembly Planbook - June 2008

Assembly Planbook - June 2008 Contents Editorial Bonding Lines Quality in Assembly Assembly Lines Assembly in Action Fastening or Bonding? Loose Lips Sink Assembly Systems DFMA Cuts Downstream Costs Robots Lend a Hand Products Advertisers Index Classified Leading Lean

Assembly Planbook - June 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.