Читать книгу The Lean Book of Lean - Earley John - Страница 6

As I've hinted at before, Lean is simple and there should only be a few principles that need to be kept in mind to be successful. In this chapter I will introduce a few that I believe are core to the thinking. None of this will be earth-shattering insights from the heavens for you, but it should at least make you think a bit about how the parts fit together. So, here they are:

• Be customer demand-driven – Don't do anything until there is demand from the customer to do it.

• Maximise flow – Once something has been started, finish it. After all, if you apply the rule above, someone wants it now, so why hold it up?

• Identify and eliminate waste – Learn to identify waste in all its forms: material, time and resources. Then take whatever steps necessary to eliminate it.

• Declare war on variation – Variability kills. It creates an atmosphere of uncertainty, which causes much of the waste mentioned above. Systematically identify and eliminate the root cause, not just the symptoms.

• Organise your people around outcomes you want – Create an organisational structure around delivery of your products or services to customers. Make sure there is clear individual or team accountability for end-to-end delivery.

• Equip your people, at all levels, with the skills to be successful in their roles.

• Clear and simple measures and controls – Lean environments are fast and things happen very quickly, so you need to keep aware of the situation and have early warning indicators at critical points in the business.

• Finally, paint a clear and compelling picture of what the future looks and feels like in your “Ideal State” – then tell everyone!

This last point is absolutely critical. Without a clear understanding of where you are going, your organisation will flounder around and find its own destinations, which probably will not be consistent with the objectives of the business and certainly not consistent with each other. A favourite quote of mine by a certain grinning cat from a well-known children's book sums this up perfectly: “If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there”1

If you start a change programme without a clear destination, when you get “there” it probably will not be where you really wanted to be and will have taken three times longer than you expected. Not good, so more on this later.

There are many other principles and rules that delve into detail on specific topics, but to me these are the cardinal ones, and are so fundamental that it is worth spending a little time to understand them in more detail. In keeping with the theme of this book, I'll try to provide examples in both the business context and in everyday life.

Be customer demand-driven

Sounds very obvious, but it's not always that easy. The first step is to understand who the customer is and what value means for that customer. Here are my definitions:

The customer is an external person or organisation which ultimately consumes/uses your product or service. Not somebody who does something to it, then just passes it on.

This is the first hurdle you need to overcome and one at which many organisations fall. The history of Lean doesn't help here, in that many see it, and still refer to it, as Lean Manufacturing, implying that it's all about processes, and stops at the factory gates. Nothing could be further from the real truth and power of Lean. When starting out, don't constrain yourself to the internal view, always look at your business from the point of view of the external customer. In most businesses, the customer is the consumer of the products or services and, as most large businesses are publicly owned, the shareholders. In some industries, customers may include regulators and governments as well. Now we have “who the customer is” sorted, we need to take a look at value:

Value is something that the customer is prepared to pay or sacrifice for.

This might seem an odd phrase: “sacrifice for”, but think about it. If you value something as an individual, you are prepared to make sacrifices to get it, keep it or care for it. The ultimate example is, of course, your family. What good parent wouldn't sacrifice everything for their child? The same is true in business: if you offer something of value to your customers, they'll very often do more than just part with money for it. They will use it, do without something else to get it, tell their friends about it and ultimately come back for more. All of which is good for your business.

Again, this all sounds very simple and obvious, but don't be complacent about it. In the complex world of big corporations, identifying the true customer and what they value can be a difficult task. It is vital, however, that you don't move on until you have this nailed, and please, please, please make sure that you validate your ideas with the customer to make sure.

So, we have customer value defined, which will help focus Lean on what is important. As a by-product, it will also help define new products and services to offer, but let's not go there right now as this is the Lean Book of Lean, not the Lean Encyclopedia!

With a clear handle on value, we should fire up the furnaces, get the engine in gear and start creating as much of it as possible, right? Well, not quite. Whatever “it” is, there is only value if there is current demand for it. If not, it's just going to sit around doing nothing at your expense until the demand miraculously appears, or it becomes obsolete and you have to give it, or throw it, away, wasting all that hard work which went into producing it in the first place.

A good example of this happened at a well-known fashion company, which embarked on a Lean Manufacturing programme that was an outstanding success: their productivity and production increased enormously and production costs plummeted. Unfortunately, they forgot about the demand-driven bit and linked their highly efficient production machine to the sales forecast created ahead of the season. Inevitably, actual sales did not match the forecast and they were left with frustrated customers who couldn't get the hot stuff they wanted, and warehouses full of the stuff that didn't really catch on. The result was that the lost orders and the cost of carrying and then writing off that excess inventory was ten times the savings they had made in the factory. When they looked back, they discovered that their shiny Lean factory actually wasn't agile enough to be capable of responding to the real demand as and when it materialised. They just did not think about Lean as something useful outside of the factory. We'll discuss the broader application of Lean compared to Lean Manufacturing a bit later.

So, the first principle of Lean is: do nothing, unless the customer requires you to do something, which usually comes in the form of an order. This is very hard sometimes, especially in an environment which is driven by traditional financial drivers, like overhead absorption, the killer of many a promising Lean programme. The pressure is on to keep the machines running, drive up utilisation and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Lean is not necessarily in opposition to this, but puts a caveat on it: “if there is demand from the customer.”

So, let's try to put a “real life” angle on this to see if it all stacks up. Ask yourself these simple questions, would you:

• Drive to pick up a friend from the other side of town on the off-chance they might want to come and visit you?

• Make a meal when no one is hungry?

• Go to fill up the tank when you're on full already, but it's Tuesday, fill-up day?

The answers here are obvious (hopefully!). The key thing here is to ask the question: Is there a real need for me to do this? Does someone need it?

Maximise flow

This is very simple in concept, but sometimes hard in practice. As mentioned above, this means that once you get the signal from the customer to start, stoke up the boilers, get the engines running and don't let anything get in the way until it's in the hands of the customer. At a local level this isn't too hard to do, but for a whole business, it isn't that easy. Look around the countryside at all the massive buildings dotted around with hundreds of truck-docking bays – those are warehouses. Each one filled to the gunwales with products waiting for somewhere to go or to be asked for by someone. In short: a testament to the failure of a business to maintain flow. To implement Lean properly, and get the full benefit for both you and your customers, the whole supply chain must be Lean, not just parts of it. If not, then you end up squeezing a balloon. One part gets thinner as you work on it and all that happens is that the waste you worked so hard to eliminate just pops out somewhere else and the net result is zero. I've seen so many times, Lean teams, site leaders and even COOs, clapping each other on the back saying how great their Lean programme is going and citing all the benefits delivered. However, the miserable old CFO is sitting in the corner looking at the company annual report, shaking his head and muttering to himself, “I don't see it here”. And of course, the miserable old goat is right. All that's happened is that the waste has been redistributed and changed form, not been expelled from the business, largely because flow was not maximised along the whole supply chain.

But flow is not all about eliminating waste and reducing inventory and cost, it makes your whole business more agile. With less to move around, it's a whole lot easier to change direction when the market changes or something new emerges from your R&D machine. I hear people talking all the time about Lean and Agile as if they are two different things. In my view they are one and the same thing: you can't be one without the other. I like the Agile term personally, as I think it conveys a better image of what it is all about. However, it's sometimes difficult to get the right message across given the common misconception mentioned above. An explanation I like and that seems to fit well is one that was thought up by Patrick Rigoni, a Founding Partner of SmartChain International, and goes as follows:

“True agility – combines responsiveness with flexibility to deliver flow and is ‘designed in’ with Lean and Demand Driven Replenishment.”

In Figure 1 it's all about finding ways to widen a) and shorten b). Notice too that this can apply to anything; here it is just termed “Operating Parameter”. This is deliberate as the business requirement should drive what exactly it is that you need to be Agile in: speed to market; delivery to customers; processing claims; getting round the supermarket.

Figure 1

I like this explanation a lot. I remember our team agonising over this for some time, trying to capture the essence of what agility was in relation to Lean in a way that is simple and easy to get your head around – after all, that's the mantra of Lean. Isn't it?

The secret to maximising flow is to identify the constraint, what's stopping you doing whatever it is, and eliminate it. Not much of a secret really, but it's surprising how difficult this can be when you don't have a good view of the end-to-end supply chain and, on top of that, the pesky thing keeps moving around! More on this later.

Identify and eliminate waste

Before we can start taking steps to eliminate waste, we need to learn how to recognise waste when we see it. To do this we have to come back to our old friend, value. By definition, if what we are doing creates or adds value, as we have defined it above, then what we are doing is not waste. That's fairly simple. Also, by the same token, anything we do that is not adding value is waste. So all we need to do is look around for all the things that are not adding value and stop doing them. Sounds very straightforward, but there is so much of it that it's very easy to get confused and overwhelmed. This is why we categorise waste into seven different types called, funnily enough: “The 7 Wastes”. These are shown in Figure 2. In order to further help look for them, they are grouped into what they apply to: people, processes and products or services. This approach has been around for a long time and there are many articles and book chapters on the subject of waste, which define and categorise them far better than I could do here, so while not wanting to skate over such an important subject, I'll encourage you to look up one of the established texts on the subject when you have time, rather than repeat it all here. However, in simple terms, this is what they are, with a brief everyday example included:

Motion – People moving themselves, or parts of themselves, around. Having the fridge, the worktable and the cooker too far apart in the kitchen. Taking the plates from the dishwasher to the cupboard one at a time.

Waiting Time – People waiting for something to arrive or something to happen: Going and standing at the bus stop for 30 minutes when you knew there wasn't a bus due. Waiting for the kettle to boil.

Overproduction – Making more than was needed: The three extra copies of a report you printed just in case a few uninvited people showed up to the meeting. Overfilling the kettle – see Waiting Time above!

Overprocessing – Doing more than is necessary for the purpose: Polishing the underside of the table – no one's going to look! Cutting, then trimming a fence post to exactly 125.25centimetres.

Defects – Doing something wrong or breaking something: Burning the toast. Making something that's not in compliance with the required specification.

Inventory – Actually should say “excess inventory”, products or materials waiting to be used: Car dealership forecourt full of cars for sale. Five cartons of milk in the fridge.

Transportation – The product version of Motion above, products being moved around: Products in trucks moving from the manufacturer to the warehouse or on to the store. Passing the salt around the table at dinner.

Figure 2 The 7 Wastes

It's also worth mentioning that some texts quote a further, eighth waste: the misuse of capacity or resources. My belief is that this is a consequence of the other wastes rather than a waste in its own right, but that's just my opinion.

When looking for waste, you need to be absolutely ruthless, there's no room for sentiment here. If there isn't a clear and direct line of sight to customer value, then it's waste; sorry, but there you are. When you start pointing this out, you are going to become very unpopular very quickly, so it's best to prepare your audience before setting out. As a rule of thumb, 90 %+ of everything a business does is waste. If you're not seeing this, then you're either not looking hard enough or you're being too soft. Once you understand this and manage to get your leaders understanding it too, huge improvements in performance are possible. Having said that, not all waste can be eliminated. There are two types to consider. Type 1 waste is that which is associated with doing your business, such as the company accounts or QA testing. While it can't be totally eliminated, you should look for ways to pare it down to the absolute minimum, but recognise that while it is unavoidable, it's still waste. You'll get into some very heated debates with your Head of Quality over this last one, but testing adds no value to the product if it was made properly in the first place – sorry, but there you are! The other, Type 2 waste, usually more than 60 % of the total, adds no value whatsoever to anyone and is not required to satisfy any external regulation or need. This waste should be eliminated and the resources used for something more useful.

Sounds simple, but it's not. Persuading a large number of people that the majority of what they do on a day-to-day basis amounts to waste is hard, both for the message giver and the message receiver. Over the years, whole departments have been created to generate and distribute waste, which others use to generate more waste, and so the cycle goes on. At the risk of getting locked up for treason, just look at governments of countries for outstanding examples of this. Breaking this will be one of the hardest things you will have to do, as you will be butting up against company hierarchy and politics.

In this section I will leave you with one final comment on waste. Your most precious commodity is time. Time marches on relentlessly and once gone, you never get it back again. Ensuring time is not wasted must be the number one priority. If you think about it, the implications of this are quite profound. As someone who is getting on a bit now, I really am beginning to understand the meaning of this in every aspect of life.

Declare war on variation

Variation is the killer of Lean processes: it generates so much waste planning for it, trying to quantify it and buffering against it. All of which is treating the symptom, not the cause. This is where our friend, Six Sigma, comes into play. The Six Sigma suite of tools provides a systematic approach to defining, measuring and analysing variability and then designing and implementing changes to reduce and control it. This was codified into a method by Motorola in the 1980s under the acronym DMAIC (Define opportunity area, Measure current performance, Analyse opportunity potential, Improve performance, Control performance). Again, at the risk of sounding evasive, there are many books on the subject written by people far more versed in these tools than me. If you really want the full works on this you can do worse than getting your hands on a copy of one of Michael L. George's books, founder of The George Group. Briefly however, in principle it works like this:

Firstly, identify an area that is not performing well, or where there is a specific problem that needs fixing. This needs to be agreed and sponsored, as there needs to be real commitment to fixing it.

Secondly, spend some time understanding how the area you are trying to improve works and get some real data on performance at each step of the process. It is important that this is done properly as it is the basis of all to come. This means that you need to take the time to get a statistically relevant sample, taking in the true variability of the process.

Thirdly, analyse the data to understand the root causes of the behaviours that the process is exhibiting. It's important not just to focus on the down side; it's just as important to understand the causes of good outcomes so they can be replicated. There is a whole host of tools and models available to do this.

Fourthly, figure out how to improve performance or fix the problem and implement the solution (Ha! That sounds simple doesn't it? In practice it can be far from it).

Fifthly and finally, put measures, controls, accountabilities and fail-safe mechanisms in place to stop everything sliding back to the old ways.

I'm sure there will be many Six Sigma black belts having palpitations and fuming after reading this very brief explanation. If you are one of those, please be assured that I'm in no way trying to downplay the importance or effectiveness of this method for turning around performance. As will be discussed later, Six Sigma and Lean are good friends and, indeed, should be blended in any broad improvement programme.

Variation can kill the process, but much variation can be eliminated by applying some simple discipline into the way activities are carried out without the need to resort to some of the more powerful tools mentioned above. Empowerment is a much overused buzzword these days and I keep hearing how “everyone needs to be empowered”. While this might be true, if not done with a little discipline, all you end up with is a free-for-all and everything gets out of control. If the ways of working are inconsistent, the outcomes will be too. This is a problem for any business, but if you operate in any of the numerous regulated industries, it's a major issue, hence the enormous quality management departments in many of these businesses. There has to be “one right way” for everything. However, if you can't get to the “right” way then at least get to “one way” while you figure out what the “right” way is. This can be as simple as looking around your organisation at all the people doing a particular task and doing a rough evaluation on who does it the best. For production, this is fairly easy as there are probably pretty good measures around. For other tasks, this might be a bit more tricky, but don't sweat it too much, we're only looking for rank, not absolutes, here. Once discovered, get the people from the best group to document how they carry out the task and then teach the rest how to do it. The more difficult issue is then to make sure everyone does it, and sometimes this can involve a real battle against the “not invented here” brigade. Everyone will insist they are different and so-and-so's solution won't work here, but don't be having any of it. If there are differences, get them to prove it; the onus of proof should be on them, not you.

“Ah,” I hear you say. “Doesn't all this standardisation stifle innovation, the cornerstone of continuous improvement?” Not really, but continuous improvement needs to be introduced in a controlled way, not randomly. Once the new way is tested and shown to be better, this then becomes the new standard, hence my message above about not necessarily being “right” right off the bat. By way of an example of what I mean here: Imagine the person replacing the left rear wheel in the middle of a Formula One race having a bright idea about how to do it better and then trying it out there and then. Result, a three-wheeled F1 car exiting the pit lane into the barrier at a high rate of knots! No, these guys follow a well-rehearsed process to the letter; everything has to be done exactly to plan with no deviations. But, once back at base, they try out all sorts of stuff to shave 0.1 seconds off the time it takes, but this is done in a development environment, not in “production”. Once they find, test and perfect a better way, then this becomes the new standard. This is how F1 wheel changes have steadily reduced from 20+ seconds to fewer than 5 over the years, with a distinct lack of three-wheeled missiles coming out of the pit lane. So, proof positive the standard ways of working and innovation do work very well together.

Organise your people around outcomes you want

Companies over the decades (centuries?) have been organised by departments of people focusing on the same activities: finance; marketing; production; sales; quality; planning, etc. In turn, these departments have usually been sub-divided into groups of people all doing the same thing. The reasons for this are many, including skills development, economies of scale, “centres of excellence” and a myriad of other reasons, but one stands out for me: it's easier to manage a group of people if they all have similar skills and are doing similar work. This also makes it easier to “manage talent” and create career paths and promotion opportunities. So, it seems that the majority of companies are organised for the benefit of the people and managers in them, rather than what they are supposed to be delivering to the customer. In addition, this type of organisation creates a lot of barriers and “handoffs” between these departments, resulting in inevitable delay as your value moves through its process towards the customer, and a lot of finger pointing and bickering when things don't go quite according to plan.