Page 123 - How To Implement Lean Manufacturing

102 Cha pte r S i x

to proceed, we don’t think about the cost of the ban-
daging—we just do it. This is the attitude that must
Point of Clarity Toyota
be taken with foundational issues. I call it the Nike
started with jidoka before attitude: Just Do It!
they started with either SPC
(Statistical Process Control) or The Implementation of Jidoka Is Always a
DOE (Designs of Experiments).
Fundamental Weakness
More accurately, they started
I have yet to see a Lean initiative where jidoka was
with jidoka before either SPC
the leading strategy employed. It always lags behind
or DOE had been invented!
other strategies in its implementation, and lags
So it’s not surprising they are
behind other strategies such as JIT (Just In Time) in
among the world leaders in both application and depth of application. There are
jidoka implementation and a variety of reasons for jidoka lagging behind rather
that the rest of us simply need than leading the effort: none of them good. The best
to catch up. I can come up with is that it is hard to do, that it’s
hard to see progress, and that it takes a lot of time
and effort to do it well. Or to put it in more flowery terms, it is not quite as sexy as JIT,
TPM (Total Productive Maintenance), or kanban—or in more practical terms, it is not
seen as important by management.

An Example of the 5 Why is Technique…
Jidoka is a weakness in Lean implementations.

1. Why is jidoka a weakness in Lean implementations?
• Because, quality problem solving, an integral part of jidoka, is hard to do.
2. Why is quality problem solving hard to do? Because:
• We avoid these problems rather than embrace them,
• We do not have a sound continuous improvement philosophy,
• We are not skilled at problem solving
• We do not have time to work on problem solving
• Our data are not good enough for solving quality problems
3. Why are our data not good enough to solve quality problems?
• Because the data are total reject data only, not stratified by type of
defects.
4. Why are the data total reject data only and not stratified by type of defects?
• Because we only need total reject data to answer the questions we are
asked by management.
5. Why are the total reject data adequate to answer the questions from our
management?
• Because the questions we get from our management focus on production
and yield and not quality.