Page 161 - How To Implement Lean Manufacturing

How to Implement Lean—The Pr escription for the Lean Pr oject 139

Do We Have the Necessary Problem Solvers in Place to Make This a Success?
Do we have enough and do we have the needed level of training? Make sure you have
earmarked the problem solvers and they know their roles. It is common to have a small
cadre dedicated to problem solving under some sort of Lean support staff. Also, gener-
ally assigned to each value stream are what most organizations refer to as process engi-
neers. Train and use these two groups fully. If they are not fully trained, have a plan to
get there. It is very common to have a lot of the training done by the sensei as you prog-
ress. I call this JIT training. Some offsite training is also common. Whatever the current
status, this is a critical aspect because the initiative will only proceed as fast as you can
solve the problems—and the problems will come rapidly as soon as you start making
the big changes when the four strategies to become Lean are installed on the first value
stream.

Step 2: Complete a Systemwide Evaluation of the Present State

The Role of the Sensei
Now it is time for the leader and the sensei to make an evaluation of the present state of
the entire manufacturing system. They will make four evaluations of the manufactur-
ing system. They are:

• The Five Tests of management commitment to a Lean Manufacturing
• The Five Precursors to Implementing a Lean Initiative
• The Ten Most Common Reasons Lean Initiatives Fail in part or totally
• Process maturity
In this step, the sensei is absolutely critical. This step cannot be done by a good man-
ager who understands Lean techniques. This must be done by a seasoned veteran in
Lean applications. If you, for some odd reason, have decided not to employ a sensei and
are doing this with a seasoned manager with solid engineering skills, but who is not
seasoned in Lean, go hire someone with experience to assist you. I have never seen a
good plan come out of anything but a person seasoned in Lean.
In the absence of a sensei or a consultant, quit this effort and move onto something else.
I cannot state this more clearly. The likelihood of partial failure is 100 percent, and the
likelihood or total failure is significant. The bottom line is, management is not commit-
ted (they will fail questions 2, 4, and 5 in the commitment test).
Well, now that you have either a sensei or at least experienced help, let’s proceed to
the assessment. In Chap. 19, I have included four assessment tools. I will explain each.
The four assessment tools are:

The First Management Commitment Test
This management commitment test is the first and most important of the commitment
evaluations. The key questions are, “Do we have the level of commitment necessary to
make this a success?” And, “If we do or do not, what are we going to do about that?”
Before we discuss the evaluation, let’s explore exactly what commitment is.
(In Chap. 14, we have the story of the Alpha Line, which is a good example of manage-
ment commitment.) A lot has been written about commitment and many confuse it