Page 169 - How To Implement Lean Manufacturing

How to Implement Lean—The Pr escription for the Lean Pr oject 147

Step 8: Evaluate the Newly Formed Present State, Stress the System,
Then Return to Step 1

Some Clarification on Step 8
As part of the project prescription, you will:

• Evaluate the newly formed present state.
• Stress the system.
• Return to Step 1.
To make a system Lean is a never-ending process. Each change brings about a new
present state that then gets evaluated for improvement activities, which creates more
changes and the cycle starts all over again. On many occasions, the system will stress
itself through the unexpected appearance of quality or availability problems, for
example. Sometimes demand changes will put a stress on the system. All of these are
opportunities to improve the robustness of the system. Although it sounds a bit crazy
at first, it is wise to stress the system yourself to see what other process opportunities
may be present. A typical “stressor” for the system would be to remove a few kanban
cards and see what the system response will be. The primary tool you will use to pro-
tect you from system failure will be system transparency. Remember when we said we
need to create a culture that embraces change? This may be the clearest manifestation
that we have changed the culture, when we start stressing the system to make it better.
Recall the metaphor of the athlete in Chap. 6. How did he get better? Isn’t this the same
concept?

Lean Goals
Lean goals (Step 6, item 2) are always an interesting topic. The name Lean came about
because, in the end, the process can run using less manpower, take less time, con-
sume less space, and use less equipment and material investment. So often when
evaluating the success of a Lean initiative, these terms are used and calculations of
space utilization, and even distance traveled, are used. In the long run, these are not
very meaningful measures since they typically are not a good subset of the plant
goals, nor do they readily translate into key business parameters such as profits or
return on investment (ROI).
Most plants already have good measures of manpower utilization. For the other
Lean measures, the ones that typically get woven into the general plant goals are inven-
tory management measured as inventory turns, and the lead time, measured as manu-
facturing lead time. If OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) is not already a line goal,
this is clearly to be added. In total, there should be five to seven goals that are the met-
rics to measure how the line will supply the product, with better quality, with shorter
lead times, and do so less expensively.

What about Goals for the Lean Initiative Itself?
We do not favor any specific goals here beyond the goals of the project that are included
in the schedule. This is for two very sound reasons: