Page 178 - How To Implement Lean Manufacturing

156 Cha pte r Ni ne

Think about It
Imagine an organization where:

• Every employee knows what he needs to do, when he needs to do it, and how
to do it in order for the organization to run smoothly.
• Every employee manages by facts and knows how to analyze and correct
problems.
• All the needed information flows smoothly and concisely to the people who
need it.
• Managers can establish the few key goals to meet the needs of the customer and
so best leverage the facility. And these managers will have the time to perform
daily management at the plant.

This is all possible, with good policy deployment.

Policy Deployment

The Manager’s Task
Policy deployment, is more than goal setting, it is management’s way of:
• Communicating
• Guiding
• Following up on issues
• Changing the important aspects of plant operation

When the manager creates goals, he will:
• Convert business concepts into understandable performance metrics
• Be able to compare these performance metrics to a standard
• Implement Just In Time corrective actions

Many managers have found that Hoshin-Kanri Planning (see Fig. 9-1) has proven
itself to be a superior model of policy deployment. I strongly support it and have found
it creates both horizontal and vertical integration of activity. It is a detailed method to
achieve:
• The implementation of vision
• The alignment of goals
• A self-diagnosis of progress
• The process management of a plant
• Targeted focus at all levels

Some Unique Strengths of H-K Planning
In this chapter, we will touch only briefly on H-K planning, but I strongly suggest you
pick up a good book on it and learn it more fully. Planning has many strengths, but I