Page 183 - How To Implement Lean Manufacturing

Planning and Goals 161

In addition, often the wrong goals are chosen for plant level goals. A goal I see very
often is the goal to reduce the cost of expedited freight. Not that the cost of expedited
freight should not be reduced—that is not the point. The point is that these are just not
the key metrics that should be used to guide behavior in the facility.
In fact, there is hardly a better red flag to indicate that a facility is in trouble than
when you see that one of the plant metrics is expedited freight. Think about it. That
means they have problems with on-time delivery, which signals a whole foray of pro-
duction problems. Also, it means that expediting costs are a significant part of the
plant’s operating expenses. The choice of this metric sounds like a strong reason, in and
of itself, to look into Lean.
Now, back to the development of metrics by the plant manager (PM).
Once the correct metrics are selected, the PM must select which levels these metrics
“should be” by year’s end, for example. This creation of a “should be,” as you recall,
has now just created a “problem” for his staff. It is an oddity of management that one of
their key roles is problem creation. They do this by creating the possible future state of
the facility—what “should be” attained.
When the PM selects the specific goals and the levels that need to be achieved,
he is starting to make a very certain and definitive commitment. Actually, there are
two major commitments. The first is about the
facility. Based on his experience and abilities, he is
“Tell me how a man is
saying that the attainment of these goals is how
the plant needs to be “best” or “competitive,” for measured and I will tell you
example. Second, he is making the commitment how he will behave. ”
about his future actions, including the rewards Unknown
that are earned with successful goal attainment.
Both of these place a great deal of pressure on the “Any action you want
PM. But make no mistake about it, he must do both. repeated, reward. ”
He must select the best goals to guide the best
Wilson
behaviors, and he must reward those behaviors he
wants repeated. Recall:
If the correct metrics are not chosen with the appropriate performance levels, the
policy deployment will not start properly. In short, the plan to improve the perfor-
mance of the facility will not be a good plan. If the plan is not deployed well, it will
not be understood and accepted by all, and execution of the plan will suffer. Finally, if
the follow-up elements of H-K planning are not executed well, the leadership will not
be acting upon the plan. All of these issues are just symptoms of weak leadership,
which:

• Cause poor goal creation, which in turn…
• Cause people to pay attention to the wrong metric, which in turn…
• Causes them to act in a way that is not in the
best interests of the plant, which in turn…
Point of Clarity The key to
• Causes the plant to be less robust, which in good policy deployment is good
turn…
leadership.
• Is exactly what we do NOT want!