Page 193 - How To Implement Lean Manufacturing

Sustaining the Gains 171

issues, or poor cycle-time performance. So their knowledge of “low production” was,
as Lord Kelvin would say, “… of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.” Their knowledge
was meager, to say the least, and it was unsatisfactory to solve these problems, for
certain. The same could be said about their “knowledge” of cycle times.
Second, they had failed to explain to the operators what the cycle time goals really
were. They had told them to improve production—that is, “work better”; and improve
the cycle time—that is, “work harder.” They had done this and expected the opera-
tors and the process to improve, without giving them any meaningful way to deter-
mine if they had done either. They had no meaningful way to measure the performance
of the system and they had no meaningful way to measure the performance of the
individual.
Behind each of these requests—“work better” and “work harder”—was some man-
agement belief. These beliefs, respectively, were:

• Since we have low production, the workers must not be performing well
enough, so we need them to “work better.”
• Since cycle time is clearly too slow, operators obviously must apply themselves
better, thus they need to “work harder.”

Both of these beliefs were wrong, as has been shown. The two exhortations of man-
agement were heard, but the operators were virtually powerless to make the correc-
tions they so vigorously sought. What was needed was not more effort by the worker
but rather more effort by management. What management needed was a cold, hard,
dispassionate, honest, introspective review of the system, and especially their role in the
system. To their credit, they did this. They did it well and they did it rapidly. Once this
was done, the beast of Rapid Response PDCA was unleashed and progress followed
immediately. Furthermore, the management learned, at this time, and only at this time,
that they had not “done all they could do to improve the production.”
This was the case here, and nearly 90 percent of the time, this is the case for everyone.
In a nutshell, there was no lacking on the part of the rank and file workers. The sys-
tem was deficient. The system that management created was deficient. Hence, to
improve this system, the leadership and involvement of management was needed. But,
let me not be too critical of this particular management since, quite frankly, I found them
to be open, honest, very hard working and sincere in their efforts to improve not only
the plant, but all who worked there. They worked long hours and applied themselves
fully. There was no lack of trying on their part.
Their weakness was inadequate awareness.
We are all blind to certain things, at certain times
“Adopt the new philoso-
and in certain places. Often it takes some outside
influence to help us “see” those things we are not phy. We are in a new economic
aware of; those things that are our blind spots. Once age, created by Japan. Western
this management group was able to “see,” we were management must awaken to
able to make great progress. the challenge, must learn their
Deming spoke of this in his writings, so let me responsibilities, and take on
nd th
quote him here using his 2 and 12 Obligations of leadership for change. ”
management, both taken from The Deming Route to —(Point 2)
Productivity and Quality (CEEPress Books, 1988) by W. Edwards Deming
William Scherkenbach.