Page 205 - How To Implement Lean Manufacturing

Cultur es 183

We see the same thing with expedited freight, for example. I have seen many man-
agers who decided that they needed to reduce this cost (they must think their personnel
incompetent and so expedited the shipments, even though they didn’t have to). When
the manager imposes limits on their ability to expedite the shipments, what happens to
on-time delivery or overtime? This will impact the
system somewhere, but where? Or maybe their peo-
ple are incompetent or poorly trained, or maybe they
don’t understand the goals and objectives. If they are “The key to the Toyota Way
any of these, then these managers have some failing and what makes Toyota stand
in their management system, which also needs out is not any of the individual
changing. Yes, it is very much intertwined, this sys- elements.…But what is impor-
tems concept.
tant is having all the elements
The beauty of Lean is that it recognizes these con-
cepts of systems and interdependence. For example, together as a system. It must
be practiced every day in a
the concept of transparency is prevalent, so we can
understand and become conscious of the workings very consistent manner.…not
of the system. These concepts were understood early in spurts. ”
on during the formative phases of the TPS (Toyota Taiichi Ohno
Production System). Ohno is quoted as saying:
It is clear Ohno recognized the systems issues and the concept of interdependence.

How Are Cultures Developed?
Most cultures are developed unconsciously. The level of awareness is more about the
behavior, about the actions, than it is about the underlying culture. It is this behavior
that then begins to create the culture. Take a business—a restaurant, for example. In our
restaurant, we are in business to make money. We decide we want to cater to upscale
patrons with the upscale prices they are willing to pay. However, we must also develop
a group of chefs and waiters who are compatible with our upscale business. Let’s dis-
cuss the waiters, for example. In our upscale restaurant, we will need waiters with sig-
nificant social skills, like the ability to carry on a conversation—something we would
not need, nor even want, if our restaurant was a fast-food business. At our upscale res-
taurant, we might even want them to get some training in handling customers, or we
ourselves might even give it to them. As soon as we start to define the behaviors we want,
we start to define our culture. Now, as we proceed to develop our business, we further
define the behaviors—the skills—we need. This then goes further toward developing
the culture we will have. The more aware we are of the behaviors we seek and the
impacts of these behaviors, the more we understand our culture. Hence, the culture is
developed based on the required action of the personnel, which is dictated by the needs
of the business. Pretty simple, huh? Well, not so simple, because there are always con-
flicts. But more on that later.

How Do We Plan a Cultural Change?
In most cases, when some top manager decides his culture needs to be changed, he is
aware of some weaknesses that he would like to see corrected. Maybe he thinks he
needs to modify his culture to be like that of Toyota, for instance. That being the case,
it is then necessary to do a cultural evaluation. This is a tool that allows an evaluation
of the present situation of the culture—how it is structured, right now. We do this