Page 266 - How To Implement Lean Manufacturing

244 Cha pte r S i x tee n

excellent problem solving, and some motivated staff, and that combination will trump
all these other so-called problems.
More specifically, if none of the problems stated earlier existed: If the plant was new
and was equipped with the latest technologies and with well-designed process flows, and if the
plant had great home office support, with plenty of experienced talented staff, and financial sol-
vency, it might have succeeded much more quickly and easily. But if the leadership or the
sensei were mediocre, or the plant personnel lacked motivation, or there was a lousy plan
with no good problem solving, such circumstances would doom an initiative to failure.
Simply put, those plant weaknesses mentioned earlier are simply not all that relevant.
Do not underestimate the need to have:

• Good leadership with an experience based sensei
• Motivated workers
• Good problem solvers

With this formula, you can attack nearly any Lean issue with a strong probability of
success. That is the message of Larana Manufacturing and their success.

The Zeta Cell: A Great Example of Applying the Four Strategies
to Reduce Waste and Achieve Huge Early Gains
The story of the Zeta Cell is a “back to basics” story. Sometimes when new tools come
out, we become so enamored with them that we forget the basic foundation on which
these tools were built. The Zeta Cell example shows, in glowing detail, that there are
huge early gains to be made, sometimes from the basics alone.
Awareness
One of the better books I have read on Lean manufacturing (besides Ohno and Shingo’s
works) is Learning to See by Mike Rother and John Shook. As I mentioned in an earlier
chapter, the key focus of their book is to “learn how to see,” to become more aware of
how your production processes are performing. They helped us “see” using the perfor-
mance metrics of:
• Percentage value-added work
• Production lead time

Value Stream Mapping Is Sexy, But …
Another contribution Rother and Shook made to the Lean movement was popularizing
the technique now called value stream mapping (VSM). Prior to the publication of their
book, VSM was known to a small group within Toyota, and only a few outside of Toyota.
Within Toyota it was called the material and information flow diagram. VSM is a won-
derful tool to use in a Lean initiative. It is also a new and it is certainly, “in vogue,” and
like many good things, when they hit the market, such items oftentimes are not used
quite properly.

There’s More to Reducing Waste than Value Stream Mapping
Today, value stream mapping is being treated by Lean practitioners the way a new diet
fad is treated by those wishing to lose weight.