Book Notes - This is Lean by Niklas Modig
Welcome to the Wild
West - We call it Lean
- Toyota Production System
(TPS)
- Although the term lean was
created with toyota as a starting point - lean and TPS are two different
concepts
- Ohno defines the Toyota
Production System.
- Taiichi Ohno - referred to
as the 'father' of TPS
- Ohno rejected economies of
scale and large scale production and maintained that productivity was
created through flow.
- 'reducing the time-line by
reducing the non-value adding wastes.
- Lean Sees the Light of Day
- Identified two types of
production systems:
- A robust system
- Fragile system.
- The book that changed the
world
- Best selling book - The
Machine that Changed the World - published in 1990
- The book was the result of
many years of research and showed how Toyota successfully managed to
achieve productivity and quality levels that none of its competitors
could.
- The book argued that lean is
made up of four core principles
- Teamwork
- Communication
- Efficient use of resources
and elimination of waste
- Continuous Improvement
- In 1996 another book 'Lean
Thinking'
- Focused on what a company
should do in order to be lean
- The book outlined five new
principles with a clear focus on implementation.
- Specify value form the
standpoint of the customer
- Identify the value stream
and eliminate all steps that don’t add value
- Make the remaining value
creating steps flow - so product flows smoothly towards the customer.
- When the flow is
established let the customer pull value upstream from the next upstream
activity.
- Process starts all over
again
- Fujimoto places focus on
Toyota's Capabilities
- Argues that the key to
Toyota success is the capability of always ensuring development,
regardless of what setbacks or obstacles the company may encounter.
- Decoding Toyota's DNA
- Four rules for designing,
operating and improving processes
- All work shall be highly
specified in terms of content, sequence, timing and outcome.
- Every customer supplier
connection must be direct.
- The pathway for every
product and service must be simple and direct
- Any improvement must be
made in accordance with the scientific method
- The Toyota Way is encoded
internally by Toyota
- In 2001 - Toyota released an
internal publication - 'The Toyota Way'
- Five basic values that are
categorized within two key areas
- Continuous improvement
- Challenge - long term
vision
- Kaizen
- Genchi Genbutsu
- Respect for People
- Liker Launches 'The Toyota
Way'
- 2004 book release 'the
Toyota way' by Jeffrey Liker
- He packages his own version
with 14 key principles.
- Lean Explosion
- Although lean was originally
developed within the manufacturing industry - the concept has been
adapted to other functions.
- With so many books available
- it is difficult to distinguish between what lean is and what lean is
not.
- There is no single generally
accepted definition of Lean.
What Lean is Not
- Three problems with the
various definitions of lean.
- The definitions are made at
different levels of abstraction
- Lean has become a means
instead of an end.
- Lean seems to have become
all that is good - and all that is good is lean.
- Problem 1: Lean is defined at
different levels of abstraction
- The higher the level of
abstraction, the more general the definition
- The lower the abstraction
level - the more specific the definition.
- The first question was 'what
is lean' the answers can be divided into seventeen different categories
or definitions of lean
- The fact that there are so
many definitions is a clear sign that in practice, lean is defined at
different levels of abstraction.
- Some have gone so far as to
choose just one of the methods Toyota developed and equate that to lean.
- 'implement this method and
your company will be lean.
- Others have focused on
identifying and describing all the tools that Toyota has developed. They
present an entire lean 'toolbox'
- 'use this package of tools
and your company will be lean.
- If lean is defined at a low
level of abstraction, an organization risk misunderstanding what lean is
all about.
- Limits the applicability of
lean with it is taken into other industries or sectors of society.
- Many organizations start
their lean journey using the methods and tools that toyota developed.
This means that they risk losing the deeper thinking around lean and tend
to ignore the why behind the use of the tools.
- Reactions like these lead to
organizations concluding that lean is not for them.
- The higher the level of
abstraction at which lean is defined, the more general the definition.
- Defining lean at the wrong
level of abstraction creates high risk that it will be abandoned.
- Problem 2: Lean as a means
instead of an end.
- The means describes how -
the goal describes the why
- The problem with focusing on
the means instead of the goal is that the connection between the means
and the goal is not the same for everyone.
- The focus on the goal
creates flexibility, whereas a focus on the means may create limitations.
- There has been a strong
focus on how Toyota works by emphasizing and defining its values,
principles, methods and tools
- A problem arises when the
focus falls on 'which means' toyota uses - rather than asking and
understanding 'why' these means were used, that is to say, the goal
behind toyota's philosophy.
- Confusing means and goals
often causes an organization to overlook why it is going through a change
process.
- The means have become the
goal - the organization sees itself as 'lean' just because it
successfully implemented a specific tool or specific method.
- Problem 3: Lean is everything
that is good - and everything that is good is lean
- 'why did your organization
implement lean' -
- 63 respondents provided as
many as 45 different reasons
- The answers indicate every
conceivable positive result - regardless of the type organization.
- Lean is not the answer to
all the problems.
- Consider also these
statements, taken from and annual reports of three multinational
companies
- Our new operations strategy
is to implement continuous improvement.
- Respect for the individual
is our core value.
- We are going to increase
customer orientation.
- To avoid being trivial, it
is important to understand clearly what lean is for and what it is not
for.