WHAT IS LEAN?: PROBLEM SOLVING, IMPROVEMENT & A3 THINKING

These materials are from Jeffrey K. Liker and the book, Developing Lean Leaders at All Levels.

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.The teaching objectives for this section are the following:

1.     Provide a definition of Lean.

2.     Identify the underlying dynamic needed to create an excellent company.

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How do we define Lean? I've discussed Good to Great and excellent companies and problem-solving and philosophy and people and big processes; it's one thing to say Lean is waste reduction, but that's too easy.

If we find and eliminate waste does that mean the company becomes excellent?

If you go through a poorly organized company where people don’t communicate well, where there is no clear vision of what customers want or employees are trying to beat the system and make the numbers; what then do you think happens if you do some individual projects to eliminate waste? 

If we go from filling out ten forms to filling out one form, are we fundamentally changing that company? Does the company deliver value to customers at a better price and does the company make a profit? The answer is no. You can't make a company great merely by eliminating waste. Said differently, you can’t waste eliminate your way to being great.

 A GOOD DEFINITION OF LEAN

The vision for Lean, I believe, should be achieving operational excellence based on a clearly defined value system and implementing a way of engaging people and ensuring continuous improvement.

The goals can generally be summarized as safety, morale, quality, cost and productivity.

Generally speaking, if you achieve those things you're going to be more successful as a business, and you're going to satisfy more customers, and you're going to get more business. 

You have all those things. It is not as simple as saying that on the cost side that's when we do a Lean project. Then, on the safety side, we do a safety project. On the quality side, we have quality tools to apply. What is fundamental to improving all of those is the same basic core concept of problem-solving, of challenging assumptions, of coming up with countermeasures creatively, of trying them, of learning as an organization, how to improve safety, how to reduce quality problems, how to reduce cost, how to better satisfy its customers. 

The underlying dynamic of Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) is at the core for improving all of these aspects: safety, quality, morale, productivity, and reducing cost. I wouldn't classify Lean as simply reducing cost, which many companies do. Or even classify Lean as reducing lead time, which many companies end up doing.

 One Minute Review

·        It’s easy to say Lean is waste reduction.

·        Finding and eliminating waste will not make your company excellent.

·        You can’t waste eliminate your way to being excellent.

·        Lean is a strategy for achieving operational excellence and Lean is based on implementing clearly defined values.

·        These values are used to engage people in continuously improving safety, morale, quality, cost, and productivity.

·        Challenging people in the organization to do this involves problem-solving.

·        The underlying dynamic of PDCA is at the core of problem-solving.

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