These days, it seems everyone's going lean, and it's easy to see why. Done right, employing lean principles helps manufacturers continuously cut non-value-added activities from their processes and begin producing goods according to true customer demand. Get that down, and your company can thrive.
But what if your company hasn't yet gotten the religion, and your management is clueless or skeptical? You're in luck, one of the central tenets of lean is thoughtful empowerment of the people closed to the process -- that would be you.
With just a little knowledge and a few ideas, you can get going on your own lean projects. Once you knock off some improvements -- reducing machine changeovers or eliminating a chronic defect, for example -- you just might attract the big boss's attention. You might even save your company and your own job.
Make no mistake. Lean initiatives must be driven from the top of the company. When they fail, they fail because senior management is unable to make them stick. "This is not a grass roots thing. Ultimately, management has to buy in," says Drew Locher, principal at Change Management Associates (Mount Laurel, NJ) and co-author of "The Complete Lean Enterprise" (Productivity Press, 2004).
But you have to start somewhere. "You can demonstrate what can be done and maybe some high-level person will come by and get interested," says James Womack, founder and president of the Lean Enterprise Institute (Brookline, MA).
The key is to choose one or two self-contained projects that do not touch too many other processes -- you need to start small, especially if you don't have express permission to try out lean. The scope should be limited -- don't try to re-do anything that affects other divisions or processes.
It's also a good idea to read a book or two (Womack's "Lean Thinking" is considered a lean Bible; click here for additional online resources).
Some good lean starter techniques include:
- Do the 5Ss (sort, set in order, standardize, shine, sustain). 5S sounds complicated, but basically what it boils down to is fixing up your work area and finding a place for everything and everything in its place. "You sort out what you really don't need and get it out of there in a midnight trip to the dumpster. Then you figure out where things should go and how you will keep them in place," says Womack. You won't make your company rich with this one, but you just might make your work area more workable.
- Work on standard work. The official lean term for this is "kaizen". Kaizen is the heart of lean philosophy, and it means to make continuous process improvements. When you're trying to use some lean techniques without management approval, you can still do kaizen "events" (in which you break apart each tiny process and question whether each step is essential). "You say, is there a better way to do this? Can we make the job easier?" says Womack. Just make sure you narrow the scope of the event so it is contained to your area. You'll stay out of trouble that way.
- Get to the bottom of quality issues. At any time, most manufacturers have a host of niggling quality problems that have been band-aided but not solved. Together with a Six Sigma black belt (if you have one handy), start to do root-cause analysis. But don't let the black belt bog you down in the information-collection stage, advises Womack. "You don't have to spend so much time gathering data. Just stand there and look at the problem and think of what you could do to fix it at its root."
If you're more ambitious, you can aim for creating a cellular layout -- where production work stations and equipment are arranged in a sequence that supports a smooth flow of materials and components through the factory floor with minimal transport or delay. "You put unconnected machines together so you start with the first step and each product goes through the last step," says Womack. On the other hand, if you decide to bite off a project like this, best to make sure you have your resume ready.
Womack knew a woman who connected 100 machines in her prototype shop. "She did it over a weekend. She said, they can fire me on Monday. Instead, she got a promotion. But it doesn't always work out that way," says Womack.
A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, however. One of the dangers of embarking on a guerilla lean project is the local optimization problem. "It's dangerous if you just work on your own piece of a larger process," says Womack. You might make a decision that is better for your piece but worse for the system as a whole. "You can't just have mindless empowerment. You have to focus on self-contained problems," he says.
As such, you're not going to affect the entire value chain so the scope of the benefit is small.
At the end of the day, the lean initiative must be championed at the highest levels of the company if it is to succeed. But life isn't perfect. Says Womack: "There is cumulative power in this. Often, people in the trenches know that certain things need to be done, and the high-priced help doesn't."