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7/27/2019 womackleanforthelongterm-1282741079-phpapp02

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Lean for the Long TermJames P. Womack

Chairman, Lean Enterprise Institute

10th Lean Manufacturing Conference

Wroclaw, Poland

June 22, 2010


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Ive Been At This For 30 Years

Thinking about lean how people worktogether to create pure value with no waste.

Recently Ive been reflecting on:

Where we have been.

Where we are now.

Where we are going & what we need to do.


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After Ten Years (1990)

The Machine That Changed the Worldwas

published.

The transition from mass to lean lookedlike it might be fast and easy, after a crisisin the next recession.


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The Lean Enterprise

The MIT team and I had just written downthe five elements of a lean enterprise:

Product & process development

Supplier management

Fulfillment from order to delivery/cash

Customer supportEnterprise management


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All That Remained Was Implementation!

The subject of Lean Thinking:

Value (purpose)

Value stream (process)Flow (process)

Pull (process)

Perfection (people)

After kaizen = purpose, process, people


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After 30 Years

A realization that this is a long process!

Lean is simply the latest step in the longprogression of process thinking.

Going back at least to the 1500s.

A long arc of improvement with many

waves.


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Steps Along the Way French Ordinance & interchangeable parts

Taylor and Scientific Management

Ford and flow production

Training Within Industry

Deming and the quality movement

Total Quality Management

Business Process Reengineering

Six Sigma

Lean (derived from Toyotas example)


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The Pattern of History

Waves of improvement (all focused onachieving perfect value creating process):

Based on tools

Promoted through programs

Led by improvement departments

Often introduced by consultants


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The Results

Every wave has subsided at some point. Leaving the sea a bit higher but nowhere

near the peak level of the movement.

It follows that lean could also fade awayin the next ten years (and even fail?!)

What would be the root cause?


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The Problem of Management

We won the battle of tools & methods. We are still losing the battle about the work

of management.

While lean tools were being perfectedmodern management was evolving in a

direction where they couldnt be used.

The world thinks it needs more modernleaders when it needs more lean managers.


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Modern Management

The managers we all work with every day,in our roles as earnest improvers, are thefolks standing in the way of improvement.

To take the next step on the lean journeywe need to populate the world with leanmanagers!

Weve done a good job of fixing processesbut now we need to fix management.


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Modern vs. LeanManagers Vertical vs. horizontal.

Authority vs. responsibility.

Results vs.process.

Planning from the top vs. PDCA. Weak line, strong staff vs. strong line, small

staff.

Formal education vs. gemba education. Remote decisions vs. go see, ask why,

show respect.


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Modern vs. LeanManagers

Problem solving by staff vs.problemsolving by line in horizontal dialogue.

Standardization by staff vs. standardizationby work team.

Go fast, jump to solutions vs. go slow,

considering many alternatives.

No problem is the solution vs. noproblem is the problem.


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Lean Managers

Start with customer purpose (value) Work backwards to create, sustain, and

steadily improve the processes creating

value. Align and engage the people touching the

processes (value streams) creating the

value. Manage by process rather than by results.


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The Work of Management Align and engage through strategy

deployment to determine what is important,what purposes will be pursued.

Deploy, solve problems, and evaluateproposals with PDCA embedded in A3.

Create and sustain basic stability in all

processes through standardized work withstandardized management.

Create next generation of lean managers.


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The Hard Part

The right lean management system foreach organization in each industry in eachcountry must be discovered through PDCA.

As earnest improvers we have no authorityfor any proposed improvements in manage-ment systems except through PDCA.

Which brings us to the topic of Toyota.


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The Toyota Question

Why are we in the lean movement sodiscombobulated by the challenges Toyotais facing?

Because we have for three decades beentrailing in Toyotas wake, citing as our

authority for every question: Heres what

Toyota would do & they are always right!


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The Toyota Answer

But this has never been how managers atToyota claim authority for their actions.

They manufacture their authority by taking

responsibility through the hard work ofPDCA in the context of A3 in dialogue withthose touching processes causing problems.

We now need to follow their example.


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What Can You Do on Monday? As you return home, have a conversation

with your modern manager bosses.

Maybe our problem in achieving & sus-

taining improvement is our managementsystem, not specific bad managers.

Can we do an A3 for our management

system as a team activity improvers &leaders -- to agree on our current condition& how we need to change?


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The Next 10 Years for Lean

As we move ahead to the next phase(wave?) of lean, lets do PDCA together on

the best approaches to lean management

and share our findings. The Lean Enterprise Institute Polska & the

Lean Global Network need to lead the way.

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