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A Presentation by
James P. WomackPresident, Lean Enterprise Institute
For
Monterrey, MexicoMay 8, 2003
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• Cross-function team leader of MIT studies of global industrial performance, 1975-1992.
• Co-author (with Dan Jones) of The Future of the Automobile (1984), The Machine That Changed the World (1990), Lean Thinking (1996 & 2003), & Seeing the Whole (2002).
• Advocate of a lean enterprise business system, inspired by Ford and Toyota practice.
• Founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute (Boston, 1997)
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• Founded in 1997 to promote process thinking and a global Lean Community of process thinkers.
• Publishes workbooks -- Learning to See, Creating Continuous Flow; Seeing the Whole – and other materials helpful to the Lean Community – The Lean Lexicon.
• Conducts workshops to teach material in workbooks.
• A non-profit education, research and consciousness raising organization; not a consulting firm.
• Founding sponsors: Delphi, United Technologies,Invensys, Lockheed Martin, & Canada Post.
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• A horizontal network of like-minded individuals.• Organized as non-profits.• Conducting consciousness raising conferences.• Translating and distributing materials from other nodes.• Offering public workshops on lean techniques (e.g., value
stream mapping, cell design, production control).• Working with corporate sponsors to develop materials
and model facilities.
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• A sequence of steps that must be performed properly in the proper sequence to create value for a customer.
(A “value stream” by another name.)
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• Every business is a collection of processes.
• Every business shares many processes with other businesses.
• Many businesses share processes with their customers.
(Consumption is itself a process!)
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• Primary:
�Consumption from intent to completion
�Product development from concept to launch
�Fulfillment from order to delivery
�Maintenance and service from delivery through the life cycle of a product.
(These processes create value directly for the external customer.)
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• Secondary:�hiring employees�checking customer credit�collecting receivables�closing the books�building prototypes�identifying new suppliers�policy deployment
(These processes only create value for internal customers, but are currently necessary to run the business. We often call them Type One Muda.)
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• So everyone is aware of it.
• So we all agree on its current performance.
• So everyone can be involved in improving it.
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• They show the sequence of information steps coming back from the customer.
• They show the sequence of process steps going toward the customer.
• The tie the two together into a closed circuit of demand and response.
• They characterize each step and linkage.
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One in which every step is:
�Valuable
�Capable
�Available
�Adequate
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• All of the steps are linked and coordinated by:
�Flow
�Pull
�Leveling
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• To test a process step for value, simply ask, “If we could provide the value emerging from this process without this step, would the customer miss it?”
• If the answer is “No”, we need to think about how to eliminate the step!
(Note: 9 steps out of 10 are typically of no value to the customer, but are unavoidable with the current configuration of the process.)
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• Can this step be performed the same way with the same result every time?
• Is the result satisfactory from the standpoint of the customer?
(The starting point of Six-Sigma.)
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• Can this step be performed every time it needs to be performed?
• And in the standard cycle time?
(The starting point of TPM.)
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• Is there enough capacity to perform this step when it needs to be performed without waiting?
• Or is there too much capacity due to the need to add capacity in large increments?
(Core concerns of TOC, right-sized tooling, and lean manufacturing system design.)
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• Can the step changeover from one product to the next in practically no time with no effect on quality?
• Does the flexibility of the step support labor and capital linearity?
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• Are the steps in the process able to occur in tight sequence (ideally, in continuous flow), with little or no waiting?
(A core concern of TPS.)
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• Does each step occur only at the command of the next downstream step within the time available (in other words, at the “pull” of the downstream customer)?
(Another core concern of TPS.)
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• Is demand leveled from the the most downstream process up the value stream so that noise and unnecessary variation are removed from information flow?
• Is demand leveled, as necessary, at each upstream process so that noise and unnecessary variation are removed from information flow?
(A third core concern of TPS)
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There is no muda in any step or linkage!Every step is:
�completely valuable�perfectly capable�perfectly available &�exactly adequate�highly flexible.
Every step is connected by:�continuous flow�noiseless pull &�maximal leveling.
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• We are all in search of the perfect process!
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• One path commonly pursued within firms: Better metrics and incentives for managers.
• Another path commonly pursued within firms: Empowerment from the bottom and team autonomy
• Two paths commonly pursued between firms: Markets and “partnership”.
• The Lean Thinker’s approach is a bit different:
�Start with your key processes to make them valuable, capable, available, adequate, flexible, flowing, pulled & leveled!
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A Toyota view:
“We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes.
We observe that our competitors often get average (or worse) results from brilliant people managing broken processes.”
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• Make someone responsible for maintenance and improvement of each key process.
• This “value stream manager “needs a small staff, no authority, and lots of responsibility!
• Conduct a down-up-down cycle to define the process as it is (the current state), get buy-in from front line managers and associates, run it through a PDCA cycle to a Future State, and sustain it.
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Absolutely!
• It’s any sequence that focuses on isolated improvements to unimportant performance attributes that can’t be sustained!
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Absolutely!
• There is a right sequence for you!
• But…it’s probably different from the precise sequence for anyone else!
• Look at the map, figure out where the biggest-payoffs are, and get to work!
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The value stream manager:
• Forms a team of all functions in the business touching the process (and all the firms along an extended value stream.)
• Organizes walk together to “learn to see” with a VS map.
• Identifies and characterizes all of the steps.
• Envisions a “future state” moving toward an “ideal state” or “perfect state”.
• Implements and sustains the Future State.
• Starts the cycle again in search of the next Future State.
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• “Kamikaze kaizen” (or “Kamikaze Six Sigma”) in which a SWAT team fixes one part of a broken process and leaves.
• Premature deployment of poorly thought through process improvements with no team buy-in.
• Tackling too many improvement initiatives at once.
(This is the critical role for policy deployment!)
• Failing to define processes in detail, down to the level of 5S, a Plan for Every Part, Standard Work, etc.
(This is where Toyota’s DNA really gets traction!)
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Performance metrics with incentives from the top and team empowerment at the bottom work when…
A firm defines and deploys valuable, capable, available, adequate, flowing, pulled and leveled processes in the middle.
Creating and maintaining these processes is the key challenge…
In Search of the Perfect Process.