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14 May 2010

The Problem With Your Lean System (probably) - a series on Where We Need to Go Next


(Note: The following is part of a series written and delivered as a presentation to SMC Business Council's Manufacturing Group on 05.13.2010. I am sharing it with our blog readers to stimulate a discussion.  Feel free to weigh in and give me your comments.  I'll be posting it over the next few weeks to allow time  for the discussion to evolve.  A special thanks to Tom Henschke, newly appointed President at SMC for the opportunity to share the message.)

The Premise:  Your Lean System Might Stink...


In order to produce world-class results, lean or operational excellence must be your primary strategy, encompassing the entire enterprise.  Failure to replace your current “operating system” completely with a true “lean”, what I will call Operational Excellence, system, will only frustrate your organization.  


The long range gains for sustained lean implementation include revenue growth, increases in productivity, increases in cash flow and a happier, engaged workforce. 


The problem with not replacing the operating system wholesale is that, instead, we’ve added  pieces and parts of a lean system - tools - to our existing, broken processes and systems.  The result ranges from limited, localized successes to all-out failures.  Frustrations abound: executives who are confused with the results and front line leaders and workers who have to make production AND do lean things, confused about which has priority.

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