Two Gurus

We have just posted the final two video talks from our last Lean Summit on our YouTube Channel, featuring two lean missionaries who are making a big contribution to the lean movement.

Mike Rother gave a stunning presentation on his latest research into the Kata discipline of learning and acting. This brings his book Toyota Kata to life and show how important it is to coach and practice Kata. For those who want to go deeper there is more on the Improvement and Coaching Kata site on the LEI web site.

Michael Ballé gave a challenging and inspiring presentation on coaching leaders and employees on the Gemba. This talk distilled his thinking and practice in coaching organisations in France and elsewhere and developed themes from his books The Gold Mine and The Lean Manager. Many of you will also be familiar with his Gemba Coach column on the LEI web site and his contributions to The Lean Edge.

We hope you enjoyed these videos from our Lean Summit and hope to see you at our next Summit on 5-7 November 2013 – details to follow shortly.

Yours sincerely
Daniel T Jones
Chairman, Lean Enterprise Academy

Policy Deployment in Healthcare

We have just posted five more video talks from our last Lean Summit telling a remarkable story of the power of using policy deployment in healthcare. Two years ago, inspired by a talk from Takashi Tanaka, David Furley leading the lean transformation at the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust went home determined to do this too. Two years later he returned with his team to show how policy deployment has not only given focus to their transformation journey but has also significantly changed the way management meetings are run and the behaviour of employees at every level in the organisation.

These videos tell this story from four levels from Director level to the Wards. The passion and inspiration of these stories are worth watching and sharing to inspire your colleagues, whatever industry you are in. They complement the pioneering stories of the use of Plan for Every patient and Visual Hospital at the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust at our 2011 lean Summit. Together they form two aspects of a management system described in Making Hospitals Work that is delivering significantly better performance

within the NHS.                                                 

Yours sincerely

Daniel T Jones

Chairman, Lean Enterprise Academy

Lean Leadership

Two more presentations from our last Lean Summit are now available on our YouTube channel. They shed a unique light on how two of the most successful manufacturers in the UK, GKN and Rolls-Royce, each with over a decade of experience in using lean thinking, are developing their lean leaders. They talk frankly about how they are tackling this key threshold to sustaining and accelerating their lean journeys.

Last year Peter Watkins, who leads the lean activities at GKN, presented one of the most dramatic examples of the power of compressing supply chains for next generation products. They unscrambled complex supply chains based on “focused factories” and “low-cost sourcing” to reduce total lead times from 90 weeks to 30 days - click here to view. This year Peter outlines how GKN is helping their leaders to change their behaviours as they learn how to develop the problem solving capabilities of their subordinates - click here to view. Brendan Hindle describes the Rolls-Royce lean journey and their Process Leadership Academy - click here to view. These are very important experiments from which we can learn a lot as we all embark the long journey to create our own lean leaders.

These talks build on the insights from John Shook about lean leadership at Toyota. These were summarised in his presentations to our Lean Summits in 2008 and 2011 which are worth viewing again. In them he talks about “leading as if you have no power” and what Toyota means when they say they “develop people before making cars”. Very significantly they change the focus of lean transformation from experts teaching lean tools in a classroom to line managers developing the problems solving capabilities of their staff. The new skills of mentoring and problem solving are only truly embedded through “learning-by-doing”.

Yours sincerely
Daniel T Jones
Chairman, Lean Enterprise Academy

If you are inspired by these videos why not join in the discussions at out latest Lean event, the LEA Community Sharing Day on Thursday 18th April 2013 in Cardiff. We have extended the deadline for abstracts until this Friday 22nd March 2013 if you would like to present and will continue to take bookings for attendees right up until the day itself but please note spaces are limited.

Hoshin and Oobeya

We have just posted two more presentations from our last Lean Summit on our YouTube channel addressing key challenges facing lean managers – how to focus activities on the vital few and how to improve the effectiveness of cross-functional projects.

The fact that most strategic plans are still built on a long list of projects shows how organisations struggle to deselect and focus.  Pascal Dennis and Tom Jackson have described the Hoshin planning tool to unlock this dilemma in their books, yet progress in using it has been slow. In his talk at the Lean Summit Laurie West describes how he learnt to use Hoshin in his own business and then to teach it to other executive teams in the automotive and engineering industries. He stresses the importance of the process a team goes through to define their priorities, not just the tool itself. We will take this further at our Sharing Day on April 18th in Cardiff when Mark Reich from LEI will describe the Hoshin process he was responsible for at Toyota North America.

In 2008 Takashi Tanaka has highlighted the power of using the Oobeya visual project management room to bring PDCA discipline to managing cross-functional projects. In 2010 Takashi and Sharon Tanner described how Boeing was taking Oobeya project management out of engineering and into the Executive Office. In 2011 Takashi described how Oobeya formed a key building block in Toyota’s management system. This year Takashi extends the story to create Digital Oobeya rooms to enable remote teams to work together across the world.

We have been very encouraged by the response to the Sharing Day on 18th April. Already several organisations with a long history of lean have indicated they will share their stories and questions. If you would like to share your stories please submit your proposed summary by Friday 15th March, for us to review and shape the day. Do join us for what looks like being a fascinating day.

Yours sincerely
Daniel T Jones
Chairman, Lean Enterprise Academy

Science and Lean Transformation

We have just begun to post the videos of the presentations at our Lean Summit 2012 on our YouTube channel to share them with the wider lean community. The first two videos are of my opening presentation on Science and Lean Transformation and my closing speech summarising the lessons from the Summit. We will post the rest of the plenary talks in the coming weeks.

The opening presentation argues that Toyota’s example creates a new basis for managing by science. Lean has a much sounder empirical foundation and goes considerably beyond Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management or modern management’s attempts to correlate strategy and leadership with performance. 

What distinguishes lean practice is that it focuses on customer value and not just investor returns, on the horizontal value creation process as well as the vertical deployment of knowledge and the allocation of resources, and on engaging everyone and not just a few experts in solving tomorrow’s problems.

The latter point entails a very different transformation process than the traditional expert-led training and consulting model. Lean is learnt by solving business problems in their specific context, by developing the capabilities of line managers and their teams to unblock the flow of value creation, with leaders giving clear direction and support. The objective is not simply to solve today’s problem but in so doing to develop the capabilities of the team to solve new problems once the teacher has left. 

The underlying purpose of lean is the systematic use of the scientific approach by every employee every day. This is what Toyota means when they say “we make people before we make cars”. This raises new challenges for managers used to hiring experts to solve problems for them and it challenges lean folk who are drawn to “professionalising” and “certifying” their knowledge of lean tools. Lean practice evolves through carrying line responsibility and through coaching and mentoring the capabilities of employees. What is common is the scientific thought process that can bring different perspectives to very specific business situations.

It also raises big challenges for the lean movement. A true scientific approach starts with reflection on what is currently known as the basis for framing the next step of questions about what is not yet known. If we are to deepen our knowledge of lean we need to initiate, mentor and reflect on many experiments to address these questions and learn from the results. Rather than seeking universal laws through correlating the use of tools with business results, where science can help is in understanding the learning-by-doing process which will in turn build the capabilities that lead to superior business results in diverse circumstances. As long as we are interested in framing the next set of questions there will be a healthy future for lean.

Further Lean Summit presentations will focus on lean leadership, Gemba management, the Hoshin strategy deployment process and the practice of learning through Kata. You might also be interested in three books featured in my talk; The Management Myth by Matthew Stewart, which exposes the lack of any empirical evidence behind scientific management, The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig, which demolishes attempts to correlate leadership and strategy with performance and Ignorance by Stuart Firestein, which is a wonderful restatement of the purpose of science. You might also look at my summary of Lean in 10 Slides.

Yours sincerely
Professor Daniel T Jones

PS. We will be discussing all these issues at our Sharing Day in Caridff on 18 April. This is a unique opportunity to share stories of your lean journeys and discuss your next questions and challenges with a distinguished panel of lean experts, including Mark Reich, COO of LEI, and other lean practitioners. I look forward to seeing you there.

New Leadership and a New Mission

After ten years leading LEA (and another ten years leading LERC before that) it is time to pass the baton and redefine our mission. At the LEA Summit in November last year we announced that Dave Brunt would assume responsibility for leading LEA as our new Chief Executive. Daniel Jones will continue to actively support LEA as Chairman and Senior Advisor, but with more time to mentor, reflect and write on the progress of lean and future challenges.

Dave worked very closely with Dan over the last twenty years on all kinds of assignments. Dave organised the last UK Lean Summit and is part of the core team that has been rethinking the mission of the Lean Global Network. His pioneering work mentoring Toyota car dealers in Portugal, Norway, South Africa and elsewhere helped them win the Lean Prize in Norway and is finally being recognised by Toyota itself! He is the author of Creating Lean Dealers and a contributor to Seeing the Whole Value Stream. He has also been coordinating the development of a Lean Leadership Programme for LGN and is one of most experienced coaches in the use of A3 thinking in Europe.

This transition mirrors the change in leadership at the Lean Enterprise Institute in the USA, where John Shook took over from Jim Womack and has since been joined by another seasoned Toyota veteran Mark Reich. LEI’s mission has also changed to engage in experimental projects with pioneering organisations seeking to take lean to new levels. In doing so they are working more closely with the Toyota Production System Support Centre (previously TSSC) and a network of ex-Toyota alumni.

The mission of the Lean Global Network is to take responsibility for advancing lean thinking in order to improve the performance of organisations and raise living standards while minimising resource use and environmental impact, and to provide more fulfilling work and continuing development for employees while enabling consumers to create more value in their lives. This is achieved by developing the capabilities of every employee to use the scientific approach in solving the business problems that will create value for consumers, for the organisation and for society at large. LEA will therefore focus on Learning through co-learning projects with organisations, Educating through mentoring, coaching and training trainers and Sharing through Summits, our Lean Community and publications.

The Sharing Day in Cardiff on April 18 is the first new initiative by LEA to create a community of advanced lean practitioners in the UK. It will be a unique opportunity to share experiences of what works and what does not in deploying lean and to get feedback on burning questions on the next steps with lean from very experienced practitioners including Mark Reich from LEI (ex-Toyota USA) and Kevin Robinson and Mark Davies from the Toyota Lean Management Centre in UK. Dave is organising this event in collaboration with Dr Nick Rich, who is leading the new Centre for Lean Enterprise Applications and Research (CLEAR) at Cardiff Metropolitan University. We look forward to a very productive and inspiring day and hope you will join us.

Dave Brunt, Chief Executive and Daniel Jones, Chairman

Lean Enterprise Academy

P.S. Full details of the event and guidelines for submitting your story and questions are on www.leanuk.org. Please bring this to the attention of your colleagues.

Five Years into Lean

Five years of lean progress should be rewarded with a vision of how the organisation is going to use the new capabilities of their staff and their value streams to exploit new opportunities that competitors will struggle to follow. By then I would expect top management to be setting the direction for lean, middle management to be focused on streamlining their value streams and the front line to be deeply engaged in problem solving. At this point it should be possible to rebuild the IT architecture of the organisation to mirror and support their lean processes. Then it is time to look ahead.

Five years into their lean journey Tesco had already grown sales through better product availability, saved cash from less inventories, cuts cost from improved store and warehouse productivity and less wastage and saved £400m by postponing their warehouse building programme by four years. They then realised their rapid response supply chains could also supply local convenience stores at almost no additional cost to supplying its supermarkets, opening a whole new retail format now being copied by others. They also realised they could quickly establish national coverage for their home shopping channel tesco.com at little extra cost by picking orders in slack times in hub stores, instead of building dedicated fulfilment centres which its competitors were doing.

While the lean supply chain was the enabler, the vision for new ways of serving customers came from their intense focus and deep understanding of customer needs. In his outstanding new book Management in 10 Words Sir Terry Leahy describes how Tesco pioneered new ways of collecting data and opinions from its customers that drove its strategy. Through Customer Panels and analysing their loyalty card and home shopping order data they understand exactly who their most loyal customers are and what they buy, how their lives are changing and how well Tesco actually serves their needs. This in turn is leading to new innovations like mobile ordering systems in commuter stations, pick-up points and stock-less stores.

Amazon has followed a similar path, building on their web platform and their distribution system also modelled on Toyota's example, to expand well beyond books and consumer goods into industrial supplies. More recently they have been experimenting with pick-up points in cities and building local distribution centres to offer within the day availability to customers. This brings Amazon into direct competition with Tesco as the world of clicks and bricks converge. It will be fascinating to see what emerges from this contest. My guess is that it will be the organisation that best understands how customers' lives and needs are changing and is best able to flawlessly deliver on its promises.

This is just one example of lean capabilities opening new business opportunities in a sector where things move really fast. But even manufacturing businesses with long product cycles the next investment cycle provides the opportunity to radically rethink the design of the product and it's production system in the light of the experience of leaning the current generation. It is also the chance to reconfigure global supply chains to make and deliver products to customers in days rather than many, many months. The same is true for services like banking and insurance, where streamlining back office transactions processes is opening up the possibility of customising bundles of products and services for key customer groups and building a completely new relationship with them.

It goes without saying that all the existing lean activities need to continue and be deepened all the time. However if organisations are not also systematically learning from these to think about their future they are missing what is probably the biggest lean opportunity of all, designing new lean business models that will redefine their industry. The challenge is to think beyond existing assets and channels and the inspiration and direction will be spurred by an intense curiosity about their core customers and how to help them to create greater value in their increasingly busy lives.