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IW Lean Handbook PDF
IW Lean Handbook PDF
Table of Contents.....................................................................................................................1
Lean Confusion................................................................................................................10-11
It has been embraced, ignored, misunderstood and even derided, but leans proponents continue to exhort
its value as a driver of operational excellence.
By Jill Jusko
When your actions -- or more precisely lack of action -- make a grown man cry, its not a mo-
ment you are likely to forget.
Karl Wadensten hasnt forgotten. The president of privately held VIBCO Vibrators cites the
incident as the catapult that launched his Wyoming, R.I.-based manufacturing company on its
lean journey more than eight years ago.
The story goes like this: A salesman for a distributorship sells a large construction project on
the benefits of purchasing products made by VIBCO, which manufactures electric, pneumatic
and hydraulic vibrators for construction and industrial use. The salesman places the order with
VIBCO, which provides him with a delivery date. VIBCO misses the delivery date. The manufac-
turer then misses a second delivery date, which prompts the salesman to call VIBCO on a Friday
afternoon, in tears. His reputation and likely his job are on the line, and here we are not holding
up our end, says Wadensten. The construction firm is set to begin pouring concrete the follow-
ing Monday.
Add to the story VIBCOs typical manufacturing operations work week, which is 40 hours in
four-and-a-half days. Thus the plant floor is largely cleared out by the time VIBCOs customer
service representative escalates the issue to Wadensten, who has been home sick. The feel-good
ending is that VIBCO shipped out the order on that Friday, after rallying employees to return to
the manufacturing facility and push through the order.
Except, of course, it wasnt a feel-good ending. Its not one of those orders you can celebrate.
VIBCO President
Karl Wadensten
(in orange) says
the entire work-
force embraces
lean with the
same ferocity he
exhibits. Pursuit
of those lean
principles helped
the company gain
market share dur-
ing the economic
downturn.
Photo: VIBCO
Vibrators
in excellent on-time performance with low levels of scrap and
rework. Furthermore, he sees a workforce that is producing in- Does this sound good to you?
dependently at a pace his facility cannot even approach, yet it Well . . . dont be fooled. This is the
is working with both a high degree of comfort and confidence perfect formula for failure.
-- almost like a stress-free environment. In addition, the facility
is doing this with some surprisingly unimpressive machinery.
And he is sold, absolutely, totally sold on this lean thing. and compared their measured level of success to a variety of
He promptly gathers the rest of the C-suite and with con- critical success factors. The success of each firm was comput-
viction and passion declares that this lean thing is exactly ed using a 1-to-4 scale with 1 being a failed event, 4 being a
what we need. With animation like he has never displayed, the continuing success, and with gradations between. Each critical
CEO relays all of the wonderful things he has just seen. Soon characteristic was evaluated on a 0-to-5 maturity scale with 0
he is surrounded by a group of impassioned followers. Quickly being very ineffective toward achieving success and 5 repre-
they devise a plan by appointing Juan as the lean leader. He is senting full maturity of the characteristic of concern.
a midlevel manager who is proficient in many of these tech- Using these data, correlations were made and three critical
niques and has been a vocal advocate of lean for years. Next characteristics stood out as some that could be categorized as
they appoint three others to work with Juan -- the lean imple- sounding very good but not leading to success. Each of these
mentation team -- and announce that Juan will unveil the lean three critical characteristics was an error in the design of the
implementation plan in 30 days. The team, on schedule, pub- implementation effort and was so significant that if the char-
lishes the implementation plan. They want to get everyone in- acteristic was done correctly, success was possible. However, if
volved so their year-one objectives are to implement 5S and the characterisitic was executed ineffectively, failure was virtu-
standard work across the entire corporation. Juan and his team ally guaranteed; each was a litmus test for failure.
teach all the facilities and spend a great deal of time traveling Just what are the three characteristics and what do the cor-
to each facility. Juan and his team not only introduce the initia- relations to success look like? These critical characteristics, in
tive but also teach the tools. They then are required to follow question format are:
up and assist the various locations as those workers implement 1. Have you integrated the culture changing initiative into
the lean tools. your daily activities?
Does this sound good to you? Well . . . dont be fooled. This 2. Do you have the required sense of urgency?
is the perfect formula for failure. 3. Is your initiative line or staff driven?
So whats wrong? We have a jazzed-up top management.
We have dedicated expert resources to train and support. We ERROR NO. 1- Implement a Tools-Only Approach
have a published plan. Everyone appears to be on board. Ex-
citement and anticipation are high. Doesnt it sound like suc- This characteristic measures how well you integrate your
cess is right around the corner? culture-changing initiative into the daily activities of both