Neither Too Rigid, Nor Too Loose

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

When it comes to fundamentals like Strategy, Management System, Standardized Work, Quality in the Process and the like, it’s easy to become rigid and even doctrinaire.

After all, these are the concepts that underlie TPS, the ‘world’s most powerful production system’. In the circumstances, we’re right to be doctrinaire, aren’t we?

“We have to have four mother A3s – one each for People, Quality, Delivery and Cost! We have to have strategy A3s and dashboards for everything!

Standardized work means Content-Sequence-Timing-Expected Outcome! Quality in the Process means detect the abnormality, stop the process, fix the immediate problem and develop countermeasures for root causes!”

No doubt, you’ve heard this sort of thing too.

In fact, as we apply these timeless ideas in areas further and further from manufacturing, finesse is of the essence, and rigidity, a recipe for failure.

The further from manufacturing we get, the more important it is the we translate the principles, and not insist, “This is how did things at Toyota, or Honeywell, or Proctor & Gamble or…”

This is a major challenge for ‘Lean’ practitioners in these times of tumultuous change. Who cares if your muffler manufacturing factory has the best SMED process in the industry?

Demand for mufflers is going nowhere but down, no? But the principles underlying SMED – separate internal & external work, convert internal work to external work etc. – transcend manufacturing.

SMED principles can readily be applied to shortening changeover times in healthcare, aviation, and software design.

The same applies to any ‘Lean’ principle. Principles are eternal, countermeasures temporary.

And this reflects the deeper challenge facing the Lean movement these days.

Is ‘Lean’ a principles-based profession, or a skilled trade? The distinction is important.

I don’t want to be misunderstood. I respect and admire skilled tradespeople. They’re an honorable and essential element of successful organizations.

But they’re insufficient if you want to transform an organization or an industry. For that you need principles.

Principles are harder to internalize than countermeasures. But principles are eternal, whereas countermeasures are temporary.

Which brings me to the title of this piece, which a wise old gentleman taught me many years ago. The old gentleman is gone, and I am his scarcely adequate proxy.

Neither too rigid, nor too loose, expresses reflects the subtlety and intelligence needed to apply principles in ever more complex situations.

It reflects the need to be humble and learn from quick experiments – because we don’t really know, and can’t really know what’s going on unless we study the situation.

As a colleague likes to say, “If your first hypothesis isn’t embarrassing, you’re not really trying.”

Good advice in a world where Value is often a vague shadowy thing, and changing with every new technological miracle.

Best regards,

Pascal

Lean Expert Certificate

By Al Norval

This is an eternal question – do you certify someone in Lean?

I understand the need people have for a certificate. They’ve worked hard on building their Lean knowledge and skillset and want some recognition for it. This is consistent with the culture of our entire education system where year after year people receive grades and at some interim points receive a certificate often in the form of a Diploma or Degree presented to them with full pomp and circumstance at a Graduation ceremony. So why not do the same thing with Lean?

There is certainly a technical component to Lean in the use of many of the tools be they TPM, SMED, Kanban, or Standard Work and people could certainly be certified in the use of these tools but what about the other, deeper side of Lean – the thinking that underpins the use of the tools. How do you certify people’s thinking? With the tools, people can memorize some facts and reproduce those facts at the appropriate time but often we find people using a tool in the wrong context. What was right for one situation isn’t right for another. People have developed knowledge of a tool but not the deep System of Profound Knowledge Deming talked about that enables them to use the right tool in the right context.

Is it possible to certify Lean Thinking?

I’m not sure how to do that and even if you could certify people’s thinking, a large part of Lean is the ongoing Pursuit of Perfection. The endless PDCA cycle of eliminating waste, creating more value for Customers, solving problems and learning. For people the Pursuit of Perfection often translates into Lifelong Learning, continuing to build their knowledge through practice and reflection. This ongoing process allows people to build profound knowledge.

What’s the answer?

I believe in Certificates of Participation as a means of satisfying peoples need for recognition particularly at the early learning stages. But as people continue to learn this need goes away and once it does, people become true masters.

Cheers