Why Lean Outside the Factory?

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

I wrote a book about it – (The Remedy). Why did I bother?

Because Lean is about reducing waste & variation -- and most of it is outside of the factory.

The past few decades, factories, and Operations in general, have gotten better and better.

There’s still much opportunity, but in many industries they are no longer the bottleneck.

Suppose you order a new Toyota Avalon, Total lead time (i.e. time between your order and delivery) will be something like 30 days.

How much of that time does the vehicle spend at the Toyota Kentucky factory?

A day or so. Most of the lead time is outside the factory and comprises administration, transportation, and plenty of waiting. So where is the opportunity?

Sales, Marketing, Design, Engineering, Finance and so on are the "undiscovered country".

How do we support the good people in these areas?

Here are a few questions to get us started.

For each zone, ask:

1) What is waste?

2) What is value?

3) What are some core mental models?

If we can build on these to define our Purpose clearly, we'll can start to pull in powerful Lean tools to help us achieve that Purpose (Getting the Right Things Done)

Best regards,

Pascal



In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Too Often, Power Means the Power to Do Stupid Things
When You’re Convinced You’re Right, You’ve Lost Your Ability to Learn
On Labels – ‘Expert, Master, Sensei’ and the like
Fred Taylor & the Illusion of Top-Down Control - Part 2

Jackie Fisher – Transforming the Royal Navy

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Just finished Dreadnought, Robert Massie's splendid account of the years leading up to World War 1.

My favourite character is Admiral John (Jackie) Fisher who transformed the Royal Navy – just in time.

Fisher was a Lean thinker, far ahead of his time. His obsession was improving the speed and accuracy of Royal Navy operations -- in advance of the German High Fleet's challenge.

He used Lean thinking with intuitive flair. Go see was a favourite technique, as was standardized work.

He famously took a chair and table into the yard where some operation was to be carried out and declared his intention to stay there until the operation was completed.

The dreadnought, Royal Sovereign, was built in two years rather than three. Changing a barbette gun on a ship was reduced from two days to two hours. His example obliged all shipyards, both navy and private, to reduce waste, making savings in cost and allowing new designs to enter service more rapidly.

He once observed, "When you are told a thing is impossible, then is the time to fight like the devil."

He was also effective politically. Winston Churchill, First Sea Lord, was an important (on again/off again) ally.

Had Jackie Fisher been less diligent, would the Royal Navy have checkmated the German High Fleet (confining them to their Baltic ports)?

Transformation is a tough business. At best you partially succeed, and that makes all the difference.

Best regards,

Pascal




In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Confronting the Business Haters
Viva Iceland
Beware Prizes, Belts & Self-appointed Experts
Big Data & PDCA

The Loneliness of the Small Business Owner

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

A colleague of mine is launching a small business - a comic book, craft & memorabilia store in Toronto's West end.

John is a splendid artist and draftsman, as well as, a gifted renovator of houses.

But he wants to do something a little different.

Over a drink the other day John described some of the obstacles he faces:

• Taxation (& double taxation) - on his lease, insurance, inventory, renovations etc.
• Municipal, provincial and federal business taxes - Toronto's business tax is among the highest in North America
• Multiple building permits - long delayed because the Permit Office lost the first set of drawings
• Multiple licenses - which face similar hassles & delays

It'll take John at least 6 months & a ton of investment just to open his doors.

Are there any lessons here?

A cynic might say, "Never start a business. Instead, get a job in the Permit Office. It's indoors & no heavy lifting."

Libertarians might say, "The power to tax is the power to destroy. We have starved government of money and power."

Lean thinkers might say, "Government has to reduce the waste in the small business launch process."

I'm with the Lean thinkers. If we agree that small business is the engine of growth, we have to reduce the hassles people like John face.

(According to BusinessWeek, business owners of all stripes cite RED TAPE is their single biggest hassle.)

How might we reduce the waste & hassle John has experienced?

A 'provision' map would be a good place to start. A provision map is essentially, a value stream map from the customer's point of view.

(See Chapter 12 of The Remedy for more.)

Our map would

• Define the steps in the small business launch process & related process data (e.g. total lead time, quality, value added time etc.)
• Illuminate the information flow, and
• Identify hassles & possible countermeasures

To take such a step, our various governments have to accept that their job is to help, by reducing hassle.

Mr. Biden, Mr. Trudeau, are you listening?

Best,

Pascal



In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

What is Courage & How does it relate to True North?
Lean, Leadership & Ethics, Part 1
The Work of Leaders
Why is Lean So Hard? – Organizational Elements

Why Lean in Sales?

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Why indeed? Isn’t Lean a factory thing?

Well, no…Lean is a business system comprising the entire enterprise.

The Toyota Business System, for example, addresses the three critical “loops”:

1. Design
2. Make
3. Sell

Guess which one is considered most important? Sell – because it’s closest to the customer.

Sales are about information. What features does the customer want? At what price point? What promotions does he respond to? How does she want to receive her products or service?

How was our last promotion perceived? And so on...

Production (Operations), usually our most valuable & expensive asset, runs on information. We only make what our information tells us to make.

If our information is wonky, our most valuable asset is unlikely to operate in its sweet spot. Result: overproduction, inventory and all the associated ills.

So how do we introduce Lean in Sales?

Here are some questions to get you started:

1. What is value in Sales? (Who are our internal & external customers and what do they need from us?)

2. What is waste?

3. What are some core mental models in our Sales department?

4. What are our current processes for delivering this value?
5. How aligned are they to delivering the value our customers expect?

6. How do we improve them?

Lean is harder outside the factory – because our product & processes are typically invisible.

If you make scrap in a factory, everyone can see it. “Hey, we made a whole pile of junk yesterday…”

In business processes, by contrast, you can’t see the scrap. A good forecast & a bad forecast look identical…

On the plus side, sales folks are usually smart & creative. If you introduce the fundamentals with finesse, they run with them.

All for now.

Pascal

PS For more, check out The Remedy – Bringing Lean Out of the Factory to Transform the Entire Organization.




In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Back to Basics - What is Value?
You Want to Get More Done? Do Less…
Strategy Deployment & Language
Where Lean Has Gone Wrong & What to Do About It, Part 2

Standardized Work for Knowledge Workers

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Standardized work (STW) is fundamental to the Lean Business System.

What's the best way we know - right now?

How do we summarize our current best way one, simple, visual page?

How do we engage our team in continuing to improve our best way?

These are core questions.

At Toyota I learned that STW comprises:

1. Content
2. Sequence
3. Time
4. Expected outcome

Embedded tests that signal Good/No Good are also critical.

Does this recipe apply outside the factory?

The embedded tests concept applies universally.

As for the other elements - yes and no.

Yes - in short cycle time, repetitive knowledge work e.g. a pharmacy or laboratory analyzing high sample volumes.

No - in long cycle time, non-repetitive knowledge work e.g. a surgery, engineering or design process.

STW confers all its customary benefits - if applied with finesse.

A good example is the Checksheet - which is simply a list of embedded tests that tell us whether we're okay or not.

Atul Gawande's fine book The Checklist Manifesto illustrates how we might apply STW to knowledge with finesse.

Translation will be vital as we move the profound Lean principles upstream & downstream of the factory, and into entirely new field of work.

(The Remedy is my humble attempt to illustrate what this might look like.)

The worlds awaits Lean thinkers with finesse.

Best regards,

Pascal


In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Difference between Hansei and a Post-mortem
TPS and Agile
Beware INITIATIVES
Point, Flow & System Improvement

Lean Outside the Factory - Reverse Magic!

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

A few years back, I had the pleasure of taking my teenage daughters, Katie & Eleanor, to Las Vegas.

We'd hoped to see the great magician, David Copperfield, who I'd seen make tigers, elephants and the like disappear. On TV I saw David make the Statue of Liberty disappear.

Sadly, he was out of town & we had to settle for Cher...

Anyhow, somehow I made the following connection. (Must have been the desert air...)

Lean's next frontier is the office -- sales, marketing, engineering, design, planning & scheduling, finance and so on.

Deploying the "profound system of knowledge" here requires us to perform reverse magic.

David Copperfield makes visible things, invisible.

We have to do the opposite & make the invisible, visible.

Office work, is what Peter Drucker called "knowledge" work - most of it is hidden in the box knows as a computer.

Our job is to take it out that box and put it up on the wall, where everyone can see it.

Otherwise, waste multiplies exponentially, and our office processes become our constraint.

Here's a challenge for you:

• Review total lead time for your top three value streams,
• Where is most of the delay -- in operations (factory, hospital ward, laboratory etc) or outside operations?

If you're like many organizations, most of the delay in outside operations.

Yet where do we spend most of our improvement work?

So...let's work our magic and make the invisible, visible.

Best, Pascal

PS That's what The Remedy is all about.


In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

The Beauty of Making Things
What is Breakthrough?, Part 2
What Does Breakthrough Mean? - Part 1
Suggestion boxes vs Quick & Easy Kaizen

"Too Much School Destroys the Mind..."

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Like many of my colleagues I went to a professional school (Engineering), then a business school.

I dutifully did all my assignments, got good marks and climbed up the ladder.

Nobody told me about the glasses I'd been given. Nobody told me that they would distort my image of the world.

Nobody told me it would take a decade or more to learn to see clearly again. And I was lucky...

People got to professional schools and business schools with the best of intentions.

They want a better job, more responsibility and higher pay -- all worthy & admirable goals.

But my professors never told me they were teaching dysfunctional mindsets.

(Getting the Right Things Done and The Remedy express my thoughts on mental models.)

Probably, they didn't even realize it themselves.

They too, were just trying to make their way in their careers, seeking the path of least resistance.

Perhaps the most dysfunctional was the idea that improvement depended on ‘smart’ people like me devising cunning plans – and everybody else doing as they were told.

(I’m reminded of a line from the old Blackadder series: "I’m going to devise a plan so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel!”)

In any event, ideas have legs. Dysfunctional mental models mutate, and debilitate their host.

The result?

Smart, well-educate, capable people who have forgotten the fundamentals.

As my dad used to say (about me), "Too much school destroys the mind..."

Regards,

Pascal

In Chess & Business, Lies & Hypocrisy Do Not Last Long

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

I paraphrase the great Emmanuel Lasker, philosopher, mathematician, and world chess champ from 1894 to 1920.

I encourage you all to play chess. It’s fun, engrossing and wonderful for the mind. Chess’s wildly romantic history and mythology is an added bonus.

(Nowadays you can download grandmaster level chess programs on to your Pad!)

One of the great charms of chess is its binary nature.

You win or lose based on

• The strength of your ideas, and
• Your skill & courage in implementing them

Is Lasker's maxim true in business?

In small business, I'd say Yes.

Our success or failure depends on the depth of our strategic understanding, and the energy & intelligence with which we execute.

(Luck plays a part too, of course, as always & everywhere.)

How about BIG business?

Based on my experience, I'd say Yes - with important reservations.

Monopoly, oligopoly, and market rigging (e.g. to keep competition out) are all too common.

(The countermeasure is intelligent regulation in accord with the "Less is More" principle)

Another exception is large companies suffering from Big Company Disease, the villain in my last book, The Remedy.

Perhaps the greatest power of the Toyota management system (aka "Lean") is its ability to make problems visible.

Lasker might add, "thereby, we expose lies & hypocrisy."

Good Lean companies are thus, a meritocracy. The best & brightest prosper, and bozos are exposed.

Play chess, have fun, kick butt and take names.

Best,

Pascal

Why Lean in Sales?

By Pascal Dennis

Why indeed? Isn’t Lean a factory thing?

Well, no…Lean is a business system comprising the entire enterprise.

The Toyota Business System, for example, addresses the three critical “loops”:

1. Design


2. Make


3. Sell

Guess which one is considered most important? Sell – because it’s closest to the customer.

Sales are about information. What features does the customer want? At what price point? What promotions does he respond to? How does she want to receive her products or service?

How was our last promotion perceived? And so on...

Production (Operations), usually our most valuable & expensive asset, runs on information. We only make what our information tells us to make.

If our information is wonky, our most valuable asset is unlikely to operate in its sweet spot. Result: overproduction, inventory and all the associated ills.

So how do we introduce Lean in Sales?

Here are some questions to get you started:

1. What is value in Sales? (Who are our internal & external customers and what do they need from us?)



2. What is waste?



3. What are some core mental models in our Sales department?



4. What are our current processes for delivering this value?


5. How aligned are they to delivering the value our customers expect?



6. How do we improve them?

Lean is harder outside the factory – because our product & processes are typically invisible.

If you make scrap in a factory, everyone can see it. “Hey, we made a whole pile of junk yesterday…”

In business processes, by contrast, you can’t see the scrap. A good forecast & a bad forecast look identical…

On the plus side, sales folks are usually smart & creative. If you introduce the fundamentals with finesse, they run with them.

All for now.

Pascal

PS For more, check out The Remedy – Bringing Lean Out of the Factory to Transform the Entire Organization.

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise: Jackie Fisher – Transforming the Royal Navy

By Pascal Dennis

Just finished Dreadnought, Robert Massie's splendid account of the years leading up to World War 1.

My favourite character is Admiral John (Jackie) Fisher who transformed the Royal Navy – just in time.

Fisher was a Lean thinker, far ahead of his time. His obsession was improving the speed and accuracy of Royal Navy operations -- in advance of the German High Fleet's challenge.

He used Lean thinking with intuitive flair. Go see was a favourite technique, as was standardized work.

He famously took a chair and table into the yard where some operation was to be carried out and declared his intention to stay there until the operation was completed.

The dreadnought, Royal Sovereign, was built in two years rather than three. Changing a barbette gun on a ship was reduced from two days to two hours. His example obliged all shipyards,

both navy and private, to reduce waste, making savings in cost and allowing new designs to enter service more rapidly.

He once observed, "When you are told a thing is impossible, then is the time to fight like the devil."

He was also effective politically. Winston Churchill, First Sea Lord, was an important (on again/off again) ally.

Had Jackie Fisher been less diligent, would the Royal Navy have checkmated the German High Fleet (confining them to their Baltic ports)?

Transformation is a tough business. At best you partially succeed, and that makes all the difference.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

The Loneliness of the Small Business Owner

By Pascal Dennis

A colleague of mine is launching a small business - a comic book, craft & memorabilia store in Toronto's West end.

John is a splendid artist and draftsman, as well as, a gifted renovator of houses.

But he wants to do something a little different.

Over a drink the other day John described some of the obstacles he faces:

• Taxation (& double taxation) - on his lease, insurance, inventory, renovations etc.
• Municipal, provincial and federal business taxes - Toronto's business tax is among the highest in North America
• Multiple building permits - long delayed because the Permit Office lost the first set of drawings
• Multiple licenses - which face similar hassles & delays

It'll take John at least 6 months & a ton of investment just to open his doors.

Are there any lessons here?

A cynic might say, "Never start a business. Instead, get a job in the Permit Office. It's indoors & no heavy lifting."

Libertarians might say, "The power to tax is the power to destroy. We have starved government of money and power."

Lean thinkers might say, "Government has to reduce the waste in the small business launch process."

I'm with the Lean thinkers. If we agree that small business is the engine of growth, we have to reduce the hassles people like John face.

(According to BusinessWeek, business owners of all stripes cite RED TAPE is their single biggest hassle.)

How might we reduce the waste & hassle John has experienced?

A 'provision' map would be a good place to start. A provision map is essentially, a value stream map from the customer's point of view.

(See Chapter 12 of The Remedy for more.)

Our map would

• Define the steps in the small business launch process & related process data (e.g. total lead time, quality, value added time etc.)
• Illuminate the information flow, and
• Identify hassles & possible countermeasures

To take such a step, our various governments have to accept that their job is to help, by reducing hassle.

Mr. Obama, Mr. Trudeau, are you listening?

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Lean & Wakefulness - Reprise

By Pascal Dennis

The Lean Business System, at heart, is about wakefulness.

Philosophers throughout the ages have argued that we are sleepers in a dream, that our grasp of what's actually happening is, at best, tenuous.

Many schools of philosophy and religion include exercises, prayer or meditation designed to "wake" the sleeper.

Lean tools like visual management, 5 S, standardized work, and pokayoke, are meant to jolt us out of our slumber.

"Hey, buddy wake up! There's a problem over here!"

Strategy Deployment, the application of the scientific method to our enterprise, is also about wakefulness.

Our Level 1, 2 and 3 check processes, for example, should be stand-up meetings in front of a board or wall that makes "hot spots" painfully clear.

"Holy cow, look at that! We should do something..."

My books Getting the Right Things Done, Andy & Me and its sequel, The Remedy, all entail the protagonists' gradual awakening.

Let me conclude with a mixed metaphor: In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen.

Cheers,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Lean is a Growth Strategy - Reprise

By Pascal Dennis

But Lean is about growth.

Too often we sub-optimize by focusing Lean (aka Toyota Business System) entirely on productivity & efficiency.

And you can't grow unless the entire value stream is engaged.

The system comprises three 'loops', in fact: Design, Make, Sell.

As it happens, one of my favorite Toyota senseis, Shin-san, was a sales & marketing executive!

Most Lean transformations focus on the Make loop, for good reasons.

Waste is most visible in Operations. But if we stop there, we'll miss the Mother Lode -- Growth.

For example, what if we fail to extend our Lean activities upstream into Sales?

A chaotic, lumpy sales profiles will force even the most splendid Lean factory out of its 'sweet spot.'

We'll have to buffer with inventory, lead time or capacity.

Engaging Sales entails uncovering invisible governance obstacles.

Incentive structures are perhaps the most common.

Why do I produce a lumpy, chaotic sales profile? Because I get a big bonus thereby!

We also have to engage other non-Operations groups -- Marketing, Design, Engineering, Planning & Scheduling...

That's what The Remedy - Bringing Lean Out of the Factory is all about.

A big challenge, but that's why we have managers.

(As Shin-san use to say, "No problem, no need for managers!")

Tip of the hat to Orrie, Art Byrne and the Wiremold leadership team, who saw all this a few decades ago!

So what's this mean for Lean practitioners?

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise: Lean & Wakefulness

By Pascal Dennis

The Lean Business System, at heart, is about wakefulness.

Philosophers throughout the ages have argued that we are sleepers in a dream, that our grasp of what's actually happening is, at best, tenuous.

Many schools of philosophy and religion include exercises, prayer or meditation designed to "wake" the sleeper.

Lean tools like visual management, 5 S, standardized work, and pokayoke, are meant to jolt us out of our slumber.

"Hey, buddy wake up! There's a problem over here!"

Strategy Deployment, the application of the scientific method to our enterprise, is also about wakefulness.

Our Level 1, 2 and 3 check processes, for example, should be stand-up meetings in front of a board or wall that makes "hot spots" painfully clear.

"Holy cow, look at that! We should do something..."

My books (Getting the Right Things Done, Andy & Me, The Remedy) all entail the protagonists' gradual awakening.

Let me conclude with a mixed metaphor: In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen.

Cheers,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Visual Management in New Product Development

By Pascal Dennis,

Lean thinking is moving out of the factory -- downstream into sales, logistics and order fulfillment, and upstream into finance, marketing and New Product Development (NPD).

We're often asked, how do you apply the fundamentals in these areas?

For example, how might you apply visual management in NPD?

A good first step is to ask, What do we need to know to run our business?

Here are typical answers:

a) What's the project loading at each point (P0, P1, P2) in our development pipeline?

b) What are min/max levels and our status at each point?

c) What are the biggest obstacles in each project?

d) Do we have countermeasure plans? What's their status?

e) What are broader system issues? Do we have countermeasure plans? Status?

Now we're ready to engage our teams in developing visual tools that will make the invisible, visible.

In our coaching work we've used funnels, race tracks, football fields, as well as, team boards and the like.

Visual management is also invaluable in NPD physical plants (e.g. Test Labs), and is similar to what you might find in a factory.

For example:

a) What's this week's work?

b) Are we ahead or behind?

c) What are our biggest obstacles? Countermeasure plans & status?

d) How versatile are our people?

e) What's the loading on our machines? Constraints?

The key, again, is to make the invisible, visible.

Translating Lean principles upstream and downstream of Operations is the new frontier

Enjoy the journey,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise - Why Lean Outside the Factory?

By Pascal Dennis,

I wrote a book about it – (The Remedy). Why did I bother?

Because Lean is about reducing waste & variation -- and most of it is outside of the factory.

The past few decades, factories, and Operations in general, have gotten better and better.

There’s still much opportunity, but in many industries they are no longer the bottleneck.

Suppose you order a new Toyota Avalon, Total lead time (i.e. time between your order and delivery) will be something like 30 days.

How much of that time does the vehicle spend at the Toyota Kentucky factory?

A day or so. Most of the lead time is outside the factory and comprises administration, transportation, and plenty of waiting. So where is the opportunity?

Sales, Marketing, Design, Engineering, Finance and so on are the "undiscovered country".

How do we support the good people in these areas?

Here are a few questions to get us started.

For each zone, ask:

1) What is waste?

2) What is value?

3) What are some core mental models?

If we can build on these to define our Purpose clearly, we'll can start to pull in powerful Lean tools to help us achieve that Purpose (Getting the Right Things Done)

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise - Jacky Fisher – Transforming the Royal Navy

By Pascal Dennis

Dreadnought, is Robert Massie's splendid account of the years leading up to World War 1.

My favourite character is Admiral John (Jackie) Fisher who transformed the Royal Navy -- just in time.

Fisher was a Lean thinker, far ahead of his time. His obsession was improving the speed and accuracy of Royal Navy operations -- in advance of the German High Fleet's challenge.

He used Lean thinking with intuitive flair. Go see was a favourite technique, as was standardized work.

He famously took a chair and table into the yard where some operation was to be carried out and declared his intention to stay there until the operation was completed.

The dreadnought, Royal Sovereign, was built in two years rather than three. Changing a barbette gun on a ship was reduced from two days to two hours. His example obliged all shipyards, both navy and private, to reduce waste, making savings in cost and allowing new designs to enter service more rapidly.

He once observed, "When you are told a thing is impossible, then is the time to fight like the devil."

He was also effective politically. Winston Churchill, First Sea Lord, was an important (on again/off again) ally.

Had Jackie Fisher been less diligent, would the Royal Navy have checkmated the German High Fleet (confining them to their Baltic ports)?

Transformation is a tough business. At best you partially succeed. But that can be the difference between poverty & prosperity -- or death and life.

For my image of what transformation looks & feels like, there's The Remedy...

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise: Lean – Where are We Now? - Part 2

By Pascal Dennis

Last time, I invoked nature’s sigmoid curve and asked:

1. Where on the curve are we now? Are we still in the state of accelerated growth – or has Lean leveled off?

2. If the latter, how to create a new sigmoid curve? What are the obstacles and possible countermeasures?

These questions have triggered fine discussions within our Lean Pathways team and among all our friends & colleagues.

Seems the consensus is that Lean is levelling off and approaching a plateau. Lean has ‘won’, if you will.

Lean/Continuous Improvement has developed roots in most Fortune 500 companies, and across a broad range of industries.

We have a significant and growing number of splendid Lean organizations.

It would be easy to rest on our oars. But if we did, we’d risk the fate of numerous other worthy “improvement” paradigms (e.g. TQM, Business Process Reengineering et al).

Here’s our next challenge: How do we get a new sigmoid curve going?

In my view, the key to generating a new upswing for Lean is two-fold:

1. Double down on the principles and thinking behind Lean, and

2. Extend Lean thinking upstream and downstream of Operations

I’ve written a book {The Remedy] & blogged extensively on number 2.

What about number 1? Increasingly, Lean is taught as a set of tools and practices – each worthy and helpful in their own right. Visual management, 5 S, standardized work et al are splendid, effective practices – necessary, but not sufficient. For a start, they’re unlikely to seize the imagination of, say, a Chief Information Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, or Chief Medical Officer – or of a CEO, for that matter. I spend much of my time coaching such folks. They see the tools of Lean as ‘Operations’ stuff – helpful, but not transformational.

But the ideas & principles underlying Lean are as profound as those underlying medicine, law or engineering, or any great profession. I was trained as a Chemical Engineer and learned the principles of heat transfer, mass transfer, fluid mechanics, unit operations and more. I understood that my job was to apply these principles in ever more complex situations – hence their power.

Lean principles are as powerful and as eternal, in my view. We need to teach them as such, and challenge ourselves to apply them in more & more challenging and complex situations. How well we do this will determine Lean’s trajectory over the next few decades. (It’s the challenge to which we at Lean Pathways have dedicated ourselves.)

Our nemeses in this great endeavour? Arrogance (Hubris), complacency, fear – the eternal trifecta.

Should be an interesting year - and decade.

Best, Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Lean Outside the Factory - Reverse Magic!

By Pascal Dennis

A few years back, I had the pleasure of taking my teenage daughters, Katie & Eleanor, to Las Vegas.

We'd hoped to see the great magician, David Copperfield, who I'd seen make tigers, elephants and the like disappear. On TV I saw David make the Statue of Liberty disappear.

Sadly, he was out of town & we had to settle for Cher...

Anyhow, somehow I made the following connection. (Must have been the desert air...)

Lean's next frontier is the office -- sales, marketing, engineering, design, planning & scheduling, finance and so on.

Deploying the "profound system of knowledge" here requires us to perform reverse magic.

David Copperfield makes visible things, invisible.

We have to do the opposite & make the invisible, visible.

Office work, is what Peter Drucker called "knowledge" work - most of it is hidden in the box knows as a computer.

Our job is to take it out that box and put it up on the wall, where everyone can see it.

Otherwise, waste multiplies exponentially, and our office processes become our constraint.

Here's a challenge for you:

• Review total lead time for your top three value streams,
• Where is most of the delay -- in operations (factory, hospital ward, laboratory etc) or outside operations?

If you're like many organizations, most of the delay in outside operations.

Yet where do we spend most of our improvement work?

So...let's work our magic and make the invisible, visible.

Best, Pascal

PS That's what The Remedy is all about.

Pascal Dennis Bio

The Remedy – Four Year Anniversary!

By Pascal Dennis

Four years ago this week, I received my 1st Copy of The Remedy – Bringing Lean Out of the Factory to Transform the Entire Organization. I was blown away! 

Wiley & Sons have outdid themselves. The cover, content, drawings etc. were everything I'd hoped they'd be. 

All the hard work & heart ache, the endless hours researching & writing faded away.

I was proud of the Lean Pathways team, who have taught me so much, and of Dianne Caton, artist extraordinaire, who made magic out of my chicken scratch drawings. The Remedy remains one of my favorite books.

Why write a book about Lean outside the factory?

Because that’s where the opportunity lies. Upstream - in marketing, design, and engineering. Downstream - in distribution, sales, and customer service. 

These, together with health care, service, and government, are Lean’s frontier. I am less and less a factory rat. 

Every core lean principle applies outside the factory. But business processes are harder to fix.

Why a sequel to Andy & Me?

The characters of Tom Papas and Andy Saito seemed a natural vehicle. Readers seem to like them, and I do too. 

We’re still emerging from an economic catastrophe, which claimed many great companies and put millions of people out of work. 

Lean has the potential to reduce human misery and increase human happiness by doing more with less, while providing meaningful work. 

That’s enough for me.

Why should people read The Remedy?

It's a straight up book from the head & heart.

 An honest story about real people trying to implement Lean outside the factory. There are study questions at the end of each chapter – and Dianne’s splendid doodles.

Pardon the plug, but it’s a damn good book.

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio