Odds 'n Ends

This page contains information that I hope you will find interesting and useful.

Lean Leadership

Lean Management Failure
A standardized article describing the typical failed Lean effort. All that is left to do is fill in a few blanks. Anyone who dislikes Lean management or thinks it is bad should read this article.

Lean Leader's Visual Control
One reason why senior managers have difficulty practicing REAL Lean every day is because they lack visual controls - reminders of what to do. Here is my countermeasure, different forms of which I have used for years in teaching Lean leadership to students and executives. The words and images serve as useful reminders of what to do, questions to ask, etc. Use it every day, and let me know how you like it.

Answers Hiding in Plain Sight?
Despite the efforts by so many people over decades to advance Lean management, three questions remain: 1) Why are so many organizations still ignorant about Lean management? 2) Why do we have so much Fake Lean management? and 3) Why do we have so little REAL Lean management? Once in a while the answer to vexing questions are simple and hiding in plain sight. Maybe this is the case for Lean management.

Progressive Management: 100 Years of Criticism
Unfortunately, there has been a consistent failure to forcefully respond to the 100+ year old arguments used by people who are against progressive management. As a result, the problem remains with us today, more or less in full-force. The widespread and long-term misunderstandings by managers, the press, unions, workers, and others surely does not help us in our efforts to advance Lean management. You can help correct this problem by forwarding the link to this two-page article or attach the .pdf file to everyone on your e-mail distribution list, including people outside of the Lean community. When you see a story in the press that mischaracterizes Lean, send this article to the reporter and editor. If you write a blog, feel free to post this article on your blog and encourage your readers to share it with others. If you know managers, union leaders, or politicians who misunderstand Lean, then send it to them. Go ahead and copy and distribute the article in your company. You get the idea. With your participation we can accelerate the elimination of misunderstandings associated with progressive Lean management and move forward faster.

Progressive Management Critics' Strategy and Tactics
Lean remains a niche management practice despite decades of effort, due in part to people who successfully argue against its use in their organization. How have they been so successful? The core strategy used by people who dislike progressive management is to ignore rules of argumentation, while the tactics include widespread use of illogical arguments to maintain the status quo. This one-page article provides insights into many of the illogical arguments typically used so you can avoid them in your own arguments in favor of Lean management, and recognize their use by those who are against progressive Lean management.

Bob Emiliani Interview Questions and Answers
A five page interview transcript that can help you better understand Lean management.

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Critical Thinking

Relationship Between the "Continuous Improvement" and "Respect for People" Principles
Test your knowledge of Lean management. See if you can put at least one item in each of the 55 cells. Once you achieve that, try putting three items in each cell, then five, and so on. There is no deadline for completing this matrix. Just keep thinking and working on it.

How Flow Destroys Economies of Scale
Economies of scale (Eos) is a widely accepted concept in every organization and in every industry. It's validity is unquestioned by finance, design, engineering, IT, sales and marketing, etc., from the C-level to the shop and office floor worker. This presentation questions the validity of EoS across different systems of production - from batch-and-queue to hybrid to flow. It illustrates how EoS diminishes significantly as flow improves, which leads to a lower-cost, more financially stable demand-driven organization. Specifically, you will learn how EoS is valid only for batch-and-queue material and information processing. You will also learn how economies of scale are inconsistent with Lean thinking, why flow greatly diminishes scale economies, and actions you can take to reduce or eliminate your organization's reliance on economies of scale. Required reading for CEOs and CFOs.

Lean in Orbit?
An article in the April 2010 SME e-newsletter LeanDirections that mischaracterizes my response to Jim Womack's January 2010 article "Beyond Toyota." The SME article also refers to me as a "lean management expert," a characterization which I reject because experts possess distinctly un-Lean characteristics of achievement, infallibility, self-satisfaction, and complacency. While others readily accept designations (by self or others) as "expert," my view is that you're never done learning about about non-zero-sum Lean management. How can anyone be an expert? I am simply a dedicated student of Lean management working very hard to be fact-based.    

The Cost of Waste, Unevenness, and Unreasonableness
An estimate of the cost of WUU for a hypothetical company, and what you could do with the money if large amounts of WUU were eliminated. Does not include the cost of behavioral waste.

"If the worker hasn't learned, then the instructor hasn't taught."
TWI folks are fond of this saying. While as a teacher I completely agree with the sentiment, is this really a true statement? I determine the truth of this statement using mathematical logic. Relatedly, and most unfortunately, K-12 public school teachers in the U.S. have recently been subject to severe criticism and blame for students not learning. This proof shows that blaming teachers for students' failure to learn is an illogical, and therefore flawed, argument. In the analysis, simply substitute the word "student" for "worker."

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Historical Perspectives

The Spirit and Social Significance of Scientific Management
A wonderful description of Scientific Management (Lean management's direct antecedent) by Morris Cooke, a close colleague of Frederick W. Taylor. Written in 1913, a few years after Scientific Management became widely known by the public, Cooke makes clear the importance of the worker and how they must be respected. A must-read for anyone who thinks that Taylor and his colleagues had as their intent to turn workers into unthinking robots. That outcome was the result of narrow-minded managers and unscrupulous consultants who misunderstood and misapplied Scientific Management and turned it into a mean-spirited, zero-sum exercise in maximizing efficiencies at workers' expense. The parallels to modern-day fake Lean management are stunning.

Continuous Production is the Answer to Economic Distress
A 5-page paper by written by Frank George Woollard in the late 1940s, describing how flow production can help overcome economic distress caused by low productivity. This is an extremely insightful paper, based in part on Woollard's innovative work on flow production in the early 1920s while at Morris Engines Ltd. (Coventry, U.K.). In it Woollard says: "It is not generally recognized that continuity [flow] is the key to high productivity..." This statement remains true today. Woollard also notes that achieving flow requires cooperation, thought, analysis, and "diagnosticians worthy of the name." Again, a statement that rings true today. Woollard's signature appears on page 5. This paper was obtained by Bob Emiliani and Peter Seymour from the personal archive of Woollard's close friend David Bramley (age 96), on 18 March 2010 at the home of his niece, Gesche Cox. Very special thanks to Ms. Cox and Mr. Bramley, and also to Mr. Murdoch Matthew (a Woollard family friend) for scanning this and many other documents from Mr. Bramley's archive.

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Fun Stuff

Lean Word Search Puzzle
See if you can find all the words.

Lean Crossword Puzzle
Enjoy it.