Taiichi Ohno, the architect of the Toyota Production System, compared workplace teamwork to passing a baton. He said companies could learn a critical lesson from runners passing a baton. He called the lesson “mutual assistance teamwork” where team members support each other, as a runner waiting for the next stage of the race would react to the runner in the previous stage, who might be struggling, and reach back to provide support and execute a clean handoff. These slides by Toshiko Narusawa, co-author with John Shook of Kaizen Express, illustrate Taiichi Ohno’s comparison and why he used a track relay race for his example, instead of a swimming relay.
What learn by doing does not mean – Slides from the keynote delivered minutes ago by LEI CEO John Shook at the GBMP annual conference, Oct. 5, Worcester, MA.
Lean management has crossed many frontiers, including business sectors, functions, countries, and a region, since Machine That Changed the World was published 25 years ago, kicking off the effort to move lean thinking out of the auto industry, out of Japan, and across the world.
But besides a few “poster children” like Toyota and Lantech, sustaining and spreading lean thinking and practice has been very difficult, according to co-author Jim Womack, founding CEO of the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (www.lean.org)
In this presentation from the March 2016 Lean Transformation Summit, Womack reflects on what worked and what didn’t in spreading lean management. And he explores what needs to be done in the next 25 years to sustain and spread lean management. (Lean more and follow Jim’s thinking by subscribing to his free monthly e-letter, Yokoten: http://planet-lean.com/womack-s-yokoten/#start-0)
Lean's First 25 Years -- and the Next 25 by Jim WomackChet Marchwinski
Lean management has crossed many frontiers, including business sectors, functions, countries, and a region, since Machine That Changed the World was published 25 years ago, kicking off the effort to move lean thinking out of the auto industry, out of Japan, and across the world.
But besides a few “poster children” like Toyota and Lantech, sustaining and spreading lean thinking and practice has been very difficult, according to co-author Jim Womack, founding CEO of the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (www.lean.org).
In this presentation from the March 2016 Lean Transformation Summit, Womack reflects on what worked and what didn’t in spreading lean management. And he explores what needs to be done in the next 25 years to sustain and spread lean management. (Lean more and follow Jim’s thinking by subscribing to his free monthly e-letter, Yokoten: http://planet-lean.com/womack-s-yokoten/#start-0 ).
Coaching: A Core Skill for Lean Transformational LeadershipChet Marchwinski
LEI CEO John Shook, author and lean practitioner since working at Toyota, describes the skills needed to be a master lean coach in this presentation from the 2015 Lean Coaching Summit.
LEI CEO John Shook, who helped Toyota transfer its lean business system to the US, gave the audience some background on lean’s development and its key concepts. He also noted that whether it is established or startup, lean organizations share 2 traits.
What learn by doing does not mean – Slides from the keynote delivered minutes ago by LEI CEO John Shook at the GBMP annual conference, Oct. 5, Worcester, MA.
Lean management has crossed many frontiers, including business sectors, functions, countries, and a region, since Machine That Changed the World was published 25 years ago, kicking off the effort to move lean thinking out of the auto industry, out of Japan, and across the world.
But besides a few “poster children” like Toyota and Lantech, sustaining and spreading lean thinking and practice has been very difficult, according to co-author Jim Womack, founding CEO of the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (www.lean.org)
In this presentation from the March 2016 Lean Transformation Summit, Womack reflects on what worked and what didn’t in spreading lean management. And he explores what needs to be done in the next 25 years to sustain and spread lean management. (Lean more and follow Jim’s thinking by subscribing to his free monthly e-letter, Yokoten: http://planet-lean.com/womack-s-yokoten/#start-0)
Lean's First 25 Years -- and the Next 25 by Jim WomackChet Marchwinski
Lean management has crossed many frontiers, including business sectors, functions, countries, and a region, since Machine That Changed the World was published 25 years ago, kicking off the effort to move lean thinking out of the auto industry, out of Japan, and across the world.
But besides a few “poster children” like Toyota and Lantech, sustaining and spreading lean thinking and practice has been very difficult, according to co-author Jim Womack, founding CEO of the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (www.lean.org).
In this presentation from the March 2016 Lean Transformation Summit, Womack reflects on what worked and what didn’t in spreading lean management. And he explores what needs to be done in the next 25 years to sustain and spread lean management. (Lean more and follow Jim’s thinking by subscribing to his free monthly e-letter, Yokoten: http://planet-lean.com/womack-s-yokoten/#start-0 ).
Coaching: A Core Skill for Lean Transformational LeadershipChet Marchwinski
LEI CEO John Shook, author and lean practitioner since working at Toyota, describes the skills needed to be a master lean coach in this presentation from the 2015 Lean Coaching Summit.
LEI CEO John Shook, who helped Toyota transfer its lean business system to the US, gave the audience some background on lean’s development and its key concepts. He also noted that whether it is established or startup, lean organizations share 2 traits.
State of Lean Management, AME Conference keynote by LEI CEO John ShookChet Marchwinski
Shook offered whats he has learned about cultural change, the rise and fall and resurrection of various production facilities – and about what’s working soundly at GE’s appliance manufacturing facility in Kentucky.
Lean IT is defined by Mike Orzen, a Lean Enterprise Institute faculty member.
Orzen will teach the Lean IT full-day workshop, May 17, in Chicago: http://www.lean.org/Workshops/WorkshopDescription.cfm?WorkshopId=52
This excerpt from the workshop slide deck also has questions for you to answer in order to have an information technology operation based on lean management principles.
Among other topics, the workshop will address how to apply lean startup thinking and behavior to every activity in every business function in any industry. The session also includes case studies and exercises.
Learn more about Mike, the workshop's benefits, and what past attendees have said about it here: http://www.lean.org/Workshops/WorkshopDescription.cfm?WorkshopId=52
During a keynote at the Northeast Shingo Prize Conference, Jim Womack, LEI founder, explains why businesses with shared processes face a “prisoner’s dilemma.”
Lean is about learning, John Shook told a crowd of 200 managers from manufacturing, healthcare, government, and service organizations who had gathered for a learning session sponsored by the Iowa Lean Collaborative on Oct 2, 2012.
To be successful, he said lean learning needs these characteristics:
• All learner partners actively participate
• Mutual Respect: Openness in sharing experience, knowledge, challenges, struggles;
• Teachers are learners; learners are teachers
• Problems to be addressed are important and challenging to all partners
What’s most difficult in production often isn’t making the product but organizing all the parts and materials that go into it, notes LEI CEO John Shook in the presentation “Learning To See:
Making Value Flow From End to End.” He covers how lean management developed to solve this problem from Henry’s Ford Highlight Park, MI, assembly line to the development of the Toyota Production System. He covers key TPS elements and methods such as value-stream mapping, built-in quality, one piece flow, waste elimination, total system efficiency, and developing people as problem solvers.
Lean Counting Keynote, Jim Womack, Lean Accounting Summit, September ...Chet Marchwinski
“Accountants should learn how to take a walk in order to see value from waste and envision a better way to create value,” Womack told roughly 275 financial managers and executives during his keynote presentation at the seventh annual Lean Accounting Summit, Sept. 15, Orlando, FL.
Womack said the goal of the lean accounting movement should be to do “the least possible counting” since no customer thinks accounting is valuable. Customers want products and services that work, are cost efficient, and, most importantly, solve their problems.
“I have never bought a product and asked, ‘Is there a lot of accounting in this product? If there is a lot of accounting in it, I’d like to pay more.’”
In a keynote session at the 2011 IndustryWeek Best Plants Conference, LEI Founder James Womack explains the purpose and practical details for taking a “gemba walk,” a walk across a value stream to grasp the current state. Watch a video of the presentation at: http://www.industryweek.com/videos/Womack-Best-Plants-2011.aspx
Read excerpts from Gemba Walks, a collection of Jim’s essays on visiting companies implementing lean management, or post a question to learn more.
Remarkable safety is a given in the airline and aerospace industries, which are increasingly focused on costs in a time of high fuel prices and intense competition. Lean Thinking can help these industries fly through the turbulence, if they can shift the focus on continuous improvement efforts from lean tools to lean management, explains Jim Womack, LEI founder, in this keynote presentation at a Lean Flight Initiative conference.
In his keynote at LEI’s recent Lean Transformation Summit, Founder Jim Womack talked about the What, Why, How, Who and When of doing gemba or value-stream walks. He compared them to a routine or kata, the Japanese word popularized by author Mike Rother, that managers and executives must perform on a regular basis.
Go and See: why go to the gemba and what to do when you are thereChet Marchwinski
The slide deck for out recent free webinar "Go and See" offers tips for what you should do when you go to the "gemba," Japanese for the "actual place" where value is created.
“Lean for the Long Term” is LEI Founder Jim Womack’s thoughts on the beginnings of the lean movement, where it is now, and what we have to do next to be successful.
In his keynote presentation at the 2010 Lean Logistcs Summit, Robert Martichenko, co-author of the Building a Lean Fulfillment Stream workbook, delineated the elements of a lean supply chain
State of Lean Management, AME Conference keynote by LEI CEO John ShookChet Marchwinski
Shook offered whats he has learned about cultural change, the rise and fall and resurrection of various production facilities – and about what’s working soundly at GE’s appliance manufacturing facility in Kentucky.
Lean IT is defined by Mike Orzen, a Lean Enterprise Institute faculty member.
Orzen will teach the Lean IT full-day workshop, May 17, in Chicago: http://www.lean.org/Workshops/WorkshopDescription.cfm?WorkshopId=52
This excerpt from the workshop slide deck also has questions for you to answer in order to have an information technology operation based on lean management principles.
Among other topics, the workshop will address how to apply lean startup thinking and behavior to every activity in every business function in any industry. The session also includes case studies and exercises.
Learn more about Mike, the workshop's benefits, and what past attendees have said about it here: http://www.lean.org/Workshops/WorkshopDescription.cfm?WorkshopId=52
During a keynote at the Northeast Shingo Prize Conference, Jim Womack, LEI founder, explains why businesses with shared processes face a “prisoner’s dilemma.”
Lean is about learning, John Shook told a crowd of 200 managers from manufacturing, healthcare, government, and service organizations who had gathered for a learning session sponsored by the Iowa Lean Collaborative on Oct 2, 2012.
To be successful, he said lean learning needs these characteristics:
• All learner partners actively participate
• Mutual Respect: Openness in sharing experience, knowledge, challenges, struggles;
• Teachers are learners; learners are teachers
• Problems to be addressed are important and challenging to all partners
What’s most difficult in production often isn’t making the product but organizing all the parts and materials that go into it, notes LEI CEO John Shook in the presentation “Learning To See:
Making Value Flow From End to End.” He covers how lean management developed to solve this problem from Henry’s Ford Highlight Park, MI, assembly line to the development of the Toyota Production System. He covers key TPS elements and methods such as value-stream mapping, built-in quality, one piece flow, waste elimination, total system efficiency, and developing people as problem solvers.
Lean Counting Keynote, Jim Womack, Lean Accounting Summit, September ...Chet Marchwinski
“Accountants should learn how to take a walk in order to see value from waste and envision a better way to create value,” Womack told roughly 275 financial managers and executives during his keynote presentation at the seventh annual Lean Accounting Summit, Sept. 15, Orlando, FL.
Womack said the goal of the lean accounting movement should be to do “the least possible counting” since no customer thinks accounting is valuable. Customers want products and services that work, are cost efficient, and, most importantly, solve their problems.
“I have never bought a product and asked, ‘Is there a lot of accounting in this product? If there is a lot of accounting in it, I’d like to pay more.’”
In a keynote session at the 2011 IndustryWeek Best Plants Conference, LEI Founder James Womack explains the purpose and practical details for taking a “gemba walk,” a walk across a value stream to grasp the current state. Watch a video of the presentation at: http://www.industryweek.com/videos/Womack-Best-Plants-2011.aspx
Read excerpts from Gemba Walks, a collection of Jim’s essays on visiting companies implementing lean management, or post a question to learn more.
Remarkable safety is a given in the airline and aerospace industries, which are increasingly focused on costs in a time of high fuel prices and intense competition. Lean Thinking can help these industries fly through the turbulence, if they can shift the focus on continuous improvement efforts from lean tools to lean management, explains Jim Womack, LEI founder, in this keynote presentation at a Lean Flight Initiative conference.
In his keynote at LEI’s recent Lean Transformation Summit, Founder Jim Womack talked about the What, Why, How, Who and When of doing gemba or value-stream walks. He compared them to a routine or kata, the Japanese word popularized by author Mike Rother, that managers and executives must perform on a regular basis.
Go and See: why go to the gemba and what to do when you are thereChet Marchwinski
The slide deck for out recent free webinar "Go and See" offers tips for what you should do when you go to the "gemba," Japanese for the "actual place" where value is created.
“Lean for the Long Term” is LEI Founder Jim Womack’s thoughts on the beginnings of the lean movement, where it is now, and what we have to do next to be successful.
In his keynote presentation at the 2010 Lean Logistcs Summit, Robert Martichenko, co-author of the Building a Lean Fulfillment Stream workbook, delineated the elements of a lean supply chain
1. Passing the Baton
“Sports can provide helpful hints at work. In baseball, for
example, imagine if we drew boundaries in the infield and
said only the second baseman could play within his
boundaries while the third baseman could only play within
his. Not only would the game not be as much fun to watch, it
wouldn’t even be the same game.
Similarly, things will not run smoothly at work just
because we think we have assigned clear areas of
responsibility. Teamwork is essential in the real world.”
From Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno, page 24~
2. Passing the Baton
Skill in Passing the Baton
“About the time I began work on the Toyota Production
System, the Korean War was just coming to an end.
Newspapers were calling the so-called 38th parallel a
national tragedy for Korea. The same is true in work.”
From Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno, page 24~
3. Passing the Baton
Be careful of “38th parallels” between work areas!
“Think of team work at the gemba like a track relay ---
there is an area within which the baton may be passed. If the
baton is passed well, the final result can be better than the
individual times of the runners. In a swimming relay, a
swimmer cannot dive before the previous swimmer’s hand
touches the wall. In track, however, rules are different and a
strong runner can make up for a weak runner. This is an
interesting point.”
● ●
●
● ● ●
●
●
From Toyota Production System, Taiichi Ohno, page 24~
4. Passing the Baton
“In a manufacturing job done by four or five
people, the parts should be handed over as if they
were batons. If an operator in a later process is
delayed, others should help set up his or her
machine. When the work flow returns to normal,
everyone returns to their usual positions. I always
tell workers they should be skillful in baton-passing.”
● ●
●
● ● ●
●
●
From Toyota Production System, Taiichi Ohno, page 24~
5. Passing the Baton
“In work and in sports, it is desirable for team members to
work with equal strength. In actuality, this is not always the
case, particularly with new employees who are unfamiliar
with the work. At Toyota, we call the baton-passing system
“Mutual Assistance”. It generates powerful teamwork.”
● ●
●
● ● ●
●
●
From Toyota Production System, Taiichi Ohno, page 24~
6. Passing the Baton
“I feel the most important point in common between
sports and work is the continuing need for practice and
training. It is easy to understand theory with the mind; the
problem is to remember it with the body. The goal is to
know and do instinctively. Having the spirit to endure the
training is the first step on the road to winning.”
From Toyota Production System, Taiichi Ohno, page 24~
12. Mutual Assistance Teamwork
Mutual Assistance Line
[Ou-ju-en Line]
With Mutual Assistance However, we have
a dilemma.
When defects occur at a
● ● ●●
mutual assistance gemba,
it can become very hard
to immediately identify
who made them! Also, it
can be difficult to see and
◎ ◎ ◎ ◎
improve imbalance.
13. Mutual Assistance Teamwork
Mutual Assistance Line
[Ou-ju-en Line]
With Mutual Assistance However, we have
a dilemma.
When defects occur at a
● ●
mutual assistance gemba,
● ●
it can become very hard
to immediately identify
who made them! Also, it
can be difficult to see and
◎ ◎ ◎ ◎
improve imbalance.
14. Mutual Assistance Teamwork
Mutual Assistance Coordination Line
[Ou-ju-en Line]
With Mutual Assistance However, we have
a dilemma.
When defects occur at a
● ● ● ● mutual assistance gemba, it
can become very hard to
immediately identify who
made them! Also, it can be
difficult to see and improve
◎ ◎ ◎ ◎
imbalance.
So, some TPS sensei dislike mutual assistance
operations. Others love it. How about you?