Author Archive

Pascal Dennis: You can’t flow or pull without Jidoka By Pascal Dennis, Author of Getting The Right Things Done, Lean Production Simplified, and Andy & Me - Last updated: Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Let me build on my colleagues insights: 1.     Jidoka is a socio-technical system.  Both the social and technical challenges are tough -- but the former more so. 2.     Technical challenge:  How to translate customer requirements into meaningful upstream measures?  How to make the Good/No Good condition visible (see Art Smalley's post)?  The following are part of the answer: a.    Deep understanding of the customer -- and the ability to translate that understanding into the meaningful quality specs i.     In the consumer goods industry this might entail providing clear simple answers to questions like: 1.    What does "soft" mean? What does "dry" mean? ii.     In ...

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Pascal Dennis: How do Lean practitioners connect with the CEO? By Pascal Dennis, Author of Getting The Right Things Done, Lean Production Simplified, and Andy & Me - Last updated: Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Building on Orrie's point, connecting with CEO means understanding upstream & downstream of the factory. Marketing, Design, Engineering, Order Fulfillment, Customer Service & the like. The CEO's gemba, and Value Streams, comprise all of these. How often do lean practitioners go see them? It's hard work, admittedly, to go see such gembas -- understand what we're seeing.   But if we don't, we'll suboptimize & CEO's will tune us out -- (rightly). A few small examples: In Marketing, Brand management would greatly benefit from the clarity & simplicity of Lean thinking. Marketing execs, for example, have found Strategy Deployment to be invaluable in aligning Design activity with emerging portfolio gaps. Moreover, Lean fundamentals like STW, visual management ...

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Pascal Dennis: build the Toyota house By Pascal Dennis, Author of Getting The Right Things Done, Lean Production Simplified, and Andy & Me - Last updated: Thursday, April 15, 2010

Good question, Mike. Quality implied in the so-called “House of Lean” image, most obviously in the Jidoka “pillar”. But you’re raising a valid point. Too often Lean implementations underemphasize Jidoka & Quality, and overemphasize the other pillar (JIT). It’s understandable on some level – JIT seems “cooler” and promises quick payback in finished goods and WIP reduction. But the house, and our improvement activities, become imbalanced. We learn, eventually, that without Jidoka & Quality, you can’t provide the “right part at the right time in the right quantity”. So what’s the countermeasure? In my view, we need to respect the house metaphor — ...

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Pascal Dennis: Safety was always first at Toyota By Pascal Dennis, Author of Getting The Right Things Done, Lean Production Simplified, and Andy & Me - Last updated: Saturday, April 3, 2010

Dear Dr. Shein, It’s a pleasure indeed to get a question from you. In my personal experience at Toyota, I found that Safety, pardon the cliche, was always first. First thing discussed at morning production meetings, weekly status reviews, mid-year and year-end reviews. Significant safety incidents including near misses were investigated within 48 hours. Report outs, or “Safety Auctions”, were lead lineside, usually by the group leader and responsible manager. These investigations went far deeper than in any other company I know, with the possible exception of Dupont. In new model launches, safety and ergonomics, were, again, the first order of business. Once ...

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Pascal Dennis: What is to be learned from Toyota now? By Pascal Dennis, Author of Getting The Right Things Done, Lean Production Simplified, and Andy & Me - Last updated: Thursday, February 11, 2010

What is to be learned from Toyota now? Let me suggest a chemical metaphor Leadership is the “enzyme” that catalyzes continuous problem solving. Companies that grow too fast, are unable to grow leaders quick enough. (I agree that it takes 10 years.) Conventional leaders fill open positions and dysfuntional mental models proliferate. Here are a few examples: I’m the boss — do as I say! Don’t make me look bad — (hide the problem)! Make the numbers — or else! Root cause — what’s that? Just make the problem go away! Conventional leaders also fail to see the value stream — the proverbial big picture. They ...

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