Lean Manufacturing Concepts Discussion

Re: Discussion on Topic and Concepts of Lean Manufacturing

Bev D said:

Taiichi Ohno began developing the toyota production system following the second world war. Womack et al did 'repackage' it by coining the phrase "Lean"

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Toyota's reliance on Deming is clear:

"Everyday I think about what he meant to us. Deming is the core of our
management."
-Dr. Shoichiro Toyoda, Founder and Chairman, Toyota Motor Corporation

of course Deming was correct: Defects are one of the 8 wastes. but there are 7 more...I'm not so sure I would agree that Lean is a repackaging of quality as it is so much more than quality improvements.

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My quote was from page 1. Deming didn't just talk about reducing variation. He gives dozens of examples talking about all kinds of waste from inventory p44, to idle time p218. He even discusses the impact of clean workplaces and health and safety.

Re: Lean Manufacturing - Discussion on Concepts

KELVIN said:

The fundamental of Six Sigma – On Target No Variation (Accurate forecast and Right quantity production).

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Kelvin,
I'm curious about this new definition of Six Sigma. What is the source ?
Six Sigma was created as a specification based methodology using defect counts. This is in contrast to TQM's "on target with minimum variance".

I have not seen "no variation" claims previously.

Re: Discussion on Topic and Concepts of Lean Manufacturing

artichoke said:

Toyota's reliance on Deming is clear:

"Everyday I think about what he meant to us. Deming is the core of our
management."
-Dr. Shoichiro Toyoda, Founder and Chairman, Toyota Motor Corporation


My quote was from page 1. Deming didn't just talk about reducing variation. He gives dozens of examples talking about all kinds of waste from inventory p44, to idle time p218. He even discusses the impact of clean workplaces and health and safety.

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yes I know Deming's influence as well. I've been studying hi sworks for decades - BEFORE he became newly popular in the US. Which only goes to show that this Lean isn't new. the phrase may be - it was most likely coined to make it palatable to Americans who were resistant to doing something "from Japan". Deming did talk about the wastes but later developers and authors published detailed "how to's". A catchy phrase is not bad as long the guts are solid and Lean's guts are solid. The methods have evolved and improved over many years by many people...to my knowledge no one is saying Lean is something new. Maybe newly popular with more people and that is surely a good thing. so I'm not sure of your point? surely you are not saying that Deming is the one and only source for improvement and that everyone else is substandard?

Re: Lean Manufacturing - Discussion on Concepts

artichoke said:

Kelvin,
I'm curious about this new definition of Six Sigma. What is the source ?
Six Sigma was created as a specification based methodology using defect counts. This is in contrast to TQM's "on target with minimum variance".

I have not seen "no variation" claims previously.

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actually, before the name came into being Motorola's qualiyt improvement program had been in place for several years. It wasn't only about defects and specifications. I clearly remember many training classes (some well done and some very poor) that all emphsized that the primary way to achieve 3.4ppm (which I know is a stupid "goal" teh mythical 1.5 sigma shift and all that) was to reduce the variation about the target. processes were to be half the tolerance spread and centered...the training on the use of dpmo would typically wear off very fast once everyone realized that it was silly and could be easily manipulated - except of course for those that alwasy manipulated the numbers, lean six sigma, ISO9001, you name it they did it religously because they didn't knwo any other way or were just to lazy to do real work.

and certainly it has evolved since the 1980s and Dr. Harry - things are allowed to evolve aren't they?

Re: Lean Manufacturing - Discussion on Concepts

Bev D said:

actually, before the name came into being Motorola's qualiyt improvement program had been in place for several years. It wasn't only about defects and specifications. I clearly remember many training classes (some well done and some very poor) that all emphsized that the primary way to achieve 3.4ppm (which I know is a stupid "goal" teh mythical 1.5 sigma shift and all that) was to reduce the variation about the target.

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Yes, Motorola had used a great variety of improvement tools under the general heading of TQM, prior to winning the Baldridge. I've spoken to an engineer who worked at Motorola when six sigma was first introduced. He says that they "were told to put the 6s logo on all our Powerpoint Slides". That is, their methods didn't change, just the name.

Even Mikel Harry says that Six Sigma is "80% TQM". The methods for reducing variation have not improved ... there has simply been a great deal of nonsense around defects, normal distributions, etc that has been added. The reason this was done was to make the outrageous claims of a "magical" new approach.

and certainly it has evolved since the 1980s and Dr. Harry - things are allowed to evolve aren't they?

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Yes. Unfortunately almost all six sigma web sites still spruik the same old nonsense. From my observations, six sigma has been a retrograde step in quality.

While Lean may have little that's really new, it may provide an improved step by step packaging. If there has been useful evolution in quality improvement through six sigma, beyond what Shewhart, Deming and Wheeler have taught, I'm all ears.

Re: Lean Manufacturing - Discussion on Concepts

artichoke said:

Even Mikel Harry says that Six Sigma is "80% TQM". The methods for reducing variation have not improved ...

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well TQM never really lit my fire. it didn't promote "how to do it" so much as "why you should do it". it got people motivated but tehn they didn't know what to do to make it happen. and our universities and colleges wer and many still are woefully inadequate at teaching statistical engineering and quality improvement methods. At least Six Sigma changed that by using the 4 week training + 2 projects model.

Y

artichoke said:

es. Unfortunately almost all six sigma web sites still spruik the same old nonsense. From my observations, six sigma has been a retrograde step in quality.

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except that it has trained amny more people than before in quality improvement methods - were some poorly trained? yes. but many were well trained. As my career has progressed I've seen a marked increase in skill levels than previously. and more CEOs and CFOs that are embracing quality and customer satisfaction.

artichoke said:

While Lean may have little that's really new, it may provide an improved step by step packaging. If there has been useful evolution in quality improvement through six sigma, beyond what Shewhart, Deming and Wheeler have taught, I'm all ears.

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more on that later - time for dinner now!

Re: Lean Manufacturing - Discussion on Concepts

Bev D said:

well TQM never really lit my fire. it didn't promote "how to do it" so much as "why you should do it".

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TQM has PDCA instead of DMAIC but its biggest problem was that it was never promoted to CEO's the way six sigma has been.

and our universities and colleges wer and many still are woefully inadequate at teaching statistical engineering and quality improvement methods. At least Six Sigma changed that by using the 4 week training + 2 projects model.

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4 weeks is enough to be dangerous. I like Harrington's quote at a public presentation: "A master black belt is equivalent to a junior quality engineer" (audience applause)

The effect of six sigma on universities is frightening. Try a google on 'university "six sigma" 3.4' and you will get hundreds of hits. Thousands of young people are now being taught the absolute nonsense of 3.4, drifting means, etc in a university environment. I can see that industry will take a long time to recover.

except that it has trained amny more people than before in quality improvement methods - were some poorly trained? yes. but many were well trained.

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I don't think much has changed in the past 24 years. As Deming said: "American management have resorted to mass assemblies for crash courses in statistical methods, employing hacks for teachers, being unable to discriminate between competence and ignorance."

CEOs and CFOs that are embracing quality and customer satisfaction.

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I wonder what the backlash will be when they discover that they have been fooled by the outlandish promises of six sigma and its snake oil salesmen ?

Re: Lean Manufacturing - Discussion on Concepts

artichoke said:

4 weeks is enough to be dangerous. I like Harrington's quote at a public presentation: "A master black belt is equivalent to a junior quality engineer" (audience applause)
?

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Makes me proud to be a junior quality engineer


"I wonder what the backlash will be when they discover that they have been fooled by the outlandish promises of six sigma and its snake oil salesmen ?" (i dont know how to multi quote"

My company is currently on-going consultation for Six Sigma initiative. I respect a lot of consultants, and i agree for need of them. But the consultants deployed for our site seems to be more of a salesman than a statistician. (!) I was really frustrated by these people who spends more time telling what our benefits could be than training our key engineers with statistics and improvement tools. Whats more we hired a Black Belt (dont know if certified, but designated as the master blackbelt of the site) who have a very shallow understanding of Statistics. We are now looking forward for training 6 new Black belts. But somehow i have this bad feeling that this initiative would not turn out as expected. Top managements seems to be rushing things,especially that the consltants promised an increased in the Bottom line in 6 months. We are missing the training part. Till now we are not using control charts properly, dont even have the culture to run statistical experiments. Makes me realize that there are two six-sigmas. the Real one, and the "for marketing purposes" one.

Re: Lean Manufacturing - Discussion on Concepts

reynald said:

"I wonder what the backlash will be when they discover that they have been fooled by the outlandish promises of six sigma and its snake oil salesmen ?"

But the consultants deployed for our site seems to be more of a salesman than a statistician. (!) I was really frustrated by these people who spends more time telling what our benefits could be than training our key engineers with statistics and improvement tools. Whats more we hired a Black Belt (dont know if certified, but designated as the master blackbelt of the site) who have a very shallow understanding of Statistics. We are now looking forward for training 6 new Black belts. But somehow i have this bad feeling that this initiative would not turn out as expected.

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Very interesting reynald. This sounds very much like what happened at IBM ... management was "sold" by six sigma's outlandish promises.

" Let me add another perspective to Six Sigma. IBM executives started
visiting Motorola headquarters shortly after they won their Baldrige, to
benchmark and pick up some of their quality practices. First on the list
was Six Sigma. I was an internal statistical methods consultant and
quality engineer at IBM in Rochester, MN at this time. We were forced to
adapt Six Sigma at our site, even though we had the same concerns that have been listed in recent discussions in this forum. Six Sigma was present, but not dominant, by the time our IBM site won a Baldrige in 1990.

Six Sigma was being implemented corporate-wide at the insistence of some
highly placed IBM executives. There were complaints and discussions
throughout IBM until the leading technologist in the company called 15-20
statisticians and quality managers together to publish a position paper on
Six Sigma. We were encouraged to believe that our opinions and factual
evidence were going to get a hearing.

We expressed concern with Motorola s misuse of statistical terms, the thin
theoretical and practical evidence for the 1.5 sigma shift, and the dubious
means of counting defects and opportunities for defects. Our position
paper was finally regarded as too disruptive to IBM s progress in defect
reduction, which management wanted to credit to Six Sigma policies. The
position paper was never distributed beyond the team that created it.

Six Sigma is rarely mentioned around IBM anymore. It quietly disappeared
with the radical downsizing that took place from 1991-93, even though it
was always touted as not just another quality program. I believe its
disappearance did occur primarily because many of its champions either left
IBM, or had too many higher priorities left to cover. I left IBM in the
downsizing, along with 80% of the quality improvement experts (mostly
statisticians)."

I have no doubt that a similar pattern has been repeated thousands of times across America. (I get the impression that CEO's in Japan and China are more aware ... I'm not sure about other countries). How can CEO's be educated ... by waiting for even more company failures ?

Re: Lean Manufacturing - Discussion on Concepts

artichoke said:

... I'm not sure about other countries). How can CEO's be educated ... by waiting for even more company failures ?

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...Or by holding on by Deming's words, "Eliminate fear". If only midlle/lower management would (and can!) draw the real picture to top management and not what the "President/CEO wishes to hear". So sad it seems like "one-sided reports/presentations" are so common. But who would dare tell the truth if that means suicidal?