The 4 rules of lean thinking

In the article :Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System, Steven Spear captures 4 rules that summarize the operating principles of the Toyota Production System. These rules are very powerful at the moment you are faced with challenges trying to improve a process. When you face these type of problems, STOP and reflect on the 4 rules, you will be able to find a solution to your problem.

Rule 1

All work should be highly specified as to CONTENT, SEQUENCE, TIMING and OUTCOME.
can you clearly explain this for elements on your job? if the answer is not, then you have an opportunity for improvement.

Rule 2

Every customer supplier connection must be DIRECT and there must be an unambiguous YES-OR-NO way to send the requests and receive responses
Again the same question applies, can you clearly describe these two elements in your customer-supplier connections? if not, then you have an opportunity for improvement

Rule 3

The pathway for every product and service must be simple and direct

Rule 4

An improvement must be made in accordance with the scientific method, with guidance, and as close as possible to the actual work.

Advantages of 5S

Some peole have recently asked me to provide some specific advantages of a 5s program.

I have said before that the main purpose is to make problems and opportunities for improvement visible, but there are other benefits as well and these are:


•Raises Employee Morale
•Better Safety
•Great "Effort/Impact" relationship
•Establishes baseline for the lean journey
•Better use of time and talent
•Better use of physical resources
•Better understanding of processes and relationships
•Improved communications
•Lowered Stress

Catchy phrases for 5S implementation

These phrases could help you when implementing 5S

for Sort:
when in doubt throw it out

for Set in order:
A place for everything and everything in its place

for Shine:
Seen through the eyes of an important visitor

for Standardize:
Sort, straighten, and shine always

for Sustain:
Make 5S a habit

The following video shows a great way to explain 5S

Another definition of 5S

5S is a continuous improvement program for maintaining a visual workplace utilizing a 5-step process for identifying and eliminating hidden wastes through effective workplace organization, visual communication and general cleanliness.

Quotes on lean thinking and leadership

No mistake is fatal unless you make it so

Quotes on lean thinking and time management

The wise do only what needs to be done.

A fool and his inventory are never parted

Definition of Kanban

Kanban is a card or sheet used to authorize production or movement of an item; when fully implemented, kanban (the plural is the same as the singular) operate according to the following rules:

1. all production and movement of parts and material take place only as required by a downstream operation, i.e. all manufacturing and procurement are ultimately driven by the requirements of final assembly or the equivalent.

2. the specific tool which authorizes production or movement is called a kanban. The word literally means card or sign, but it can legitimately refer to a container or other authorizing device. Kanban have various formats and content as appropriate for their usage; for example, a kanban for a vendor is different than a kanban for an internal machining operation.

3. The quantity authorized per individual kanban is minimal, ideally one. The number of circulating or available kanban for an item is determined by the demand rate for the item and the time required to produce or acquire more. This number generally is established and remains unchanged unless demand or other circumstances are altered dramatically; in this way inventory is kept under control while production is forced to keep pace with shipment volume. A routine exception to this rule is that managers and workers are continually exhorted to improve their processes and thereby reduce the number of kanban required.

Definition of Kaizen

Kaizen is the philosophy of continual improvement, that every process can and should be continually evaluated and improved in terms of time required, resources used, resultant quality, and other aspects relevant to the process

Definition of Jidoka

Jidoka is a Japanese word which translates as autonomation; a form of automation in which machinery automatically inspects each item after producing it, ceasing production and notifying humans if a defect is detected; Toyota expands the meaning of jidoka to include the responsibility of all workers to function similarly, i.e. to check every item produced and to make no more if a defect is detected, until the cause of the defect,has been identified and corrected

Definition of Just In Time

Just in time is a production scheduling concept that calls for any item needed at a production operation — whether raw material, finished item, or anything in between — to be produced and available precisely when needed, neither a moment earlier nor a moment later.

Definition of Cellular manufacturing

an approach in which manufacturing work centers [cc have the total capabilities needed to produce an item group of similar items; contrasts to setting up work cent on the basis of similar equipment or capabilities, in wb case items must move among multiple work centers bef they are completed; the term group technology sometimes used to distinguish cells that produce a relativ large family [group] of similar items.

Summary of Good to Great by James Collins

Eleven companies who had been average enterprises for many years, and renewed themselves using these principles and then consistently beat the general stock market by three times over fifteen years.

The Seven Key Principles

1. Level Five Leadership

Personal humility & professional will.
Are ambitious for their company's success first and foremost, themselves second. Set up successors for even greater success.
Modest, self-effacing, understated.
Fanatically driven to produce sustained, long term results. Workmanlike diligence vs. show horse.
Often attribute success to things other than themselves.

2. First Who... Then what

Get the right people on the bus, and the wrong people off.
"Who" questions come before "what" questions - rigorously applied. Get everyone on the team to lead the organization to success.
Rigorous leaders, not ruthless. Did not use mass layoffs or restructuring. When in doubt - don't hire..., keep looking.
Don't seek growth without the right people on board.
When you know you need to make a people change - act.
Put the best people on the biggest opportunities - not on problems. Teams debate and dialogue vigorously to find best solutions.
Compensation is meant to attract and keep the best - not motivate them.
The right people are your most important assets.
The right people has more to do with character traits and innate capabilities than with specific knowledge, background or skills.

3. Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)

Confront the brutal truth of current reality, yet never waiver that you'll win in the end.(Stockdale Paradox)
Create a culture wherein telling the truth is more important than good performance.

• Lead with questions, not answers.
• Dialogue and debate, not coercion.
• Conduct debriefs and autopsies, without blame.
• Use red-flag mechanisms that insures they are seen.

Respond to adversity, by hitting realities head on - stay focused on vision.
Don't worry about motivating people. Get the right people and they are motivated.

4. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity Within the Three Circles)

What You Can Be The Best In The World AT.
What You Are Deeply Passionate About.
What Drives Your Economic Engine.

The entire organization must understand deeply the above three.
Reaching this understanding is an iterative process - may take years.
You must have a passionate council constantly searching for the three answers -Relentlessly dialoguing & debating the truth.
The company's strategies and goals are set to achieve the three circles.

5. A Culture of Discipline

A culture of self-disciplined people, disciplined thought and disciplined action fanatically consistent with the three circles.
Getting the right self-disciplined people on the bus eliminates the need for bureaucracy.
Paradox: Must operate consistently within the system, but also be enormously creative and innovative within it.
This is not about tyrants - it is about a culture of discipline. Everyone leads. Most important discipline is adherence to the three circles. This creates the greatest opportunities for growth.
"Once-in-a-lifetime" opportunities are irrelevant unless they fit within the three circles.
Budgeting is more about what gets fully funded and what doesn't get funded, vs. spreading the money around.
"Stop doing" lists are more important than "to do" lists.

6. Technology Accelerators

Become pioneers in using carefully selected technologies.
Does the technology help us achieve our three circles? Avoid fads.
Technology is the accelerator of the momentum, not the cause of it. See the three circles.
All the comparison companies had access to the some technologies, but not the some environments in which to apply them.
Good to great companies "stay the course". Comparison companies react.
80% of Good to Great company executives didn't include technology as one of the top five keys to their success.
Crawl, walk, run is a good strategy even with technology.

7. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop

The good-to-great transformations look like dramatic, revolutionary events to outsiders, but they feel like organic, long term, cumulative processes to people on the inside.
Sustainable transformations follow a predictable pattern of buildup and breakthrough. Like moving the flywheel, it takes a lot of sustained effort in the beginning, but with consistency the effect is cumulative.
Comparison companies lacked the long-term consistency. Too often they would try to jump to breakthrough, without the organizational strength to sustain it. Acquisitions rarely worked.

Lean Quote from Taiichi Ohno

Data is of course importnant, but I place greater emphasis on facts

- Taiichi Ohno

Lean Manufacturing Quote

"Brilliant process management is our strategy.
We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes.
We observe that our competitors get average (or worse) results from brilliant people managing broken processes"


-Senior Toyota Executive

The 3 most common problems in Problem Solving

1- Make the assumption that you know what the problem is without seeing what is actually happening

2- Make the assumption that you know how to fix a problem without finding out what is the real cause of it

3- Make the assumption that the activities you have done to fix a problem are working without checking to see if they are actually working and doing what you were expecting.

These 3 mistakes have the same issue in common, which is you are not going to the gemba to see and Grasp the situation. Remember that there is no better way to understand a situation that by going and see what is actually happening. This is done not only to understand the reasons or causes of a problem, but also to see and confirm that things are happening as they are supposed to work.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

This is an incredible habit. I personally see people every day finding excuses for not doing things or for delaying projects. This habits helps provide those people with an anser for such things and Covey explains this with a wonderful metaphor:

"in and old yarn, a man is sawing a log, The work is going slowly and the man is exhausted. The more he saws, the less he cuts. A passerby watches for a while an suggests that the man should take a break to sharpen the saw. But the man says he can't stop to sharpen the saw because he is to busy sawing" . A dull saw makes the work tiresome, tedious and unproductive. Highly effective people take the time to sharpen their on tools, their skills, bodies, souls, minds and hearts.

Allocate time to sharpen your saw in all these aspects of your life, leave time for exercising, for your family, for improving your mental skills, business skills, and your spirit.

Work towards developing your emotions, which depend greatly on other, Work to develop your heart, your emotional connections and your engagement with other people. Communicate, listen and be undemanding. In everything you do, try to make others better off and put them first. By doing this, you will transform your own person into why Covey call a highly effective person

Habit 6: Synergize

Covey explains that this habit is all about multiplying what different individuals could do.
He calls this creative cooperation and the way he puts it is that the creative cooperation could create a force greater that the sum of the parts.

Effective synergy relies on communication, many people make synergy impossible by reacting from scripts, they do not listen, reflect and respond, instead they react reflexively.

Cooperation and communication are the two legs of a synergistic relationship. If sincere cooperation and communication are lacking the power of synergy will be lost. 2+2 = 5.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

This habit is all about listening

Always try to understand what the other people want and need before you begin to outline your own objectives.

Listen carefully before you engage in objecting, arguing or opposing what others are telling you, listen carefully and think about it.

Exercise this habit by putting yourself in the other party's shoes.

This habit, as well as all the others applies to any type of relationship, personal or business.

Remember to always understand what the others want and why the want it, then you will be in a better position to outline your own objectives, since you could start thinking in terms of win/win.

By first listening you are also creating empathy with the other person or persons.

Habit 4: Think Win - Win

In every type of relationship looking for Win/Win solutions is the way to go. When the parties of a relationship Win, everybody is better off. When somebody Wins and the other loses, the loser will be injured one way or the other.

Covey explained in his book that highly effective people always strive for win/win transactions, which make it profitable for everybody to cooperate because all the parties are better off at the end.

A different result always will yield to: bad feelings, animosity, new enemies, hostility or defeat.

What makes you a highly effective people is the fact that you can multiply your allies not your enemies.