Enlarging Your Problem-solving Footprint

The TPS-Lean Series - Introducing the Four Competencies of Execution

By: Lonnie Wilson

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

This book, "Enlarging Your Problem-solving footprint" is about involving floor-level personnel in daily improvements as you strive to achieve a TPS-Lean culture. The problematic management paradigm that must be shifted is that these people have been systematically and consciously removed from problem-solving activities.

Much of the literature on lean manufacturing has lost sight of the basis of the Toyota Production System, which is, "cost reduction through the elimination of waste." To achieve this objective, you must make two large paradigm shifts, and a litany of lesser ones. First, to eliminate the fear and negativity surrounding problems, you need to create a kaizen mindset. Second, as a matter of policy, you must incorporate improvement activity into the duties of all workers, including the senior management and the value-add worker. Improvement activities consist of two types of problems. First, "the large but few can be handled using kaizen events or their equivalent. A graphic and detailed example is included in the Story of The Theta Cell. Second, are "the small but many" problems. At the worst, "these small but many" are overlooked, both consciously and unconsciously. At the very best, they are stored and aged in databases to be later handled by an engineer. To explain the nature of the "small but many", we will share the data of a "causal study" done at Manufacturing Excellence. Regardless of how "the small but many" are, or are not, addressed, there is a powerful countermeasure. It is the "Four Competencies of Execution" which form the heart of this book. Finally, most people believe that if we do kaizen events and operator-driven kaizen, they are on their way to becoming TPS-Lean. Not so fast!!! - there is one more not-so-secret behavior that must be utilized which we discuss in Chapter Seven. We wrap up the book with advice on how to deploy all this in your facility.

Throughout this book, you will see an intense and consistent focus on management behaviors that must change. Our mantra is, "it's all about the management; the rest is just details.