Issue link: https://industrialmanagement.epubxp.com/i/513969
28 Industrial Management a host of questions. The human mind always seems to latch on to criticism of change. Workers will wonder why they are standardizing the work. After all, they're OK with the current process. Why should we put forth energy and effort instead of focusing on a higher priority? If improvement doesn't have a clear direction and assigned priority, people will consider it low priority and continue with their current methods. As explained in Toyota Kata , Toyota inserted continuous improvement into its employee DNA by using the kata approach. Improvement became a part of each employee's daily routine, something that can't be achieved through formal training or classrooms. Take, for example, the question "What do you want to do to improve your work?" The answer can be "We need to reduce setup times, apply a production pull system, remove wastes from the shop floor, reduce production lead-times and standardize work proce- dures." This is what most companies do, and it represents a poor alignment of goals with strategies. Lean improvement, on the other hand, strives toward an objective. A better question would be "What is your target?" The answer could be "Meeting the customer demand rate (takt time)." This begs the question of what do the workers need to do to reach this target, which yields the answer that they need to improve the cycle time of their machines to meet the customer takt time. The second case clearly defines customer takt time as a stretch goal to strive for. We know where we want to be. And improving machine cycle time is a target condition that we must meet to reach our goal. It should be a measurable thing, like a cycle time of 50 seconds faster than the takt time. The first example has no target, and we could spin our wheels improving things while not knowing where we want to be or where this improvement will lead us. One of the most fundamental mistakes made by many companies is trying to improve something without a One of the most fundamental mistakes made by many companies is trying to improve something without a clear strategy. clear strategy that serves the customer requirements and finally the success of the business. But meeting the customer demand rate will allow the organization to deliver products on time and achieve 100 percent customer satisfaction. This can serve the long-term strategic objective of being a leading supplier. People and core values You will need a strategy statement that articulates your vision and incorporates the stretch goals that are required to achieve it. Even if your people don't fully understand where you are taking them, repeating the words of your strategy will help them understand that they are part of a team going in the same direction. These statements should be generic enough that your vision will fit any future acquisitions. It is important that your strategy defines the operational excellence that you envision, visions such as be the leading supplier in your industry or be one of the globe's top 10 corporations. Core values must be articu- lated. Achieving excellence requires teamwork, trust and respect for people. Core values are like guideposts that will point your workforce toward your ultimate goal of working in a culture of improvement. The three main core values to consider are people, customer and quality. Respect for people is one of the Toyota production system's pillars and is the main reason for Toyota's success. A policy of not laying off employees because of improving efficiency is a good thing to follow. Letting workers go after they improve a process will disrupt the whole system, and it means no improvement next time. Employees will resist change as long as it threatens their livelihoods. If a strategy of respect for people is set, then a 20 percent cost reduction target clearly means process improvement, not cutting resources. Always remember that a company can't change its core values every few years without losing the respect and confi- dence of its people. Respect for people includes developing your leaders instead of outsourcing solutions. Many companies hire external experts. They create a continuous improvement department, hire the improvement consultants and relegate the improvement behavior to them. Such a parallel team will be powerless to effect change and make improvement. They don't know the company's culture or processes. And when the outsourced consultant leaves, all knowledge is gone. The regular employees have no experience to keep managing the improved processes or continuously improving them to face the future challenges. They have not been trained on the culture of continuous improvement and have not contributed to the transformation process. Instead, lean tools should be used by the company's leaders and the factory managers who have the capability, power and responsibility to effect changes. Improvement should be done by people who are managing the work day by day, not by a parallel team. The leaders who manage work each day will be responsible for coaching people who do the work. And those people must own, operate, develop and continually improve their processes. Companies that travel the consultant route should make sure they use the temporary personnel to share lean expertise and knowledge with the rest of the workforce. Classroom vs. continuous coaching We learn by doing, and problems give us lessons to learn. What we learn through formal educational programs can't be standardized for all industries and cultures. What might work in one place won't work in another. Situa- tions differ, even in the same industry. Anyway, classroom training, while it can only provide a specific level of awareness, does not change behaviors and culture. Toyota uses a completely different pattern of learning. Toyota teaches its workers to develop solutions, not just