Start the lean journey by planning the trip
When I have occasion to speak with people about lean (which is only every chance I get), I am often asked - where should we start? While this sounds like a very simple question, it actually requires a lot of thought. However, the simple answer is that you must first decide where you want to go before you know where you should start. Think of it like this: If you don’t know where you want to go, it really doesn’t matter if you have a map.
I have a GPS for my car that is pretty high tech. It communicates with satellites that are orbiting thousands of miles above the Earth. It can tell me where I am, give turn-by-turn directions, and even tell me how fast I am going. However, with all of that technology, if I can’t put in a final destination, the GPS is pretty useless.
The same is true for lean, Six Sigma, Lean Sigma or whatever you call your Continuous Improvement effort. If you don’t know where you are trying to go, even the best lean program won’t help very much.
There are mountains of information about lean, TPS and Continuous Improvement processes out there. You can read a book a week, and probably spend several years digesting just what is written so far. You can hire consultants that can lean a process out to the tenth of a second, and you can save a lot of money. You can even teach some of your folks about lean in the process. All of these things are very good things, but not exactly what we are after - yet.
You should be able to very clearly and concisely articulate where it is that you want to go before you do any of the things above. If you can’t, don’t start yet. When I ask this simple question to companies and people who ask me where to start, I usually get answers that while they may be accurate, are not really relevant. For example, I might hear, “We want to get better.” Or, “We want to save money.” While those are certainly things that lean will help with, neither of them really paint the picture of what you want to accomplish.
You can read some of the lean and Continuous Improvement books out there (there are hundreds of them) to help get ideas. Talk to some lean professionals or even use this blog as a comment page to throw ideas out there. You can send me an e-mail to discuss it. But decide where you are trying to go before you take off on the trip.
Some of the things that you should consider (especially given the current state of the economy):
- “Have I gone through a reorganization that could impact the quality of my product?”
- “What is changing on the economic landscape that will impact my business (automakers)?”
- “What new changes may come out of the new government administration that may change my business model?”
- “What opportunities are being created right now that we need to capitalize on for the future?”
- “Are there ‘green’ issues that may impact my business (RoHS, wastewater, emissions)?”
- “How old is our product offering, and is it time for a review?”
- “What is the long-term corporate strategy, and how do we support that strategy?”
There are many other items that you should discuss as a team when formulating the vision for the CI program. The point is, have the conversations now, before you start. Make sure that you can clearly and consistently articulate what is important, and what you are working toward.
The challenge for you and your colleagues is to be able to clearly answer and articulate an answer to the question, “Why are we embracing Continuous Improvement?”
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Filed Under: Lean Manufacturing | Tags: continuous improvement, Lean Manufacturing, six sigma, Toyota Production System
