Lean: the shopfloor rules 2

In my last column, I mentioned how Lantech had been featured as an exemplar of lean thinking in the book of the same title. That was in 1995. I recently came across a YouTube video interview with Jim Lancaster (CEO of Lantech) in 2010 about what happened next. It's worth a look: http://tinyurl.com/668cele. In the video, Lancaster explains how the business had made great steps forward through its shopfloor kaizen process and was able to grow and be successful. Once the pressure for change subsided, over time the business stopped improving. Seven years later, when the company realised what was happening, it tried doing more of what had spurred success in the past… But that didn't work. Eventually, Lantech started applying a lean approach to its management processes and the pace of improvement accelerated again. What the company did helped to change the focus of where managers spent their time. They also developed their ability to use coaching tools to understand and break down the systematic barriers facing the shopfloor. These barriers are not visible to the casual observer because they occur as part of the complexity of shopfloor reality. Similarly a General Electric subsidiary making locomotives found that after it had implemented lean thinking, it couldn't get the results needed until it established a true 'on the floor partnership', bringing management and front line personnel together three times a day. Both of these organisations found that the real management work begins after the lean training and implementation tasks are over. Continuous improvement tools are enablers: it's what you do with them that makes the difference. A golden rule for managers is to add the value that only you can add by dealing with the issues which frontline teams cannot. However as nine out of 10 problems are caused by weaknesses in management processes, there are plenty of these opportunities about.