"KAIZEN" Lean manufacturing

[Davebones]

Know this is a little different ,but I was wondering if a lot of the manufacturing plants have gone to this . We bring people into a area to "Kaizen it " in 5 days . A lot of time they have no clue of how the people do their work and then change the area for the sake of saying they improved it .There is nothing wrong with looking at how you do things but I'm not impressed with the way our management does the "KAIZEN" .After they walk away from the area they pat themselves on the back for how they improved it !The people in the area then have to deal with the problems the create .If you look on the internet they call this "KAIZEN BLITZ" .It's sad as I see people comming into management thinking because they have a degree they know more than everyone else.

 

[highline]

I'm in a fairly large manufacturing plant. It was tried here several years ago and turned into a total disaster. As you said, people from up front that had no hands on (some didn't even know what a machine did) rearanged everything and everyone. Only good things to come out of it were...things got cleaned up for awhile, we got a free shirt (said Kaizen Team), the people on the floor had their suspicions of some of the leaders lack of knowledge confirmed. Some jobs were even terminated.

 

[petersonra]

These things almost always fail to improve anything unless the people directly involved have a lot of say in the process.

After I was gone, the company I used to work for decided to have a similar group organized to redesign a standard product to make it less costly. Several departments were tasked with providing personnel to the team. The EE department sent a drafter and a temp drafter to the team. The sales department send a typist and a drafter. The ME department sent an ME with a grand total of about 3 months design experience and a drafter. The manufacturing department supplied a cost analyst who had been transfered into the cost control department from the IT department a few weeks previous. He had been a computer programmer before the lateral transfer.Several other departments also supplied personnel. IIRC, not a single person in this team actually was in a position to make any real contributions to the redesign effort.

You can guess what happened. The new design actually cost more to make then the old one. Despite the increased cost, the idiots that came up with the idea added it to the standard products catalog. I don't know that they ever sold a single one of them. Despite this failure of the process to actually provide any benefit, the idiots that came up with it declared victory and had a pig roast to celebrate the accomplishment. I was being rented out there while this was going on so got some of the pig. It was quite good, although the pig might have had a different opinion of things.

The department managers did not have qualified people to take off things they were doing that had to be done so they supplied the required people the way these things are almost always handled - by sending people they won't really miss that much.

 

[weressl]

Know this is a little different ,but I was wondering if a lot of the manufacturing plants have gone to this . We bring people into a area to "Kaizen it " in 5 days . A lot of time they have no clue of how the people do their work and then change the area for the sake of saying they improved it .There is nothing wrong with looking at how you do things but I'm not impressed with the way our management does the "KAIZEN" .After they walk away from the area they pat themselves on the back for how they improved it !The people in the area then have to deal with the problems the create .If you look on the internet they call this "KAIZEN BLITZ" .It's sad as I see people comming into management thinking because they have a degree they know more than everyone else.

Well you could bolster your case by providing the actual scenario and explaining hod did the process failed. Lacking that you are making the same mistake as management and your missive becomes nothing more just management bashing. Leads to nowhere, fast...

For a quick take on the process from...gasp...Wiki:

>> Kaizen is a daily activity, the purpose of which goes beyond simple productivity improvement. It is also a process that, when done correctly, humanizes the workplace, eliminates overly hard work ("muri"), and teaches people how to perform experiments on their work using the scientific method and how to learn to spot and eliminate waste in business processes. In all, the process suggests a humanized approach to workers and to increasing productivity: "The idea is to nurture the company's human resources as much as it is to praise and encourage participation in kaizen activities."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen#cite_note-2 Successful implementation requires "the participation of workers in the improvement." <<

It seems to me that you felt left outside of the process and that alone is a failure, regardless of the improvement it may have produced for the 'books'.

One of the biggest problem transplanting QIP processes originated in Japan is cultural. Those processes based on the Japanese culture and society and thus non-translatable to the US culture WITHOUT changing the culture itself. Your part? You never hear a Japanese worker criticizing the 'boss' or disdaining education.

 

[eric9822]

It's lame but it seems to be the corporate thing to do now. We have that at my employer and the results have been questionable at best. A few years back we had a process with an acronym that started with and "F". We referred to it as "Fight it, Fake it, then Forget it".

 

[480sparky]

First ISO 9000/9001, then Feng Shui. Then ISO 14000 and TS 16949. Now Kaizen.

Man, am I ever in the wrong field.

 

[weressl]

Actually Kaizen is older than some of those...and the evidence just keeps piling up as why these things work for the Japanese, but have questionable success around here.

 

[Davebones]

Yes I could bolster my case by giving a better descripton of the events . I don't have the time to write all the event problems . I am not BASHING management . Maybe we are doing the KAIZEN wrong .We bring in people from other areas and they have a MANAGEMENT leader who tell's them what they want to accomplish . I have seen the team come up with ideas that get trashed because a MANAGER decides thats not what they want . I am the plant electrician and I stand to the side and see the results . There's nothing wrong with change but you have to make the people who build the products part of the "KAIZEN EVENT" ,not just someone who knows lean manufacturing .The biggest problem I see in our industry is people who have degrees think they know more than the people on the floor and yet they have never built that product. We are a billion dollar company ( Aerospace ) and I hear vendor reps from other plants describe the same problems with their companys .

 

[weressl]

Yes I could bolster my case by giving a better descripton of the events . I don't have the time to write all the event problems . I am not BASHING management . Maybe we are doing the KAIZEN wrong .We bring in people from other areas and they have a MANAGEMENT leader who tell's them what they want to accomplish . I have seen the team come up with ideas that get trashed because a MANAGER decides thats not what they want . I am the plant electrician and I stand to the side and see the results . There's nothing wrong with change but you have to make the people who build the products part of the "KAIZEN EVENT" ,not just someone who knows lean manufacturing .The biggest problem I see in our industry is people who have degrees think they know more than the people on the floor and yet they have never built that product. We are a billion dollar company ( Aerospace ) and I hear vendor reps from other plants describe the same problems with their companys .

You already wrote a lot, but you don't have the time to describe one simple example? Hmmm.....
You ARE bashing management: 'A lot of time they have no clue of how the people do their work and then change the area for the sake of saying they improved it .There is nothing wrong with looking at how you do things but I'm not impressed with the way our management does the "KAIZEN" .After they walk away from the area they pat themselves on the back for how they improved it !'
Actually degrees represent a certain knowledge, they are earned. Workers need to get the chip off the shoulder and put their money where their mouth is and go back to school and earn the same degree. THEN they will certainly have the potential to be more knowledgeable about tha actual process. I say 'potential', it isn't a certainty.

 

[Don S.]

I work for a large, multinational corporation. KAIZEN events began at our site several years ago with mixed outcomes. Some were too big, with too little control, and too many participants not realizing that something that was improving what they were focused on, was creating big problems else ware. Smaller, well controlled, events that actually had the correct mix of people were very successful. KAIZEN is not the problem. Lack of sensible leadership is the problem.

 

[Davebones]

WORKERS need to get the chip off their shoulders and go back to school .How about MANAGEMENT getting the chip off their shoulder and realizing a degree does not always mean YOU know more than the people who work for you .I've had a Electrical masters since the mid 80's but I know I can always learn from someone . A degree might mean represent a certain amount of knowledge but that doesn't mean that person knows how to manage people . Management has a hard time hearing from craft people or people on the floor that what they might be trying to do won't work .If you try to tell them different you get classified as NOT A TEAM PLAYER . KAIZEN has worked here when dealing with the material flow. It has not worked in the ( GEMBA ) area well at all ......