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What Is Wrong with the Current Continuous Improvement (CI) Practice? Read chapter Read first chapter

2016 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

3. Strategies of TPS/Lean Implementation

Author : Peter Béndek

Published in: Beyond Lean

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Without a functioning CI culture continuous improvement just does not happen. Other than that of Toyota all the rest of the transformation philosophies are structurally ill-devised, inflicted with a people management mentality that cannot by definition anchor CI in the pervasive cultural fact of the organisation. A few lessons stand out. (1) The meagre reproducibility of kaizen companies pushed (rather than led) by powerful managers to better and better results can remind us that outside their original context some solutions may not work just as conveniently. The allure of Lean must be limited for most CEO’s if they hear only about the disruption that it creates and the hard work that it demands from the whole organisation. Indeed, it is doubtful whether Lean has been configured in the right way at all to be able to serve improvement purposes in the Western context. (2) In semi-controlled Lean cultures walking a slightly different path the main carrier of the critical phase, i.e., a leadership-mentored evolution of systemic CI capabilities where leadership meets system and tech/process-level CI practice, is simply not on top of the agenda. (3) In other instances centred on technology leadership we detect at best a fragmented CI capability. Rational calculation however does speak against a dazzling commitment to systemic Lean anyway.

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previous chapter What Is Continuous Improvement, and What Is Not
next chapter The Toyota Way
Footnotes
1
This character of Byrne’s approach is criticized in some reviews as well. Let me refer specifically to Matt Wrye’s comments to which Byrne answered in a vein that tells a lot about his approach, reinforcing some of my own concerns. Cf. https://​beyondlean.​wordpress.​com/​tag/​art-byrne/​
 
2
“Remind yourself that structure drives behaviour” (Byrne 2013a, 34 %).
 
13
ibid.
 
26
Let’s not forget that Germany’s auto industry has long been in the forefront of combining new technologies with jog redesign based on work groups. Cf. “Introduction” (Kochan et al. 1997).
 
27
Headline from the The Engineer, 14th September 1978.
 
32
Scarbrough and Corbett (2013).
 
35
Cf. with the Nissan Production Way that has kept much of the TPS spirit, too, but losing focus on the people. “Compared to Toyota, the synchronization philosophy of Nissan is more geared towards lower-volume, higher-variety and more high-tech manufacturing. Exactly the type of characteristics that western economies claim to have.” http://​better-operations.​com/​2012/​08/​30/​nissan-production-way-a-better-alternative-to-tps/​ Do not miss Jeffrey Liker’s contribution in the comment section on the side-effects of this: “The statement that the Nissan system is a better alternative to TPS is a silly statement. By and large Nissan copies Toyota. If you look at the underlying philosophy they are talking about the same thing–continuous improvement through surfacing problems and solving them one by one. Specific surface manifestations like how much automation you use in a particular area and whether or not you use a cart are simply countermeasures being tried at different places and times. Toyota has been all over the board in the use of automation and IT. They have kept a very consistent philosophy over decades of solving problems at the gemba and striving for simplicity. They highly value people development and kaizen and normally will move away from technology, like a lot of automation, when they determine it reduces flexibility and reduces kaizen. Nissan does not seem to have as strong and consistent a philosophy of developing people and their system these days is probably influenced by the fact that Renault, a French company, owns them. Nissan sees to be more tool focused, which I agree makes them an easier fit for American companies, in that it is more similar to what we do. It is not necessarily the best way as we depend far too much on tools to solve our problems and far too little of gray matter and persistence to do what it takes to solve the problem and achieve the target.”
 
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Metadata
Title
Strategies of TPS/Lean Implementation
Author
Peter Béndek
Copyright Year
2016
Book
Beyond Lean

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27743-1

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-27745-5

Copyright Year: 2016

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27745-5_3