Nov 27, 2008

Management and Leadership

Hersey, P. and Blanchard stated that, "Leadership occurs any time one attempts to influence the behavior of an individual or group, regardless of the reason. . . . Management is a kind of leadership in which the achievement of organizational goals is paramount." It is obvious that management and leadership are not the synonymous.

A clear distinction between management and leadership may nevertheless prove useful. This would allow for a reciprocal relationship between leadership and management, implying that an effective manager should possess leadership skills, and an effective leader should demonstrate management skills. One clear distinction could provide the following definition:

· Management involves power by position.
· Leadership involves power by influence.

Warren Bennis drew twelve distinction between two groups as below,

· Managers administer, leaders innovate
· Managers ask how and when, leaders ask what and why
· Managers focus on systems, leaders focus on people
· Managers do things right, leaders do the right things
· Managers maintain, leaders develop
· Managers rely on control, leaders inspire trust
· Managers have a short-term perspective, leaders have a longer-term perspective
· Managers accept the status-quo, leaders challenge the status-quo
· Managers have an eye on the bottom line, leaders have an eye on the horizon
· Managers imitate, leaders originate
· Managers emulate the classic good soldier, leaders are their own person
· Managers copy, leaders show originality

Share this with my friends and hope we can have a deep consideration how we can do better!

Nov 25, 2008

Catholicness of lean

At recent moment, I get some information from website for electing the first company which is well implement lean manufacturing. Personally, I am not interesting the result of election because I am so sure that Toyota will be the first one. But, I am so interesting which are the competitive company. Please check the above company names.

To the moment, I was making a presentation for lean committee meeting, so I used the above info to have a culture promotion to all committee member. below is the main point of the presentation,
Including all companies in automotive industry, there are 10 companies related in those 25 companies. It is only 40%.

For the top 10 companies, it is only one company is making automotive.
Lean manufacuring is appling in different industries around 60%, although it was started by Toyota.
The industries covered such as electronics, food, funiture manufacturing, ...etc. We can find the catholicness of lean concept applied in diverse industries. Nowaday, lean is absolutely not only apply in automotive industry.
What is the main factor for apply lean concept to other industries?
Apply lean from
lean manufacturing, transforms to
Lean management, transforms to
Lean product development, transforms to
Lean supply chain, transforms to
Lean enterprise.

Whatever the stage you are, whatever the industry you are, eventually, we need --- Lean thinking!

Gemba walk

"Gemba" is a word from Japanese language [現場] which is meaning of "go to the place, look at the process, talk with people!". There are some explanation as below,

1. Learning model.

Gemba walk is way to build up the learning model liked sensei's apprenticeship. "Sensei" is also a japanese word means "teacher or coach". The subordinates just like the students or apprentices. Sensei should also instill in the students the discipline needed to effectively sustain a lean conversion and have it improve consistently. Sensei has the responsibility of showing the "True North" direction of his students, coach them which is the right direction, when to stop and when to go. Sensei teach by stretching the student's thinking and perceptions through questions that stimulate the student to consider entirely new possibilities. Students might consider questions such as these:

What would you learn if you measured in smaller intervals of time?
What is the team leader supposed to be doing in this situation?
How could these expectations be made more clear?......etc.

Please remember this is not the concept in conventional, "I say, You do!" Gamba walk is a way of learning model helping you gradually to establish a new, lean way of seeing and thinking.

2. Methodology

The gemba walk should be set up in regularly scheduled basis. The time period must be, long enough to all team to digest the advice and complete the task assignment, short enough to maintain a sense of pace. We always suggest to setup the gemba walk by weekly basis.
The team of gemba walk should be firmed with necessary members and should not be changed with no reason. The gemba team should be well informed the schedule, they also need the patience and tolerance for frustration. Sometime, I saw the senior management walking in the workshop without any communication. They just liked a spy to investigate the problem, afterward, they sent a long email to challenge everyone related. And then, everyone was busy in reply his email by explanation. What is benefit to do that? Please remember, the gemba walk must be set up in transparent form.
All grading of management should setup their suitable level of gemba walk. The higher of level, the wider to check, the longer of time interval. Offcause, it is no sense of a VP to carry on a gamba walk with technician. They should a relative and suitable member such as the plant manager or general manager.

3. Focal points

As the details of item 1, The leader of gameba walk must have well knowledge in both technical elements lean manufacturing system and lean management system. During the gemba walk, they should lead the team to focus on the below items,

3.1 Process focus,
3.2 Process improvement,
3.3 Leader availability,
3.4 Labor planning,
3.5 Standard works,
3.6 Comunication,
3.7 Workplace organization.

According to the above items, the leader (sensei) should assign the tasks of improvement accordingly. They also has a responsibility to follow up and trace the assigned tasks implementation. It is also a way of leadership discipline.

Finally, we don't to fix everything in one gemba walk. The main purpose of it is going to fine tune the direction of continuous improvement. Make sure that all the subordinates are working in the same goal. at the same time, we control the speed of the improvement. Is that running too fast, so that many improvement can not sustian? Is that running too slow, we ignore the opportunity for further improving? The factor of success for gemba walk, even in overall lean transformation, is PATIENCE.

OK, any comment?

Nov 24, 2008

The 14 Principles of the Toyota Way

The 14 Principles of the Toyota Way is a management philosophy used by the Toyota corporation that includes the Toyota Production System. In long term thinking, company is going to have a process for solving problems, to add value to the organization by developing its people, and to recognize that continuously solving root problems drives organizational learning.

The 14 Principles The Toyota Way has been called "a system designed to provide the tools for people to continually improve their work". The 14 principles of The Toyota Way are organized in four sections: 1) Long-Term Philosophy, 2) The Right Process Will Produce the Right Results, 3) Add Value to the Organization by Developing Your People, and 4) Continuously Solving Root Problems Drives Organizational Learning. The principles are set out and briefly described below:
Section I — Long-Term Philosophy
第一部份 - 长期理念

Principle 1 原则一
Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals.
甚至损害短期财务目标的前提下,管理决定亦须建基长期理念
Section II — The Right Process Will Produce the Right Results
第二部份 - 正确的流程产生正确的结果

Principle 2 原则二
Create a continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface.
建立一个连续的流程,以把潜藏的问题带出来。

Principle 3 原则三
Use "pull" systems to avoid overproduction.
利用拉动系统,以避免过量生产。

Principle 4 原则四
Level out the workload, work like the tortoise, not the hare.
平衡工作量,工作时像乌龟般稳定,不似野免般不稳定。

Principle 5 原则五
Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time.
建立一个文化去停止补救问题,要令品质第一时间就达标。

Principle 6 原则六
Standardized tasks and processes are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment.
作业及流程的标准化是持续改善及雇员授权的基础。

Principle 7 原则七
Use visual control so no problems are hidden.
利用目视控制使问题无所遁形。

Principle 8 原则八
Use only reliable and thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes.
只运用可靠及已经彻底测试的技术为人及流程来服务。

Section III — Add Value to the Organization by Developing Your People
第三部份 - 开发人材为组织增值

Principle 9 原则九
Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others.
将完全明白职责及工作的人开展为领导者,以推行理念及教导其他人。

Principle 10 原则十
Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company's philosophy.
开发能跟随公司理念的额外之人员及团队。

Principle 11 原则十一
Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve.
利用挑战及协助改善去维护商业伙伴及供应商的网络。

Section IV: Continuously Solving Root Problems Drives Organizational Learning
第四部份 - 持续解决根本问题驱使组织学习

Principle 12 原则十二
Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation (Genchi Genbutsu).
亲自到现场观察以彻底了解情况。

Principle 13 原则十三
Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly (nemawashi).
充分考虑各种选择性并取得大多数人的同意,不急于决定,但决定後就要快速执行。

Principle 14 原则十四
Become a learning organization through relentless reflection (hansei) and continuous improvement (kaizen).
以严加的反省及持续改善来成为一个学习型之组织。

Nov 23, 2008

Rashomon - 罗生门

“罗生门”,一个读出来很好听的词汇。羅生門,这三个繁体字的组合同样也很漂亮。可是偶至今没弄懂这三个字到底是什么意思。但这并不防碍人们熟悉它。至于将这个词汇普及的功劳,应归于大师黑泽明。

罗生门是大师一部作品的名称。在这部作品中,罗生门是一个标志性的建筑物。一切的故事都是从这里开始的。下面就准备正式说说这部片子。如果您看明白了这部片子,希望我说的您能有同感;如果您没看明白这部片子,希望下面的可以为您答疑解惑;如果您根本就没有看过这部片子,我可以负责任的告诉您,这部片子很好看。

全片的主要人物有六人,而演员只用了九个(包括结尾处出现的婴儿)。这六个人交错出现在三个不同的时空,将他们串联在一起的是一位樵夫。在滂沱的大雨中(在看过的几部片子中,都有大师对雨的巧妙运用。《七武士》中在雨中那最后的一场恶战成了后世争相模仿的对象。而本片中的大雨是分隔现实与回忆这两个时空的道具。),破败的罗生门下,借由一位来避雨的樵夫(不是上面提到的那个樵夫,此人在后面将用樵夫Ⅱ来表示)的耳朵我们听到了过程不尽相同,但起因与结果却是一致的四个事件(我们也可以说这是一个事件的四个版本)……。

樵夫、多襄丸、妇人和借巫女还魂的武士分别是这个事件四个版本的叙述者,而他们四人也是在这事件中共存的人物。没看过这部片子的同学,听到这里已经有些糊涂了吧?为了照顾大多数现在这里简单介绍一下事件的起因与结果:多襄丸是个享誉京城的大盗,因见到武士貌美的妻子而起了歹念,设计把武士骗到林中将其捆缚。又把他的妻子带到林中,在她丈夫的面前对其施暴。这是起因。结果是三天后樵夫发现了武士的尸体,而他的妻子出了家,报官后又刚好捉到了在逃的多襄丸。现在明白一些了吧?OK!我们来比较一下四个版本的区别。
第一个版本是多襄丸叙述的,在他的版本里自己是杀人凶手。但更重要的是在这个版本我们看到的是一个敢做敢当的武士(他自己),与另一位武士(他对这位能与他过招的武士也颇为赞赏)堂堂正正的较量。在这里的妇人被描述成一个失身前还是个烈妇,而在失身后却怂恿自己去杀害其丈夫的龌龊的人。

第二个版本是武士的妻子叙述的,在她的版本里自己才是杀人凶手。更重要的是在这里她却变成了一个贞节烈妇。而多襄丸只是发泄完欲望,掉头就跑的禽兽。她的丈夫也是如此轻蔑的鄙视她。正是由于受不了他那种眼神,妇人才准备杀死他,然后再自杀,但自己却是求死不得。俨然是一个背负着痛苦命运的生者。

第三个版本是借身还魂的武士叙述的,在他的版本里自己才是杀人凶手(按理说死鬼是没必要说瞎话的吧!)。更重要的是他不仅激烈的控诉了妻子的不忠,还使自己摇身一变成为一个傲然立于天地间的武士。他原谅了多襄丸的罪行,而且不惜用结束自己生命的方式来替妻子赎罪。

第四个版本是樵夫叙述的,在他的版本里多襄丸才是杀人凶手。原来他(樵夫)不是第一个发现尸体的人,而是一直在案发现场。在他的叙述中以上三个人的形象被彻底的颠覆。多襄丸并不像他说的那样只看重武士的大义,他曾恳求妇人跟他走,并许诺给她后半生的幸福。妇人也并没有因为失身就要死要活的,而是希望两个人决斗,自己好选择强者。那位武士也不是自己形容的那样伟岸,为了保全自己的性命甚至愿意将妻子拱手相让。

没想到这才是事情的真相。但这是真相么?应该是吧。因为樵夫整起事件并没有牵扯到樵夫的利益,所以他没有必要撒谎。但是有一个细节被樵夫Ⅱ发现了。在前三个版本中都有一把短刀(在有的版本中它甚至是杀人凶器),但是樵夫对此却只字未提。樵夫Ⅱ一语道破天机,正是他(樵夫)将那把价值不菲的短刀拿走了,这也可以解释当天他为什么没有报案。大师的用意终于浮出水面了。原来我们看到的只是为了达到私人利益,有选择的,片面的真相。但至此真相如何还重要么?为什么三个人都承认自己是凶手了,却还要撒谎?难道还有比这个更难让他们面对的么?

再来看看另外的三个人物:樵夫是一个游弋在善恶边缘的人;而樵夫Ⅱ则是被现实的生活打磨成一个玩世不恭、冷酷无情的真小人;行脚僧人是一位冷眼看客,像神一样怀着悲世悯人的心观察着这一切。好在大师给了我们一个光明的结尾,滂沱的大雨终于制住,看着樵夫抱着婴儿远去的身影,行脚僧人(神)露出了微笑。

人生会给你安排各种机遇,但请不要忘记,选择权永远掌握在你自己的手里!


Comment from TW:

I downloaded and watch the movie during I was visiting QD on business purpose. The mission of the trip was troublesome. Now, I reviewed this post again and it is also trouble in HZ plant. I found that there were very siminlar to the story liked .

In the movie of , we have no way to know who killed the knight finally. When people falled into trouble, the frightfulness of human beings, such as selfishness and falseness, was going to protect their benefit and reputation. Your friend would change to your enemy in no time. Your enemy would become your friend in no time as well. They are all lost in the situation.

As the comment of the moive above, the choice is always in your hands, why we do not solve the problem by facing problem? Why we lie everybody, even ourselves to protect themselves?

This is a excellent movie which was made in 1950, half century before!!! Everytime I watch the movie, I got some new foundings. It is a great movie!

By the way, I lost a good friend and partner. I learned so much from him, my mind set, management thinking, ... were improved. We fixed so many problems and we faced so many problem together as well. No matter what was the result right now, the future is fruitful and successful.
Thank you very much, Dick Sir!

Nov 22, 2008

Vision, Mission and policy deployment 1

At recent moment, I discussed so much with my colleagues about the vision and mission for the company. As the conclusion, I would like to summarized them for an experiance as below.

Vision:
Long term goal of a company. Usually, it is not necesary to quantify but sometime it needs specify a defined target. Vision can be setup in powerful and great image of company but it should not be easy to achieve. It can encourage the employee to move to its direction and let them keep moving. It is very common of company said "To be number one of the world in XXX industrial!!!" or "To be the leader of XXX industrial in XXX area". If the vision was set properly, the departments were not need to set their vision but just go in the same direction according to the company vision.

Key performance index (KPI):
Short term goal of company and departments. This is the part of the policy deployment. Part of purposes of policy deployment is defining the quatified performance to measure the result of operation, and is, adjust the direction of working of different departments from different directions to same direction. Therefore, all the KPI in departments must be set according to the company KPI and with specified and quatified standard. KPI is always adjusted by yearly according to the result of year end to keep improving the operation result. Step by step to move to the vision of company. It is a common mistake of many companies that the goal of lean implementation is not related with the company KPI. They are always set the saving amount for lean, and most of the leader in charge of improvement team is just finding a way to calculate the saving. I am sorry that they are only calculating to have saving, not improving the process to have saving. Therefore, we need to setup the goal of lean closely related to company or department KPI to corelate the accuracy of improvement.

Mission:
The tasks of the people, department or orgainzation needs to in charge by accountability. They also needed to compactable with KPI and vision of company or departments. If the vision is to be the number one of the world in manufacturing indsutry, what is the mission of the company? earn more money for the boss only? For this, I suggest we should consider in different faces. On the customer side, if the supplier is number 1, they expect they can have better product and service from her supplier. On the employee side, they expect company provide better working environment, offcause, better salary and benfit as well. On the government side, they expect company provide good working opportunities to local area, offcause, more tax receiving as well. Those factors can improve the motivation of company and her all employee. This is sense of mission of anyone!

Please check the mission of Toyota as below,

To operate to become the most Customer Focused and Environmentally friendly automobile company in the country.

To broaden our understanding of our Customers' needs and endeavour to satisfy these needs to achieve maximum of Customer Satisfaction.

To contribute to the Society as a good corporate citizen.


Turn around to lean, a simple question for you, everyone, lean leader ask for (push) improvement of everything such as manufacturing process, material flow, operation flow,...etc. When much saving come out, the members of the kaizen team will start to ask the question for themselves, we can we get? I contribute my effort and intelligence for company, what is the payback? I am sorry to talk about this real situation but I am so sorry it is human being! I always ask the same question to myself as well.

That's why when we look at the books which are talking about lean or toyota production system, the first chapter is always talking about the vision and mission of toyota. Because, it is the first element of success of lean implement, even if, success of anything!
One more question, what is your mission in your FAMILY? if you can not achieve your mission, can you have a happy family? That is the same thinking of all!
Eventually, may be this is not a complete explanation of policy deployment, but at least I shown you something for them related to lean transformation. Agree?

Nov 21, 2008

Ensuring the Future of Food


Here are the content of the video for your reference.

Food is indispensable to our survivalbut today, it is undergoing great change,for example, let's take tempura soba.it's a traditional japanese cuisine.but 80% of the ingredients are now imported.Currently, japan only produces about 40% of the food it consumes.This is the lowest among all major developed nations,This is a result of the significant change in the japanese people's diet.

In the past, they ate more rice, fish, vegetables,so their diet was nutritionally well balanced.but nowadays they consume more meat, fat, and oil.lots of soy and cereal grains are needed to make feed and oil,so they are being imported in large quantities,and such a changed in the diet has disrupted the nutritional balance,giving way to a wide spectrum of health problems,furthermore, although japan imports a lot of food,it also disposes of more edible food than the entire world food aid.The decrease in demand for domestic agricultural produce leads directly to the decline in agricultural productivity.

Currently, japan is tacking issues such as aging farming population and increase in abandoned farmland.What's more, 70% of the land in japan is mountainous.This means that even if all the flat land were used only for farming,it would not be able to produce enough food within its own borders.Japan depends on a very small number of countries for the majority of the food it imports, therefore its food supply base is quite vulnerable.Moreover, the global food landscape is changing drastically.First of all, the global population is growing exponentially, and it is expected to maintain its upward trajectory in the future.Next, there's rapid economic growth in developing countries.The consumption of meat, fat, and oil increased, resulting in greater demand for soy and cereal grains.

We also face energy issues. Today, food or feed crops are being used to develop biofuels.and lastly, we are challenged with various environmental issues.The progression of global warming, climatic anomalies, and exhaustion of ground water are creating tougher farming conditions all around the world.In response to such global change,the food prices are rising sharply.so, what should be done to meet food security needs?first, each and every one of us should start thinking about the global food situation as our own problem and reexamine our lifestyles,for example, going back to the japanese diet involving mainly rice and domestic agricultural produce will lead to a better nutritional balance.and the food industry should provide what consumers seek and label them accordingly.

Moreover, farmers should efficiently use the limited agricultural resources, and offer safe and high quality produce which meet the needs of consumers and the food industry.The increase in the demand for domestic agricultural produce will drive agricultural development and enliven agricultural communities. As a result, our tables will be enriched with agricultural produce growth in our own countries.Japan, as the world's largest new food importer, will engage in all possible efforts to contribute to stabilization of demand and supply of food in the world market through increasing its own food self-sufficiency rate.

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Let us focus on the message from the video which are related to lean concept,

1. Pull from customer, pull the demand,

2. Elminate the waste of abandon farmland,

3. Create value for aged agricultural popullation,

4. Vision to make benefit for society.

We have to remind that the lean concept is came from Japan and we can find the concept implement everywhere even in public promotion.

If you find any observation from the video, please share with us!

Nov 17, 2008

Just in time

After studying and experience of Kaizen project, I will like to make a summary of the understandings of “just in time” concept and it affects the portion in company.

I will divide the JIT (just in time) to two portions in internal and external. We know JIT is closely relative to material flow; therefore, I identified the material flow in or out of company as the external JIT. On the opposite side, the material flow within the company will identify as internal JIT.

External JIT:

Most of company is monitoring this portion very closely. I can also say they are working well for that area. External JIT includes the raw material flowing in to warehouse and the finished goods flowing out to customer or logistic company. Because of the direction of minimize the raw material inventory, we are requesting the supplier to ship the material daily, or hourly. It helps to minimize the space for warehouse and material handling.

On the other hand, we established the system of build-to-order. We only build the finished goods to customer according to their demand and our shipping time. We won’t keep finished goods inventory more than the sales or market demand. It directly relates to our capital investment and most of company can perform a good result in now a day.

Internal JIT:

I would like to say that not many companies can fully understand and performs in proper way for this portion. The internal JIT is relating the material flow from warehouse to production, the first process station to the next station still the end, from the last station back to warehouse. We always ignored the internal customer relationship and the internal JIT needs cooperation between many parties such as material planning, customer service, quality control, warehouse and production. Self-regarding of the department always blocks the way of improvement. Huge amount of idle raw material and WIP abundant in every corner in the factory. Kaizen project merely a beginning but creating a lean culture is an important factor of success.

Summary:

External just in time
1. Flow from supplier to warehouse.
2. Flow from warehouse to customer.

Internal just in time
1. Flow from raw material warehouse to first manufacturing station.
2. Flow from first station to next station still the end of process.
3. Flow from end of process to final inspection.
4. Flow from final inspection to finished goods warehouse.

From lean concept, flow is existing in everywhere of company.
1. Flow of material
2. Flow of people
3. Flow of workstation (layout)
4. Flow of information (invisible flow)

Based on the last blog, just in time is very important factor of material flow. From external JIT to internal JIT back to external JIT again, it forms a continuous flow just like water. We can imagine only one part of JIT was ignored, the turbulent flow will make water flowing out everywhere. To maintain the material in linear flow, we must ensure all the connection between external JIT and internal JIT joint in right position.

When a KPO run a kaizen project to improve the material flow, he should act as a pipe fitter. Identify piping system (overall material flow system), and then he should check which joint is mismatch with wrong pipe. In some case, there are some pipes missed (external or internal JIT), he will get a new pipe (individual flow system) and cut in a suitable size (fine tuning), fit into the overall pipe system.

OK, make sure that water comes out in right place and no leakage!!!

Team Work - 团队合作乃成功的金钥匙

Teamwork is a key factor of success!

In formula 1 championship, we find an impressive activity in the racing. We saw that there are some mechanics working in pit to replace the tires and fueling for the racing car. The quick, skillful and planned actions always attract our sight. But, actually how can they do that in short time to complete the all complicated mission?

The car is guided into its pit by the 'lollypop man', named for the distinctive shape of the long 'stop/ first gear' sign he holds in front of the car. The car stops in a precise position and, if a tyre change is required, is immediately jacked up front and rear. Three mechanics are involved in changing a wheel, one removing and refitting the nut with a high-speed airgun, one removing the old wheel and one fitting the new one. At the same time two mechanics operate the heavy fuelling rig, which must be precisely slotted into the car before fuelling can start.

How long for the mechanics to complete the mission in average? 7 seconds.

Talk about teamwork for the mission, it including some factors as below,
1. A good organization. Every members has enough capability.
2. Well planning. Every step of action is well planned and scheduled.
3. Well training. Every step of action is needed fully practiced.

In modern industry, we needed good team to complete all activity in company. It is a very important key factor for success to improve the competitive ability. Can you find the good team work in your career?

在一级方程式赛车比赛中,我们发现一个令人深刻的印象,在紧张刺激的赛车赛场上, 一些赛车维修人员运用工作技巧替换轮胎,或者为赛车加油,这动作的敏捷性,灵活性,还有计划性总是深深吸引了我们的视线,其实,我们总是会在想,为什么他们能在如此短的时间内完成如此复杂的动作呢?

首先赛车被“棒棒糖人”引导进它的轨道,他在车前面指引和控制它到特别的停留处,赛车停留在一个精确的位置,如果需要更换轮胎,它会被千斤顶迅速的抬起前部或者后部,三个维修工人来合作更换轮胎,其中一个人用气枪很快的拧卸螺母,另一个人卸走废旧轮胎,然后最后一个人安装上新的轮胎,与此同时,两个工人开动笨重的加油机器,而在加油之前,这个加油机必须正好精确的导入连接到赛车。

所有维修人负一起完成这项任务平均需要花费多长时间?答案是7秒

和我们的团队讨论了这个任务的完成,认为它包括了以下几个因素:
1. 一个优秀的组织,每一个成员必须拥有优秀的能力。
2. 良好的计划,任何一个步骤都必须经过良好的计划和安排。
3. 充足的培训,每一个娴熟的动作都需要事先充足的训练。

现代工业制造中,我们需要一个优秀的团队来合作完成公司任务,这是提高公司竞争能力的关键因素,在你的职业生涯中,你发现这样优秀的团队了吗?

How does one learn to be a lean leader?

To do:

1. Kick out the crutch. In order to develop as a lean leader you need to leave your comfort zone and it helps if you have something to force you out of that comfort zone.
2. Take on a new role that you are not really prepared for, sign up for a near-impossible challenge or remove whatever security blankets you have around your process.
3. Apply lean to your own work. Between what you learn and what you demonstrate, only by practicing lean on your own work will you become an effective lean leader.
4. You must be a learner first. Lean is about how an organization learns, but organizations are made up of people, so how people learn will drive the success of lean.
5. You must be the first for trial. No matter what was your position before the lean leader, work by yourself and no more order to the other during the kaizen event.
6. Regularly experiment and reflect on your own work. Systematically issue your report to all the peoples and ask for comment.
7. Engage people from where they are and help them move forward to their own idea of progress.

Not to do:

1. Don't stand in a field asking for everyone to join you.
2. Don't ask people to make an impossible leap. Take your knowledge, skill and vision from lean and help the person move forward from where they currently are.
3. Don't ask them to give up their own pursuits to join yours.

Nov 16, 2008

談金融海嘯後的發展

This is a article from my MBA tutor, Mr. Nagar Lai. I believed that it is valuable to share with my friends. --->

最近經濟轉差,時間多了,除了可多抽時間跟家人相聚外,更是進修的好時機,適值劍橋大學──香港大學舉辦一個為期一週的談論全球化財務課程,內容豐富,除由哈佛麻省理工(MIT)、紐約大學回來的(現為劍橋港大教授),亦走訪城中名人,如李國寶、任志剛、王冬勝、石齊平等),了解當前形勢。課程畢業生可加入劍橋、港大行政人員學生會網絡,更有附加價值。同學中不少是銀行家、電訊公司CEO、會計師等,水平很高。學習期間老師們談到金融海嘯的成因,為何會使美國步入衰退,而中國香港未來的影響的程況,對同學有很大的啟發,其中前海基會副秘書長,現任鳳凰衛視評論員石齊平教授談得十分精彩,鋒頭蓋過英美名牌教授。

石老師從世界大戰開始談起,世界大戰的成因,無非是效率低引致經濟差,大家爭奪資源,等起貿易障礙以保護國家資源。結果貿易不相往來,自然效率更低,矛盾到了臨界點,某些國家便去搶奪其他國家的資源,引致戰爭。

戰爭後,1946年經濟學家以茨恩思為首,為重整貿易及金融秩序,成立GATT關貿總協定、IMF國際貨幣基金組織及世界銀行。其中出現了一個貿易最大的障礙,用什麼貨幣交易?當時美國最強大,而又提出以同等值黃金為後盾(金本位),使大家覺得用美元交易值得放心。華府亦保證不亂印美元,以免通貨膨脹。

但跟著的20多年,美國協助歐洲、日本重建,美元大流出美國本土。而美國貿易赤字日增,令華府不得不能在1971年提出取消「金本位」美元與黃金正式脫鉤。1971年各國仍然使用美元,是對美元的「信心」,由「金本位」變成「信用本位」。

由於貿易逆差擴大,現已達10兆(10萬億),華府唯有多印鈔票及發行債券。由於各國願意買,如中國就買了1.9萬億,美國經濟仍可支持下去。而美國本來因和平自由,民主等吸引入才的思想,國際的精英都爭相落戶美國。

除錢財、人才外,美國的軍事預算便超過全世界各國的總和。這一軍事強國對希望得到的都可以用武力解決。如伊拉克、北韓,甚至石老師認為在目前美國的惡方情況下,有可能對中國挑起戰爭,一來阻止中國在本世紀挑戰美國,二來又持馬上快我失的「大哥」地位。

由於美國經濟開始陷入衰退,美國國債更無力償還。而還要發債券去要求各國買,確是無恥!但各國要維持金融運作,仍無奈地要去買,真要唱徐小鳳的名曲《無奈》。

但「無奈」中,中國、俄羅斯等已表態,不再支持美元作為單一貨幣,此舉令美國十分不利,而中國的影響力,將在這新一輪國際金融遊戲中有強大深遠的影響。

美國因印鈔票及借貸太多,引致崩潰。

而中國以及香港,面對海嘯,無非只有加大內需(因不能再靠歐美訂單),如溫總理提出4萬億方案,發展基建、重建災區、安民生等,一來刺激經濟,二來把中國內部因財富不均而浮起的社會矛盾淡化。長遠而言,中國、香港都要從改變民主教育、法制方便發展,但短期的人民不滿情緒必需處理。

而中國將成為世界投資的新焦點,香港人亦必需預實。如雷曼迷你債券事件,特區政府及銀行家都認為最有效率的方法是馬上處理投訴。像雷曼債券的衍生工具,美國證監會都掍出來,香港證監自然也認可,連不少香港銀行職員自己亦「中招」,實無欺騙情況。立法局議員做「show」運用權力及特權法,只有對事件拖慢,令效率降低,而更甚者,香港金融中心形象受損,這真是民主的代價,而雷曼苦主,除小數(小於5%)全無投資經驗的退休人士外,其他都理應知道高回報、高風險的道理,像「陳水扁」輸打贏要,實要不得!

面對經濟不景,香港人必須學習掌握中國發展機遇。而中國公路等。而各國現在資金苦無出路,必然亦參與投資,只要資金效率良好(防止貪腐),用外包方法如BOT(投入興建、運作及最後轉移回主權國)必會成功。

香港人必須走出去,建立國際視野,在引進資金、管理及幫中國「走出去」的使命上盡一分力,而亦更可發揮「中間人」的角色。

大家最關心的「股市何時見底」?專家們都說現在猜不準,一來年底是基金贖回潮,不少公司會倒閉,有什麼「大件事」還是未知之數。但一般認為「U」型最有可能,而「U」型底部估計為2年至3年。看來這2、3年是很好的學習、修養心性、與親人相聚的大好機,請珍惜!

Nov 14, 2008

Selection of lean leader and KPO

At the beginning of January 2008, I have a chance to discuss with some friends for how to select a suitable candidate for lead leader and KPO in company. It was so surprise me that they have already started to implement lean manufacturing or lean enterprise but they still don’t understand a most basic concept of lean.

What was that? “RESPECT TO PEOPLE!”

When the productivity improved and the demand of manpower reduced, it doesn’t mean that we can layoff the worker or any employee. It gave a chance for the company to ramp up its sales amount without any facilities investment or additional manpower demand, in another words, use the same resource to grow up the business. How about if the employees know they will be fired after they improve the output? It is a totally incorrect concept!!!

On the other hand, during the lean manufacturing implement, it is similar to run a project and no doubt we need a strong leader to manage and coach the team to execute the improvement actions. Some guys thought they have budget and can get a “superman” outside to be the lean leader or KPO, afterward, everything will be alright. It also a serious mistake! As a lean leader, who needs to identify the opportunity of improvement in the production floor or company operation system. The most suitable solution is selecting the suitable guy and promotes him/her to be the leader or KPO internally. Off cause it has so many conditions required for the job, but, it is also an attitude of “respect the people”. Any company has room to be improved but it doesn’t mean nobody can improve the situation in the company. May be somebody in the company already has ideas how to improve but they finally understand they have no chance to lead the project. What will they do?

I give you some conditions to select for lead leader or KPO as below,
1. Aggressive for working,
2. Willing to change,
3. Well understand the company operation system or procedures,
4. Well understand the weakness of company,
5. Technical background,
6. Honorable in contribution for company,
7. Well communication skill.

Why we need a technical people to lead the lean transformation? As a technical guy myself, I am not going to promote the people in professional of technical. In lean implementation, we always start the improvement from workshop, especially in manufacturing process improvement. Therefore, we need the technical guy lead the lean in the first stage. Afterward, all the people in the company can find the improvement result easily, in other words, it is one kind of lean culture promotion. That's why I strongly recommend we need a technical guy to lead in the beginning stage.

Actually, I am sure that the suitable person existed in every company and the problem is the senior management is willing to search or not! They respect their employees or not?

Nov 13, 2008

Autonomation 1

We start to talk about this subject by language session first.
Autonomation is a special terms in lean manufacturing concepts only.

In Janpanese, autonomation is written in "自働化" or "Jidoka".
In Chinese, there is only automation is written in "自動化"
In English, automation is meaning automatic motion, autonomation is meaning automatic NO motion.

The concept is operating of the equipment will be stop automatic when its conditions achieved the limited of setting. The conditions can be considered in limit of quality or quantity. It may also be described as "intelligent automation" or "automation with human touch". Due to concept of "process focus", it makes possible the rapid or immediate address, identification and correction of mistakes that occur in a process. It was developed by earlier stage Toyota production system. At that moment, Toyota was developing the textile machine. Without the autonomation, when some wires broken, there was many defect product produced by the machine after final inspection. They came up a idea and improved the machine to detect if one of the wires broken, the textile machine will be stop automatically to prevent producing defect. After many years of implement, Toyota spread the idea to the process of automotive production and autonomation became a important principle of lean manufacturing.

Autonomation is a quality control process used in the TPS which applies the following four principles.
1. Detect the abnormality.
2. Stop.
3. Fix or correct the immediate condition.
4. Investigate the root cause and install a countermeasure.

To detect the abnormality, It is a method of preventing errors by putting limits on how an operation can be performed in order to force the correct completion of the operation, called "POKA YOKE".
The earlier stage of TPS, it called in "BAKA YOKE", means "fool-proofing" or "idiot proofing". It is obviously that not respect to people and disobeied the one of spirits of lean manufacturing. Afterward, they changed that to "POKA YOKE" and means "mistake-proofing" or "error-proofing".

TPS recognises three types of Poka-Yoke:
1. The contact method identifies defects by whether or not contact is established between the device and the product. Colour detection and other product property techniques are considered extensions of this.
2. The fixed-value method determines whether a given number of movements have been made.
3. The motion-step method determines whether the prescribed steps or motions of the process have been followed.

This the most important principle concerning quality in lean manufacturing system. It is also suitable for many kind of manufacturing industry!

Nov 12, 2008

Push and pull system 2

Yes, I am going to talk about push and pull system again. You do not need to misunderstand that what is the topic I want to talk when you saw the photo shown on the left hand side. I am just using a common sample for supporting my explanation of pull system and it is easiler to let you understand what I say.
Pull system - Kaiten sushi
(回転寿司 かいてんずし )
Kaiten = Rotating
Zushi = Sushi

If you read up on Japanese etiquette, you'll be told that if you want to take somebody out to dinner, don't take them to sushi. It would be like taking somebody to McDonald's. In Japan you can find Kaiten Zushi shops all over the place and often they are open very late. Later than most other food places. Sorry, once again, I am not going to where to eat sushi. Actually, Kaiten sushi is the typical pull system in food industry. I list out some main points as below,
1. People only takes which they want to eat. The cook only put the sushi back to the empty place which taken by customer. This is representative of customer pull. Usually, the different kinds of sushi were put in a special sequence and it is easiler for the cook to find out which kind of sushi was taken so that he can replace the empty dish.
2. The WIP is only stored on the rotary and it would not cause any extra scrap. It is also easiler for them to dig out which kind of sushi is the best selling product, so that the restaurant can better handling the material ordering. Therefore, the material inventory is low.
3. For quality, every dish running on the rotary will not last long and maintains the fresh of sushi. If you observe the handling of kaiten sushi carefully, they can find that the cook only take out the fish from the refrigurator when they needed. The cook prepare the sushi when some dishes are empty.
4. It is more flexible to handling the product. When the cook find out one kind of sushi is more favorable for those customers, the cook can place more dishes of that kind of sushi on the rotary instead of other sushi. If you have visited the Toyota plant before, you can find that the production line of Toyota just similar to the rotary of sushi. Every car on the line is different in model and color.
5. At last, one more point we need to consider. Even in kaiten sushi, there is visual management in place. The corner of bottom left in photo, we can find a board to show the price for different color of dish. The customer can easiler to handle what kind of sushi they want according to the money in their pocket. Very smart!
Buffet dinner - push system
May be I do not need explain here in detail because I think most of the people has buffet before. Restaurant only put much food on the table and let the customers to pick what they wanted. Sometime, you will find that the food has already become cold and degenerative. Some kind of food, which is more favorable of customer, it will be empty in short time and you need to wait for a long time to pick more after the cook refilled of that. Also, you need to pay a fixed amount, usually is not cheap, but no matter how much food you have eaten. The biggest problem is the push system is pushing you eat more and more, because of there is too much food and you want to balance what you paid. It made you eat more and the fat in your body also more and more. It is not lean!!!
May be the explanation above is not detail enough, hope you give me some comment to make it complete. Thank you very much!

Push and pull system 1

Today my good partner Mr. Steed Wei told me a good trope of the phenomena between pull and push system. I would like to share with my reader.
In mass production world, push system is using for the processes. The trope is like a long chain of safety pins, fixed one end and push from another end. What will happen? all safety pins pushed and mess together. Every safety pin represented one individual process. If a push system apply on the continuous process, we can find there is so many raw material, WIP all mixed and idle between the process stations. Just like the chain of safety pins mess together and pin cover by another pins. You can not identify the problem in such mess situation.
In lean production world, pull system is using for the processes. Just like the safety pins fixed one end and pull from another end. The safety pins will attach and pull in sequence. That's meant all processes are well assigned in order. No raw material and WIP idle between them. The most important thing is we can identify all the problem in every process. Please remember that the important principle of lean manufacturing is PROCESS FOCUS, and that's why we need to apply pull system to show us the problem between or on the processes.
On the road from PUSH to PULL, we can find a lot of problems and that is what we want to identify for further improvement. However, the responsible members are always not understand the destination of the system. They always rise so many opposite excuses to go back to the original way of working because they have more buffer in push system. The leader of lean transformation like us needs to well explain the team for what is the expected outcome and encourage them for further improvement.
Actually, I faced the same situation right now. Do you have the same problem?

Customer satisfaction

In last month, I just completed my MBA course in HK. The first subject was marketing management. During the lecture, I understood a concept of customer satisfaction and here is the usage in the case of lean manufacturing. In lean concepts, customer satisfaction is also a main factor in overall lean transformation journey. I will explain that as below.
When we talking about customer satisfaction, in other words, is talking about 2 E's (Expectation and Experience). If cusomter expection is higher than their experience, they will not satisfy your product or service. In opposite way, if customer's experence is higher than their expectation, they will satisfy and happy with your job.
Turn around to lean, for a long time ago, Toyota setup their goal to have the product in high quality, low price and low energy consumed. How come from these goal? They are the demand (expectation) from customer. In the workshop of Toyota, we can find the slogan everywhere that shown "customer first!". If a company always produces the product higher than the customer expectation, we can sure that she is leading the market in her industry. There are two cases for your reference.
Welcab is a special type of car designed for handicapped. The price of that car is not high but it made the chance for handicapped people to have the fun of driving. It was not only improving the word-of-mouth for handicapped because Toyota considered the physical hindrances of the handicapped, it also improve the word-of mouth for the normal people even the society due to Toyota has considered the special requirement of people.
In 1971, US government tried to put a plan of addtional import tax for Japanese car, although the plan was revoluted eventually, but US government has not return the additional import tax to the companies ontime. But, Toyota has return the tax to her customer by her cost, offcause, it made a serious loss for the company, at that moment, Toyota was only a company which was struggle to survive. For the concept of marketing management, the retention cost 8% to 12% of acquistion cost (retention cost is using for keeping the existing customer, acquistion cost is using to attract new customer), but the action from Toyota earned the customer long term relationship. The another item of success is loyalty of customer satisfaction.
From the cases, we should learn that how to manage the customer expectation. Actually, it is not only the concept from lean and it is the tools of any successful companies.
If you have any case or ideas, welcome to share with us.

Nov 10, 2008

Failure of lean transformation 1


On October 27,2008, I joined a training of "Developing Toyota talent for lean manufacturing" which held by Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC). The training was conducted by David Meier who is the co-author of "The Toyota Way Fieldbook" and "Toyota Talent". I learned some ideas and want to share with you in these several article.


The balance between "width" and "depth" is always the cause of failure for lean transformation. The width is meaning of the concept and knowledge of lean manufacturing applying in the organization. The depth is meaning of the professional level how the employee handling the tools. We always found that some organization spend too much focus on speed of implementation. They setup a list of the Kaizen projects in different target with different lean tools such as standardization, mistake-proofing, 5S, ...etc. They always ignored how important to develop the capacity of the employee. The fact is that organizaion held a set of kaizen in a very short time but the people has no time to digest the knowledge and experiance they got in the projects. Eventually, all the projects are held as schedule but all the projects can not meet the goal they setup, even they missed a big room of improvement. Sometime, they success in one project in a specified area but failed to promote the implementation to the other similar area. Those problems were caused by the organization has not focus on develop the capacity of the people. Or, we can say that the effort spent on the width of implementation not balance with the effort spent on the depth of culture.

The culture of lean is the foundation of lean manufacturing. Without the cutlure supporting, all the action is impotent and weak. The effort spent in kaizen would change back to the original status and hard to sustain. We need to continuously spend effort of promotion of lean, provide suitable training to the leader of kaizen, develop a set of internal professional trainer to continuous spread the lean culture. If the organization has not put enough resource to develop their talent of lean manufacturing, all the actions are just a fireworks. It looks beautiful but disappear in no time.

In Toyota, she does not need her people in higher academic level, she also does not need her people very smart. Toyota just keeps spending her effort to train the employee by Toyota way of concept and management method. This is also the spirit of lean, we called "respect to people". Without those capabile people to support, who were developed by the organization, how can the organization success in lean implementation?

If the organization promoted a long time of lean manufacturing and they reach a level of lean concept but found hard to improve anymore, the improved action hard to sustain or hard to promote the improvement to the other area, they should think about this question and spend more effort to develop their "talent".
At last, I used a quote from Mr. Meier to finsih this article. "People or organization needs to create its owned solution to its owned problem, otherwise, it won't success!" I believed that it is the spirit of lean manufacturing and suitable for all situation.

Oct 9, 2008

Commitment

I have two incidents in sport for talking about commitment. Let see the stories below and then I want to talk about my understanding of commitment.

Year 2008, Beijing Olympics, Liu Xian is the superstar of 110-meter hurdle race with expectation from all Chinese people. Chinese racer is not easy and always to win in track and field. From the last Olympics, he became the hero in China till the end of Beijing Olympics, and he made many many Chinese people disappointed. When the days just started to prepare of 110-meter hurdle race, Liu came out and shown on the camera in first trial. After moved several steps on the track, he announced he quit for the game because of the injure. At that moment, I don't know how was the feeling of him, and I don't know did he think about the feeling of all Chinese people. I felt so disappointed for him.

That's the question of commitment! As a national racer, what is the thing more important than Olympics? At that moment, a racer represented his or her country, but not for themselve personally. Their committment was directing to their home country. No matter how hard to run, he should just try to finish the track racing. 20 seconds later, he can go back to treat his leg and he would be the hero continuously. Who said the hero must win in every battle? The result of quit in the game because his committment only made on his personal glory, may be made on the income of advertisment in future, he worry about he can not join the racing anymore if he injured become more serious.

Year 1943, in Nazi concentration camp of world war II, German soldier only gave less food for British kriegie and played soccer with them. British kriegie has no any score at all and was taunted as a pig. At this year, one British who called Baerum broke the rhythm of the game by his fast running as a steed. Only in 5 mins, British Kriegie team got score historically. All the players were encouraged and inspirited by this action and scared all the German. As the investigation from German soldier, Baerum was the best player in soccer of England, he requested all the Kriegies in the camp to keep some food for him in the morning of soccer game. His friends told him that he would be killed if he got any score in the game, but his said, "Please keep bread for me, I am going to have one score for England, I will light up the faith and hope for all of us."
Yes, Baerum is a hero in British. His committment built on the love to his country, and he used his life to give his people a hope. May be the group rised based on his glory. We can found that it is totally different of the result if we do something but the committment built in different scope. In different situation, the committment is all different too. Committment can give us power to face any problem and challenge in our career path, it is the most important factor of success.

Sep 29, 2008

Continuous flow 2

Misunderstandings and difficulties:

1. "One piece flow", explained in my last post, continuous flow is the process flow in a most cost-effective flow. It depends on what is quantity is the reasonable and efficient in running the process. The quantity also can be changed in the processes. During the improvement, we are encouraged to invest new equipment, in other words, we should use the existing equipment to re-design a new process. "One piece flow" is not always can be achieved but make the process flow smooth and continuous is much easiler. Therefore, once you started to setup a continuous flow, do not constrain by the flowing quantity. Just make the flow as smooth as you can. No concept can suit for every industry, but after your analysis and adjustment.

2. "False continuous flow", the concept of continuous flow or single piece flow, we are always encourage to re-layout the processes in U shape or L-shape. I would like to explain the concept here, both U-shape and L-shape layout can easily assign a operator to handle more than one processes. For U-shape layout, the start point and end-point are in the same location, it is good in feedback of non-conformance. The false flow is meaning that they just put the processes in the U or L-shape layout but without any concept of tact time. All the WIP still stored in the process in same quantity and the flow was still flowing in station by station. The only difference is the layout of process are much close together and in the suggested shape. The flow looks like improved but actually is not continuous and smooth. I called it false continuous flow.

3. The concept of continuous flow looks simple, but it is almost using all the concepts in lean manufacturing, such as mistake proofing, pull system (Kanban system), TPM. Actually, you will find that it is very hard to implement because once you change the layout, all the problems will come out, such as the material issue, quality issue and process issue, The situation forms a extreme high pressure for improvement leader. Sometime, they are forced to go back for old process flow due to the pressure of delivery. Eventually, the implement project may be idle or delay, the situation is caused by lack of preparation and analysis before improvement actions.

Therefore, before implement the changes, we should well analysis the overall effectiveness of re-design, even, we need to prepare enough inventory of finished goods for line stop. Avoiding the situation, I suggest to implement the changes step by step. That's meant we only improve portion of processes in overall flow, seperate the improvement action in different phases to prevent disaster on your way to go.
Finally, setup a continuous flow is absolutely not a simple job. You need to fully understand all the concepts of lean manufacturing to support the actions. It is combination of all lean concepts and is the most critical factor of success.

Continuous flow 1

Concept:
Continuous flow is the most important concept in lean manufacturing system. Sometime it was called "one piece flow" or "single piece flow" to present the process must flow by batch in one piece or small batch. As we know, lean manufacturing concept came from Toyota and we all know how big the car was. We can imagine that if the car was making in conventional mass production, the workshop would be many ten times bigger than the modern automotive manufacturing factory. Applying one piece flow in automotive manufacturing is the only choose. "single piece flow" looks very similar to "one piece flow", but at my point of view, "single piece" not likes "one piece" to represent absolutely one. It can represent a very small batch size of flow, such as 5 pieces or 100 pieces, the most suitable size in the flow. In making potato chips, can we fire the chip in one piece by one piece? For some industries, the parts is very fine and the process time is very short, such as small plating parts, may be we need to use a small batch instead of one piece concept. Offcause lean manufacturing came from automotive, the concept is good, but we need to analysis and adjust the concept to suitable with your industries rather than just meaningless "copy and paste". Personally, I like to call the concept in simply, "Continuous flow", it is no need to identify how many pieces in the flow, we only need to make the flow in lowest quantity, continuously and non-stop. In this kind of flow, the processes can be operated in more economically and cost-effectively.

Benefit:
From here, I don't want to repeat the benefit for you to apply "continuous flow" because there are so many books to describe the advantages detailly. I stress again here that the most important and powerful function of continuous flow to define value-added and non-value-added process and identify the "7 wastes" in the processes or between the processes in order to shorten the delivery time, improve quality and efficiency. If we want to establish a good continuous flow, we need to eliminate them in the flow. You can also reference to my previous post 7 wastes.

Tact time:
Sometimes, we called it "takt time", in Germany. We often identified tact time as the speed of the process flow and the rhythm of all process. Orchestra needs a conductor to direct when the music rhythm, start and stop. The production leader is working as the conductor to direct rhythm of manufacturing, ensure that the process in the flow working in same speed by tact time. The tact time is calculated by the demand from customer, the other feature of tact time is matching the production output and customer demand. Make sure that we can provide the demand quantity to customer, no more and no less. Ideal situation, the flow is really in one piece, we can explain tact time like this. Unfortunately, not all the process can be put in L or U shape and easily to flow in one piece. I would like to explain the tact time in another way to suitable for the non-one piece flow.
In the situation which all processes can not flow in one piece in every stations. Especially some of the process have a big gap in process time, it is hard to avoid and adjust the process, it is very easy to find the overall process combined with manual assembly and automatic. At this moment, the tact time is using to control the flow rate. Refer to the picture above, the flow rate in process 1 should equal to process 2 and process 3. As we know, the flow speed is high, the flux is low. For example, in process 1 for making parts, the rate is 1 piece / s, 1 piece/s X 20 = 20 piece / 20 s and flow to supermarket 1 for temporary storage. In process 2, the sub-assembly rate to assemble 10 pieces of parts from process 1, 1 piece /10s X 2 = 2 pieces/20s, and flow to supermarket 2 for storage. In final assembly process 3, the process time is 20s to assembly 2 pieces sub-assembled parts from process 2, 1 piece/20s. Every stages of processes have the same flow rate in 20s and formed a good continuous flow. You can find that actually, the process 1 is only one machine and made the 20 parts one by one. The condition in process 2 is the same. At this example, the critical concern is how to setup the quick change-over, the tact time is the flow rate to balance the processes.
In simply say, tact time is same as the heart beat of human, every beat represents a cycle of blooding system.

In the next post, I will discuss some misunderstandings and difficulty for continuous flow.

Sep 25, 2008

选择精益还是六西格玛?

许多推行六西格玛的公司大概都不知道,近几年来业绩差强人意的摩托罗拉是六西格玛的“鼻祖”。而在已跃居世界汽车行业第一的丰田公司,却还有工程师连六西格玛都没听说过。这里完全没有厚此薄彼之意,因为不论是学六西格玛还是学丰田,都既有成功者,也不乏失败之例。
  彼得·德鲁克说:经营者就像15岁的少女一样对流行特别敏感,也就是说,如果发现其他公司采用新的经营革新技法,大多想在自己的公司应用。对于正处于学习饥渴期的中国企业,这个描述还是很贴切的。摩托罗拉如日中天时,我们学摩托罗拉;戴尔霸气十足时,我们学戴尔;IBM向服务转型,我们的企业紧随其后……从市面上流行的类似“向×××学习管理”的快餐式管理出版物中,我们也不难窥其一斑。
  那么,我们到底应该向谁学习?其实,许多企业都忘了,最能取到管理真经的地方恰恰是在企业自身。向别人学习——不论是向其他企业还是向所谓的管理大师——最终目的是要解决自身的问题。既然是自身的问题,差异性就必然会存在。这就意味着,企图生吞活剥地用一种方法去解决不同的问题,不仅会徒劳无功,某些情况下还会适得其反。
  在战场中就有类似教训。罗马军团东征失败后,部分失散的罗马军队进入西域,并曾作为雇佣军与西汉军队交战。罗马军队沿用其一贯的战法,身穿沉重的盔甲,排成方阵前进。这种重装步兵的战法曾经纵横欧亚大陆,但西汉军队以骑兵击之,结果大败罗马军队。
  企业管理也如此。适用于某家公司的管理方法未必能适用于其他公司。六西格玛在GE能取得较好的效果,在家得宝却以失败告终。ERP在某些企业行之有效,在另一些企业却成为沉重的成本负担。据说,在中国实施ERP的企业中,大约只有20%成功。于是有人戏言:不上ERP是等死,上了ERP是找死。
  向自己学习管理并不是说不需要向其他公司学习或应用最新的管理研究成果,而是要学其精髓,灵活应用。70多年前,毛泽东在《反对本本主义》中就一针见血地指出:“马克思主义的‘本本’是要学习的,但是必须同我国的实际情况相结合。”套用一下,我们也可以这样说:丰田(或德鲁克或×××)的本本是要学的,但必须同企业的实际情况相结合。
  正如日本米其林轮胎公司生产总监原贤治(Kenji Hara)所说:“精益生产是丰田公司自身的本质。它就是一种基础,一种使你公司中的员工尊重人,尊重其发展、动机、不断进步的求索精神,尊重其特殊利益和抱负的基础。”在他看来,“这样的公司不管运用什么样的生产方式,都能取得成功”。很多企业花了很长时间才明白这个很浅显的道理,比如华晨金杯就花了漫漫的8年。
  造成企业出现上述情况的一大原因是急于求成的心理。他们以为,既然实践证明是行之有效的,拿过来用就是了。一种办法不行,再换另一种。几年前,某大型国有企业决定推行六西格玛,结果花了不少钱,仅推行两年就不了了之;之后不久,该公司又决定推行精益生产。广东某年产值数亿元的企业从去年年初起引入平衡计分卡,一年过去之后,平衡计分卡不仅没有得到顺利实施,反而引起不少抱怨和怀疑。该公司一位经理无可奈何地说:“我们发现有些公司遇到的情况和我们差不多。因此,我不知道这到底是我们的问题,还是因为平衡计分卡真的不适合中国企业。”类似这样的企业,学什么都是不会成功的,因为他们不明白自身情况的特殊性,也不懂得应用过程中的灵活变化。华晨金杯在学习丰田精益生产模式多年之后才认识到,有许多问题是中国具体环境决定的。比如,日本人工费用很高,可能占整个成本的20%,而中国企业的人工成本仅占整个成本的2.6%。如果一个机器人能替换下来5个人,在日本使用机器人实现的是精益生产的省人化,在中国使用就是浪费。所以,企业领导者要知道管理没有万能药,要懂得像中医那样辨证施治,戒除运动式的学习和本本主义式的学习。
另外,领导们也应注意,企业是一个复杂系统,影响企业成败的因素很多,因此要从系统的角度来分析企业的问题。寄望于运用某一种管理工具或管理理论来解决企业的所有问题,使企业获得长久的成功是不现实的。
This article was supplied by my friend Steed Wei, thanks for his effort!

精益生产或是六西格玛?

精益生产的理念最早产生于20世纪40年代的日本丰田汽车公司,而六西格玛的诞生相对于精益生产要晚一些,它产生于20世纪80年代后斯的摩托罗拉公司。作为一种先进的企业管理理念,精益生产要比六西格玛更早地传入中国。虽然精益生产与六西格玛虽然产生的背景和时期都不同,但精益生产和六西格玛就像一对孪生兄弟一样备受世人关注,在对精益生产品头论足的同时总忘不了带上六西格玛,在谈论六西格玛长短之时也不忘与精益生产沾上边儿。
两者就像黑暗中的两盏灯,精益生产和六西格玛指引着制造领域前进的方向,但究竟是走向精益还是六西格玛呢?精益在一边摇旗呐喊,但六西格玛也鼓声如雷,双方毫不示弱。于是很多人迷茫,很多人犹豫,越来越多人感到困惑甚至痛苦。往左还是往右?本来就是一个方向,精益生产和六西格玛究竟是什么关系,究竟是谁优谁劣,还是精益六西格玛最厉害?我想很多人都想看看精益生产和六西格玛正面交锋的一场龙争虎斗,过程和结果都一样精彩,一样令人期待。

1. 精益生产与六西格玛产生的历史地位。
精益生产称为世界第三次工业革命,是颠覆传统生产方式的彻底变革,虽然传统工业工程方法的烙印很深,但精益生产提出的以小批量多品种频繁切换的灵活生产,以小型专业设备取代大型通用设备来应对市场需求的模式是全新的理念,七大浪费的概念也完全不是传统观念的延伸.精益生产方式是一种"方式"的变革,是"新方式"替代"老方式",是"先进"取代"落后"的世界工业发展的里程碑。
六西格玛的核心DMAIC[DMAIC是指定义(Define)、测量(Measure)、分析(Analyze)、改进(Improve)、控制(Control)] 是延续传统的PDCA,或者是ISO体系中持续改善的思维模式,整合了原来很多解决问题的思路和方法,演变得更系统、更完整、更严密。且六西格玛的根本在于财务成果,注重财务表现的六西格玛出现之后,一切都改观了。因此六西格玛其本质还是解决问题的方法和工具。

2. 让精益生产和六西格玛比武过招。
其实精益生产和六西格玛已经正面交锋过,而且还没有停止。六西格玛不论是其创导者摩托罗拉公司还是将其发扬光大的GE,在运用六西格玛的若干年后的今天,他们都在尝试精益生产而且取得了突出的成效。而精益生产的创始者丰田公司则声称他们没有运用六西格玛,包括很多能把精益生产做好的优秀企业,其精益生产能实现六西格玛的目标。也许这些不足于证明交锋结果的“成”和“败”,但或许可以给大家一些思考。

3. 精益生产和六西格玛实施过程和状态。
我不敢说对六西格玛有多深的了解,但和很多有六西格玛经验的朋友交流。很多公司在实施六西格玛项目时,很多被冠于六西格玛名称的项目,其实是在已经取得成果的基础上套用六西格玛的框架,按照结果收集或设计需要的数据,最后做出一个漂亮的报告。(当然,有些黑带级项目确实按照六西格玛步骤实施并取得不错的绩效)。另一方面,很多公司为了六西格玛,什么项目都用六西格玛命名,有时就会弄得有些啼笑皆非(比如曾经某公司有人力资源部门把改善前台接电话的方法用六西格玛来改善)
精益生产实施也是步履维艰,其真正成功者也微乎其微。问题的根源是大部分人仅仅把精益生产当成一种工具,用于解决面临的某个具体问题,但问题总是层出不穷,老问题解决了,新的问题又出现,这本来是一种非常正常的现象,其实企业就是在解决问题中进步的,如果没有这种理念,很多人就对精益生产会失去信心或者没有兴趣。然而精益生产或者说持续改善是一种企业文化。
作为解决问题的思路和方法,也许精益生产和六西格玛在某些方面也许异曲同工,但作为变革的必然,虽然举步为艰,但最终精益生产必将成为生产管理的主流方式,不可逆转。就像市场经济是社会发展的必然趋势一样,不管你认不认同,其结果都是无法跨越和回避的。而如果仅仅是工具,如果不好使你当然可以换别的工具。

4. 精益生产和六西格玛本身的特点。
精益生产强调现场,强调“做”,全员参与改善用持续改善,其方法本身通俗易懂,从高级经理到一线员工,都很容易参与。
六西格玛是建立在统计学的基础上,需要大量的数据统计和逻辑分析,要充分运用电脑、软件等,不是每个员工都能掌握和参与的。
六西格玛的特点决定了其是一小部分的工具,而精益生产将普及到各个待业各个领域,具备广泛性和普遍性。

5. 精益六西格玛 ?
Lean sigma是最近比较流行和热门的说法,精益六西格玛真的是结合了精益和六西格玛的精髓的结晶吗?武林宗师告诫学武之人,如果两股真气贯入体内相撞后,如果不能很好的驾驭就很容易走火入魔。有时候两个最聪明的男女结合也不见得生出的小孩就绝顶聪明,也有可能是个傻瓜。
不管是作为工具或者方式,精益和六西格玛都有其独到之处,当然也会有不足(没有十全十美的东西)。我个人的感觉是精益生产是新的市场竞争形势下的应对方式,是一种简单有效的方法,大部分问题(也许是95%)都能通过精益生产解决。六西格玛其逻辑本身很容易理解,但其实施过程必须投入更多的资源(如数据收集和分析、花费更多的时间),对于一些复杂的问题非常有效。

如果借人生病作为一个例子,如果生病只是闹肚子,只需要医生问诊后开药方,而不需要先拍CT、照X光,再分析检查结果,最后再出药方,虽然这样做更仔细,但最终医院得到的只能是抱怨。
因为,精益和六西格玛其实是存在结合的,比如Nokia推行几年的六西格玛努力之后,将六西格玛纳入精益生产系统中,成为实现精益生产两大支柱之“自动化--零缺陷”的重要工具。这样也许能比较充分发挥精益生产和六西格玛的长处,这难道就是精益六西格玛?
备注:部分文字摘于自《精益六西格玛》一书
The article was supplied by my friend Andy Song, Thanks for his effort!

Sep 22, 2008

Why we apply lean in China?

I got some information about why South China short for labor for a long time, but I lacked of time to summarize the information because I was busy with MBA course. The original information is talking about the problem of future development of China, it covers all the range of resource which is important of continuous development of China included manpower, natural resource and policy of government. From here, I only summarized some points which related to lean manufacturing and shown us why it would be important in China near future.

As we knew, the objective of applying lean manufacturing in company is eliminating wastes and shift the resource to create more value for development. Let us focus on labor intensive manufacturing industry in China, I think it is also the most important industry in last 20 years in Pearl river delta of South China. The such kind of industry was going through a high speed development but is faceing a serious problem in labor shortage in recent years. Lean helps the company to save resource and the manpower is the most important of resource in labor intensive manufacturing. Therefore, let's us have a scan what are the causes of labor shortage and see is that lean manufacturing a solution on it.
1. Family planning:
We called that "one child policy" in China and meant one family only can has one baby. In period around 1950-1970, recommended by Chairman Mao, government encourage family to have more child. It was becuase China lost many many poeple after the war, at that moment, all kind of development needed manpower. 30 years later, the population of China growed in high speed. Afterward, in 1980, government turn around to setup "one child policy" to control the high speed of population increasing. We look backward, born rate increase is one of the factor, on the other hand, low dead rate is also the factor why the population increasing. When a country became more stable and without influence from war, the average year of life changed from 35 to 68, from year 1949 to 1980. The "one child policy" also "helps" the country aging in these 20 years. A simple thinking, two people "produced" one people but the population keep stable and a light increasing, it means the people is aging in high speed as well. Therefore, the range of golden labor dismissed and keeps decreasing today.
2. Expansion of college:
Look at the data below, in 1998, the number of college matriculation is 1,080,000. In 2006, the number ramp up to 5,300,000. The number of matriculation keeps increasing and meant more people went into college for professional education. However, do we need that so many professional manpower in short time? Can our society absorb those professionist in a short time? So many people became "double lost" in recent moment, double lost meant "lost job" and "lost education" after they just graduated from college. It is no way to let them back to factory be a operator. The expansion of college absorbed part of people in such low born rate and make the problem more seriously. From here, I am not object the people to learn more knowledge and I always encourage my friends to have continuous education all the time oppositely. However, expanding the matriculation too fast will influence the whole structure of manpower in society. One old Chinese saying, "too many is similar to not enough".

3. Price of food:
Started from 1998 for several years, the production of food decreased continuously. It made government nervous, and then the food prices was increased including rice, oil, meal and vegetable. There were also some policy setup to encourage the people to stay in agriculture such as low taxation for agriculture. The people stay in home village can earn more than working in factory. Offcause, most of people work on farm are aged people, but it also attract part of the young people to stay in their home village to help their family.

Due to the reasons above, it forms a labor shortage in Pearl river delta zone, even in overall manufacturing environment in China. In recent years, I am studing lean concept and finding a way to support the manufacturing industry. Those concepts of eliminating wastes, create value, continuous flow, JIT and takt time can help the labor intensive industry to defense the impact of long term labor shortage in later 20 years. Think that in another way, why Japan and US push so much for lean? It is because they faced the similar problem 10 or 20 years before, and they believed Lean is the solution to sustain their competition ability. Review ourselves in China, so many companies still know nothing about lean manufacturing. Now, it is the best time to find a continuous improvement tools to defense the long term issue. And, it is never too late to do so.

Sep 20, 2008

Things to Do Before You Turn 40

Did you think about this questions before? Actually, this question can be asked like "things to do before 20, 30 or 100?" I believed a life planning is a important activity for anybody. You no need a offical planning document but you need a moment to think about it. Attached is some samples copied from website for your reference, I find some of them are so interesting.


1. don't die!
2. Write a book.
3. Learn a new language.
4. Visit a new country.
5. Pay off all your debts.
6. Sponsor a poor child.
7. Get back in shape.
8. Quit your dead-end job.
9. Stop smoking.
10. Go outside for your comfort zone.
11. Move into the house of your dreams.
12. Meet a new friend.
13. Call your father and mother.
14. Stop speeding.
15. kill your road rage.
16. Take a cruise.
17. Host a funny dinner party.
18. Setup a website or blog.
19. Live and live and live some more!
20. Live and let die.


At recent moment, I had a email from my friend Lily. From her words, I found she felt so upset for her life in lost of direction. For human being, we must have our goal for our life, without this, we will fall down somehow like a bird which was flying but it did not know where to go. Therefore, I recall my elder post in my blog and sent to her, and hope she can find out something want to do. At the same time, it was the time to review my targets as well but I found that the 3 things, which I wanted to do before 40, were just started. I am so sorry that I am already 37 right now and only 3 more years to complete them. I don't want to transfer the targets to 50 anyway.

Wow, keep working hard, Fat Man ... ... ... ... ...

Sep 16, 2008

7 wastes - Over-production

In lean manufacturing concepts, the top waste of the seven wastes is "over-production", but I consider the term of "over-production" was relatively closed to manufacturing industries, so I like to use the term of "Overabundance" to represent the true meaning of the stated waste. "Overabundance" is meaning that the supply is more than demand. This is the other end of JIT manufacturing where products are manufactured when a specified quantities required. Below, I listed out some questions for you to think about in different cases.

For product development, I called it in "over-design",

For Mobile phone, how many features of your owned mobile were never used?
For Software (CAD or office), how many functions of the software were never used in working?
For Digital Camera, how many features of your owned camera were never used?

All the cases above were in the same concept, "over-design"! Let us think one more question for the above cases, if we calculate the un-used features or functions in percentage, how much money we pay for the non-value-added features? Nowaday, total cost leading is a most important marketing strategy in commercial world. If a company is still suppling the product in over-design, it is no doubt that the cost of the product development was claimed on the expense of consumer, what is the affect of her competitive force?

For manufacturing, we called it in "over-production",

Why discount promotion was always found at the end of season in retail?
Why we need to write off the inventory when product change or at the end of product life cycle?
Why we have to handle many WIPs everytime when we change the product line?

When goods are manufactured without real demand for them the work in progress and inventory levels goes high. This ties up capital since the goods are in stock not making cash. If the manufacturer does not have the demand, they have to create it. This involves cost in the form of advertising costs, costs of discounts etc. on the other hand over production greatly reduces the flexibility of the system. If one process has manufactured extra items generally manufacturing needs to be carried out until the stock is over. This takes time and hence it is difficult to change from one to another product quickly. Problems of the system are hidden in inventory. Problems will never get highlighted and hence will never get removed from the system.

For services, we called it in "over-service",
How many channel you never watch in the package of cable TV program?
How many features you never use in the package of mobile service combination?

Nowaday, the service provider are always using the embedded service package to attract their customer. In a normal package of service, they covered all basic features no matter in mobile service or cable TV programme service. The most important point is that they counted all cost of the different features no matter you used or not. We have to pay on them once we signed the contract. I am sure that we can not 100% uitilize all the services and meant it caused waste in our payment. You can give them the basic service they are looking for and then if they are interested can provide the additional services. In this case there is no need for the service provider to be ready with all the possible services at any given time. They can call for the expertise when the customer wants it. Here you will save your money since you are not going to invest in something there is no real requirement. On the other hand customer will pay for what he is actually using.

Sep 14, 2008

7 wastes - introduction


In Japanese, "Muda" is meaning waste. There are 7 kinds of waste targeted by the lean manufacturing. From here, I will summarize them and give some possible solutions or methods to eliminate those non-value-add process. Before reading this post, we should have enough knowledge of value-added and non-value-added concept, refer to the VA & NVA 1 and VA & NVA 2.

1. Over-production; takt time concept is not considered in the case so they produce more than demand. From lean concept, this is the top waste of a company, takt time studing and JIT can solve this problem.
2. Motion; process is not good design so that operator will waste more time to handling the process. The operator needs to move or turn himself around and around to handling the process. We always use brain-stroming in Kaizen event to improve the work station process.
3. Waiting; because process flow is not balanced, too many motion in last process but waiting in next process. We need to record the process cycle in all process and well balancing in takt time analysis.
4. Conveyance; it means the WIP move a long way to next station, but it is totally not necessary. Re-design the process layout by 2P event is a effective way to solve the problem.
5. Processing Itself; the process station is not design or choose in the best way. As we knew, it always has many methods to produce the same product, the best way is also use brain-stroming in Kaizen event to choose the best method.
6. Inventory (raw material); because production plan issue or the cooperation of supplier, we have too many raw material inventory. At this moment, lean suppy chain and JIT are the ways to solve the problem.
7. Correction (rework & scrap); if the product or WIP is not made in good quality, rework or scrap is the only way to correct them. In lean concept, we need to make it good at once. For this waste, we need to choose the suitable tools to solve the problem in different causes. TPM is the most important factor in this case.

For 7 kinds of waste, they affected the productivity, cash flow and ontime delivery. Those factors are the root of NVA process or material flow. As my experiance, lean manufacturing concept is a best way to eliminate them. Offcause, use lean manufacturing tools skillfully is a very important element for improvement.

Lean manufacturing is popular!


Nowaday, the lean manufacturing is used to be continuous improvement method so popular. If we included the ranking of "Lean and six sigma" and "Toyota production system" to lean manufacturing, we can say more than half of the companies are using "Lean" mothod!

中秋节快乐

明月几时有
把酒問青天
不知天上宮闕
今夕是何年
欲乘風歸去
唯恐瓊樓玉宇
高處不勝寒
起舞弄清影
何似在人間
轉朱閣 低綺戶 照無眠
不應有恨何事長向別時圓

人有悲歡離合
月有陰晴圓缺
此事古難全
但願人長久
千里共嬋娟

我亲爱的朋友,中秋快乐!

Sep 13, 2008

Mindset of lean


Refer to the above mind map, the structure of lean manufacturing can be disassembled as below,
1 Lean spirit
1.1 Continuous improvement
1.2 Respect to people

2 Objectives of lean
2.1 Eliminate waste
2.2 Create value
3 Main duty of lean
Create a continuously flow of process, material and information.

4 Lean tools
4.1 Standardization and Standard works
4.2 Just in time (JIT) and Pull system
4.3 Mistake proofing and autonomation
4.4 Visual management and Kanban system
4.5 OEE and TPM
4.6 5S
4.7 Tact time
4.8 Value-added and non-value-added, 7 wastes

If we need to describe LEAN in simply, I would like to describe that as,
"Continuous improvement and Respect to people are the spirits of lean. All the actions must be taken under the guideline. The improvement activities are carry out through setup the continuously flow to eliminate the different kinds of wastes, and use the saved resource to create value. During setup the continuously flow, it needed to apply different kinds of lean tools. "
思维图是一种帮助理解及记忆的工具,最近因为要协助各部门加深了解精益生产的概念与结构,已绘制一个精益生产思维图如上.

思维图解释:
于图的上部,代表精益生产的最主要两个精神,即是(一).持续改善;(二).尊重人性(以人为本);这种精神必须贯通整个精益生产的运作,才能有效的发挥其优点.
于图的中部,从左到右代表从精益生产推动开始,以建立一个无间断的流程为手段,以达到精益生产的两个主要目的.(一)消防浪费;(二)创造价值.
于图的底部,就是代表各种用以建立无间断流程的主要工具,其中各项工具已于日常生产运作中应用,如全员生产维护,快速换模系统,防错系统,自动化,目视管理,看板系统,拉运系统,生产预备,生产均衡化及标准化等.而各工具之间,亦起了紧密的协同作用.若无间断流程欠缺了这些工具,都不能达到理想中的要求.

各位,若能理解此思维图的意义,基本上对于精益生产就有一定程度的理解了.对于以后各位推动精益生产亦有不少帮助.

Sep 12, 2008

Visiting of Snow Brand Milk Products 2

Mar 7,2008, Steed, Andy (my partners of lean implementation) and me visited a milk products company in Japan. The company located in Yokohama of Japan with historical operation. Before we arrived the factory, the guide of the visiting explained a little bit of the background and news of the company.

Personally, I felt that the visiting for this company is not related to lean manufacturing. Also, I believed that trip is arrange by the tourist agency or Japan government by the relationship of benefit. However, after the visiting, I still found something useful for the lean implementation, even lean thinking. Simply say, I got some thinking of the attitude to face the problem.

The web-link od Snow Brand http://www.snowbrand.co.jp/ (this is more details for the company and absolutely not a advertisment.

According to introduction of the guides, we understood Snow Brand faced two serious problem before and the affection still existing right now,

1. year 2000, the milk they produced caused more than 10000 people food poisoning. Nobody explain what is the root cause and as my understanding, it may be caused by human mistake in process or maintenance. The result is the company stop producing milk.

2. year 2002, there was a affiliated company of Snow Brand sold a beef with incorrect labelling. The marked the beef was domestic goods but actually it was imported. The domestic produced beef was much expensive and better than imported. The problem was affecting her honesty and the image of brand name.

Once we sat in the conference room, the guide of the company introduced the problem they have before. I can say the they faced the problem nakedly in front of us. One of my colleague asked a question, "why you not consider to quit the market and use another brand to operate?", the answer was, "we liked to face and solve the problem! it was agreed by all employee in the company." Wow, what kind brave attitude they had in front of trouble?

It is a culture different between China and Japan. Japanese encourage brave, enjoy challenge and they never give up. For Chinese, they more prefer to escape. When we hold the kaizen projects, how many time we heard the member to give themselve a excause to stop the improvement action? "It can't be worked!", "if we did that, there is another problem on...", ...etc. The point of your member wanted to tell you is that, we do not like to face the problem. All of this, it is the attitude problem and culture problem.

I am sure that if the situation of Snow Brand happen in China, the company will stop for a moment to change it brand name and start to product again in short moment. Actually, the critical problem of quality is stll not fixed. The story would be happened again and again.
For improvement project, the most important thing, is the attitude of facing problem.

1. Brave to face problem, (it proves the value of you to exist)

2. Enjoy the challenge, (it helps you to grow up)

3. Never give up, (It is the main factor of success, no matter how much you pay on the job, once you start to think to give up, you lost everything you have paid.)

The visiting of Snow Brand looks no relation to lean, we can not find any lean concept in such material and process flow. However, we found a important and useful attitude for everything you want to success. It is a good lesson for me.
And finally, I bought one to share with my sons, so far so good...

Visiting of Snow Brand Milk Products 1

This is the article which wrote by my partner, Andy Song. Good for your reference.

***** *****
我们在日本考察的最后一个企业是雪印乳业.因为雪印是从事食品生产的企业.和我们的行业根本搭不上边儿,当时心里就特别纳闷,组织方怎么安排我们去参观他们呢?

去雪印的路上,组织方就介绍:‘今天去参观的企业很特别,这种公司是从1925年开始的生产的,而且在整个日本信誉极好.是乳品业的王牌企业.但这家公司在2000年的夏天发生了一件让全日本震惊的大事:‘日本各地相继出现顾客因饮用雪印乳业公司大阪工厂(也就是此次参观的工厂)生产的低脂肪牛奶及牛奶饮料而发生中毒事件,中毒人数超过1.4万人.’使得雪印关闭4家制造工厂,公司大幅裁员.

到雪印后,发了一些关于雪印的简介.接着雪印公司的领导---工场厂(相当于国内工厂的厂长)对公司简介讲解.作完公司介绍后说:“我们公司在2000年发生一起让公司信誉大受损失的事件---顾客饮用本公司生产的牛奶及牛奶饮料发生中毒,导致公司失去消费者信任、公司严重亏损.制造工厂关闭,大幅裁减员工…”当时听到这儿就懵了,那有这样对客人介绍公司的,我们中国不是有句俗语叫---家丑不可外扬,对我们这些去考察、参观、学习的企业来说就更加不能如此表白.

而接下来的讲述更加意外:‘公司经历了此次事件后濒临倒闭,公司董事长在日本媒体(电视)对日本所有人公开道歉.并且公司高层领导和员工集体讨论是否继续将雪印这个品牌保留下去,经过激烈的讨论.公司员工强烈要求保留雪印品牌,就这样雪印上下一致决定继续使用此品牌,接着雪印公司请著名专家、普通的消费者,连同本公司自己的技术骨干组成一个团队.共同寻找发生问题的根源,解决发生问题的原因.并且为了防止类似问题再次发生,公司将生产产品的所有流程(除了部分保密外)放在公司网页上,并组成团队定期检讨.接收消费者建议,就这样一直坚持改善下去,经过将近7年的奋斗,雪印逐渐在消费者心目中取得信任.赢得失事前客户源的30%.今后雪印一直持续改善下去,最终取得消费者的信赖.’

我们作为一个旁观者,一个毫不知情的参观者,雪印在对待问题的态度着实让我们感动,就象雪印工场厂说的:’我们在以前犯了错误,并且为此付出沉重的代价.我们要做的不是逃避问题,而是勇敢的面对问题.解决问题.为了雪印在以后的成长路上不会再犯同样的错误,我们将发生的这起事件当作我们公司的座右铭.让每一个雪印的员工都铭记于心.’这正如我们经常说的---知耻而后勇.

反观在我们的工作中、在生活中同样也面对这种问题,在我们这个社会中的企业也经常发生如此错误,当我们出现这些问题,我们的企业出现这种错误.我们是如何去对待去处理的呢?是否象雪印一样,勇敢的去面对问题,最终解决问题,和长期预防类似问题再次发生呢?

小时候老师教导我们,犯了错误并可怕,可怕是我们不去寻找犯错误的原因.可怕的是我们不去面对问题、逃避问题.继续让这种错误再次发生.