Lean spirits

For this year, I joined the MBA course in Hong Kong and I just finished my dissertation last week. The studing of lean manufacturing was stop for a moment, I believed that it is the time to continuous my long term studing of lean.
The first topic I want to review is the "lean spirit", it includes “Continuously improvement” and “Respect to people”. They are the soul of lean implementation and the core element of lean culture, without them, all activities of lean manufacturing are only the eyewash.

Continuous Improvement:

The "Continuous Improvement" mindset is driven by the notion that no matter where we are or what we have achieved. We should always think about the questions no matter what is the level we reached. Can we find and remove more waste? Is that the existing situation already the best? No, it is no perfect at all, and we must improve our mindset that it is no way to become perfect, but it always has opportunity to improve the situation better.
Peronally, I had a experience in lean training for my underlings. I asked them what did they do after working hours, they replied that they gone to watch moive on internet, read comics, ...etc. I mentioned them those activities are not value-added. There is nothing help for their career and why don't we spend it on studing? I told them I am 36 years old right now, I am the operation manager of the company as well, but I still joined the course of MBA, why? This is the concept of continuous improvement. No matter it is the process in production, the procedures of company operation, even our grade of living, those things should be in continuous improvement. It is also the way to improve our life.
The mindset stated above is the most important idea of lean manufacturing. It is the energy of all improvement actions of lean. Without this, lean never can be well implemented and nothing we can do by the lean concept.

Respect to people:

This concept is really important as like as “continuous improvement”, but it was always ignored in many books from United State. For instants, eliminate wastes of the motion of operators, so that they can work easier and faster. Push the operators to work faster is not the way to eliminate wastes. The employee worked together as continuous improvement team to improve the process. Saving came out from the project but company absorbed all the benefit. The wastes in process are eliminated, but the company was going to layoff the exceed manpower.
The highest value of asset in a company is “people”, they learned lean concept and are improving the company and themselves continuously. Push the people working faster, absorbed all benefit for the improvement and layoff people are all the negative factor of success in lean implementation. Therefore, respect to people is another spirit of lean manufacturing, as human being, who want to work for a company not respect to people?