Leadership styles and lean

Daniel Goleman describes six leadership styles: Coercive, Authoritative, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting and Coaching. He asserts, "Leaders who have mastered four or more styles, especially the Authoritative, Democratic, Affiliative and Coaching styles, have the best climate and business performance.

COERCIVE LEADER always demands immediate compliance, they request their subordinates to do what they tell them. The subordinates are drove to achieve, initiative and self-control. The leadership style is suitable in a crisis, to kick start a turnaround, or with problem employees. For long term, it caused a negative morale and working atmosphere. Also, this kind of leadership would cause a high risk in business because the leader usually can not accept different idea or comment from the colleagues or underlings.

AUTHORITATIVE LEADER mobilizes people toward a vision, they always say "Come with me". They shown self-confidence, acted as change catalyst in revolution. When changes require a new vision, or when a clear direction is needed, authoritative leader is the best one to lead for changes. This kind of leadership is strongly positive in working atmosphere and their subordinates are willing to follow the leaders with confidence.

AFFILIATIVE LEADER creates harmony and builds emotional bonds. They are good in building relationships in working environment, also can setup a good communication channel between the subordinates. In the situation for healing rifts in a team or to motivate people during stressful circumstances, this kind of leader would be the best choice. This is also making a positive working climate.

DEMOCRATIC LEADER forges consensus through participation. We lalways hear the leader said "What do you think?". This kind of leader shown us collaboration, team leadership and also good in communication. In situation to build buy-in or consensus, or to get input from valuable employees, the leader becomes the motivator for the team. This is also making a positive working climate.

PACESETTING LEADER sets high standards for performance. Maxim from them is "Do as I do, or I am your model." They are conscientiousness, drive to achieve and initiative. To get quick results from a highly motivated and competent team is need the kind of leader. However, they would cause a negative working atmosphere for the team because lack of suggestion system and not encourage of comment from subordinates.

COACHING LEADER develops people for the future. We always hear they say "Try this." to encourage the others to strengthen. The leader is good in developing others, empathy and self-awareness. To help an employee improve performance or develop long-term strengths is suitable for this kind of leader. Positive working environment came from this kind of leadership.

The different characteristics of leadership are just like the different numbers of golf club. It is hard to say which kind of leadership is the best or worst. When we implement the lean transformation, we should select the suitable kind of leadership to lead the Kaizen according to the change of company culture. A trope in golf, during we just start to implement lean, we need the immediately culture change in a big jump. We need to use the coercive leadership to lead just like we use the club in number "0" for issueing ball to more than 200 yards. During the culture is improved, we need to motivate the member to improve by themselves. We can use coaching leadership to lead by encourage for trial, just like we use club of number "P" (putter) to put the ball close to the hole around 50 yards.

The important factor is how to select the suitable leadership style for different period and change selectively. In simply say, the different leadership styles like our set of golf club. Select the club in right time. How many clubs do you have right now? Or, actually you don't know what is the number of club you are using?

Hong Kong Flower Show 2009

I went to Hong Kong Flower Show 2009 today and took some photos, share with you!

Have a good day.

Rainbow again! 又见彩虹!

很久以前，一个雨的下午，看到过一次彩虹。

今天中午，又再次看到彩虹。我以最快的速度跑回家中，把我所有的照相机都拿出来，用不同的光暗调节，拍了很多照片。

这条彩虹跟以前见过的不一样，因为它不是那种横跨天空，从左到右像跨桥般的彩虹，而是环绕着太阳成圈形的。若你没有带上太阳眼镜，就比较难看到了。

五年前看到过彩虹，过了几年不错的日子。听说看到彩虹会走好运，看看这次又怎么样!!!

祝所有关心我的家人及好朋友都走好运!!!

若你没有看到彩虹，就多看我拍的照片吧，保证有一样的行运效果！

Aged employee? Senile employee?

First of all, I make a clear statement here,

Aged employee not equals to senile employee! We must say, aged employee equals to experienced employee!

Agree?

By my last business trip to HuaDong, I visited a wire manufacturing plant in Shanghai. I experienced a story and I want to share it with my reader. During the audit of the wire supplier, we walked thourgh her workshop area and the image of many old, dusted and outdated manufacturing machine get into my eyes. Afterward, we walked to the testing laboratory, much clean, well 5S working place seen there. And then, we went back to conference to have a conclusion of the audit. We stated what is the improvement actions should be in placed and give them some suggestions on quality and management system. The CEO of that supplier gave us a reply liked this, "although our machines are old (outdated), our employee are old (senile), but we appreciated your comments and it is truth that we need to improve the quality and management system.". At that moment, the aged employee looked so regret but I felt so disappointed by his reply.

On the way to Putong airport, it is around one hour of transportation, it is a chance for me to talk about my feedback about his reply in conference room because his "old" employee are not on car. It is the first time I discussed the lean concept to the people out of my current company. I summarized the conversation as below,

"In lean concept, the machine will depreciate all the time in every second but not for people. Employee is value-adding all the time! They absorb experience and solve problem during their working time. The experience never depreciates or lost, experience can combine with their knowledge to form a concrete power to improve their work. Yes, sometime, their knowledge would be updated or covered by new technology, but company must provide the chance to catch up the new technology by training or let them to join seminar for new knowledge. Keep them in a learning atmosphere is a very important factor of company success. Trunaround to machine, it is no way to value-add in its value, no matter how good for the preventive maintenance we provided, depreciation is still there. You must change your mind!"

The CEO nodded! I don't know what will he do but it seen to me that he understood what I said.
In lean world, there are two most important spirits. "Continuous improvement" and "Respect to people". Without these, The "single piece flow", "standardization ", "eliminate wastes", ....etc are all bullshit!!!

Simple? but hard to do!

Observation in Wenzhou

Introduction:

Terminal is a kind of quick connection device for cable harnessing assembly. This is one of the famous industries in Wenzhou, meanwhile, the low voltage, high voltage electricty controlling device, leather product and automotive spare parts are also the famous industries in that area. Because I worked for that industry of terminal manufacturing and have some experience for that. For a long time, Wenzhou's terminal is always the strongest competitor with Guangdong's terminal manufacturer. Unfortunately, I have no chance to visit Wenzhou to have a fully assessment. Last year, I joined the audit team and went to Wenzhou for observation.

Scope:

Visited two famous terminal, housing and connector manufacturer in Wenzhou. Their sizes are very similar and they have different vision I found. I am going to use these two samples to summarize their common advantage, common disadvantage and differences.

Common advantages:

1. Good business network: the senior management of companies owned their stronge business network in both north and south part of China. The bosses of both companies were started in a salesman to build up their business, for many years experience and effort, they are not only know the business partners in whole China, also, they get so many technicial support from GuangDong and Taiwan partners.
2. Quick and wide sensation: because of their well established business network, they can recieve the news and marketing development signal faster than other district. Also, due to they have more updated news on hand by thier network, their mindset are much wider than the others. Furthermore, they are willing to learn the way of operation. This is one of the important factors of their success.
3. Good relationship and teamwork: This item is not talking about the relationship and team work within the company. Furthermore, they have much better relationship with Goveronment out of the district in Wenzhou. In simply say, the classmate of the bosses are all working in government, even to be the town mayor, offcause, they can get the benefit in local policy by this relationship. On the other hand, their family supporting is also significant.
4. Market reputation: They almost seperated the industries by different town districts. For this town, the famous product is leather product, for another town, automotive spare parts is their main product for most of her companies. During the visiting, I found so many foreign customer to visit that area to look for their supply. It is too easy to get a suitable supply when they walk around the town.
5. Resource sharing: Because of the market established successfully, the other supporting partners setup in their related area for business. For example, there are so many machining vendors for tools located in the town closed to the terminal manufacturer, offcause, they know the companies are needed tooling and machining sub-contract. Due to the case, the human resource also reinforce the industry in Wenzhou because many techinical people knew that they can get a job easily in Wenzhou.
6. Geographic location: I believed that we no need a detailly explanation. Please look at the map, Wenzhou locates in the middle between Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Ineluctable situation, disadvantages accompanies with advantages all the time. I found some potential problems for the terminal manufacturing industry in Wenzhou as below,

Common disadvantages:

1. Government policy: Due to high income of the companies in that area, the local tax rate and the land price increased accordingly. Intangibly, the local policy will block the way of the local business for further development. At this moment, some industries are started to move the main manufacturing base to Hangzhou and Suzhou.
2. Environment protection: Focus on terminal manufacturing, the plating process is a main factor of success. Due to the policy of environment protection, the plating sub-contractor as forced to consolidate into one area. The plating technique is much lower than Guangdong area, and deeply affected their quality of product (dimensional quality). For the global harness manufacturer are using the fully automatic crimping machine for process and Wenzhou's terminal can not be used in that way obviously. It makes the industry far away to deal with global customer, I am sorry that I can not see they have any solution of that.
3. Not attend to their proper works: due to the quick and updated news, good business network and huge capital we made from many years, the bosses from Wenzhou started to shift to other high return business such as land and real estate trading, even cotton trading. As we know, it is the easiler and fastest way to get fortune, offcause, it needs some lucky. They no more concentrated their core business (manufacturing business). Without attention of technical and management improvement but just step on their feet, I have no surprise that the industry in Wenzhou would be catch up by other district.
4. Fortune can not be extended to third generation: This is a Chinese maxim and always proved its accuracy by real cases. If our next generation saw us just working in speculation but earned easily and quickly, they will do the same way in their lifetime. They don't know the previous generation how to save the capital at the beginning and how they were working to build up the business. In Wenzhou right now, all the bosses are going to or went to play the land trading, what happen to their next? How many land left for them to trade at that moment? I hope they should consider my concern here!

The differences between that two suppliers:

1. The bigger supplier shown me that they are going to expand the company in capacity. No evidence shown me that they are going to improve her management system as well as quality system. They told me that they order a lot of production machines, but I can not find the machines has any upgrade. Turnaround to lean, I can not see any concept they knew of lean. 5S, standardization, continuous flow are totally absented there, Self-complacent!
2. The smaller supplier shown me that they understood the disadvantage of the industry, also shown me that they are finding the solution. For the common disadvantage item 2, they planned to setup the plating process internally to control the quality. It is good signal! At least they have a little bit ideas of continuous improvement. On the other hand, the management shown me the motivation of improving refer to their new plant planning. Some years later, I believed the smaller supplier will catch up the bigger one.

P.S.:

First of all, the above two post are just my personal observation and may be not showing the true at all. This is only my visiting summary for reference. Eventaully, this business trip is so valuable for me to analysis the terminal manufacturing industry and I gained much for my experience!

Automation and lean

First of all, automation is not the term of lean "autonomation". The automation here is talking about the utilization of automatic machine or production equipment to produce without or less manpower.

Last year, I had a visiting for 6 companies in Japan focus on lean manufacturing. It included 2 famous automotive companies (Toyota and Nissan). I found they are fully utilized the automation for production. During the travel, there was much information came from the guide about the culture of Japan. Consolidated the information, I came up some ideas for automation utilization to share with you.

In Japan, I am so surprised that the average age of citizen is 48. She already was a aged country by low born rate. In order to maintain her competition force, avoid the labor shortage, automation utilization is a good solution. From lean concept, reduce the waste of manpower, or we say to use manpower to create higher value. It is totally no conflict between automation and lean manufacturing. In some situation, it is a good solution to combine the lean concept with automation. Below, I stated some condition for using automation,

1. The working environment is unhealthy for human in long term, such as the job of painting. We can consider to make it in automation.
2. The working environment is dangerous for human in short term, such as the job of welding. We can consider to make it in automation.
3. The process is in heavy loading, it exceed the strength of human for long term. Such as the moving the heavy semi-product repeatedly. We can consider to make it in automation.
4. The process is very fine and accurate, the visual of human can not complete the job. We also need the automation there to complete or support.
5. The job is no any technique needed. Only a repeatedly and simple job. Such as the material handling between two processes or some material feeding activities.

According to above conditions, actually, what should do for human in production? I made it in a simply sentence to describe, the job for human, should has a certain of technique but can not too complicated or too simple. It also can not be operated in the environment where is not heathly. However, why we still need human for production? Why not fully automation? To answer this question, we must consider the cost of operation. Please remember, human working is much flexible than machine.

Refer to the graph above, the portion "X" of automation cost meant it is fixed cost of automation no matter what is the quantity we produced. The line of manual production cost is going up proportional to the quantity they produced sharply, when the line meet with the automation cost line, it meant both method of production meet the balance and we can consider to use automation instead of manpower. For this point, out of maintenance cost and salary, we should also consider the cost of line change and lost of labor shortage.

Finally, there is no conflict between automation and lean manufacturing, actually, they are supporting each other to improve the production. Please have a good consideration when you get into the situation for changing the manufacturing mode.

Problem in Boeing 787 assembly

From WSJ, We found an article talked about Boeing 787 assembly,

"The first Dreamliner to show up at Boeing's factory was missing tens of thousands of parts, Boeing said."
"When mechanics later opened boxes and crates accompanying the fuselage sections, they found them filled with thousands of brackets, clips, wires and other items that already should have been installed. In some cases, officials say, components came with no paperwork at all, or assembly instructions written in Italian, requiring translation."
"Boeing officials thought they could work through this unexpected twist in a couple of weeks. Instead, they had to put the plane up on jacks and remove its engines and tail to get to tight spots."
"Boeing set up this global supply chain and chose the suppliers. Now, they seem to be dumping on the suppliers, saying how they wouldn't use some of them again. "

I have some analysis of the problems according to lean concepts as belows,

1. Production Preparation (2P) was not working properly. Even, the PFMEA was executed the same situation as 2P. If the 2P was worked out in proper way, most of the problems in real assembly process can be simulated and prevent their happenning before actual running, otherwise, it was totally impossible to have many tens of parts missed to assemble to the plane. The purpose of 2P or product production preparation (3P) is going to eliminate the problems in the first mass production, Although, it is impossible to kick out all the process issues, but at least the process can reach a specified level. The concept is "do it right at the first time", consider about the 787, it is talking about 10 million and 6 months of process time. If the situation liked the article shown, how much lost in the business?

2. Mistake-proofing was absented in the process of assembly. If the mistake-proofing (poka-yoke) was consider in the process, it is also impossible to have parts missed. It should has a checking or testing before the next parts installation, and if it was a parts missed, the line should be stopped and clear the problem before the next process. We must remember that Poka-yoke is not only a checking, in other words, it is a very important concept and element in whole quality control system. Only one screw missed on tle plane will cause a disaster, even many tens parts missed?

3. In order to cost reduction and global supply chain system, same as A380, we found the parts came from every corners in the world. It is no needed to talk about the pull system, even if the assembly process will be affected by such kind of parts suppling. Some of the instruction in German, italian and Japanese, how can the workers to work for? Are they having the language knowledge liked James Bond?? In way of pull system to consider this problems, the final assembly process was easily to stop the parts supply chain and make the line and workers idle by the issue.

It is a good negative example for lean manufacturing implementation. We can have more understandings through the case study from other industries, because the issues were the same. Let me know if you have any comment on this, thanks! BTW, the video shown above is not the original video showing the real assembly process. The video disappeared in youtube already.

Lean life 精益思维与生活 (2)

Some years before, I remember that it was a very hot summer day. I was informed to hold a lean manufacturing concept training for the new joined operators for the plant. Usually, the training was held by my subordinates Steed and Andy, but the guys went to other plant for Kaizen project, therefore, I went to hold the training by myself.

There were a lot of young people in the training room! I thought there were more than 50 people and they were only 18-20 years old. I always held training for lean, but the objects are always have higher academic level such as the staffs in office, even the manager of other departments. It was the first time I train the young boys and girls.

As usual, I started with the spirit of lean, value-added concept, takt time, single piece flow, 7 wastes,...., however, I was frustrated by their responds. I found that most of the "kids" can not understood what I said, because most of them were the first time to work in factory or just graduated by school. It is obviously that non-value-added to talk with them for the items in manufacturing industry, or I can said it was too difficult for them. Half past of the training time, is that I have to let the team go with their confused and perplexed faces? No way! I have to let them to understand something before they left, even only one or two points. I took a deep breath and start to tell them a story,

20 years before, when I was a student in high school, there was a great mathematics teacher in the school. He found some students were reading comic and fiction in the class, he was not angry but shared some feeling and experiance with us. Offcause, I am sorry that I was also reading fiction as well. The teacher said he used to enjoy reading fiction, but he found a fact by his calculation.

"let say we used 3 hours to read the fiction everyday, and we did not read in the weekend for outing. How many hours we used to read fiction?"

3 hours X 5 days X 52 week = 780 hours.

"The kids always started to read fiction or comic from 12 to 15 years old, Some time, the habbit would continuous for several years. In simply, we calculated that in 10 years, how many hours we used to read fiction?"

780 hours X 10 years = 7800 hours.

"OK, how many days or years you used to read comic and fiction?"

7800 hours / 24 hours = 325 days.

"The last question is, if you have 325 days or almost one year of time to study something useful, what is the benefit for you? You have to remember that these 325 days is no stop, no sleep, nothing other but only learning one item. You can be an expert for you are learning."

I started to explain the the "kids" in the training, I asked them how many hours per day they used on internet for chating in MSN or QQ. How much time they used to watch the TV programme? If they used that time to go to learn or join the course in night-time school, is that more meaningful for them? Yes, it is the concept of continuous improvement! If we identified the time they used for QQ is a waste, at least, I believed that it is a waste. We can use the time for some value-added action, just like continuous learning. For instant, I was 37 years old, but I still continuous to study MBA course in weekend at that moment. I was continuous improvment for myself, even I was the director of the company.

Wow! I was so happy that the young people started to understand what I was talking about. Some of them even told me that they have to go to night time school to learn more knowledge. It was a good experiance for me, the most important thing was not I shared some knowledge of lean with the young people, the critical thing was they can continuous to improve themselves. It doesn't a matter they learned lean concept or not, if they learned something which has benefit for their life is enough. I wanted them to improve and promote themselves, some years later, I do not want them to work in the workshop and still was an operator.

This is a real story we applied the lean concept in our life. I was so wonder that the great mathematic teacher can understand that 20 years before. Do you think lean concept is difficult thoery for us? No, it is not, in my point of view, I think it is more like a common sense.

Lean life 精益思维与生活 (1)

As we know, lean applies in every corners of manufacturing. It helps a lot for manufacturing industry to eliminate wastes and use the saved resource to create more value. It is the most important concept from lean. However, did you consider that we can also apply lean concept in our daily life? We are using this to save our time and burden, in the same word, we use our saved resource to value-add ourselves.

Please check the photo above. These are the power cord which are using to connect the transformer for our notebook computer. The top one was mine and the bottom one was taken from my friend. Formerly, they were the same cable because we are using the same model of botebook. I spent USD0.5 to buy a plug and cut down more than the 50% of cable to connect the plug again in 5 mins as the top one shown in photo. In both working environment in home and office, I had no need to use such a long cable. The requirement of the cable length is only let the transformer touch the ground when it plug in the outlet. The exceed length of the cable is only the burden of my carrying.

You would ask, what is the benefit to do that? I have a simple calculation for you as below,
The weight of orginal cable is 110g,
The weight of short cable is 50g,
I need to take my notebook for working about 300 days per year, and two time per day,
The saving of weight I carried is (110-50)g X 300 days/yr X 2= 36kg/year,
I did that for 5 years already for 3 different notebook computer I used, therefore, 36 X 5 = 180kg.

60g different in weight may be meant nothing! But I can use the spare loading to bring a book for read. Even, 180kg for saving burden make my backbone more healthy, I believed. But one thing we need to remember is, the 60g / day is not necessary for me, I can use the saving to carry anything more important than a cable which I do not need. That's the lean concept!!!
My friends, think about it! you can find more examples for the lean in life and we will enjoy them. Thanks!

我们都知道，精益思维应用于制造业中的每一个角落。它帮助制造业去消除各种各样的浪费，从而利用这些省下来的资源去创造价值。这是最重要的精益概念。不过，各位有否想过，我们可以利用这个概念应用于日常生活中？我们是可以利用这个概念去节省我们的时间及负担，同样地，我们可以利用这些节省下来的资源去增值自己。

大家可以看看附图，这是一条电源线用于连接手提电脑与变压器，照片中，上边的一条是我的电脑用，下边的那条是我的朋友所使用的，原来它们都是一模一样的，因为我们是使用同一品牌的手提电脑。我用了三块钱，五分钟，剪掉超过一半的线缆长度，就如图上所示再重新接驳起来。在办公室或家中，我的使用环境都不需要一条这么长的线缆。唯一的要求，就是当接上插座后，变压器能碰到地上或桌上，不用直接受拉力就可以了。这些多余的长度就是我携带上的负担。
你们会问，这样做有什么好处呢？我简单计算一下给你看看，

原来的电源线重量是110克，
改短后的电源线重量为50克
每年我大概有300天要携带手提电脑上下班，即每天两次。
在携带上的负担，每年节省了（110-50）克 X 300日/年 X 2次 = 36公斤/年
我已使用种做法大概五年了，其间我已换了三台手提电脑，
即36公斤/年 X 5年 = 180公斤。

60克的差距可能是毫无意义！不过我们可以利用这多余的重量去带一本书看看，甚至减少了这180kg负担，我相信会令我的脊骨健康一点。不过，有一点我们需要记住的是，那每天的60克是我不需要的，我可以用这些负重节省来带任何更重要的东西，这总比带那多余的线缆有意义。这就是精益概念。

朋友们，想一想！你就能从日常生活中找到更多的例子，亦可以享受它们的好处，谢谢！

Lost of Toyota!

Here is an article from Wall Street Journal, A Scion Drives Toyota Back To Basics . I was so surprised by the article and I think the world was set on fire by the story. Therefore, I want to share with the people who is interesting for lean concept.

"Three top executives, including Mitsuo Kinoshita, announced their retirement. Akio Toyoda is the first member of Toyota's founding family to take the helm in 14 years. Toyoda's appointment as president is pending shareholder approval in June. ...... Toyota bulked up in recent years and is now stuck with too much manufacturing capacity. It might also be faced with its first layoffs in Japan since 1950, when 3,000 workers were let go."

For a long time, we are learning lean manufacturing (or TPS) and we lelieved that the concept helps many kinds of industry to get higher profit through the way to eliminate the wastes. Why the most famous company in lean world, which is the originator of lean manufacturing, sufferred the bad situation? In this financial tsunami, is that the lost of Toyota reflects the invalidation of lean manufacturing? The answer is "NO", the lean concept has never invalid, the problem is Toyota got lost in front of the number game. Please read the below.

"An unprecedented number of unsold cars in Japan has forced Toyota to stockpile them in the parking lots of Fuji Speedway, a company-owned track near Mount Fuji. ....... I think Toyota probably over-expanded a little bit in order to compete with the American auto makers,' said his father, Shoichiro Toyoda, 83, who himself was the auto maker's president during the 1980s. "

The first waste of 7, over-production. It looks to me that Toyota forgot the 7 wastes principle. On the other hand, what is the meaning of over-expand? What is the meaning of over-capacity? In result of over-expand, it forms the over-capacity. In the same way, in result of over-capacity, it forms the over-production. Over-production forms the negative effect in P/L. The leader is only focusing on how they achieve the short term target, they only remember the number they needed to made this year. Basically, they only achieved their personal target to make somebody happy in board of director, but they forget the long term goal and the most inportant thing of company, the mission.

"There's a move away from technologically sophisticated in-car gizmos like a solar-powered cooling system designed for the new Prius and expensive new assembly-line technique of dipping car bodies into a vat of paint and swirling them around. ...... The company is also reining in its engineers, who have been designing new features that occasionally appear to be out of character with the company's utilitarian roots. For example, the new Prius, launching this year, has an option for a solar-powered ventilation system designed to keep the interior cool when parked. Gizmos like these helped lift the car's retail price to an estimated $28,000, according to analysts, compared with the $22,000 currently."

Yes, it sounds good if the interior of the car is cool when I back the car in carpark of summer days. But, how many months I need that function? I believed I need that only 3 to 4 months in a year. Do you willing to pay US$6000 more to get that thing? For me, no way! May be I need that if I can afford to buy a Benz or BMW, but I do not expect that happen in a PRIUS. I don't know what is your comment, but I think it is also over-production, or we can say "over-design". The management of product developement is also forget they only need to design something for customer demand, I meant free of charge.

"Then there's the shabu shabu paint system. Toyota's manufacturing division is one of the company's proudest operations, having developed a highly efficient 'lean manufacturing' philosophy. To replace the traditional system of slowly dragging a car through a 115-foot-long bath of anticorrosion undercoating, Toyota engineers came up with a new process in which a car body gets picked up by a robot arm, then swished around in a pool of paint, cutting the length of the line. However, the new system costs roughly four times as much to set up as the traditional process, while producing what Mr. Toyoda felt were minimal improvements in the quality of the paint job and its efficiency."

I think it would reduce much space for the painting if they paint the car as a hot pot way. In the point of no change in quality and efficiency but four time of cost higher, are customer want to pay for that as their willings? For myself, I need a car has a good coating to prevent the rust, but I don't care how to paint it from the manufacturer. I can not see how they paint the car, offcause I can not feel the exciting of painting a car in hot pot way, at least when I am driving. Why I need to pay for that? Yes, this time, the company remember the lean concept, the waste of motion, but they forget the top principle of lean. What is value-added process?

I am sorry that I am not going to attack Toyota. Actually, I like to drive a Toyota car. I felt safe and comfortable when I was driving that, just hope Toyota can find the way back and continuous to build the car as our need, not as Toyota needs.

Crisis and opportunity

A Chinese Saying,
"Opportunity is always present in the midst of crisis. Every crisis carries two elements, danger and opportunity. No matter the difficulty of the circumstances, no matter how dangerous the situation ..... at the heart of each crisis lies a tremendous opportunity. Great Blessings lie ahead for the one who knows the secret of finding the opportunity within each crisis."

In year 2007, I started the course of MBA in Hong Kong. Because of heavy burden of assignments of the course, it is obviously that speed of issuing post slow down, in other words, less time for thinking! Today, an event, a negative comment from my colleague to my job, made me calm down, forced me to meditate my job.

14 years, came out from college, still now, I don't like my job repeatedly everyday. I can not rise my interesting to do the same job which I have done before. I want a new assignment and like the new challenge. Nobody likes challenge and crisis, but I use the new assignment and challenge to make the crisis for myself. I need crisis to push me moving on. For these year, I fully studied the Chinese saying stated at the beginning of this article. The good opportunity is always come from the most dangerous place, postion or duty...

10 years before, I was a project engineer. I was assigned to develop a new product for the factory. The product was totally not familiar for the company. At that moment, serious conflict in different process departments, unfortunately, the new product needed to be produced through all process stations. I knew the risk for following the project, I faced many and many blocks, but I have a passion to complete my job. What is the result? I became the engineering manager after the project. May be I had not enough experience to be the manager at that moment, may be I had not enough knowledge of management to be the manager, but I had enough passion and volition to promote that position. Company gave me the opportunity to try.

Another short story, 5 years before, I just changed my job to a new company. Just on board for a few days, my underlings argued seriously with the colleague in other department. They were arguing be email and copied all over the company, it caused a really bad image to other departments. It also a risk for me at that moment, I stop their arguing and one email in 30 seconds, called them to discuss the issue face by face. What is the result? My boss ascertain my ability and my underlings felt confidence for my capability.

Thess years, I joined the course of MBA. So many people asked me why I need to study the course? I never gave them a certainly answer. Actually, my underlings improved and upgraded so much and they created the threaten for me. I need some upgrade for myself to avoid the crisis. The crisis management theory for me is simple, not plan for when will it happen, the important thing is how to plan for preventing them.

For the these many years, I have long time not hearing the negative comment for my job. I was already unfamiliar for negative speaking. It is so dangerous for me, not from the comment from my colleague. Frankly speaking, I don't agree the comment for his point of view to my existing result, the result from him can not cause any danger to me. The most dangerous to me is, I almost forget the useful power to push me, the crisis!!! At recent moment, I felt I was stop in a stage and I can not break through. I need some motivator for my career. Honestly say, I am never angry with anybody who gave me the negative comment. Let say the negative comment only represent 1% of my performance, I will improve the 1% accordingly.

In recent moment, I quit my job but it is not my willing. At least, it is not in my schedule, I planned to seek a new job after Chinese new year and resign when I got a better one. The time line is not in a big gap but I was quit passively. May be it is the good time for me to think about my plan for future.

Lean in American way? in Japanese way?

Entended from my last post "The different between American and Japanese management styles", I want to talk more about the the differet of the way they consider in lean manufacturing as well as its implementation. Here is also a blog post from Steed Wei "Lean in American way, Lean in Japanese way" for your reference. The ways of thinking for lean manufacturing is also different as their management style.

The different ways of thinking in lean between Amercian and Japanese,

1. As other management tools, such as balance score card, American thinks that lean manufacturing concept is also a tools only. How do you treat your tools? Put them in a toolbox and seek them when you need? They are using lean as a tools to force their employee to change, force them to continuous improvement. There is no culture change involved in implementation. From the cradleland of lean, actually, Japanese does not know what is lean but they called that concept in "TPS" (Toyota production system). Japanese way of lean is a culture and it is important to spread the culture to everybody in company. They need the employee fully understand the lean concept as their original thinking. All the continuous improvement actions are issued from their wills, and no need to force by senior management. In my last trip to Japan, I asked the Japanese consultant that, "is that all the Japanese companies implement lean concept?" The consultant replied, "yes, all the companies here understand the lean concept, but they only apply parts of tools for their company. They only apply the tools they needed in necessary."

2. American way of lean is focusing on short term result. As they think that lean is tools, any kind of tools would give the return or payback to its value. They spent money on investment to get a lean leader and Kaizen promotion officer, they spent on training and the charge from external consultant. They always ask for return, "How much saving we can get annually?". They need a schedule of actions, and they also need a budget they can save. They will give up some long term project to improve because of its result is not significant in the financial report. Japanese thinks in the way that lean is their responsibility. No matter it is a project in long term or short term, if the project has the benefit to their company, they will implement and push the project. They would never ask for a budget plan for how much they can saving, but they will have a summary for how much they did save. The summary is a prove they are improving the process in right direction and to motivate the people to continuous.

3. American way of lean is focusing on the holistic change, not only the manufacturing process, the logistic flow, supply chain flow, information flow even the office are also considered to changed in one shoot. As the Japanese consultant replied, they are not implement the lean concept totally. They are only focusing the critical point of their company and apply lean concept to that area accordingly. As we know, Japanese culture is focusing on the detail, they apply the lean into the area and they continuous to improve until they felt it was perfect. Offcause, for Japanese culture, it has no sense of perfect, it only has better, and better.

Any more ideas from you?

The different between American and Japanese management style

I am working for American company but I am developing lean transformation in the company. There are some different in concept of management after several months of studing and implement. Below is a summary found on internet which can well present my experiance for this topics.

力量来源
●美国：依赖制度
美国管理体系运作力量来源于严密的治理和激励制度，用制度的力量约束和激励高层管理者的行为。公司董事会、股东大会、管理层的权、责、利分明。
●日本：依赖文化
日本的管理体系运作力量来源于企业文化的凝聚力，依靠员工终身对企业效忠的日本文化传统。建立董事会、工会、主管间相互合作、磋商、和谐的管理模式。

人的地位
●美国：重视个人
美国推崇领袖或精英的个人力量。 领导力往往自上而下，企业依赖总裁的判断力、观察力和决策力，员工深受企业领袖行为的影响。企业文化的核心就是老板文化。
●日本：重视团队
日本的企业更加注重团队的力量。领导力通常是自下而上，中层领导不断地与一线工人在现场进行密切的沟通，激发他们的创新潜力，把公司文化渗透到每一个员工的心底。

使命目标
●美国：股东利益最大化
美国企业的根本目标是最大限度为股东创造价值，所以企业政策不断受到 股票市场波动的影响。
●日本：多元目标
日本企业的目标多元化，员工、顾客、市场的目标往往大于近期的股东利益。通常情况下，为了满足扩大市场额，企业宁愿短期内牺牲股东利益。

组织分工
●美国：高度专业化
美国的企业专业化趋势更强，内部分工细腻。员工通过提高自己的专业化水平来获得职业上的进取和组织上的优化。
●日本：高度综合化
日本的企业分工相当粗犷，强调员工的长期就业心态。企业往往为员工提供持续的综合培训，内部职务轮换流动，以应付市场出现的突然情况。

绩效考核
●美国：短期目标
美国企业采用目标管理，严格执行短期的绩效评估，在季度、年终奖评过程中实行物质刺激、惩罚鼓励、多劳多得、优胜劣汰。
●日本：长期发展
日本企业重视挖掘员工在企业中的潜力。企业的短期绩效通常放在员工长期发展之后，并不拿员工的短期表现作为惟一的评判和奖惩的标准.

What is the Chinese management style???

Toyota production system

Please check this link for Toyota site. This is a very clear flash media for value stream mapping as well as other useful info for lean manufacturing.