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.