Lean & Mean!

For almost all of the nearly 20 years I worked in manufacturing, I had at least some level of involvement with implementing the tools most commonly referred to as LEAN. Truth be told, at least ten of those years consisted of a high level of hands-on involvement where I worked directly with teams throughout the facility to build the various tools within that methodology into the workflow for improved productivity. I even have a fancy framed certificate (that’s buried amongst a bunch of other fancy certificates) showing where I completed a customized Lean Manufacturing course at the University of Michigan… Impressive, huh…

In addition to all that, I even got to learn to concepts of Lean from a true master consultant who had read about it in a book but never seemed to be able to offer tangible examples of how any of his other clients implemented what he was regurgitating to achieve a tangible return on investment - but I’ll save that story for another day since the only things I truly learned from him was how a consultant can be a complete piece of garbage but still charge a ridiculous rate and why I’ll always choose maintaining character over drawing a paycheck…

Before I throw too many Lean-isms at you, let me share a brief history of the overall concept. For the last twenty years or so, Toyota has been known as the world leader in using the idea of Lean. In fact, they’ve been so successful in how they’ve used it that many of the tools that make up the overall idea now have Japanese names. Kaizen is probably the most commonly known example - and the only one I remember how to spell… All that said, the ideas Toyota mastered tie back to an American engineer named Edwards Deming who attempted helping the US automakers in the 1940s but was brushed aside because they believed they were already doing so well. As WWII ended, he packed his bags and headed to Japan to help with the process of rebuilding their manufacturing industry. To say they used his ideas successfully is quite an understatement!

One of most frequently misunderstood notions around Lean, especially as we rolled it out in different areas of the manufacturing facility, was that there was an expectation that each person would be expected to do more work with less resources. While any solid Lean initiative does take an incredibly hard look at waste in every part of a process, I’ve never seen a focus placed solely on getting employees to work harder.

And that brings us back to where we wrapped up last time, work smarter not harder!

Whether it’s in a manufacturing assembly line setting, a construction process, or the steps we take to develop ourselves personally and professionally, it’s far more important to be sure we’re doing the right work than it is to just work as hard as we possibly can without any consideration to the results we’re producing. As we looked at how much more effective we can be, and even blow away our competitors, when we’re willing to be consistent in our efforts rather than going all out for a brief time then collapsing in exhaustion when we run into our first roadblock, even the most consistent effort will only go so far if it’s not the right effort!

One critical approach I learned from all that work around Lean was the importance of really looking at each activity through an unbiased lens to determine whether or not it was producing the desired result. I won’t take the time here to share the story of “Stand In Circle…” but it was a great illustration of how much effort taking that hard look can really require. I did hear a mentor once suggest how important it can be to “Don’t just do something, stand there” to make sure the something we do matters when we do it.

Just like going fast in the wrong direction won’t get us to our desired destination, working hard and consistently on the wrong things isn’t very likely to help us achieve our desired results. That’s where the right thinking up front can help us become Lean & Mean… But that may be some of the hardest (and most important) consistent work we ever do! And remember what Thomas Edison about how few people are willing to think: “5% of the people think; 10% of the people think they think; and the other 85% would rather die than think!” When we’re willing to be in that 5% and apply that thinking to consistent action, the results should speak for themselves!