| Dec.2008
Dear friends:
On the eve of the New Year, I would like to send our best wishes to you and your family for a healthy and peaceful year of 2009. For lean practitioners, we wish you all the success in your lean journey.
2008 has been a good year for LEC! We made significant breakthroughs in our consulting work and the Lean Summit, with moderate progress in book sales and training services. Although we have continuously made progress, there is still much room for improvement. We hope we can count on your support, especially your improvement suggestions.
The 4th quarter North American business climate is under an unpredictable wave of ups and downs in almost all industries. The unprecedented crisis on Wall Street and the potential bankruptcy of the American automotive companies made the situation worse. Since we live in a global economy, China’s manufacturing companies for export businesses have been severely impacted, with many losing 40-50% of their business during the 2nd half of 2008, which forced many companies to shut down. This is a widespread crisis, and the issue of survival is a subject for many companies.
As you know, the Chinese word “crisis” means danger as well as opportunities. Toyota in the 1950s is a good example of turning danger into opportunities. By that time, Toyota was in so much danger its management had to lay off many workers and closed its operations to keep surviving. But Toyota did not stop there. It took the opportunity to develop and implement the basics of 5S, standardized work, and continuous improvement, laying down the foundation for today’s success. Companies on their lean journeys should learn lessons from Toyota’s experience and grab the opportunity of a crisis and motivate workers to come up with improvement plans to help their company become more competitive.
One may ask that “If a company is close to failure, what can the employees do?” That is a very good question. It is my understanding that a company is run by a top manager and it is his or her responsibility to resolve issues such as cash flow or looking for additional purchase orders While the manager is focusing on problem solving, other employees in manufacturing, engineering, maintenance, and supply management can take immediate actions to review current work processes, identify waste, and make improvements to improve quality and productivity.
For example：1）Manufacturing line workers can identify unused equipments and materials, clean the area, and apply basic maintenance；2) Maintenance teams can analyze data on machine availability to find problems, solutions, and develop appropriate TPM action plans；3）Floor managers and line supervisors can lead first line workers to examine production processes for opportunities to improve efficiency and to encourage employee suggestions; 4）Manufacturing managers can review current product quality and on-time shipping data and challenge all workers to improve their own processes by 10%；5）Product Development teams should study the lessons from books such as “Toyota Lean Product Development System” and try to find ways to shorten lead time and eliminate non value-added processes; 6）Purchasing departments can visit major suppliers and take a Gemba walk and to share lean experience and help suppliers implement lean implementation .
The above are a few examples that came to my mind; I believe you have many more ideas that I encourage you to share with us. While many others worry about the unpredictable market, I hope our lean friends will grab the opportunities and take actions to improve work areas to eliminate waste and make contributions toward competitiveness. As long as your purpose is to enhance company effectiveness, you should try it out yourselves and don’t need to wait for orders from the management team. A Chinese proverb says: “Don’t mind how small the improvement is, each drop counts.” It is the lean spirit that each employee can make small contributions every day, yielding remarkable results!
Marcus Chao
President, Lean Enterprise China
2008-12-19 at Michigan
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