The Lean Book of Lean: A Concise Guide to Lean Management for Life and Business

271 Pages·2016·1.44 MB·English

The Lean Book
of Lean
The Lean Book
of Lean
A Concise Guide to Lean
Management for Life
and Business
John A. A. Earley
This edition frst published 2016
© 2016 John Earley
Registered offce
John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19
8SQ, United Kingdom
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ISBN 978-1-119-09619-1 (pbk) ISBN 978-1-119-09620-7 (ebk)
ISBN 978-1-119-09621-4 (ebk) ISBN 978-1-119-27170-3 (ebk)
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements xi
Preface xiii
1 Introduction to Lean 1
The defnition of Lean 1
Lean – the natural order of living 3
The shopping trip 3
2 The Core Lean Principles 7
Be customer demand-driven 8
Maximise fow 11
Identify and eliminate waste 13
Declare war on variation 16
Organise your people around outcomes you want 19
Equip your people with the right skills 21
Clear and simple measures and controls 22
Defning your “Ideal State” 24
In conclusion 25
3 More About Flow 27
Know your limitations (aka constraints) 28
Take good care of your constraint 31
Feed meeeeeee!!! 31
Keeping going 33
v
Contents
The Whack-a-Mole game of constraints 34
The dish of the day is . . . 35
And our latest offering is . . . 35
Entropy 36
Continuous improvement 36
And the moral of all this . . . 38
Some everyday examples of fow – or the lack of it! 38
Traffc lights vs. roundabouts 39
The DIY enthusiast 41
The airport check-in 44
In conclusion 46
4 Lean Enterprise vs. Lean Manufacturing 47
Planning vs. execution 48
Priorities and decisions 54
Supplier relationships 56
What can we now provide? 57
Getting the best deal 58
Support functions 59
Finance 60
Engineering 61
HR 62
In conclusion 62
5 Organising for Lean 65
Turning tradition upside down 65
Getting ahead in a PCO 70
The football team 73
Theory vs. reality 74
The unfortunate but inevitable consequences 75
In conclusion 76
6 Measuring the Right Stuff and Metrics 79
What’s important? 81
Individual performance vs. team outcomes 85
vi
Contents
The balanced scorecard 88
Controls 89
Decision trees 92
In conclusion 98
7 Lean vs. Six Sigma 99
Basis for change 100
Incremental vs. transformational 101
What comes frst, Lean or Six Sigma? 103
In conclusion 104
8 The Lean Mindset 107
It’s not just about what you know 107
Lean critical mass 108
Lean leadership 111
Discipline 113
Leadership vs. management 113
Knowing the difference between accountability and
responsibility 114
Consistency 114
Engagement 114
Asking the right questions 115
Process thinking 115
Transparency and visibility 116
Certifcation? 117
5S as a foundation for Lean 119
In conclusion 120
9 The Dreaded Business Case! 121
Business case, benefts case, case for action, best
guess, what? 121
The fnancial justifcation 122
The kick in the backside 124
The motivational speech 125
Is it worth talking about? 125
Getting management bought in 125
vii
Contents
Some business case bear traps 126
The devil’s in the detail 127
Fit for purpose 128
Where are the big fsh hiding? 130
The cherry picker 130
In conclusion 131
10 Keys to Success and Sustainability 133
Top reasons for failure 133
How to avoid them 136
Buy-in at all levels 136
Get the fundamentals in place 140
Working on the right stuff 141
Life doesn’t stand still 144
In conclusion 145
11 A Few Key Tools 147
Diagnostic tools 147
5 Whys 148
Value stream mapping 148
Root cause analysis 154
Voice of the Customer 158
Implementation tools 160
Standardisation 160
“IS–IS NOT” thinking 166
Good day vs. bad day 168
Kaizen Events 170
If you don’t have rhythm, you can’t dance! 175
How it works 176
In conclusion 181
12 A Few Words On Technology 183
What’s good, what’s not 184
Closing the gaps 185
In conclusion 190
viii