What Makes Lean Work

A few weeks ago, I keynoted the Shingo Prize conference in Dallas, Texas, with approximately 500 people in the audience. I asked them, "Raise your hand if your organization is implementing lean." Every hand went up. I then asked, "How many of your organizations are lean?" Not one hand was raised. Why are we all attempting to have lean organizations, but are unable to be like Toyota or like other top-tier Japanese companies? What are they doing that we are not doing? Fundamentally, they are both developing people and empowering them to solve problems.

A year ago, I visited, with a group, the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, and met Gary Convis, at the time the president of Toyota Georgetown in the United States. We asked him, "What do you expect from your workers?" "Only two things," he answered. "Come to work and pull the cord." "Pull the cord," means that whenever a worker detects a defect, or is faced with a problem that he or she has difficulty solving, while they are working, they are encouraged to stop the line. When they pull the cord, or press a button (yellow to alert of potential problem, red to stop the line), not only do they stop working, but their entire group stops working. Immediately, their team leader or supervisor runs over to help them solve the problem. This is a very powerful learning process for the worker and their supervision.

We might be implementing the lean tools but are not empowering and developing people like Toyota does.

Very few U.S. companies have all of their employees solving problems collectively through quality circle teams, self-directed work teams, or individually through quick and easy kaizen. We want to reduce costs, and improve productivity and quality, but are reluctant to invest in people to achieve those goals. Top management must re-examine and study Toyota more carefully to complete. Toyota has two pillars for their success: JIT (Lean) and "Respect for People." We know how to do the first part very well but we are unable to do the second. We must really begin to understand that people are our most important asset. We must begin to invest in people to become problem solvers. There is no other choice