Tag Archives: Shingo

IoT, Industry 4.0 & 21st Century Lean

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Just two days to go before our 16th Annual Northeast L.E.A.N. Conference, an opportunity for all of us to put aside the tactical realities of Covid-19 and think more strategically about the future of society.  Our theme this year, 21st Century Lean, deals with the humanistic application of technology, in particular information technology, in the coming decades.  Concepts like the Internet of Things (IoT, coined in 1999) and Industry 4.0 (first referenced in 2011) are rapidly moving to center stage.  The goals of each are laudable:

  • IoT is the network of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and perhaps even humans -embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity- that enable these to collect and exchange data.  This capability could support a worldwide Utopia of sharing, innovation and best use of scarce resources; but it could also support a dystopic world such as that painted in George Orwell’s 1984.  When Orwell’s book was published in 1949, IoT was entirely science fiction.  Today it’s approaching science fact, making the questions he raised 70 years ago urgent.
  • Industry 4.0 is more narrowly defined as a network of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity- that enable these objects to collect and exchange data. The expressed goal here is to accommodate an anticipated shortage of human workers in the coming decades. Population studies suggest rapid population growth for the remainder of this century to perhaps 10 billion people, but thereafter a sharp decline.  And in some more industrialized countries, a shortage of labor already exists.  As with IoT, the impact of Industry 4.0 may be viewed as yet another advancement in productivity and quality; and like IoT, it’s knocking on our doorsteps.  It’s no longer science fiction as noted in a 1964 episode of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone.  Here is a link to a 90 second clip, from “The Brain Center at Whipple’s,” but for those of you with Netflix, I recommend the full 30-minute version. 

So where does Lean fit into these strategies?  Must we adapt some of the thinking to new technology?  A client of mine, for example, once asked “If Mr. Shingo were alive today, with all of the automation we have, would he have invented mistake-proofing?”   Or are the principles and concepts of Lean more important than ever before to help us reign in our impulses; to aim for, as my teacher, Hajime Oba once said “what we should do, not what we can do.”   In 2003, speaking at SME’s Eastec Exhibit in Springfield, Mass, Mr. Oba was asked, “Why do American manufacturers get so little benefit from TPS?”  Mr. Oba responded without hesitation, “First, management does not understand TPS and second they are focused only on quarterly earnings.”   Did Mr. Oba have Mr. Whipple in mind?

Here is my 10th and final Lean Peeve before the conference: short-term thinking.  It’s not too late to invest in a little strategic thinking about this critical and now urgent idea of harmonizing the best of Lean Transformation and Digital Transformation.  Take a couple days to stop worrying about what’s going to happen the next month. Give yourself a break, and join our discussion about where our world is headed for next century.  Hope to see you at the conference.

O.L.D.

Pole Vaulting 4.0

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One summer when I was a kid, my friend Rick and I built a pole vault set-up in my postage- stamp- sized backyard with a plant box (the place where you plant the pole as you begin your vault) and a couple uprights to hold the crossbar.  We used bamboo poles acquired from a local carpet store for both the crossbar and the pole vault pole.  The pit consisted of a couple old pillows – good enough for 12-year-old beginners.  Over the months of July and August we wore out a path in the grass and the skin on our elbows as we tried and failed to clear the bar.    To try this event is to appreciate the number of things that have to go right simultaneously. Our only source of information was a chapter from a book on track and field events. But by summer’s end, bruises and all, we were both able to clear a height of six feet.

As Rick and I entered junior high school, we joined the track team to continue our trek to greater heights.  Our backyard skills transferred fairly well, but now there was new technology.  An eight-foot bamboo pole was replaced by a twelve-foot aluminum version, enabling a higher vault, but also requiring significantly more speed on approach.  With a singleness of purpose, we trained every spring day, and by season’s end we were both able to manage the longer, heavier pole and hoist ourselves to a lofty elevation of nine feet. 

Time marched on as Rick and I honed our skills, but with little technology change. Over the next six years, the sawdust pit was replaced with an air-cushion landing area, a nice safety feature that did nothing to increase the height of our vaults.  And while new technology in the form of fiberglass poles was beginning to replace aluminum, the skills to capitalize on the new material were conceptually very different and even counter-intuitive. The idea of “bending the pole” to gain greater height was very new and not well understood.  In the absence of this new information, fiberglass poles behaved much the same as their aluminum counterparts, providing little height advantage.  Rick and I both maxed out our pole-vaulting careers just under twelve feet in our senior year of high school.  

So, what does this story have to do with Lean and continuous improvement?  Several things:

First, Rick and I became practiced with a method that required revision as technology changed. The method we learned well as kids ultimately bounded our development. In the words of improvement expert Tomo Sugiyama, in The Improvement Book, practice makes permanent, not perfect.  Or paraphrasing Deming Prize winner Ryuji Fukuda from Managerial Engineering, Before you practice, first be sure you are learning from a good teacher.  Practicing a bad golf swing does not improve it.   

Second, having new technology and benefiting from it are two different things. In 1965, my friend Rick and I had the physical technology in our hands, but the information component necessary for human benefit was not yet available.  As Stan Davis notes in Future Perfect (1987), information is the new currency. First to coin the terms “information society” and “mass customization,” Davis augured the impact of what is now dubbed IoT, the Internet of Things.  Today, for example, thanks to multi-sensory technology, bio-mechanics, high-speed digital video and analytics, the physics of pole vaulting is informed like never before.  The result?  The current world record for pole vault is over 20 feet.  Unfortunately, like Rick and me, too many organizations spend millions for new technology, but then skimp on training employees how to use it.  Perhaps this is because the technology is an “investment,” but training is an “expense.” 

Finally, Pole vaulting is a human endeavor that has been around for thousands of years, slowly advancing from oak sticks to bamboo to tapered aluminum to fiberglass and carbon fiber, each technical change meeting first with objections (fiberglass poles were actually banned from the 1972 Olympics), and then through gradual learning and acceptance propelling athletes to new heights.  Owing to the science now behind it, perhaps we can call it Pole Vaulting 4.0; not really a revolution but more a continuous evolution supporting human endeavor.  So, why not take it to another level:  Replace the athletes with robots.  We could. But should we?  This consideration is, for me, the most worrisome.  Harkening back to my backyard, where Rick and I first learned to fly, I wonder about the implications for human development. What do you think? 

(By the way, current pole vault world record holder, Armand Duplantis, also began his reach for the sky as kid in his back yard!  Have a look at the joy of human endeavor: Twenty feet and climbing.)

O.L.D.                                                                                             

Hey O.L.D. Readers:   Industry 4.0 and IoT are central in the discussion at our upcoming 16th Annual Northeast LEAN Conference.  The theme, 21st Century Lean will deal with many of the ideas from this post. How can Lean thinking inform IoT?  Must we adapt Lean thinking to harmonize with Industry 4.0?  And thanks to the Internet of Things, you can join in from anywhere this year as we have pivoted to virtual for safety during Covid-19.   Please join Lean legend Jim Womack and Industry 4.0 experts, Fady Saad and John Carrier along with ten more Lean/IoT thought-leaders. Registration is super-affordable and you get to sleep in your own bed.  More information and registration here:  https://bit.ly/2ZKmo5t

Is Lean the Dark Side of TPS?

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I opened a fortune cookie yesterday, which read:

“Understanding little is better than misunderstanding a lot.”   Seems to me that we Lean wannabes misunderstand a lot – maybe not everyone, but I regretfully include myself in misunderstanding-a-lot group.   There is so much to know about the Toyota Production System that one lifetime of study and trial and error is not enough for most of us.  I wonder sometimes if Lean has become the abridged version of TPS, structured as a tack-on to existing policy and practice.

 Key concepts like Kaizen, for example, are reduced to buzzwords, and means are confused with ends (a concern voiced by Shigeo Shingo four decades ago.)  After forty years of kaizening, most organizations I visit are still counting the number of events to evaluate their Lean Transformations. 

 In many cases the tools that are supposed to engage employees as agents of change, treat them instead as objects of change.  One company I worked with a couple of years ago stipulated in my contract that I could never use the word Kaizen in the presence of employees as their previous experience with it had been so unpleasant.  “We call it the BOHICA method,” one employee related to me.  [You’ll have to translate the acronym for yourself.] How can such a wonderful concept that should be developing employees become so infuriating to them?  In the name of Continuous Flow, his company had mashed together a sequence of once distant individual operations that did indeed reduce lot and process delay for the part, but at the same time created an unsafe condition for the operators. “My hands are in and out of caustic chemicals all day long in this new set-up” the operator related.  “They tell me to wear gloves, but I can’t manage the detail part of the work wearing gloves, so I have to put them on and remove them every five minutes. It’s impossible to keep the chemicals off of my hands.”   (The manager of this factory expressed frustration that shop employees were ‘not engaged.’  Small wonder.)

 Checkbox-type diagnostics based upon cursory observation of presence or absence of specific tools have also become commonplace: 

  • See kanban signage?  Check P. But the factory is scheduled by MRP.  
  • Are tools and materials in set locations?  Check P.  Are those the right locations for the persons who use them?  Who knows?
  • Are Andon lights in place?  Check P.  Are they ever used?  No. 

Factory managers, unfortunately are graded often more on appearance than reality.  Checkbox audits are tied to compensation.   

In the name of visual control, factory and office wall space is wallpapered with slick graphics and slogans.  Automated production boards provide “real-time” data (a topic for a future post), but for whom?  These trappings look good for customer tours, but they are often irrelevant to the people who do the work.  

Altogether, many so-called Lean Transformations are bodies without souls represented by physical and procedural changes that lack the “know-why.”   They parrot the language of TPS in the name of customer value, but they lack a conceptual foundation, especially ‘respect for people.’  They seek improvement, but only as ancillary programs without a guiding compass.  (Our upcoming 2013 Northeast Region Shingo Conference, True North, to be held in Hyannis, Mass., September 24-25, takes up this critical topic.) 

 Is your Lean journey guided by the Force (True North) or are you in danger of falling to the Dark Side?  Is Lean like the Dark Side at your company or is it close to true TPS?  Share a thought. 

 O.L.D. 

 BTW: My next free webinar, “Tea Time with the Toast Dude”, entitled Management Kaizen (click to sign up) is coming up next Tuesday, August 13 at 3:00 p.m.   One lucky participant will win a free registration to our fall conference.   Hope you can join me.