My email inbox was clogged again today with a meaningless lean debate. We do an awful lot of that in the manufacturing community. We argue over whether lean is better than Six Sigma; or whether TOC and lean are compatible; and whether MRP is dead or not. We even grovel in lesser detail than that. This particular issue that drove people to expound at great length was whether 5S includes safety, and, if not, should it be 6S. A silly endeavor - we can't even agree on what the five S's stand for.
We debate the nuances of the theory of constraints and how it plays into takt, and we insist on making sure that everyone who claims to be lean pass the acid test of knowing the terms for all seven forms of waste in Japanese. We argue about whether a particular fine point was originated by Shingo or someone else; and we form ourselves into snotty little cliques - you are either a Toyota person or a TOC person; either TOC or lean; MRP versus Toyota.
It is all enough to give anyone a headache. Let me explain something: You need to clean up the factory and get each work area organized into something that has a place for everything and that everything goes into that place. There needs to be a clearly established guide for how each job is to be done, what is supposed to come in and out of the work area, when and how. All of the superfluous junk needs to be pitched out. And everything about it has to be safe. Finally, it has to stay that way.
It does not matter how many S's it takes to do that - either in English or Japanese. It is the principle that matters - not the S's or the origin of the idea. Whether safety is part of 5S as defined by some guy in Japan is irrelevant - safety is a part of manufacturing.
For that matter, lean principles, the stuff Toyota does, constraints management and MRP are all part of manufacturing. There is no mutual exclusivity. One is not 'better' than another. Computers are neither good nor bad - they are simply machines
Each manufacturing operation is unique, and they all share some things in common. In the end, there are no absolutes. There is only good manufacturing and bad manufacturing. Any plant that chooses lean and excludes TOC, or vice versa, is not a good plant. And plant that drives itself with MRP to the exclusion of of Toyota's principles, or vice versa, is a bad plant. These are all sets of principles brought to life. What makes a good plant is management that understands the principles that drive all of these tools, and knows what to use and when, in order to optimize their particular operation.
Many of the arguments we have over these things are debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. An interesting philosophy question, I suppose, for those of you who happen to be interested in such deep matters, but totally irrelevant to good manufacturing.
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In a follow up to my previous post "Business Week and NAM - The Blind Leading The Blind" - the one where I pointed out the gaping hole in the Department of Commerce statistics concerning productivity - I have received a number of emails in which people have questioned how it could be that, if the productivity numbers include outsourced manufacturing production as U.S. productivity, how the GDP could be so high. To wit: we must be that productive in order to generate such a whopping GDP.
The answer is that the GDP includes most of the imported stuff that manufacturing has outsourced too. It is as overstated as the Productivity Indeces. This chart shows the GDP versus another index called Industrial Production calculated by the Federal Reserve. Note that Industrial Production and GDP ceased to correlate a couple of years ago.
The difference is that the IP number apparently tracks outsourcing a lot better. Note also that the IP picture of the economic boom is far from the rosy nonsense propogated by NAM, the outsourcers lobby.
The most commonly cited evidence of the absurd, optimistic error of the GDP numbers is the case of India a few years back. The GDP is supposed to take all of the stuff we made in the U.S. and subtract that portion of it we imported. The GDP number in 2002 includes the grand total of $209 million in imports from India. The top five Indian high tech service companies alone reported sales to North America of $2.4 billion - and that is before any manufactured goods imported from India are counted.
So what? Well, the economy is not really booming; American manufacturing jobs are not being lost because of extraordinary productivity gains; and offshore outsourcing is hammering the U.S. economy while the folks in Washington fiddle with bad data. The true numbers show a manufacturing economy that is being hollowed out by the outsourcers. By the way, I received pretty convincing evidence today that NAM knew full well that the grand 24% productivity numbers were bogus before they wrote the piece for Business Week.
Oh yeah, I hijacked this chart from Business Week, who apparently took it from the desk of someone at Goldman Sachs when they weren't looking. Thanks for the use of the chart, whoever it belongs to.
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On a much happier note, I want to make sure everyone knows about the great lean manufacturing success of a company in Wisconsin called Humane Manufacturing - Norm Bodek would love 'em for the name alone. Their manufacturing accomplishments are well worth reading about, and some of the credit should go to the fine folks at the Wisconsin MEP. Said Sam Miller of the MEP, ""They've reinvented themselves a number of times. They're a good example of a culture of innovation." "One reason for Humane's success is its systematic collection of ideas from every employee and constant analysis of the marketplace."
My reason for mentioning Humane, of all of the possible lean companies to shine the spotlight on, is the photo to the right. That is Keith Peterson, who owns the place. One of the weapons Humane deploys to be so successful is water jet technology, which is great stuff. It offers extraordinary opportunities for flexibility and waste elimination for any manufacturer with the financial moxy to appreciate it.
Like just about ever manufacturer who uses water jets, Peterson has some examples of the company's precision to show off. Most companies have complex geometric shapes, or maps of the U.S. with each of the states cut out to scale, or similar serious items - but not Keith. He is showing off a bunch of detailed cut outs of circus animals made on Humane's water jets.
Humane Manufacturing is not just in Wisconsin - it is in Baraboo, Wisconsin. Baraboo is the home of the Circus World Museum, and it is Ringling Brothers original wintering place. For a while it was the home of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Clown College.
It's in the water in Baraboo. You may think it odd to see a grown man proudly displaying the little elephants and giraffes he made with his state of the art, computer controlled manufacturing technology. I doubt that it ever occurred to Keith to make anything else with it.