Professional Documents
Culture Documents
March, 2000
Telephone 503-235-0600 • Fax 503-235-0909 • Copyright © 2000 by Productivity, Inc.
A substantial lean conversion, one that gets to at least 80 takes so the anti-change folks will have plenty of shells to
percent of the possible gains, is a six- to 10-year journey. hurl. Basically, expect the second year to be pretty messy
Don’t be discouraged by the long time, the longer the better. and confrontational.
Once you get the conversion effort moving, it will grind out If you surveyed employees now, the consensus reply
improvements year after year. You’ll want it to go on forever. would be, The jury is still out. Some people would say the
Typically, the magnitude of the gains you make with lean progress looks pretty good; others would be very negative.
will revolutionize the position of your company in its indus-
try. If you are the first to convert successfully, you will prob- Year Three: The Gains Appreciate
ably take over the leadership position before anyone else The third year is a building year. The people who are doing
realizes what’s happening. If the competition starts imple- the implementation are getting better. More and more their
menting lean, they must play catch up. Whatever lead you efforts advance the organization two steps forward without
open up, you should be able to maintain. taking a step back. They are getting more skilled at applying
the tools and principals of lean and TPM. Now, when they
Year One: Two Steps Forward, One Back go in to convert an area, they get higher quality results right
The conversion process is not an even and smooth ride. from the start. Their follow up is better, too.
Progress the first year is slow. Be prepared to take two steps By the end of this year, you will be 36 months into the
forward, one step back. conversion, so the compounding of accelerated inventory
The reason is simple: the people who are implementing turns, quality improvements, and increased productivity now
have never done it before. They are trying to understand show significant gains. It’s hard for somebody to say this
principles that they are not accustomed to using in their isn’t different than anything the organization has done in the
environments. Being well intentioned won’t help. They will past because the gains are now big enough to show up in the
make mistakes applying the principles and consequently, the financial statements and to customers. If you make it
tools. Only with experience will they be able to go into a through the third year, the anti-change forces won’t have
particular product line with a particular volume, and a par- much of a case.
ticular process and quickly and effectively apply the princi- If you surveyed employees now, the typical comment
ples of lean and TPM. During this stage you should have the would be, We’re making good progress.
help of an outside sensei or expert teacher. It’s the smart
thing to do. Year Four: Headed for Industry Leadership
Typically, you’ll find that some individual kaizen projects Assuming your conversion effort is aggressive and sus-
show great potential or deliver big improvements. But your tained, this is the year that change becomes the norm; the
follow-up won’t be as good as it should yet. The gains will change process starts to become institutionalized. People at
slip as people drift back to bad old habits. all levels will start kidding, We have our machines on cast-
In addition, not enough projects will be linked together in ers because we move them every week. But instead of feel-
a value stream to make an impact at the company level or ing threatened, they take pride in that ability.
even the plant level yet. The gains are emerging, but they are You’ll begin to get tremendous positive momentum in the
not big enough or broad enough in the plant or the company organization. Buy-in is nearly universal. There are still pock-
for people to say without a doubt, This stuff works. ets of opposition, but people, in general, are less afraid of
Naturally, there will be people who resist the the change now. Having been through several rounds of
change. Every time the team takes two steps forward and changes in the past years, they know that things were better
one backwards, they will highlight the step back. So there is after the changes. When new change comes along as the
typically a lot of dissension at this stage. next step, it is less threatening. They are learning how to live
in a world of more rapid change.
Year Two: Appreciating Gen. Custer’s Position From the fourth year on, the organization tends to make
In year two, the effort becomes very interesting, to put it it’s own good luck. It’s on a path to becoming a leader in its
mildly. This is typically when the anti-change forces, the industry. It has demonstrably shorter lead times, better on-
people who do not want to see the status quo altered, really time delivery, higher quality, increased productivity, and
assert themselves. higher profitability. I have found that it’s not uncommon to
The "anti’s" aren’t lying in the weeds any longer. They acquire customers from the positive buzz about you compa-
can’t. Their jobs are changing, and they are more worried. ny that begins to circulate through your markets.
The organization is in the second year of the conversion. Interestingly, this cycle holds true for administrative con-
Programs usually go away after a year. When they realize versions, too. For example, as you convert product develop-
this one isn’t, the anti-change people become more aggres- ment from batch-based departments handling design, draft-
sive about pointing out the shortcomings and mistakes that ing, testing, etc., you turn it into a different organization and
have been made. you’ll go through a similar four-year cycle. ➝
The change agents are still making normal learning mis-
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March, 2000
Telephone 503-235-0600 • Fax 503-235-0909 • Copyright © 2000 by Productivity, Inc.
Spring and Fall Conferences This years conference will make the critical lean-TPM con-
nection and spotlight the successful approaches to TPM in a
Offer Help With Lean and TPM variety of process and discrete industries. Different tracks
will offer content to the experiences TPM organization as
Hear advice about overcoming your implementation well as those starting the journey.
obstacles or taking the next step in your improvement effort Like last year, the conference also will feature the popular
at the upcoming crop of conferences. Conferences also pro- Plant Operations and Maintenance Show, highlighting top
vide good opportunities to visit plants in various stages of products that support TPM.
lean implementations and to network with industry profes- More organizations are realizing that they can’t become
sionals involved in the same change process you are engaged lean without successfully implementing a TPM initiative.
in. Here is an overview: Lean aims for the total elimination of waste and TPM gives
them the strategy and tactics to completely eliminate all
What: 11th Annual Total Producti ve Maintenance losses created by equipment. These losses include the waste
Conference and Exposition from failures, adjustments, and defects to name a few.
When: September 19-22 Eliminating these losses will be the subjects of more
Where: Dallas, Texas than 40 concurrent sessions, keynote addresses, leadership
Sponsor: Productivity Inc . forums, pre-conference seminars, workshops, and a plant
Information: 800 394-6868 or www.productivityinc.com tour. The content is being designed based on extensive sur
continued on p.10