You add value when you convert raw materials to finished goods. You add value from your knowledge and skill. The opposite is adding waste. Ohno wanted you to just observe and look for waste to eliminate but it is not easy to identify waste. Ohno didn’t always know where waste was hidden. He often went… Continue reading The real key is adding value
I was with Taiichi Ohno at Toyota Gosei and Mr. Iwata his assistant came over to me and said, “I am leaving Toyota Gosei and want to come to America to teach, would you help me?” I said, yes. I arranged with Jake Brake, a Danaher company, to run the first kaizen blitz in America.… Continue reading How to do Lean – the kaizen blitz
In the 1800’s, I believe that most men were highly skilled craftsmen or farmers and along comes Frederick Taylor and Henry Ford. They simplified work. Set up the assembly line, and gave people repetitive and boring work. But, Ford Motor became the most successful and one of the richest companies in the world. Almost all… Continue reading A Great Lean Waste – the under-utilization of people’s talents
Ohno once said, “At Toyota we have no warehouses.” Toyota wants Just-in-time. You deliver what is needed when it is needed in the quantity needed. Ohno once said that it is better for the entire factory to stop when there are external problems than to have any inventory – buffer stock. Yes, the virus has… Continue reading Inventory is a waste. To Taiichi Ohno inventory was the biggest waste.
How do you eliminate defects? 1. First visualize that you can reach zero defects. Believe in it. 2. Plan five steps to attain zero defects. 3. Never punish people for their mistakes. Let them learn from their mistakes. Encourage them, support them and praise them. Set up a mistake board where people can show their… Continue reading How to do Lean – defects
Taichi Ohno’s mind was triggered when he saw an America supermarket where the store shelves had very little inventory of each item and when the item was removed by the shopper, the store clerk very quickly replaced the inventory. He recognized that this was possible at Toyota. He knew that inventory was a terrible waste:… Continue reading How to make Lean work! – Inventory
Of course, many of you have had great success with your Lean efforts but according to a survey with 10,000 people only 1.5% have been able to sustain their efforts after 10 years; Toyota has been doing it for over 70 years. First, what is the purpose of Lean? “In short, Lean methodology is a way of… Continue reading How to make Lean work!
In 1991, I published a book titled, “40 Years, 20 Million Ideas – The Toyota Suggestion System by Yuzo Yasuda. In 1986, Toyota received 47.7 suggestions per employee with a 96% adoption rate and 95% of their employees participated saving millions of dollars and getting people more excited and motivated about their work. In America,… Continue reading Kaizen – Continuous Improvement
