Request time again guys and gals. I have been asked to write an article about developments in the automotive sector and was planning to base it on the effect of TS implementation in companies using lean techniques.

Anyone have any examples they think could make good copy? Usual promises about recognition ....

:thanx: in advance

Paul, help me (us?) out here. Are you looking for integration of Lean with TS or how Lean fits into TS?

I have seen a company who is implementing TS and the Lean applications were distinctly different part of the operations. There was no integration, which was wild! One aspect I'm particularly interested in sharing is that often internal auditors 'walk past' situations which, if they knew 'Lean', they would have made an issue of, through the use of the quality management system.

So, what would you like to hear about?

Andy

Thanks, Andy. The article is about developments in the Automotive Industry and I have chosen to do it on how organizations are integrating the Lean tools and techniques in with their TS registration / system.

The example you gave of auditors walking by is a good one of how NOT to do it. A mixture of good and bad practice would be great.

I suppose the limited response to this thread is because I've managed to tee off a whole load of covers over the years .... ah well, should I change?

Naaaah!

Just a quick update. I spoke to one company and they said they keep TS in a pigeonhole, the senior management aren't interested and that the real effort goes into lean. They only keep the badge because they have to.

Brave new world! :bonk:

Paul, I seriously doubt that it has anything to do with you. I very much enjoy your input in the Cove. I personally don't know squat about TS...my involvement with automotive was in the QS days.

Paul-

Same here, I left automotive about six months before the company I worked for made the transition from QS to TS, so I was only in on the early stages and that was over 4 years ago. Wish I could help!

-John

And I just didn't get around to responding..........:notme:

Well, my experience is that in general terms Lean and TS are seen as seperate. Often, the people involved or who lead the Lean work, see TS as something only western automotives do, but because Lean is TPS based, and they don't see Toyota pursuing TS, it's not worth much!

I was coaching an internal audit group in a manufacturing shop. We were looking at an assembly process where there had previously been no audit findings, everyone was 'following instructions'. However, re-visiting the situation with 'Lean Eyes' revealed that the first operation (pressing a bearing bush) took several hits to complete - the press didn't complete it's stoke every time.

The following assembly stations showed an unbalanced line with two first assemblers feeding a single assembler tightening screws, who was over- whelmed by the amount of work being fed to her. The yield off the process was low, many failed test, but they could catch the issue since the assemblies needed a simple rework, which was fed back up the line to an earlier station to 'tweak'.

It was a train wreck in process, but no internal auditor had found the problems.......

Similarly, I've seen where the results of a Kaizen improvement team made a substantial change in cycle time (like an SMED). One night the maintenance supervisor gets a call, because the power washer is broken down. He knows nothing of any power washer and thinks it's a prank call. The caller (from the 3rd shift) starts to get frantic, since they won't make schedule that shift and begins to threaten the maintenance guy. On review, it turns out the improvement team had bought and installed the power washer, even wrote a WI on its use, but never got it into the key equipment maintenance process.........

I hope these experiences are what you were asking about.......

Andy

Thanks everyone for your kind replies and to Andy for some more real life examples - can I use them?

As with a lot of my posts my comments were half in jest .... I'm not really feeling isolated, honest!
:nopity:

Hi Paul.

I think most people would like to respond to your request but, like me, don't know where to start.

You're just down the road from here so, if it would help, feel free to pop in for a couple of hours and see what's happening in this place.

Let me know if you're interested and I'll give you a call.

Thanks everyone for your kind replies and to Andy for some more real life examples - can I use them?
:nopity:
:thanks:
No problem, Paul, feel free!
Andy

The jury is still out but it's not looking good for the integrators.

Thanks to all for the feedback and especially to tyker for taking the time to show me round the plant.

A couple of snippets (from my limited sample):

- Most organizations do not make a strategic move to integrate QMS (to TS) and their lean programmes. At best they evolve closer over time and sometimes they are deliberately kept apart
- Most TS organization have it as a licence to trade and will do what they have to to keep the badge
- Audits to TS are variable and from country to country there are horrendous differences / flouting of the IATF rules

Confidentiality prevents me from naming any names here. I'd appreciate any feedback or further examples.

Paul:
I remember a situation where a company had started out on a major implementation of 'standardized work'. This involved just about every level of management and supervision, in addition to the floor personnel, defining their regular, 'must do' work, for each day, week, month and year. Examples included the preparation of budgets (yearly), the reporting of expenses (weekly), the 'OJT' evaluations, (monthly) etc. etc.

By doing this, the organization had quickly identified a lot of non-value added activities and, therefore, waste. It was truely amazing (to me) to see what a simple exercise like this could do to free up peoples' time and focus on elimination of waste, by looking at what we do, regularly, to 'work around' processes which are broken.

This 'standardized work' was never considered as part of the qms. None of the documented procedures and work instructions reflected these value-added activities and the lists (and checklists) of each persons standard work, was never considered during internal audits, even though management were pretty rigorous about following it.

My belief is that the whole concept of having documented procedures, processes and 'criteria and methods' (defined in section 4.0 of ISO 9001:2000) could be very well met by the identification of 'standard work'. Such an approach could move an organization past simply 'complying' with the qms to making it a very effective and efficient system of robust, capable and in-control processes........

Andy

Just to keep covers in the loop. Please find attached the draft of an article for the CQI. I believe there will be changes (pulling some information about the poor certification process) but this is what I wanted.

Although my article is in Quality World it isn't up on the web site. This article by Paul Hardiman is, though. Click here. (http://www.thecqi.org/qualityworld/soapbox.shtml) It covers similar areas.

Just in case you were interested. Here is a link to the CQI forum where I posted my TS article. Here (http://forum.thecqi.org/forum/?f=31&m=1008) is the CQI forum discussing another article in the same edition of Qualityworld talking about Lean and I have responded.

If you have a look around the Forum our old friend Jim Wade is active. I have disbarred myself because the moderation of the forum leaves a lot to be desired!

Can anyone believe I upset someone there? :lmao:

Hello Paul:

That was an interesting tirade by Mr. Brinklow.:notme:

I, for one, am a huge advocate of Lean, but not the way in which most folks go about it. Clearly it works, since Toyota continue to 'kick butt' with their relentless focus on waste reduction and improvements. Most of the companies I deal with cannot relate the ISO/TS 16949 requirements to the Lean Tools, and, as a result, their QMS and Lean Initiatives are fundamentally different worlds, with different resources, budgets, timelines etc.

Maybe what's needed is a good book to be written which shows how the two compliment each other........

Just in case you were interested. Here is a link to the CQI forum where I posted my TS article. Here (http://forum.thecqi.org/forum/?f=31&m=1008) is the CQI forum discussing another article in the same edition of Qualityworld talking about Lean and I have responded.

If you have a look around the Forum our old friend Jim Wade is active. I have disbarred myself because the moderation of the forum leaves a lot to be desired!

Can anyone believe I upset someone there? :lmao:

Paul
Thanks for the link to the CQI thread.
I posted my response to Paul Hardiman's article on that site because I thought it would elicit more response from the CQI members. The forum is hardly a dynamic one and I'd stopped checking for replies after it was ignored for so long. It is difficult to believe you upset someone there as they all appear to be hibernating.

My post on that site asked if others were getting much attention to their lean programmes from their external TS 16949 auditors. Perhaps a Cover or two might care to respond.

Sorry, Tyker - I forgot to give you the credit for starting the thread. It is a good point that TS does not "require" lean - probably because you can't really define it well enough to make it auditable. Nevertheless there are opportunities to get auditors better versed in what lean is and for companies to integrate lean with ISO TS.

When working at Jaguar they integrated all their lean activities into their QMS and audited it using trained auditors (in their version of lean - the Ford Production System).

It is a good point that TS does not "require" lean - probably because you can't really define it well enough to make it auditable. Nevertheless there are opportunities to get auditors better versed in what lean is and for companies to integrate lean with ISO TS.

When working at Jaguar they integrated all their lean activities into their QMS and audited it using trained auditors (in their version of lean - the Ford Production System).

Wow, that's a nice twist, teaching auditors what 'lean' is! But I have to take issue Paul. Surely, Lean is well defined and it can be audited. I think what you're saying is that to move many CB auditors to recognize it would be difficult...........;)

Andy

Paul
Thanks for the link to the CQI thread.
I posted my response to Paul Hardiman's article on that site because I thought it would elicit more response from the CQI members. The forum is hardly a dynamic one and I'd stopped checking for replies after it was ignored for so long. It is difficult to believe you upset someone there as they all appear to be hibernating.

My post on that site asked if others were getting much attention to their lean programmes from their external TS 16949 auditors. Perhaps a Cover or two might care to respond.

Many of my TS clients have active Lean Programs. I interface with it to the degree that it is intergated with their Continual Improvement process, but I don't dig deep. It is somewhat at the edge of the TS scope, except that they integrated it.

I see a lot of good stuff, however. Lean fits very well into a good TS system.

Hello Paul:

That was an interesting tirade by Mr. Brinklow.:notme:

I, for one, am a huge advocate of Lean, but not the way in which most folks go about it. Clearly it works, since Toyota continue to 'kick butt' with their relentless focus on waste reduction and improvements. Most of the companies I deal with cannot relate the ISO/TS 16949 requirements to the Lean Tools, and, as a result, their QMS and Lean Initiatives are fundamentally different worlds, with different resources, budgets, timelines etc.

Maybe what's needed is a good book to be written which shows how the two compliment each other........


I think if the TS folks would learn about Lean, and the Lean folks would learn about TS...my, but it would be a magically, beautiful world...:agree1:

Paul:
I remember a situation where a company had started out on a major implementation of 'standardized work'. This involved just about every level of management and supervision, in addition to the floor personnel, defining their regular, 'must do' work, for each day, week, month and year. Examples included the preparation of budgets (yearly), the reporting of expenses (weekly), the 'OJT' evaluations, (monthly) etc. etc.

By doing this, the organization had quickly identified a lot of non-value added activities and, therefore, waste. It was truely amazing (to me) to see what a simple exercise like this could do to free up peoples' time and focus on elimination of waste, by looking at what we do, regularly, to 'work around' processes which are broken.

This 'standardized work' was never considered as part of the qms. None of the documented procedures and work instructions reflected these value-added activities and the lists (and checklists) of each persons standard work, was never considered during internal audits, even though management were pretty rigorous about following it.

My belief is that the whole concept of having documented procedures, processes and 'criteria and methods' (defined in section 4.0 of ISO 9001:2000) could be very well met by the identification of 'standard work'. Such an approach could move an organization past simply 'complying' with the qms to making it a very effective and efficient system of robust, capable and in-control processes........

Andy


I agree. I have often said that ISO/TS is the toolbox, and the additional drawers are Lean, 5S, Six Sigma, etc., etc. This should all be tied together for maximum effect.

Wow, that's a nice twist, teaching auditors what 'lean' is! But I have to take issue Paul. Surely, Lean is well defined and it can be audited. I think what you're saying is that to move many CB auditors to recognize it would be difficult...........;)

Andy

Thanks for coming back Andy. The problem with auditing Lean IMHO is that there isn't a "standard" way for operating a Lean manufacturing system. So there isn't an ISO 9001 for Lean. :read:

Heaven knows what arguments you could get into with an auditor if there weren't a standard to audit against. :bonk:

You only have to look at the cove to see the level of disagreement over what is an internationally agreed standard! :argue:

Imagine what it would be like if it was the auditor's opinion against the company's. :mg:

Enough emoticons.

From where I sit as a contractor I see good and bad practices, mainly bad.

TS or any other QMS is seen as a badge on the wall and that's it Lean, 6Sigma etc are often seen as tools to get a job done.

Take where I am at the moment, no names no pack drill. We have a Quality Systems Manager who only looks at the paper system, a Product Assurance Team that only look at the manufactured parts and hide most of what is wrong and whn you come in to introduce quality into design they shout why can't we do that. But I digress.

The vast majority of managment and Quality depts separate the two practices but if you look at them, in my view correctly, they should be interdependant so long as the QMS audit team understand what lean is all about. The problem as I illustrated is compartmentalisum and made even worse by the use of corporate QMS templates and dictates from on high - again no name no pack drill.

I will admit to having put systems in place in my time (hangs head in shame) and now look at ways of working smarter not harder and then let the system guys catch up with what I have set in place. The nornal comments of "you can't do that as it is not in our manual" well so what change the manual.

OK looks like I am off on one again:mad: