Lean "replacing" Quality/ISO - A System vs. A Tool

[psyched1]

I have been gone a while and jumping back into the fire.

IMHO: A more fruitful discussion would be the use of the methodolgies of lean and SS and how they can be dovetailed into a successful process/quality management system similar to ISO 9000.

A couple of quick examples:

The use of Gemba walks as an auditing tool. If used properly this can be the most powerful tool for a QM. (It packs a lot of punch getting the management on the floor auditing)

LPMS boards as measurement tools of processes. (When you get this to the employee level at each process you will blow the doors off your KPI's)

5Y process for corrective actions driven down to the operators.

Isn't standardized work the same as a work instructions

Having been in companies who both understood and failed to apply lean tools successfully, I would not go back to war (work) without these four processes.

PS: Currently working on a TWI (TRaining Within The Industry) project and will enjoy comments from others using this strategy.

 

[Bev D]

To Steve Prevette's point concerning fads: I would say that management executes TQM, Lean, Six Sigma, etc in a fad like manner, just like a crash diet. TQM, Lean Six Sigma, Deming, ISO and it's derivatives, they all work. It is management's lack of focus and committment that make their execution look like a fad.

as far as Lean being a system: when I was at Honda, we didn't have ISO. we didn't need it. We appproached Lean liek the system that it was intended to be. (OK it was really Honda's version of Toyotat Production System)

Toyota can't be seen as looking at TPS as a fad. true some of their factories have slipped as they expanded but since it is a system, Toyaota has and will no doubt continue to self correct. (they do embody Deming's "consistancy of purpose)

I would love it if TPS replaced ISO, but I doubt that it will in any large scale way. Most management doesn't stomach for maintaing consistancy adn true understanding so they would want auditors at their suppliers and for themselves...and then we're back into the same "problem" we have with ISO...

 

[Jen Kirley]

Ok thank you i understand now.

Can you considered Lean or Six Sigma as continual improvement? If so, it compliments to a certain area on ISO 9001 clause 8. Going back to the original topic, I would say that it is not replacing ISO standards. It is enhancing processes to achieve optimal results. Otherwise, multiple practices overlap each other.

Lean and Six Sigma are not continual improvement unless they are used incrementally and repeatedly to bring a process to its maximum efficiency. Continuous Improvement is explained pretty well here.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Lean and Six Sigma are not continual improvement unless they are used incrementally and repeatedly to bring a process to its maximum efficiency. Continuous Improvement is explained pretty well here.

Continualous improvement should be the product of those things, or at least they should be used to facilitate CI. As far as the Wikipedia article is concerned, this bit sounds like bot language:

• The core principle of CIP is the (self) reflection of processes. (Feedback)
• The purpose of CIP is the identification, reduction and elimination of suboptimal processes. (Efficiency)
• The emphasis of CIP is on incremental, continuous steps, avoiding quantum leaps. (Evolution)

What is "(self) reflection of processes"? The purpose of CIP is the "reduction and elimination of suboptimal processes"?? You're supposed to eliminate processes rather than improve them? Why shouldn't you take a "quantum leap" if it's possible? It seems like the author is suggesting that improvements that happen quickly don't count. It's all very simple:

1. Review processes
2. Improve them if it's possible
3. Go to #1

Replace "processes" with "products" and do that too.

 

[Jen Kirley]

I agree the Wikipedia definition isn't perfect, which is why I said it explained the subject pretty well. And I agree that continuous improvement is the outcome, but as a program or process it can be defined and used to carry out these things toward the outcome.

In a general sense, what makes it different than 6S and Lean is that CI wants continuous measurements for effectiveness, whereas in 6S the project has a definite beginning and end. A Lean project would too.

I don't want to make things more complex than needed, so I'll stop there.

 

[Polly Pure Bread]

I agree the Wikipedia definition isn't perfect, which is why I said it explained the subject pretty well. And I agree that continuous improvement is the outcome, but as a program or process it can be defined and used to carry out these things toward the outcome.

In a general sense, what makes it different than 6S and Lean is that CI wants continuous measurements for effectiveness, whereas in 6S the project has a definite beginning and end. A Lean project would too.

I don't want to make things more complex than needed, so I'll stop there.

Hi Ms Jennifer,

I always admire your sincere and brilliant ideas. You always point us to the right direction. Thank you so much. We can always count on you to get things better.

Also, thanks to Jim Wayne a.k.a. the father of positive RCA for filing away the rough spots and, of course, to other helpers, who stimulated the discussion. thank you.

 

[sixsigmais]

Re: Lean "replacing" Quality/ISO

No, lean isself is just a tools, not the system. It helps to save cost by eliminating waste but it i nothing about management system. It is good to implement on your company but it will never replace ISO system

 

[Bev D]

Re: Lean "replacing" Quality/ISO

No, lean isself is just a tools, not the system. It helps to save cost by eliminating waste but it i nothing about management system. It is good to implement on your company but it will never replace ISO system

Ah but there is the rub! Lean IS a system, not just a collection of tools. hence the name Toyota Production System.

In fact it has much more value to an organization when applied as a system then when applying the 'tools' in an ad hoc or non systemic manner. this is where many companies fail to realize the full benefit of Lean/TPS: it is in their execution.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Re: Lean "replacing" Quality/ISO

Ah but there is the rub! Lean IS a system, not just a collection of tools. hence the name Toyota Production System.

I think "collection of tools" is more to the point than saying that Lean is a system, and your example of TPS supports the point. TPS is a way of doing business that includes Lean, but isn't defined by it. Any efficacious business system is comprised of different elements, and will always be greater than the sum of its parts.

 

[Bev D]

nice distinction. Unfortunately, Womack, et al, emasculated the Toyota Production System, resulting a collection of tools, when they wrote their book "The Machine That Changed the World" and created "Lean". Perhaps at the time they felt that Americans weren't capable of "handling the truth". Pity. TPS is a powerful system and is - as you say - much more than the sum of it's elements...