Watch Out for the Toolheads
February 15th, 2005 by HalWhen talking about lean this and lean that, so much attention is given to the tools — 7 wastes, kanban, kaizen, kaikaku, SMED, etc. — rather than the tool users. John Seddon cautions us to Watch Out for the Toolheads. John makes his living helping service companies adopt lean practices. While the general idea of lean travels easily among many industries, the methods of lean production don't. John provides an approach that can make your service company lean. He calls it The Vanguard Method.
The purpose of lean is to increase capacity by designing a system that optimally responds to customer demand.
John does a wonderful job describing what it means to be lean and how production and services are different. He does not go into projects. However, you won't find a better primer on lean than John's article Watch Out for the Toolheads. This article is a keeper. He goes to great extent to describe what is lean and what is not lean.
I haven't read a more concise and informative document to introduce you to the basics of the lean approach. You'll learn about fail-safing, just-in-time, 5S (visual management), and the history of lean. Don't hesitate. Get your own copy now.
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April 13th, 2005 at 7:54 pm
Excellent point. Good post.