On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.


"Act your way to the thinking you want."  — John Shook

Lean management (and the leadership implicit within the role) plays an...

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Sometimes I see people chasing their tails when trying to troubleshoot a process. This usually (though not always) follows a complaint or rejection of some kind. A few years ago I posted Organize, Standardize, Stabilize, Optimize and talked in general terms about the sequence of thinking that gives reliable outcomes. This is a series of …

Continue reading "Troubleshooting by Defining Standards"

Many organizations have trouble sustaining Lean. Toyota is one of the few exceptions. According to Jeffrey Liker and Gary Convis in their book “The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership”, their secret is their leadership system.

Toyota provides a nurturing but challenging environment, to ensure that new Lean leaders are developed continuously. The leaders at Toyota break down a mentorship role into 4 categories.

Self-Development
Development of Others
Further Development of Others – Support Daily...

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Production lines have fluctuations. Sometimes production takes longer, sometimes shorter, than the average. This makes the line balancing tricky. Besides using a simple buffer between workstations, it is also possible to adjust capacity. Other approaches I have written about include the rabbit chase and the bucket brigade. Here I present a variation of the bucket … Continue reading One Up One Down – Approach to Manage Manual Production Lines→

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Building on Al's recent blog, why do we learn from more failure than success?

Seems to me, it's because failure illuminates more of the design space than success.

Supposing we're testing the structural integrity of say, a hard hat, by dropping a heavy weight on it.

If we test to the standard, (say 20 kg) and the hard hat remains intact, you've learned something about what sort of blow it can sustain.

But suppose we keep dropping heavier & heavier weights, and vary the angle of the blows - until the hard hat shatters.

Our analysis of the fragments, breakage pattern, of the slow motion video and so on, will teach us far more about the nature of hard hats.

That's why experienced labs & design teams test to failure.

A caveat, as Al suggests, is that we fail quick & fail often, (to minimize hassle & transaction cost.)

A second caveat: our failures are controlled & buffered so nobody gets hurt!

These same principles apply in strategy, product & process design and problem solving.


That's why we say 'problems are gold'.

We have to be comfortable, of course, with experimentation & ambiguity.

In my experience, the best leaders create a sense of free-wheeling energy & opportunity.

"Let's try some stuff -- and see what happens!"

"Holy cow, who would have thought...!?"

Best,

Pascal


In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Failure is a Requirement for Innovation
KAIZEN – Small Changes vs. Monster Projects
Is Inventory a waste or a cover-up of deeper waste?
7 Basic Quality Tools – Are they underrated?