Lean Lessons from Long Ago

“Jaded Julie, one of the beauties of Lean is that it provides a framework—a philosophy and organization—for management techniques that have been used since long before Lean was invented.”

“Well, Old Guy, if anyone can teach a history lesson, it’s you. I presume that you’ll be telling us about things you have observed since the middle of the last century.”

“Let’s start with some very un-Lean statements that were burned into my memory. From a world-class chemist speaking about his technician: ‘She’s just a pair of hands.’ Today, one would expect him to help her become the best that she can be.”

“Of course, Curmudge, that assumes that she was capable of being something better than ‘a pair of hands.’”

“Here’s another one. A very proficient technician (not in my group) was speaking of the value of doing excellent work vs. just doing enough to get by: ‘The pay’s the same.’ Whether or not that represented his true feelings, I hope no one else heard him. In fact, in that organization ‘just getting by’ was quite rare.”

“So far, Curmudge, you have made the workplace of yesteryear sound like a haven for mediocrity. You must also have encountered some examples of excellence.”

“I have, and here is one. The scene was a pulp and paper mill in the middle of a small town. The main street ran right next to the mill’s bleach plant. I was in a meeting in our lab building a couple of hundred yards up the hill from the mill when the bleach plant blew up. We felt the shock wave as our windows rattled. Although no one was injured by the blast, anyone walking past the bleach plant would have experienced instantaneous incontinence.”

“Hey, you’re supposed to be providing examples of excellence. That doesn’t sound very good to me.”

“The story’s not over. Mill personnel reacted like real professionals (the mill even had its own fire department). The mill manager assured the town mayor that there was no need to evacuate. The next day, mill management and technical and operating personnel were hard at work performing root cause analysis. They presumably found the cause and made the necessary repairs (rebuilding part of the bleach plant and its bulged-out exterior wall). It must have truly been the root cause, because in 20 years the bleach plant has never experienced another explosion.”

“Managers must know what’s going on in their mill. Did they ever go to gemba?”

“The people that I worked with never heard of ‘gemba,’ but they certainly went there. The manager of a small mill walked through the mill as his first duty every morning. He knew and talked with everybody. Although he wasn’t a very pleasant person to work with, he certainly kept his finger on the pulse of the mill.”

“What about big facilities? They are too big to walk through every day.”

“Usually big mills have the traditional ‘morning meeting’ involving the manager and department heads who report on their respective areas. It’s essential that someone go to gemba on a regular basis, and the department heads did.”

“It’s time for true confessions, Curmudge. Were you ever directly involved in any of these events? If it was something bad, you’ve probably forgotten.”

“Late in my career I worked part time in a small lab with a rather imperious president. Most often, when he went into the lab it was to chew someone out. I decided to walk through the lab’s several rooms every day to say ‘good morning.’ Apparently the technicians valued my visits; one said she’d miss them after she resigned. I guess that everyone needs to feel appreciated even if it’s by an old greybeard who had absolutely no authority.”

Affinity’s Kaizen Curmudgeon

Check out the latest posting in Curmudge and Jaded Julie’s personal blog, Curmudgeon’s Wastebasket.