Leading a Lean Conversion: Lessons from Experience at Steelcase, Inc. Successful projects hinge on strong leadership. David W. Mann, Ph.D.

S

uccessful mass-to-lean conversions turn primarily on the quality of local line leadership — that’s the lesson Steelcase is learning as it converts its 12 main North American plants from mass to lean production. Case study material from 17 mass-to-lean projects in ten Steelcase plants over the past four years illustrates this lesson. We’ve learned there are seven key attributes of leaders in successful lean implementations and we’ve converted these lessons into practices and procedures to help leaders be more effective in leading lean conversions.

Company Background Steelcase provides a classic example of “brownfield” conversion. Our conventional manufacturing process relies on many separate work center schedules pushing lots of inventory, and many expediters who fight through daily shortages to meet the production schedule. Value-added time is typically a decimal proportion of total cycle time. Our lean conversions seek to cut cycle times by half or more, increase productivity by a third or more, and cut inventory by half or more by converting batch and push to flow and pull. We’ve approached lean by taking on one value stream at a time in a plant, with projects going on in several plants at once. Steelcase produces office furniture and interior architectural products on a make-toorder basis. A value stream might be, for 28 Target Volume 17, Number 3

example, a family of storage bins or cabinets, a particular model of high performance task chairs, a line of laminate-topped work surfaces, or a family of workstation space division panels. Some product lines are highly vertically integrated from coil steel through final assembly. Others include many purchased parts. Value streams are led by a superintendent and range in size from about 75 to 250 people, with one first line supervisor for every 30 or so production people and a team leader for every seven to 12 people. Each plant has a lean core team of people from operations technical support departments. Each lean conversion project is led by an implementation team of the value stream superintendent, a supervisor from the area (each backfilled for the design phase of the project), one or two team leaders, and several operators from the area. The corporate lean support team includes three internal technical consultants and two members specializing in cultural change. The corporate team develops training and support materials and provides onsite consulting support for project teams and lean operations. We get external support from the TWI Network, a group of Toyotatrained experts in lean manufacturing.

Leadership Differentiates Our lean conversions have initially produced uneven results. As project results

accumulated, we sought to identify the factors that accounted for success so we could develop a standardized approach based on them. Our first cut in this analysis considered five broad factors: leadership, project staffing, technical design, shop floor culture, and line management ownership. The findings were striking: Strong leadership characterized all the successful projects. Weak leadership scores characterized the disappointing ones. No other factor yielded such clear demarcation between success and something less than that. There are lots of books on lean, and plenty of consulting expertise and experience. We’ve taken advantage of both and have learned much from each source. What emerges from practice is that nobody can tell you how to implement lean in your organization; unfortunately, there is no answer sheet in the backs of those books or in consultants’ project plans. Rather, as in the line from the song: “You’ve got to suffer if you want to sing the blues!” (Bromberg, 1977). In other words, you earn success by experimenting within your particular circumstances, experiencing the consequences, and building on them. (For a brief reminiscence of yesteryear’s conversion experiences, see the box, “We Called It World-Class Manufacturing.”) Lean, after all, is more than anything else a set of principles. We’ve had to work our way through learning how those principles apply to our processes, products, people, and culture. A key lesson we’ve learned is: The technical side of the conversions is actually the easier part. Technical design is something you can hire out, if you so choose. Changing the day-to-day habits by which your operation runs is an entirely different matter. Without these new habits, practices, and skills, lean layout and pull systems quickly deteriorate. Nobody can establish new daily procedures for you. Getting it done takes tenacious, prepared, skillful leadership. We’ve carefully reviewed projects completed in the past four years, taking a closer look at the ways in which leadership manifested itself, at what has worked, and what hasn’t. We’ve identified in observable terms

seven characteristics of leadership that distinguish successful projects. The seven leadership characteristics are: accountability, project management orientation, lean thinking, sense of ownership, tension between technical and applied perspectives, commitment to cultural as well as technical change, and effective relations with support groups. Behind each of these dimensions are stories of optimism overturned by events, intuitions which either proved out or not, some surprises, and an increasing focus on the crucial nature of the leader of the value stream. Here’s what we’ve learned about leadership, and what we’ve done to convert these lessons to tools and practices for more effective, successful lean projects.

The findings were striking: Strong leadership characterized all the successful projects.

Seven Leadership Success Factors The dimensions of leadership we’ve identified are not cleanly independent from one another. Rather, they are different facets

We Called It World-Class Manufacturing Today’s lean conversion follows earlier efforts to streamline Steelcase operations. In 1989, we called it World-Class Manufacturing (WCM). In these early efforts to implement the Toyota Production System’s principles under a different name, we looked for ways to involve employees, eliminate waste, improve quality, focus on the value stream, etc. One reason why these efforts failed was we were emphasizing flow and reduced inventory, but at the same time we were paying employees by the piece — rewarding people to build inventory! There were other reasons. WCM was an optional effort that plants could adopt or skip. It was presented as a smorgasbord; plants could pick and choose various improvement techniques – hardly the same as implementing a production system. Another roadblock was that we lacked a case for change; Steelcase was, as it remains today, the industry leader. We were comfortably profitable. It was almost unthinkable to many in the company that we needed to make dramatic changes. And we lacked focus on the people side of change plus the discipline needed to establish a different day-to-day culture. We gained valuable lessons from our experience, learning the importance of focus, implementation strategy, leader preparation, and the need to support cultural change.

29 Third Quarter 2001

of what we’ve found to make up effective lean leadership practices. None of these attributes by itself is sufficient for a successful implementation. We’ve found in our most successful projects that these dimensions balance and complement each other, making the whole more than the sum of the parts. Our successful projects have dramatically shrunken floor space and inventory levels. They’ve cut cycle times from weeks to less than a day. Most importantly, they have followed up on the flow interrupters their new lean layouts exposed, with the result of productivity increases of 20-30 percent in the first pass. There are benefits beyond those from the first pass, and successful conversion projects continue to pursue them.

Dimension

Figure 1 summarizes the dimensions and the observable behaviors we’ve identified and now look for in lean leaders.

Accountability Accountability means making sure people understand what has to be done and how to do it, then making sure they execute. A simple three-part model sums this up well: knowledge, practice, and feedback. The superintendents with the most successful projects applied this model once the equipment rearrangements and new material flows were put in place. It is important to note that line supervisors who are not on the project team have been busy up until Monday morning running the old production system.

Behavior

1.

Accountability

• History of consistently producing good results – the “numbers” • Holds people accountable using a process for tracking and following up on repetitive commitments, takes corrective action when results fall short of goals.

2.

Project management orientation

• History of getting projects implemented effectively. • Holds people accountable using a process for tracking and following up project tasks, takes corrective Action on late items • Logical, organized approach to complex problems, thinks situations through in clear, step by step fashion.

3.

Lean thinking

• Understands and has already applied lean concepts; talks about, promotes, and uses lean ideas.

4.

Ownership

• Thinks and talks about the area as theirs to lead, set direction for, change, and improve.

5.

Tension between applied and technical

• Understands the need to sweat the details as well as to get things done. • Willing to listen to technical experts and consider their advice in planning.

6.

Commitment to cultural as well as technical change

• History of effective give and take communication in the area — in large groups, small groups, and one-on-one. • Trusted by people in the area. • Eager for and open to greater employee participation in day-to-day operations and improvement activities.

7.

Effective relations with support groups

• History of getting things done with support from operations support groups (such as engineering, quality, production control, safety, finance, HR).

Figure 1. Leadership Success Dimenesions 30 Target Volume 17, Number 3

They’ve had no significant opportunity to practice in the new system because it didn’t exist yet. So, most supervisors need to learn their jobs all over again. We’ve found that conventional training is not the answer in this situation. Instead, we’ve found the most effective approach is through real time, on the job, on the floor coaching by the superintendent. In our most successful projects, the superintendent holds a one-on-one review with each supervisor each quarter or more frequently depending on performance. In these reviews, expectations for performance on items from a list of 16 day-to-day lean practices (such as visually displaying the standard work sequence at each station and monitoring adherence, maintaining hour by hour production tracking and reasons for misses, maintaining a visual daily information board for each team, visually recording and acting on team members’ improvement suggestions) are agreed to. New items go onto the active list to monitor, joining previous items from the list that have been mastered. Weekly, the superintendent and supervisor spend an hour on the production floor engaged in inspection, feedback, and coaching. They cover the targeted items as well as examining the new lean production processes, seeing how they’re running, identifying abnormalities, and discussing appropriate corrective action. We call these tours gemba walks, after the Japanese term for, roughly, “where the action is” (Imai, 1997). On the gemba walks, the superintendent takes the time to clarify expectations and, where needed, explain, or offer suggestions or direction about how a particular task might be approached. Supervisors note items to be improved before the next week’s walk. In the most effective implementation, the superintendent virtually never misses the weekly review and instruction hour on the floor with each supervisor, even if it has to be rescheduled. By contrast, in a project that has dragged and dragged despite a high level of technical consulting support, the superintendent routinely made assignments of the

same kind as in the example above. Many took weeks or months to complete. Unlike the previous example, this superintendent had no routine for following up and no system for even recording the assignments he’d made. It was not uncommon for this superintendent to be surprised and frustrated when he ran across instances where assignments hadn’t been carried out. He’d get mad at the supervisors and chew them out, but that was it. Simple items such as getting team information boards in the area took half a year to accomplish. In the first example, above, the same boards were designed, specified, built, and in use within three weeks. Mind you, both superintendents are in favor of the lean conversions and the improvements to be made. The difference is that one doesn’t follow up, doesn’t establish expectations, nor hold people accountable for meeting them. He allows technical support staff to work in his area, and even frees supervisors’ time to focus on lean improvement projects. The difference here is between “letting” improvement happen compared to “making” it happen. Put another way, a major difference between these two examples is in practices for holding people accountable for delivering.

Project Management Orientation

Weekly, the superintendent and supervisor spend an hour on the production floor engaged in inspection, feedback, and coaching.

Project management orientation shows most clearly in the design and physical implementation phases of a lean conversion, when the work is basically a large-scale project. Accountability here involves making sure project tasks are completed as specified and on time. The complete project plan is essentially a composite of a set of sub-projects. Examples include calculating demand to arrive at take time, defining the pull system in various parts of the operation, applying standardized work and line balancing tools to define the numbers of stations and operators required, designing layouts, material replenishment systems, keeping all parties informed of progress, and the like. Simply put, many things have to be accomplished in the right sequence and on time. 31 Third Quarter 2001

They’ve had no significant opportunity to practice in the new system because it didn’t exist yet. So, most supervisors need to learn their jobs all over again. We’ve found that conventional training is not the answer in this situation. Instead, we’ve found the most effective approach is through real time, on the job, on the floor coaching by the superintendent. In our most successful projects, the superintendent holds a one-on-one review with each supervisor each quarter or more frequently depending on performance. In these reviews, expectations for performance on items from a list of 16 day-to-day lean practices (such as visually displaying the standard work sequence at each station and monitoring adherence, maintaining hour by hour production tracking and reasons for misses, maintaining a visual daily information board for each team, visually recording and acting on team members’ improvement suggestions) are agreed to. New items go onto the active list to monitor, joining previous items from the list that have been mastered. Weekly, the superintendent and supervisor spend an hour on the production floor engaged in inspection, feedback, and coaching. They cover the targeted items as well as examining the new lean production processes, seeing how they’re running, identifying abnormalities, and discussing appropriate corrective action. We call these tours gemba walks, after the Japanese term for, roughly, “where the action is” (Imai, 1997). On the gemba walks, the superintendent takes the time to clarify expectations and, where needed, explain, or offer suggestions or direction about how a particular task might be approached. Supervisors note items to be improved before the next week’s walk. In the most effective implementation, the superintendent virtually never misses the weekly review and instruction hour on the floor with each supervisor, even if it has to be rescheduled. By contrast, in a project that has dragged and dragged despite a high level of technical consulting support, the superintendent routinely made assignments of the

same kind as in the example above. Many took weeks or months to complete. Unlike the previous example, this superintendent had no routine for following up and no system for even recording the assignments he’d made. It was not uncommon for this superintendent to be surprised and frustrated when he ran across instances where assignments hadn’t been carried out. He’d get mad at the supervisors and chew them out, but that was it. Simple items such as getting team information boards in the area took half a year to accomplish. In the first example, above, the same boards were designed, specified, built, and in use within three weeks. Mind you, both superintendents are in favor of the lean conversions and the improvements to be made. The difference is that one doesn’t follow up, doesn’t establish expectations, nor hold people accountable for meeting them. He allows technical support staff to work in his area, and even frees supervisors’ time to focus on lean improvement projects. The difference here is between “letting” improvement happen compared to “making” it happen. Put another way, a major difference between these two examples is in practices for holding people accountable for delivering.

Project Management Orientation

Weekly, the superintendent and supervisor spend an hour on the production floor engaged in inspection, feedback, and coaching.

Project management orientation shows most clearly in the design and physical implementation phases of a lean conversion, when the work is basically a large-scale project. Accountability here involves making sure project tasks are completed as specified and on time. The complete project plan is essentially a composite of a set of sub-projects. Examples include calculating demand to arrive at take time, defining the pull system in various parts of the operation, applying standardized work and line balancing tools to define the numbers of stations and operators required, designing layouts, material replenishment systems, keeping all parties informed of progress, and the like. Simply put, many things have to be accomplished in the right sequence and on time. 31 Third Quarter 2001

The most effective implementations we’ve experienced used direct, powerful, methods for maintaining accountability for project tasks. The conventional approaches used Gantt charts and weekly project review meetings. The most powerful and creative approach involved a six-foot by 12-foot whiteboard wall, a red string, and a daily standup meeting. Running down one side of the wall were the calendar weeks in the project schedule, with each week defining a row running acrOss the wall. Each subproject name and its leader were written at the top of the wall, defining the columns. Each sub-project’s weekly task was written in marker week by week, a few weeks at a time. The red string running across the board got moved down to mark the current week. The entire project team, including the implementation team, met at the board every day at 10 a.m. The plant manager and his staff met for a briefing at the project wall once a week. At each meeting, all incomplete tasks remaining above the red string (that is, late tasks) got talked about every day until they were completed. These discussions focused on help needed, unanticipated interdependencies with other activities that required support, resource conflicts, and the like. Each Sub-project leader gave a status report at the 10 a.m. meeting once each week. Between meetings, the project leader met with the sub-leaders to check on and work on progress, task clarity, resource deployment, technical integration with the rest of the project, and corrective action where tasks had fallen behind schedule. This project moved fast and with precision. Everyone on the project knew and could see the status of all aspects of the project every day. Integration among aspects of the project was clear. Resource deployment could be optimized daily; that is, where someone in a temporarily slow period could lend a hand in a part of the project that needed extra help to get through a rough spot. The atmosphere was open and supportive, so problems got surfaced as soon as they arose, and could be worked on immediately. By contrast, one of the least effective 32 Target Volume 17, Number 3

leaders had to be prodded by his technical team to even put together a list of items that needed follow-up. One of the plant support staff put together elaborate progress charts listing these “to do” items, their due dates, and a color code for complete on time (green), at risk of going overdue (yellow), and behind schedule (red). The plant manager, corporate consultants, and the plant project team attended weekly review meetings to check status on these to do items. The main product of these meetings, which soon trailed off and ceased, were excuses for why it had not been possible to meet one or another date. In the end, virtually nothing got done except those items delegated to the support staff member who put together the tracking system. Many items on the list never were completed. Without accountability and follow up, project plans and color codes are just ink on paper. It takes committed, tenacious followup by leadership to convert ink to action.

Lean Thinking In a recent assessment of one of the lean implementation projects, we asked the superintendent a standard question about his vision of a lean future for the area. He stopped to think, then said that his vision was an area with good housekeeping and that was clean and well organized. We asked the same question to the superintendent in a different area. He immediately started talking about rearranging isolated pieces of equipment into cells that run to kanban production signals, dramatically reducing quantities of inventory, establishing supermarkets and flow lanes for raw and painted parts that allowed anyone to see what was on hand and what and how many to make next, and replacing a series of buildcomplete benches and the setup activities they required with a one-piece-flow progressive build line. Granted, it takes more than a clear, specific vision for a project to be successful, but we’ve also found the old saying is also true: When you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. One thing

leaders need to do is to lead, to be able to paint a clear and compelling picture of the future, what it will be like to be in it, the benefits it will bring compared with the present, and how to get there. This aspect of leadership is required to motivate people, to persuade them to take the leap of faith that a major change from mass to lean requires, and to help keep people’s eyes on the prize as they slog through the inevitable snags that come with large scale change. In the few cases where leaders haven’t had this kind of vision, their projects have failed to make progress and they have had difficulty motivating people to believe in the possibility that a lean future just might be a better one.

tendents have been firmly engaged in the project in the planning and development phase, and in the drive for continuing to experiment, refine, and extend the application of lean principles following up on implementation. Not all superintendents with a strong sense of ownership had the other attributes needed for the complete package. But without an appetite to dig into an area, to bring it to a new level, the results have fallen far short of what should have been accomplished, and no follow-up work has been done to eliminate the flow interrupters inevitably exposed in a lean conversion.

Ownership

Tension Between Applied and Technical

Leaders of effective projects demonstrate a sense of proprietorship over their areas. Indeed, they think of their area as their responsibility — to set direction, to change, to improve. These leaders tend to recruit technical experts from inside or out to work on changes, to try new things, to push the envelope of performance. We’ve also had the unfortunate experience of working with a superintendent who never really engaged in the project activity and was reluctant to give up his day-to-day responsibilities to become part of the design process. Instead, this superintendent stood back from the project, as though waiting for the keys to be handed over to him once the design work, pull systems, and equipment moves were complete and ready to run. In his previous five years in the area he had made no process changes but rather had simply concentrated on managing what was already in place when he moved in. Fortunately, we’ve seen many examples of a strong sense of ownership. We look for some degree of competition between the plant lean team leader and the superintendent, at least initially, as a sign that the superintendent sees the area as his or hers to make something of, change, and improve. As we’ll see in the next section, this tension needs to come to a balanced resolution. In our most successful lean conversions, the superin-

Lean manufacturing is two things reflected in the two words: lean and manufacturing. Lean by itself is a philosophy. To grasp it requires study, the struggle to find understanding, putting it in, learning from the experience, then changing it so it works better. One thing about lean is clear: When you put it in, you lower the metaphorical “water level” and in doing so, expose “rocks” that interrupt flow. The lean journey is a cycle of progressively lowering the water, exposing and then eliminating the flow interrupters. Manufacturing by itself is direct and urgent. When it’s time to make a decision in a manufacturing setting, the decision gets made based on the best information available at the time. If lean’s questions are philosophical ones about the best path for the journey, the questions in manufacturing are generally more focused, like: What do I have to do to meet today’s production schedule? What must I do to hit my cost target? On a project design team, both the philosophical and the practical need to be vigorously represented. In one dramatic case, a conversion project had been moving in fits and starts caused by many interruptions by immediate and pressing questions the plant had to address. But, once allowed to concentrate on its task, the team began making progress. A number of upstream schedules were replaced by pull systems. Some equip33 Third Quarter 2001

On a project design team, both the philosophical and the practical need to be vigorously represented.

34 Target Volume 17, Number 3

ment moves were made to form cells running to the new pull signals. The big task, referred to in an earlier section, was to convert from a bench build method in which the product was completely assembled by one person at a workbench, to a progressive build line – an assembly line. The line was to replace the benches and eliminate the need for some setup positions. Most significantly, the queue of painted parts awaiting assembly was to be cut from 36-plus hours to three hours. The single schedule point was to be at paint line loading. From there, everything was a first in, first out (FIFO) flow through paint application and unload, and assembly. All the parts are made in house under the control of the value stream superintendent. The product line was mature so the forming and fabrication operations involved in the production process were well understood and relatively stable. The paint line, on the other hand, was new and just being installed. It used a recently developed powder paint technology — new to us and to the equipment supplier. Just as the design work was to begin on converting from bench to progressive build, the plant lean team leader was promoted to a new job at a different site. The lean team, and especially the lean team leader, an engineer, had been the technical conscience of the project. The lean team provided most of the analytical work for the project and did the modeling for alternative scenarios. The superintendent leading the implementation team was an ebullient individual, a bundle of energy full of enthusiasm and impatience to see the project completed and running. He had a high level of tolerance for ambiguity and risk. When the lean team leader left, the plant decided not to replace him since the project was about halfway done. Instead, the plant turned over all aspects of the project to the superintendent. From that point, the project was focused primarily on a deadline, which had been established as an arbitrary date. The team made the assumption that first pass yield from the new paint line would be high, higher in fact than any of the several dozen other paint lines in the corporation. The off-line

refinish process was sized based on the assumed high yield. So were the areas set aside for the painted FIFO queue leading to the stations on the progressive build line and for the repair area adjacent to the end of the line. The team met its deadline. Everything they had designed worked right off the bat. Everything, that is, but the paint line. The yield was lower than expected — the lowest any plant had experienced. The equipment vendor and our finishing technology group had teams working intensively on the process. Meanwhile, parts were being rejected at the line because of paint problems. The refinish process was overwhelmed, buried in rejected parts. The repair area was flooded. Partially built units were everywhere waiting for good parts. The area largely kept on schedule by working 60 hours for many weeks in a row. Eventually, more space for painted queue was added to be able to hold another 12 hours worth of painted inventory as safety stock. The new paint equipment took months to come up to a reasonable yield, but never reached the expectations the equipment supplier and we had planned on. Someone on the project team needs to worry about the details, needs to exercise a healthy skepticism, needs to insist that contingency plans be thought through. Converting an operating production area to lean is definitely not a “just do it” proposition. It can be done with speed, but it always must be done with care, an understanding of the details, and a clear assessment of risks and rewards.

Commitment to Cultural as Well as Technical Change One of our most experienced lean team leaders says that it’s only after you’ve “rearranged the furniture” with equipment moves, pull systems, and the like that you’re ready to start working on lean. His point is this: lean appears to be about layouts, material movement, visual signals, etc. What’s it’s really about is a work culture based on precise and disciplined execution of many, many day-to-day aspects of a production

operation. Early on, our emphasis had been on clarifying and documenting a technical implementation process and developing a method (Mann, 2000) to prepare floor leaders to bring the people in their departments and on their teams with them through the technical implementation – rearranging the furniture. Simply put, that turns out to be but the first step in a considerably longer journey to lean operation and a lean culture. Consider this contrast. One project has had an unusually high level of ongoing technical support from internal and external consultants. New layouts and material handling processes have been put in place. Feeder lines have replaced batch subassembly operations. Bench build stations have been replaced by progressive lines. In other words, there has been steady technical improvement. Unfortunately, it took a long time to see any of the benefit from the improvement, because the leaders in the area – the superintendent and supervisors – didn’t realize that these physical changes had to be accompanied by the development of new habits to make them function as designed. Operators were allowed to build ahead in subassembly areas even when the components were not needed. The operators were keeping busy, so it seemed OK. The specified in-process queues were not monitored, so they’d vary between overflowing or empty. Operators were pulled off of flow lines by supervisors to chase parts, causing the lines to stop. Or, extra operators were put into lines balanced to take time that were backing up, throwing off the line’s balance without addressing the flow problem. The supervisors didn’t know what to do in a lean operation, so they did what had been effective in the mass production, batch and queue environments from which they came. The superintendent didn’t know what to do, either. The result was that the area looked lean, in terms of its layout, but it didn’t operate that way. In our best implementation to date, the superintendent conducts gemba walks with each supervisor each week, as noted in the discussion of accountability. The superin-

tendent and supervisors are working from a set of 16 specific expectations and tools that provide clarity to floor leaders on what they are to do to establish lean operations in their new lean layout. The items in the set start with basic discipline, like starting and stopping on time (what’s become known as working “buzzer to buzzer”) and maintaining 5S (unnecessary material and equipment removed, everything clean, everything in designated and marked locations) in the area. They also cover the basics of participation, such as holding team start-up meetings each shift at the team information board and keeping the information on it up to date. Part of this process is an improvement suggestion card system with the cards and progress on the suggestions displayed on the team’s information board. Team leaders, supervisors, and the superintendent have targets for number of implemented suggestions per month. Another element is something we call participative design, a simple structured method for involving those affected by a process, layout, or equipment change in a hands-on evaluation of a prototype or mock-up of the proposed change. (Technical details, like monitoring standardized work and the status of visual pull systems, also get attention.) On the weekly gemba walks, the superintendent follows up on these day-to-day practices that taken together establish and maintain a culture of responsibility, pride, participation, and contribution. In contrast, in the area that only looked lean, operators indicate they feel uninformed and uninvolved unless they happened to be one of the few on a project team. They haven’t been directly involved and haven’t had an opportunity to be exposed in any application-based depth to the principles and rationale for lean approaches. In general, they have a feeling of having been “done to” even though their pay has benefited from the project-driven improvements in productivity. Many of them cringe at the mention of more change. In the best implementation, operators have come to understand quite a bit about lean. They’re now practicing the lean day-to-

Lean is paradoxical. It’s easy to understand but difficult to do.

35 Third Quarter 2001

In the best implementation, operators have come to understand quite a bit about lean.

36 Target Volume 17, Number 3

day routines without thinking much about them, but it’s clear that the area runs more smoothly, more predictably, and far more efficiently. (Improved efficiency is reflected in a productivity bonus in each area’s pay plan.) Improvements in this area in the ten weeks prior to the time of this writing have resulted in productivity gains of over half a million dollars in a workforce of about 150 people. These improvements have all come with the participation of the people involved in the changed work, and they’re ready for more.

Effective Relations With Support Groups Many of our lean implementations have involved changes to the flow of material through the plants, the quantities of inventory on the floor or in storage, and the method for scheduling or signaling production. These are all part of the responsibility of the production and inventory control department (PIC). Call them “the Hatfields.” The project team (call them “the McCoys”) overwhelmingly representing manufacturing, designs the changes to these processes in most projects. In the past, manufacturing would set up a kanban with PIC, but fail to execute according to its signals. Then, when manufacturing ran short of parts, it would blame PIC. The same is too-often true between maintenance and manufacturing, in which when the equipment is running it belongs to manufacturing, and when it’s broken down it belongs to maintenance. An effectively functioning lean value stream requires precise and disciplined execution of the pull system, and the pull system requires regular adjustments and refinements based on changes in mix and volume. An effectively functioning lean value stream requires equipment ready on demand. In turn, this entails regular preventive maintenance work by the skilled trades, and regular cleaning, inspection, lubrication, and routine adjustment by the operators. Establishing new working relationships with groups where conflict across boundaries has been the norm for many years is not an easy thing, and not without setbacks. The

most effective superintendents recognize that lean means a new day in relationships across professional boundaries. These leaders have taken affirmative stances toward including support groups in their planning teams, listening to their advice, and incorporating the support groups in the routine operation and management of the area. Lean changes everyone’s role, and it certainly changes what the support groups need to do for lean to work. The best leaders recognize that changes will be required of the support groups, too, and help them understand what their new roles entail and why they’re important for the entire enterprise to succeed.

Lessons Learned – And Applied We’ve worked our way through many conversion projects and, as those things go, have made many mistakes. Fortunately, each project has gone better than the ones before it. We’ve tried to learn from our experience and to put in place measures to prevent what we’ve seen go awry. Here’s a list of some of the countermeasures we have routinely come to use. 1. Follow a roadmap. Though working with external expert consultants has been helpful, they tend to introduce one step at a time. We’ve found a need to provide the “big picture,” or a complete model project plan. Plant teams want to know the major tasks they’ll need to tackle and in what order. And, significantly, the roadmap we’ve built – a detailed project plan in MS Project – intersperses the technical steps with the elements of cultural change and communication they drive. The technical project provides the leverage for getting started on the cultural changes on which the long-term success of the activity depends. The corporate lean team assesses progress and complete ness against the plan at periodic milestone reviews. 2. Readiness assessment. We’ve started doing readiness assessments with the superintendents whose areas are about to go through a lean conversion.

The dimensions of the assessment are the same seven dimensions detailed in the leadership section of this article. An organizational psychologist and a quality system assessor jointly conduct a 90-minute interview with the superintendent. We produce a report with a readiness profile (further from ready, closer to ready, ready) for each dimension, specific recommendations, and detailed findings. We go over the report with the plant manager and the superintendent. A summary profile goes to the manufacturing vice president. The idea is to identify the support needed to augment a superintendent’s skills and experiences so we can go into a project with everyone’s eyes open about the resources and support that will be needed for success. 3. Backfill leaders. This is a must-do first step in the initial phase of our model project plan. A lean conversion of an operating value stream is a big deal, not something to be done in one’s spare time. The value stream leader needs to be taken out of his or her dayto-day responsibilities in order to concentrate fully on the details of the conversion project. Not incidentally, the superintendent and a supervisor or two become deeply immersed in lean principles and their application during this process. They develop the understanding they’ll need to operate and improve on the work of the projeCt team when the design phase is complete and the “project” has been implemented. 4. Set expectations in advance. We now have a clearer view of what it takes to operate a lean area day-to-day and what the main elements are of a participative, lean shop floor culture. We’ve documented these expectations and some tools to go with them. We go over this material in detail with all those in leadership positions in the area early in the design phase of conversion projects. We want to

expose all leaders to a detailed picture of what will be expected of them in the future. We also begin actively working at that time with the superintendent on his or her role in these expectations. That includes understanding these expectations, being able to teach and inspect for them, and in holding supervisors accountable for implementing them personally and through their team leaders at an appropriate pace both during and after the project phase. 5. Create a “change lead” on the project team. The change lead (see Mann, 2001) is a new, crucial position on the project team and later, working with newly converted lean areas. The change lead works with the project team to be sure technical progress (for example, prototype design of new workstations or detailed operation of kanban signal movements) is reviewed and critiqued by operators who will have to live with the new system. The change lead brings participative processes to the design phase of the project, for two reasons. The first is to get a better design through input from a broader range of people. The second is to begin giving people practice in participative methods where they have been absent or weak. After implementation, the change lead coaches super visors as they’re learning the new aspects of their jobs, especially the cultural elements. The change lead also conducts weekly gemba walks focused on the new cultural practices. 6. Begin gemba walking right away, and continue it. Leaders need to walk the processes on the floor to be sure that what was designed in the project phase is understood and being implemented as intended. The first gemba walks will be with the superintendent and a lean expert with the purpose of teaching the superintendent to “see” what is lean and what isn’t (Rother and Shook, 1998). Then, the superintendent begins to gemba walk every week with 37 Third Quarter 2001

A lean conversion of an operating value stream is a big deal, not something to be done in one’s spare time.

38 Target Volume 17, Number 3

each supervisor, as described in the leadership sections on accountability and cultural change earlier. The learning model for lean quickly transitions from classroom and concept to some thing much more like an apprenticemaster, in which the master first shows, then looks for understanding, then for proficiency on the part of the apprentice. Here, the superintendent must become the master, then the teacher. This is absolutely critical to establish and instill new habits and new skills. Don’t neglect it! 7. Gemba walk for cultural practices as well as technical ones. Don’t forget to inspect what you expect in the way of cultural practices. Be explicit about expectations for things like startup meetings, team information boards, suggestion systems and improvement plans, participative design to involve operators in virtually any change, sustaining 5S gains, and maintaining and extending visual controls. The superintendent’s gemba walks definitely include the new cultural practices. These walks are supplemented by ones conducted by the local change lead or corporate change management consultants in order to assess progress and provide feedback and, as needed, coaching to the superintendent. 8. Move low performers quickly. Most organizations have discipline processes to respond to those who won’t perform in a new system. Few have systems to respond to those who can’t, despite their best efforts. This is a policy area that’s important to support a takt time production environment. Most organizations have a difficult time removing supervisors and others from leadership positions who either can’t or won’t “get it,” understand what they need to do differently, and execute the new responsibilities. This is a fatal flaw and will stall progress and undermine commitment faster than anything. Develop a process to get those people

out of the way, humanely but quickly. Don’t make it the superintendent’s job to find them a new home. That’s for someone else to do — the plant manager, HR, or whoever else. Move fast; people are watching, they know who’s working with the new system and who’s not, and they’ll be highly alert to failure to follow through. Your commitment will be judged by your actions, not by your words. 9. A note on consultants. I often hire a guide when I go fishing in a new area for the first time. It’s helpful to benefit from one with knowledge and experience when in a new territory. The same is true for lean. Expert, experienced consultation is an essential ingredient in the mix as you’re pursuing a lean conversion. You can teach yourself, but it’s likely that your organization won’t be that patient, plus you can easily avoid some mistakes based on others’ informed advice. (See Figure 2, “What Consultants Can and Can’t Do For You.”) Using a consultant in lean is like fishing in another way, too. Folk wisdom holds that if you give a person a fish, you can feed them for day, but if you can teach them how to fish, they can feed themselves for a lifetime. In other words, lean is a do-ityourself proposition. To make it work, you need the knowledge gained from deep immersion in the philosophy, principles, tools and techniques and their application. You need to make some of your own mistakes, and you definitely need to make your own decisions about how to implement. If you abdicate decision-making to your consultant, when you no longer can afford to keep them available, you won’t have learned what you need to know in order maintain, sustain, and improve on the system.

Summary Lean is paradoxical. It’s easy to understand but difficult to do. Most aspects of a lean implementation are not technically complicated, but none of them is easy to imple-

ment. Getting lean implemented is further compounded in a brownfield conversion if, like us, you’re committed in advance to working with most of those already in place in leadership positions. Our leadership group is about average. There are a few outstanding performers for whom achieving a successful conversion is well within their grasp. There are a few who simply aren’t up to the challenge. The majority of our leaders are in the middle. Until recently we have not had a stringent process for selecting and promoting leaders in manufacturing, nor until recently have we invested much in their professional development. Our challenge has been to devise approaches and tools to improve the odds that our average leaders will be able to lead above-average lean conversion projects and then go on to operate their new, lean areas with above-average results. A key to this effort was to recognize leadership as the central factor predicting success and further, to recognize the dimensions that contribute to effective leadership. We’ve elected to support and develop the leaders who have grown up with the company. Perhaps the most positive sign that this strategy is working is this: We don’t find ourselves making the same mistakes over again and we’re not making many new ones. Our record of completed projects is evening out with a string of solid successes. We’ve stayed on the learning curve long enough to have built our own momentum. We have confidence it will carry us into a much leaner future. Author’s note: This article represents the work and accumulated experience of the Steelcase Production System (SPS) office, which I’ve had the good fortune to be part of since its inception. My colleagues have included Ken Knister, John Duba, Dave Rottiers, Al TenHor, Larry McCrum, and Gina Wieczorek – all of Steelcase.

What Consultants Can and Can’t Do For You Rely on Consultants To:

Rely on Internal Resources To:

Teach lean principles, techniques, and how to “see”

Implement a new lean system

Offer advice, critique, and suggestions

Make the decisions regarding your lean system

Stretch your thinking

Make the decisions regarding your lean system

Provide “Ah-ha” insights and prods

Create and maintain disciplined adherence to the system

Stimulate you to take action

Sustain and continuously improve.

Figure 2.

References

Bromberg, D., “Suffer to sing the blues,” Out of the Blues, Columbia Records, New York, 1977. Imai, M., Gemba Kaizen, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1997. Mann, D. W., “Why supervisors resist change and what you can do about it,” Journal for Quality and Participation, 23,3, 2000. Mann, D. W., “High participation communication in managing change,” Cincinnati: Association for Quality and Participation Annual Conference Proceedings, 2001. Rother, M. and J. Shook, Learning to See, Lean Enterprise Institute, Brookline, MA 1998.

David Mann, Ph.D. is responible for operations change management, Steelcase, Inc.; he can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. He is a presenter for the October 8-11, 2001 AME Annual Conference in Raleigh-Durham, NC..

© 2001 AME® For information on reprints, contact: Association for Manufacturing Excellence 380 West Palatine Road Wheeling, IL 60090-5863 847/520-3282 www.ame.org

39 Third Quarter 2001