My Experience with Lean Continuous Process Improvement

When I first heard of Lean I was a production/human resources manager for a small marine electronics manufacturer in Bellingham, Washington. Lean being the name given to the Toyota Production System coming out of Japan after World War II. The year was 1996 and at that time my company employed about 30 people. The company made the bold step to hire a vice president of operations. Within his first week at work he had a discussion with me regarding Lean, which I had never encountered, as an approach to conducting the operations of the workplace. He told me that I would be reading books, learning about SixSigma and a lot of Japanese words such as kaizen (which means to tear apart, examine and then put together again). I was to be taking notes and reporting back to him what I had learned and applying some initial Lean applications to our processes. He said he would be taking me through some basic exercises and learning some counter intuitive lessons about what would revolutionize the company’s structure, culture, and overall approach to the work we accomplished. I was challenged and a bit skeptical. But the absolute drama of what was about to unfold was amazing.

I remember reading some of the basic Lean training books and was astounded by some of the simplicity and common sense that was conveyed. I saw the new operations guy on the production lines talking to people about their work and making notes from observations and sharing these with me with “fresh eyes.” As I began to embrace the concepts of Lean we did some exercises in small increments in which I predicted the outcomes. Many of my assumptions began to dissolve as we took timings of different processes within the work environment. “One piece flow” and “just in time” became common ideas that really made differences. Slowly we began to involve others in these projects. All workers began to think in terms of eliminating all forms of waste in motion, inappropriate inventory, processing, and elsewhere in the workplace. Others began to be intrigued. Armed with some of the academic materials and some successes in small Lean projects, my mentor told me that he would be pushing me forward in Lean leadership within the company and that I would be the hero in all of it!

This was great. Here we were bringing small yet consistent dramatic improvement in production times which affected the use of our workers’ time and dependence on temporary labor in spiked times of production needs. Several of the employees resisted the changes but were won over by the measurable results of the transition. Soon we had evolved to holding kaizen meetings and people saw their ideas enlarged with others’ ideas and that their creativity was valued. The kaizen mindset was developed in our continuous process improvement that we should “never be satisfied” and “we never arrive”. We attacked our workplace to make our structures and processes quicker, safer, and less expensive with less waste of any kind. This had profound value in energizing and empowering workers and how they viewed their jobs.

A Lean consulting firm was brought in that specialized in rapid improvement events and spent several days with us at several different points. By this time people were really on board and we were eagerly moving production lines and equipment all over the warehouse and rebuilding workstations with input from everybody. When all was done, production capacity almost doubled over six months with less labor costs. This was at a time that the company’s product offerings were in high demand. So profit really expanded. The morale of the company was at a great high point. The level of sophistication of Lean projects improved and even more gains were seen. Lean leadership was applied to the shipping department and dramatic reductions in lead times were seen. Office and ordering processes were addressed and less time and paper were spent in processing. Inventory/receiving was addressed and even the front office.

Because of Lean training, the whole company began to work together as a tough, competitive team and the energy was something that could be felt when one walked into the production area especially. It was an incredible moment in my life and one that I thought would be well worth duplicating in other companies. My current involvement with convincing organizations to explore the value of Lean training through the Lean Leadership Institute is exciting. When companies grab hold of the opportunity and experience similar dramatic process improvement in any area of their organization it is quite gratifying. It makes a difference in both a company’s profitability and in people lives in regard to the quality of their workplace culture.