The Lean Process

[Cory Smith]

[margadri]

So bloody true!!

[shamelna]

let me get this right.
You're criticising the concept not the implementer. Right?

[RUsure]

. . . never miss a beat when implementing "ideas". When's the internal "lean" meeting?

[LeanDave]

This is the stupidest post I've seen. Although I would agree that some might think that cartoon represents Lean, anyone who has actually been involved in real Lean knows better. The comments above show how the "do it the way we've always done it - old boy mentality" is alive and well in printing. Its no wonder so many shops are going out of business.

[TheProcessIStheproduct]

I think what the cartoon shows is that many of the lean principles are already in practice. A production manager knows who is most and least productive of his operators and if someone slacks off he fires them and gets someone new. This is done every day from small shops to big shops anecdotally. The idea that a consultant or a full time bean counter comes in and makes the same conclusion with the help of 100's of man hours worth of data collection (and lets be honest, you have real costs associated with: enter # of make ready sheets, enter start time, enter smoke break time, etc) is a bit insulting to the boss or the manager that is in the trenches everyday and knows every screw up, every re-work, every time someone slacks off, without the aid of measuring all of the lean matrices.

[LeanDave]

Your comment is exactly what is wrong with printing today - the reliance on "the boss" to know it all and manage by fear. "...and if someone slacks off he fires them and gets someone new" is the exact opposite of Lean and Continuous Improvement. With CI, we want to ask WHY a thousand times a day until we fix the process. People want to come in and do a good job, product quality work as fast as they can. If you don't believe that you shouldn't be working with people. A bad process beats a good person every time.

I do agree with you that a consultant or bean counter is not the right way to go. People need a facilitator that they can trust and work with, and a leadership team that supports CI. Without those things any attempt will be very difficult.

[TheProcessIStheproduct]

Are you an owner of a printing company? Not sure if you are said consultant or not, but I doubt you are operating in the real world of printing. Not everyone has the talent or the drive or the motivation to do every job in a printing facility, sometimes you have to fire people for not performing, not sit around and say how can we change the process so "Fred" can be more successful at this job. Sorry, but sometimes managers and bosses have to put on their big boy pants and do what is needed to keep things running smoothly.

And I stand by my position that some of these "measurements" may be great and useful, but it has to be looked at in terms of cost / benefit, and if it means having a full time staffer compile the data into a report that no one reads then it is not worth it. If it is information that floor managers collect everyday already and can make recommendations on for little or no cost, great, if not maybe you need better managers, not some feel good panacea that you hope will make your shop run like a top...keep chasing rainbows!

[LeanDave]

I have 20 years in the printing business. I started in high school, sweeping the floors of a shop. I have held almost every production position available, from Pressman to CSR to multiple leadership roles. I am now the CI person at a 600+ employee shop. There are no rainbows to chase, only reality. And the reality is that if you are not using all your people to improve the business, you will fail, and shops like mine will put yours out of business. I want to see all printers succeed and am just trying to help by being positive and showing that it can be done. Its not a pipe dream, its reality. Every print shop can benefit from Lean and continuous improvement. I've seen it here and at many other shops.

[TheProcessIStheproduct]

Your position requires you to be a cool-aid drinker, and that is fine, and with 600+ people if you can get a small buy in from people then you may be able to move the needle a c-hair and it could be worthwhile, but don't preach to the mom and pop shops or the 15-25 people general commercial shops because the cost is too great, my shop on a Friday afternoon is a disaster area, gaylords overflowing, paper everyplace, but all the work gets out and people feel good about a honest days work, one of my press ops was lamenting just the other day about his old job and how he spent half his day punching in start / stop times and getting harassed by bean counters for not filling in ink usage on job 553432 a month ago.

Big brains in the front office have always thought they could "fix" production, but take it from someone who lives in both worlds, don't hate on the guys in the back humping paper all day long until you work just one shift doing the same thing and you will have a new appreciation for what they do...