Lean manufacturing post covid 19

In the lean community hopes are high that “lean manufacturing” will get a boost when businesses and production will ramp up all around the world as covid-19 measures are loosened or removed. My first thought, being a lean adept, is that it will because of the obvious advantages lean brings above classical mass production concepts to ramp up again. The question is: will it?

Introduction

About twenty years ago when I was first introduced to lean, my mentor made me read: “The Machine That Changed the World” by Womack, Jones and Roos. It changed my world or at least my view on processes. In my professional life and also in my personal life because batch and queue processing is everywhere. What I also remember was the sense of urgency. It was now or never! Adopt lean or be out of business before your competition beats you to it.

That’s when I caught the lean virus and embarked on my first lean journey and have seen many more since. Successful and not so successful to be honest. The biggest problem is that many think you can become lean almost overnight while in reality it may take years to develop yourself, your team and your company as a whole before you will be anywhere close to a lean state. Successful transitions from mass production systems to leaner systems have taken a lot of time and dedication to make them happen. But in the world we live in today we really don’t have a lot of time.

So what about the question: will lean prosper in the corona aftermath? In my opinion it could very well be a YES but I also have some doubts. Let me explain.

Learn from history

We learned from “the machine that changed the world” that the origin of lean production lies in the post war era in Japan. A period where money was tight an basically all resources were scarce but the pressure was on to rebuilt the economy. It was under these circumstances Toyota developed a production system that was able to achieve more with limited available resources. This was their sense of urgency but in the end it took time. Decades later we would start referring to the Toyota system as Lean Manufacturing.

Today the sense of urgency is quite similar and some parallels are easily recognized. Companies have to adapt to survive beyond COVID19. With limited resources like parts and components because suppliers are also hit by the COVID19 measures. They also take measures to make sure employees are safe. Resulting in (temporarily) lower staffing levels and at this point in time companies can’t prevent the loss of jobs as well. As a result they have to do more with less people.

lean people vs. mass production people

Like I mentioned before I got introduced to lean more than twenty years ago and at that time it was not exactly something new. It was around for some time already but consultants would say you have to start becoming lean asap! To this day I hear people sending this message. Making the proponents of classical manufacturing systems cynical towards lean because they survived the past decades and did good business. What sense of urgency? Why lean? These people are also the ones who were slowing down or sometimes even completely blocking journeys towards becoming leaner.

Prepare for resistance

Often these people are in key positions and will keep solving the problems with a mass manufacturing approach. The first signals were there the moment the pandemic was announced. People claiming lean was a disaster because of the low stock levels and buffers so they could not continue their work due to material shortages. Giving them a reason to try to build up higher stock levels. The financial people on the other hand are looking for savings by lowering stock levels to free up cash. Operations all over the world are dealing with high WIP levels, long lead times, incomplete workorders and not enough hands to finish the job. Keeping customers happy by delivering a quality product on time is extremely difficult nowadays. I can tell you LinkedIn was a fun place to be with all the comments and posts and different perspectives on the problem at hand. Chances are when you made it to this point in my blog you may very well be a lean minded person and recognize the storyline. Whether as a consultant or in a line position you will be dealing with people every day who slow down progress. And inevitably you will encounter them in the companies who are now rushing to jump on the lean train.

Opportunities

On the positive side there are many opportunities to rethink strategies, to improve workflows and production processes. Companies who were on a lean journey already may speed up their efforts and find their way out of the crises sooner than others. I hear and read in the lean community very positive messages from businesses and hospitals who were already on the lean path prior the pandemic. They seem to have excellent consultants or renowned firms providing support and reporting about it on social media. But what about companies that just now decided to start their lean journey because of COVID19? Do we actually see an increase in lean activity there? Are they successful? That is what I would like to know but can’t find any prove for this yet.

Given the circumstances I even believe cherry-picking in the lean toolkit is allowed. Can’t believe myself that I just used the toolkit word but to get a company on the lean path in these times it might give them a quick start to solve an urgent problem to than get the people involved and enthusiastic for more. Just like Toyota, you have to start somewhere on the journey. But you have to start!

Summary

These are my 2 cents on this, I believe lean can help a company through this crisis or any other. But I’m very curious to learn what your opinions are? Also if you have any prove (data or examples) showing a real increase in lean activity.
Please drop me a note, I’m interested to learn.

@theleanfluencer

Make sure you don’t miss anything from @theleanfluencer, please follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn for more on lean manufacturing, best practices, book- and software reviews and announcements.