Is Lean here to stay?
Rajeshwari Sharma -
Monday, August 25, 2008 12:08 PM
Among various things that my mum keeps tabs on include the stories that I work on. This weekend while enjoying her masala dosa at a restaurant, she asked "what's your story this Monday?" I replied disinterestedly "It's an interview with a management guru." What does he teach?, she dug further. I definitely did not want to go on with this conversation but I still said, well…he teaches Lean principles. "What's is Lean principle?"
I was about to ramble some management jargon when I stopped eating to think how do I explain a process that has caught the imagination of the entire world to a woman whose understanding of management is as good as mine of astrophysics. I tried to recollect the answer Lean guru James Womack gave.
He said "(It was) the Toyota guys who thought: Why can't we have a high velocity, responsive, low inventory company which is also able to deal with high variety and offer products at low costs". The hidden genius here was Eiji Toyoda (former managing director of automaker Toyota Motor Corp.). Eiji's exposure to the large volume production of US automakers in 1950 made him focus on making many cars in small batches, unlike American automakers. The small inventory system where stocks were replenished when required, not only helped the company cut wastage but also gave the company flexibility to bring in changeovers.
Hmmm…after a bit of deliberation I told mum that Lean is a process system very akin to the way she manages groceries. She looked as if she has been struck by a thunderbolt. I hurriedly offered my explanation: You (my mum) buy small quantities of fruits, vegetables, ice-cream and other sundry stuff and replenish them frequently. Since the quantities are small, you buy a huge variety of food and it's always fresh. There is little wastage and refrigeration takes less amount of time since the portions are small.
When I went grocery buying while I was living on my own some time back, I would buy large packs and brag about how much money I saved. In reality, there was more wasatge and little variety. For instance, I would buy a litre of chocolate ice-cream and I would be eating the same flavour for a week. Not to forget the longer refrigeration time and the struggle in scooping out ice-cream from the frozen pack. Rarely did I finish the icecream (obviously I would have got bored by the same flavour), which either made its way to the maid or the trash can.
Before I could finish with my oversimplified analogy with Lean, my mum exalted at her adeptness in home management skills remarked, "oh! another common sense approach packaged in cerebral mumbo jumbo." Her cynicism of intellectual thought had again got the better of her!