FIGURE 1

Adopt
a standardized
approach

Keep
lean
management
separate from
the line
of business

Involve
everyone;
be sure they
know the score

Lean in six steps

Benchmark
against
world-class lean
practitioners

The right best practices can drive

a companys complete transformation
By Walter Garvin

Recognize
and reward
success

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Industrial Engineer | www.iienet.org/IEmagazine

Promote
project
replication
through a
shared
repository

As a management philosophy, lean manufacturing has

been adopted by thousands
of organizations to reduce
waste, increase efficiency
and provide a framework for
continuous improvement.
Although lean principles originated
decades ago, primarily at Ford and Toyota, and have been refined over time by
researchers and practitioners, there is no
single blueprint for implementing a lean
program. In fact, practical application
varies widely because the lean manufacturing umbrella encompasses dozens
of different systems, although most share
the same fundamentals.
The variation among these systems
shows that lean is not a one-size-fits-all
approach. The Toyota Production System, one of the earliest and most successful modern iterations of lean, is designed
for high-volume, low-mix production
environments.
However, lean principles also can be
applied successfully in a wide spectrum
of other organizations, including lowvolume, high-mix enterprises. The key
is to understand fundamental lean practices and thinking and make thoughtful choices and adaptations to meet the
specific requirements and goals of the
organization.
Many lean experts agree that a successful implementation is far from easy.
It requires extensive planning, analysis,
training, communication and, perhaps
most importantly, ongoing vigilance
to sustain benefits and advance the program.
Although each organization must follow its own journey, sharing experiences
can help avoid pitfalls and wrong turns.
So let us examine the following six best
practices that could benefit manufacturers that plan to implement or refine a
lean program.

gram depends on many factors. One of

the most important elements is the way
the internal lean infrastructure is designed. Lean is a major undertaking for
any organization, requiring strong commitment from the executive level down
to the production floor.
To avoid conflicting priorities that can
delay or derail the initiative, it is best to
create a separate organization whose sole
focus is successful lean program implementation and operation. For instance,
Jabil Circuit Inc., a global manufacturing services company, began by using
an integrated program for several years.
However, the impact was not as great as
company officials had hoped.
Therefore, in 2008, senior management made the commitment to replace
the ad hoc function with a new and separate lean organization. The initiative
received additional impetus from executives in 2010, marking the true start of
the current program.
Here are ways to enhance your internal lean infrastructure in any organization:

1. Keep lean management

separate from the line
of business

Whether an organization is global or

regionalized, standardization is a critical tool for root cause analysis, outcome
measurement and project replication,

Achieving success with a new lean pro-

Assign a lean manager to each manufacturing facility. This individual

acts as the sensei, or master teacher
of lean techniques. Make the position prominent and important in
the organization, reporting directly
to the facilitys top person.
Form a lean council to act as the
steering committee for lean projects
and activities at each location. Give
this group responsibility for turning
strategy into action and ensuring
that lean closely aligns with business goals and requirements. The
council also should be charged with
driving a lean culture throughout
the facility.

2. Adopt a standardized
approach

which can expand lean benefits exponentially.

Standardization is especially important in problem-solving. Lean focuses
on finding the root cause of an issue,
not simply targeting the symptoms. To
solve a problem permanently, the root
cause and all contributing factors must
be eliminated from the system, process
or infrastructure.
There are many lean problem-solving
tools available in the public domain, including plan, do, check, act (PDCA);
5-why analysis; Ishakawa (fishbone) diagram; the Six Sigma process of define,
measure, analyze, improve and control
(DMAIC); define, measure, analyze,
design and verify (DMADV); and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA).
The key to achieving lean success
lies not in what tools the organization
adopts. Rather, success is embodied by
the consistent use of the chosen tools
across all functional areas and locations.
Further, standardization enables you
to replicate projects at other sites in the
organization. Duplication or adaptation
of an existing lean project is easier when
everyone is familiar with the methodology and format of a project. Finally,
reporting of results is more meaningful
with apples-to-apples comparisons.
Reporting is particularly important in
the early stages of lean, when management tends to focus on hard numbers
such as cost reduction and efficiency
improvements. Meeting executive expectations by providing regular, detailed
metrics can help ensure continuing support for lean. On the other hand, leans
value extends beyond these areas to encompass soft benefits of customer satisfaction and loyalty over the long term.
Reporting can capture these gains as
well.
Jabils lean team developed a framework for reporting on lean projects that
provides standardization yet allows flexibility to choose the appropriate format.
Reports range from a one-page summary document that simply presents the
problem and solution to a more in-depth

May 2015 | Industrial Engineer

43

Lean in six steps

version of the problem-resolution approach to a comprehensive, highly detailed and illustrated document that may
take six to eight weeks to prepare.

3. Involve everyone;
be sure they know the score
Lean success has broad and deep aspects.
Methodology and reporting should
be consistent horizontally across every
manufacturing unit; employee involvement should be vertical, extending
through all layers of the organization.
Employee understanding of and engagement in lean, whether identifying
areas for improvement, leading projects
or simply helping to carry out objectives,
are the foundations for a lean culture of
proactive problem solvers. Jabil provides
training for employees, such as a oneweek course for shop floor workers to
help them identify and eliminate waste
and three levels of certification modeled
after the Shingo, AME, SME and ASQ
lean certification program, plus a black
belt in advanced problem-solving using
Six Sigma.
Just as important as employee education and training is day-to-day awareness of the status of lean initiatives. Like
a basketball scoreboard, prominent, visual updates keep employees informed
and motivated and promote team spirit.
A visibility wall in each manufacturing
facility is an important best practice for
ongoing engagement and adherence to
lean goals.
These walls should show the desired
result, illustrate the gap between that
result and the current situation, describe specific roadblocks and identify
actions being taken to overcome them.
For maximum impact, these concepts
should be presented graphically and in
clear language.
Each Jabil facility has a prominent and
easily viewed blue wall that is updated
daily to keep project status top-of-mind
and align performance with business
objectives. These blue walls are not just
for visibility, as they are designed to be
relevant to the employees at the facility.

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4. Promote project replication

through a shared repository
Although a great deal of lean activity focuses on the individual manufacturing
facility, a typical corporate goal for the
program is to share lessons learned with
other sites in the organization. Replication of a successful project or its components drives standardization, avoids
costly duplication of effort and accelerates process improvement.
However, in a large, global company
such as Jabil, replication can present a
big challenge. For example, a facility
in Memphis, Tennessee, was setting up
a new production line and had no idea
that a similar line producing the same
product had been established recently
at another plant in Suzhou, China. It
was understandable: These two facilities are halfway around the world from
each other and do not share a common
language.
Luckily, someone was able to connect
the two facilities, or the Memphis facility would have spent a lot of time and
effort repeating the work already done
at the Suzhou plant.
Since word of mouth is a hit-or-miss
approach to sharing information, Jabils
lean team developed eKaizen, a companywide system that enables knowledge
sharing, aggregates and displays deployment metrics, tracks lean certifications
and powers a best practice competition.
This in-house-developed electronic repository stores information on the companys many lean projects worldwide.
The employees designed eKaizen to
replace a mix of previous methods, such
as spreadsheets and local database tools,
with a single online system. It is easy to
submit a project, search for information
on projects that have been done by other
plants and pull metrics for trending. Features include ease of use, an attractive
interface and social media functionality.
A dedicated team manages and updates
this tool, which currently contains more
than 120,000 projects. From October
2013 to 2014, more than 90,000 projects
were submitted.

The next phase of eKaizen is ePromote, a system currently in development

for sharing and showcasing best practices
across the company. Any employee will
be able to submit a best practice for review by the plant lean manager. If approved, the best practice write-up, video and photo will be displayed by the
search engine.

5. Recognize
and reward success
A corporate recognition program is another great way to drive project replication and increase employee involvement
and enthusiasm. Showcasing noteworthy lean projects through a competition or similar type of awards program
can raise awareness of successes and best
practices. Further, the chance to shine in
the eyes of peers and senior executives
can inspire facilities and individual employees to increase their lean efforts.
The Deliver Best Practices program
at Jabil is an annual competition that
always attracts tremendous interest
from employees worldwide and strong
support from the executive team. This
competition goes through five elimination rounds to identify the best project
in each of four categories: operational
excellence, customer satisfaction, human development and social and environmental responsibility. Deliver Best
Practices culminates in high-visibility
presentations by the finalists to senior
leaders and the board of directors at Jabil
headquarters. Winners receive prizes
and global publicity.
The 2013 winner for operational excellence, Jabil Shanghai, addressed cost,
space, waste and customer response challenges posed by the production of small
quantities of many different, specialized
products (low-volume, high-mix).
The 16-month, cross-functional manufacturing process optimization program transformed a traditional push
approach with a new pull system
based on the just-in-time model. This
system uses automated vehicles that
move around the warehouse to collect

From Down Under to up top

A lean manufacturing initiative at a New Zealand wood-burning stove company freed enough
money to start exporting home heaters to the United Kingdom.
Firenzo now has 48 British retail outlets serviced by a full-time manager, according to
Hawkes Bay Today. The company is a member of the Hawkes Bay lean cluster set up through
New Zealand Trade & Enterprise. Going lean gave company officials a better understanding of
workflow, the impact of stock turnover and inventory control.
Nowadays, instead of storing inventory in a separate building, parts needed for production
are within reach of workers, as Firenzo is housed in one building instead of three. Although
factory output increased without adding staff, the team will grow to fulfill Firenzos five-year
plan for the UK market, Firenzo director Gary Edwards told the newspaper.
Production manager Simon Thacker said the days of busy fools making stock items
irrespective of need are gone. One stove component had a decades worth of inventory on the
shelf, Hawkes Bay Today reported.
Ive told them that if anyone makes another one Ill beat them with it, Thacker joked.

materials, and a new kitting process that

replaced nine steps with six. It is supported by a data management system
that automatically triggers material pulling and avoids errors and inefficiencies
that occurred with the previous method
of manual data entry.
Importantly, the new system has been
replicated at other lines in the Shanghai
facility, as well as at two other sites in
China and one in Malaysia.

6.Benchmark against
world-class lean practitioners
Perhaps the most fundamental lean principle is continuous improvement, or kaizen. An important aspect of continuous
improvement is benchmarking against
the methods and accomplishments of
recognized leaders in lean.
Comparisons need not involve direct
competitors or even other companies in
the same industry sector. The idea is to
find organizations in any area that have
mastered lean manufacturing and learn
from them on an ongoing basis.
Visiting the facilities of other companies, whether through a reciprocal relationship or as part of a plant tour offered
by a conference or professional organization, is the best way to benchmark and
identify continuous improvement areas.

Adapt and choose your recipe

mental to continuous improvement. It is

equally important to engage employees
at all levels and keep them motivated to
solve problems on an ongoing basis.
At the highest level, however, lean
fulfills a larger purpose. Beyond streamlining processes, reducing waste and
saving money to improve the bottom
line for company investors, lean contributes value to society. Lean creates new
opportunities within and outside the
organization.
Employees who participate in lean
projects gain satisfaction from pleasing
customers, increase their sense of selfworth and forge stronger bonds of loyalty to the company. In turn, this positive spirit is reflected in the communities
where they work.

Lean has been used by manufacturing

companies since the 1900s, but there is
no single recipe for success. In fact,
there are many different approaches and
methodologies. An organization must
select, adapt or create program components that meet its requirements and
apply them consistently throughout all
facilities.
Sharing best practices and successes internally and with customers and
learning from the example of lean leaders outside the organization are funda-

Walter Garvin is vice president, lean Six

Sigma for Jabil Circuit. The industrial
engineer leads diverse teams of professionals
in various countries, including the United
States, Hungary, Poland, France, Italy,
Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Belgium,
Netherlands, Mexico and Great Britain.
Garvin has experience in new product and
process development, lean, Six Sigma and
quality engineering. He has an M.S. in
industrial and systems engineering and an
MBA from the University of Florida.

Other avenues include education and

best practice sharing offered by chapters
of the Institute of Industrial Engineers,
SME and ASQ.
Another aspect of benchmarking is
showing customers a manufacturers
lean program in action so they can contribute insight and ideas and take away a
better understanding of challenges and
solutions. After all, one of the goals of
lean is raising customer satisfaction.
Bringing customers into the facility allows them to explore lean programs and
replicate them at their own plants. This
visibility can add tremendous value to
the customer relationship and increase
transparency and trust.

May 2015 | Industrial Engineer

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