Art Smalley just walked into my house and told me I don’t know what Christmas is all about. Can you imagine the nerve of this guy? I got 3,000 blinking colored lights outside, a twelve foot tall inflated Santa Claus and singing snowmen on the lawn, and eight electric reindeer dancing on my roof. There is an eight foot tall plastic spruce tree in my living room with another 1,000 flashing lights, mistletoe hanging everywhere, dozens of Christmas cookies and candy canes all over the place and every credit card I have is maxed out. No place looks more like Christmas than my house – and I have all of the Christmas spirit that money can buy – and now comes this guy Smalley trying to tell me that none of it matters – that Christmas is really about something else.
He didn’t really do that, but he might as well have.
Yesterday I gave everyone a ‘heads up’ about Art Smalley’s article, TPS vs. Lean and the Law of Unintended Consequences, urging the whole lean community to read it. I called it a ‘seminal event’ in the ‘leaning’ of American manufacturing. I take that back. Most lean experts will not want to read this article. It will just ruin their day, and who needs that? I had a boss once who had a sign on his desk that said, "There is nothing more tragic than to see your beautiful theory murdered by a gang of brutal facts". Through his article, Art is raining exactly that sort of tragedy down on the lean community, and who needs tragedy? … especially on a Sunday and at the onset of the holidays?
The Grinch, that’s what Smalley is. Here we are, with Lean all figured out; we have the whole thing organized into workbooks and rules; we can audit plants and give them precise ‘leanness grades’; we have certificates and prizes that denote exactly who is lean and who is not; then along comes Smalley and tries to upset the whole thing … And the guy is so heartless he chooses the Christmas season to do it!
Sure, Smalley worked for Toyota in Japan for ten years and learned Lean through years of Toyota training and experience, and yeah, the brutal facts he cites came from his recent first hand observations in the Toyota engine plant in West Virginia, but that doesn’t mean we have to listen him does it? His article says stuff like, "For starters, the [Toyota] plant staff includes no dedicated change agents or black belts; there were no value stream maps posted anywhere, nor were there value stream managers; no small U-shaped work cells; only a small portion of the plant contained actual standardized work charts; and many of the daily tracking systems were highly computerized." He has to be kidding, right?
Lean without Black Belts??? Smalley might as well be suggesting Christmas without Santa Claus. He’s sneakin’ into the house and trying to take all of the U-Shaped Cells and Value Stream Maps from under the Christmas tree! In their place, he wants to leave hard work! He says we have wriggled off the hook for the critical responsibility of thinking for ourselves, and now he comes along a week before the holiday, takes away all of our Lean toys, and puts us back on the hook.
We need to send Smalley and Grinches like him back into the caves they came from. If it looks like Christmas, then I must have the spirit, and if my factory looks Lean, then I must be Lean. I don’t care what Smalley says. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time for him. It’s Sunday morning and I have more Christmas lights to put up, then tomorrow I have more Value Stream Maps to do.
Hong Xu says
What a good article by Smalley and what a resounding metaphor or analogy by you to trumpet out the points of the article! I have only recently met Art and I truly consider it my fortune. Five minutes into the first conversation, he had already pushed all the sore buttons I had. I could not agree with him any more and you likewise based on what I just read. I would look forward to meeting you someday and learn more from you.
Thanks for the Christmas gift.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Hong
Kathleen Fasanella says
I’m actually heartened by Grinch Smalley. When my husband and I started exploring lean, we had vigorous discussions about what Lean “looked like” in different industries. It seems that Lean is mostly applied in industries with a high engineering component; the inputs and control processes of their products being highly quantifiable. However, in apparel, inputs are not so highly quantifiable and are much more variable. Similarly, I’ve argued that other industries such as agriculture and building are likewise dissimilar to what we commonly think of as a lean industry. Lumber -just like fabric- cannot be smelted to specific parameters to enhance waste reduction. Regarding pull, it will remain unlikely that a serving of corn can be produced at will upon demand. The idea that you can’t hire 9 women for one month and get a baby applies to our industries both literally and figuratively. You can’t pull corn like cars or computers and the inherent differences between quantifiable manufacturing and the comparative of industries closer to the dirt will compel variant differences in lean manufacturing.
Industries relying on natural limitations cannot implement lean as currently dictated. There are some advantages and disadvantages to this. For example, the building trades will (largely) remain impervious to import pressures; it remains an impossiblity to construct a home in China and import the thing here. In apparel, our advantage is cycle time; we are not constrained by long product development cycles. With an interchangeable block system, we can go from concept to approved prototype in two days. Production can process the lot in another two days. Which brings me to another concept; in many respects, batching will remain unavoidable in “dirt” industries.
What I mean to say is that Smalley’s ideas excite me. Lean doesn’t look the same in every industry. While you can’t pull corn or coats like cars, that doesn’t mean the same concepts can’t be brought to bear. Smalley’s article provides parameters for discovery and exploration.