to look at their measures and ask two questions: “What measures are rewarding
the wrong behaviors or punishing the right behaviors from a lean perspective?”
and “How can we balance this out with measures that reward the right behaviors?”
This is certainly a useful exercise. Nonetheless, there are a number of reasons
that we get worried when we are asked about the right “lean metrics”:
- There are more sources of power than rewards and coercion. Where are
the other aspects of leadership to drive the right behaviors? Changing
metrics is an easy, bureaucratic way to control behavior. It is often an
excuse for failure to develop real leadership capability. - It is impossible to precisely measure all the right behaviors.Unfortunately,
if you measure behaviors A, B, and C, you are likely to focus on those
behaviors and focus less on behaviors D, E, and F, which might be equally
important but difficult to measure.
450 THETOYOTAWAYFIELDBOOK
TIP
A Standardized Process Can Be Effectively Measured
and Improved
The whole point of measuring is to verify improvement. A
process that is not standardized cannot effectively be measured.
There is too much variation, and the resulting measure has no
baseline for comparison. A process that has been standardized
hasdefinedagreements, such as takt rate and signals from the
customer regarding demand, and the standardized use of resources
ensures cost control. It’s very easy to determine whether a process
is fulfilling its requirement to the customer. The voice of the cus-
tomer is visible. Total cost can easily be measured because the
base cost is always the same. Only the time factor changes. How
long the process needs to operate to satisfy the customer varies
based on actual process performance. What if the customer stops
pulling? To prevent overproduction, the process must stop as the
agreement defines. If my process stops producing, my cost will go
up and my labor efficiency will go down. That is not fair to me,
right? This is why it’s necessary to consider multiple measures
when evaluating any process. Consistently servicing the customer
at the lowest possible cost needs to be considered. Within Toyota,
when a process is stopped because the customer is not pulling, the
supplier process in not penalized. This time is considered “wait
kanban.” The operation is waiting for additional signals from the
customer, and this time is deducted from the available time so that
the process productivity measure is not affected.