This led to more waste, and a separation between the goals of management and
the goals of the workforce.
We saw that at Toyota standardized work is a tool used by value-added
workers and their team and group leaders. It is a tool for continuous improve-
ment. If we create a staff of “lean experts” pushing standardized work onto the
workforce, we‘re right back to Taylor’s scientific management.
Having said that, in the transition state to lean, the lean coaches are perhaps
second only to top management in their importance to lean. It is the unfortunate
reality that the workforce does not know enough about lean or have enough
motivation to change to something they do not understand. Senior management
may be “committed” but have so many other pressures they cannot focus a great
deal of attention every day to driving lean change. Thus, much of the responsi-
bility falls on the lean coach or lean team.
Given these considerations, can lean be a part-time assignment added to
someone’s full-time job? Presumably, if five people each spent 20 percent of
their time on lean, it would be as good as or better than one person spending
100 percent. But five people with full-time jobs that always seem to expand to
120 percent of their time will not find the 20 percent to devote to lean. It is rare
that we see a lot of success with lean without at least one full-time lean coach.
In the last chapter we described Denso’s approach to lean. As part of their
Efficient Factory program, they’re creating internal lean experts from their man-
ufacturing engineering group. There is a general movement within Toyota, includ-
ing NUMMI, in North America, to develop stronger TPS experts within the
plant—at least two full-time TPS specialists per major process (e.g., paint, body
shop, stamping, final assembly). This is a part of the recognition that outside of
Japan, where TPS has become part of the culture, there is a greater need for TPS
specialists to raise the bar on TPS in the plant.
The job of the lean coach includes:
- Leading model line programs
- Leading value stream mapping
- Leading kaizen events
- Teaching lean tools and philosophy (short courses and through lean
activities) - Coaching leaders at all levels
- Developing the lean operating system (principles, metrics, assessment
approaches, standard operating procedures) - Internally promoting lean transformation
- Externally learning and bringing back new ideas
The organizational structure of the lean program in Figure 20-1 that we looked
at earlier suggests that the Sponsor, Process Owner, and Value Stream Team are
leading the transformation, and certainly that would be ideal. Unfortunately, it’s
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 435