Toyota's growing market share and profit reports run counter to those of what's left of the Big Three, even though they each run their own version of the Toyota Production System (TPS, also called Lean). Every industry includes vibrant companies glowing from their success with Lean, and other members that have decided they just can't get good results from Lean. So why does Lean seem to revitalize some organizations and stultify others?

TPS is an attitude, a philosophy, an ingrained way to behave and think. For success with Lean, it is crucial to weave the Lean philosophy into the fabric of your company. It is a commitment to continuous improvement and customer satisfaction founded in planned, controlled, and measured change. A company that fails to understand that will fail to reap the most valuable benefits of Lean.

TPS is NOT:

• a euphemism for pushing inventory and costs back on the supplier
• a set of tools, like Kanban, Kaizen Blitz, or SMED
• a silver bullet solution
• limited to manufacturing or production
• something to try for a while
• industrial engineering
• common sense

Success with TPS requires:

• employees from top to bottom with a clear understanding of the objective, little tolerance for anything less, and a total commitment to structured and analytical problem solving to enhance the quality of the change process
  • NOTE: this doesn't grow on trees; must be developed over time by leadership that can be accurately described that way
    • NOTE: also doesn't grow on trees, but can be grown and hired by top level commitment.
• The ability to see waste
• NOTE: doesn't grow on trees either; see above

Your organization and Lean:

• Is your company
  • disciplined in follow-through and consistency of message?
  • willing to invest in employees?
  • willing to delegate decision-making to appropriate levels in the organization when they're ready to accept it?
  • able to manage change well?
  • able to handle constant change without spinning into chaos?
    
• If the answer to any of these is “no,” then your options include:
  • refocus to undemanding markets
  • do as much as you can and hope it’s enough
  • do what you can now while you do what you must to move the answers quickly toward a firm “yes.”

If you choose the last option listed, we'll be glad to help you succeed.

Lean and Finish Strong™: Contradictory?

Lean is known for its focus on eliminating waste, for continuous improvement, and for the endless pursuit of perfection. Finish Strong™ is about completed work. They may seem contradictory to some, but they are not.

Is continuous improvement something that can never be finished? In fact it is a never-ending series of completed improvements. Standardized work is the TPS approach to ensuring that the old way is ended, and the new way fully implemented. Most American Lean efforts fall short on the standardized work part, and fail to maintain the gains of changes they've tried to make. Finish Strong™changes that.

It is more effective for your business to make one improvement, standardize it, and prevent slippage back to the old way, or said another way, to Finish Strong™ that improvement, than to start several changes but institutionalize none of them.

Finish Strong™ is about completed work, about doing what you say you will.
Finish Strong™ is about maintaining the gains.
Finish Strong™ is about resolving problems in a way that lasts.

Shigeo Shingo and Taiichi Ohno wouldn't deny the value of those. Nor should you.