IBM and lean manufacturing????????
Lean is becoming universal and its application reach very wide audience. It reaches mass scale manufacturers to small make to order manufacturers. Huge services to smaller offices. Giants in today’s world are using lean to gain advantage over each other just like Toyota did in the automobile manufacturing industry. Google alerts sent me an important news on the relationship IBM has with lean manufacturing. The company IBM requires no introduction. It is a giant. Still they look at lean manufacturing as a tool where they can reach competitive advantage over their competitors. This is a good example on how popular lean is becoming.
But the when I went through the story, I was wondering “Is this really lean”. Lean manufacturing improves process efficiencies and will enable manufacturer to get more with the same amount of resources. For an example if your work force of hundred people manages to produce 500 pieces of products within the working day, lean will make it possible to manufacturer 800 a day with the sam number of people.
But is it same to say now we can produce the same amount of 500 products with 63 people. So what about the remaining 37 people. What are they going to do? Are they going to loose their jobs? I found IBM is calculating the lean benefits in the second category, as a strategy to remove some employees from their facilities. In this article if you look at the comments made, it is apparent that even some of the people think they are loosing their jobs due to lean.
This is not lean really wants. People are at the center of lean manufacturing. Nothing is possible without people. Lean is not a downsizing strategy, but an improvement strategy. Read this post and specially the comments made by people. What do you think? Is this really lean? Leave your comment here.
2 comments:
The popular misconception is that Lean is a tool used to reduce the work force. Many instructors at the tech. school that I go to believe that Lean is just another device to cut labor costs. With me having earned my Lean Master Facilitator Certificate from Milwaukee School of Engineering through the Business Excellence Consortium, I often have to explain to everyone that it is really a tool to help wipe out waste. Nothing more, nothing less. It's frustrating when we see places like IBM applying Lean as an excuse to reduce their work force. The negative ripple effects spread far and wide making it difficult to implement Lean in other industries. Educating and being patient is required by all those wanting to help campaign for facilities on their Lean journeys. It's frustrating...but worth the effort.
You say! Lean is just another device to cut labor shed costs (weight);
If it was Flab, and for them you open a gate!
You will have opportunities now to clear off the slate,
For whom "To hear work is lean-ly done", you may have to wait.
For, Lean is a Lean tool, potent and powerful, but for its weight!
(c) 2008 Priyavrat Threja
www.thareja.com
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