In a non-lean world
Hi after a sometime for all of lean manufacturing fans. I was watching what is happening around the world for past few weeks. Hundreds and thousands of job losses in places like City group, crashing stock markets, top automakers pleading for help and attacks in Mumbai, all are happening so fast. World is spinning in a different direction for the past few months. So being a lean thinker I couldn’t help me thinking these in lines of lean.
Open market economy is based on supply and demand and profits. Seems simple enough for me. But what is the demand and what is the supply we have to ask ourselves. Do we actually want things we bought? Or are we buying what media and marketers want? OK here is an example. Do you want a refrigerator? Of cause you do. But do you want to see flat paned LCD display with internet connection on the door of that? I don’t need it for sure. I have my laptop to connect to internet. I do not think you do either, unless media and ads forced you to do so. Here is the lesson, in an economy where the demand is the pull factor, if the demand itself is not real the entire economy will fail.
We take some critical factors of our day to day operation for granted. We think they are so obvious and we ignore them. In lean manufacturing all the steps and processes are equally important. You are looking for continuous improvement opportunities. So you are unable to take things for granted.
The next important lean lesson is that we must be flexible and highly responsive to the changing markets. If the markets are declining fast, we have to know that and we should be able to adapt to the situation fast. This will prevent organizations from sudden death since you have much more time in curing yourself.
Last learning I came through is kind of obvious. There are some factors out of your control. They might affect you bad, but you have very little options. Best you can do is to have a contingency plan.
We live in a tiny world. Your decision will affect me and my decision will affect you. In a manufacturing context you, your supplier, your customer and your surrounding all depends on each other. In lean manufacturing all of us are partners.
1 comments:
Interesting observations... With Chrismas coming up there is plenty of demand loaded into the retail economy by marketing of goods that people don't really need. Problem is that there are manufacturers/ distributors/ outlets that rely on the seasonal sales to survive. The economy has become so fragile that if people decided to buy only what they need, not what they want, then we have a problem. Will we have to add toy manufacturers to the growing list asking for bailouts? Hope not. But I believe we need to consider how to curtail appetitie for frivolous goods. Tighten rules on credit, I suggest.
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