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TPS, idealism and the rest.

3/27/15       
Mel Member

Seeing as I'm a messy thinker and you folks are good at untangling knots....

So anyone here actually adopt the human resources philosophy of TPS? Like the continuous learning, ground-up, worker empowerment, chuck-a-big-problem-at-a-brainy-employee typa thing?

See, a touch of polysci, philo, anthro, socio, psych, anthro, a whole lot of cognitive neuroscience, and being a street kid for a couple years-- you don't need to sell me on motivation. I know for a fact that it runs the world from the ground up.

(Pat, you bastard, don't tell me this one is strawman--- unless you like backyard fights with gloves and beers. Then you get a formal invite, 'cause backyard beers and glove fights are fun.)

So PIA Pat aside --I keep getting called an idealist/young bull. I'm sure there is strong dose of that, but then again, hey, it was the meat at toyota and worked good, right? I can't be that far off. Or maybe I can?

I dunno, help a young bull out.

3/27/15       #2: TPS, idealism and the rest. ...
Chris

Confirmed. You are a messy thinker. What is the question?

3/27/15       #3: TPS, idealism and the rest. ...
David Waldmann  Member

Website: vermonthardwoods.com

Did you finish "The Goal"? The 2014 Kindle edition has a postscript of sorts, called "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants - Production concepts versus production applications. The Hitachi Tool Engineering example".

The most interesting thing to me was that TPS works for Toyota because it's an application that fits their environment. TPS would not work for us, and probably not for you. However, if you follow the steps that Ohno did, you can develop your own PS based on the same concepts he saw in the Ford assembly line.

3/28/15       #4: TPS, idealism and the rest. ...
Mel Member

Chris--look for the words with a question mark at the end ;)

David--The Goal in delivery. Pretty excited about it! But I'm in Canada, so they have to prep the huskies and the sled to get the shipment to my igloo! Takes time!

Dave--

"The most interesting thing to me was that TPS works for Toyota because it's an application that fits their environment. TPS would not work for us, and probably not for you."

This is the very tree I'm barking up at. From what I understand, there is a huge LEAN bandwagon and a ton of pretenders. Toyota Way refers to this a lot, trying to plug and play the TPS to your organization, and failing. The author refers to it constantly--The Toyoda family's attitudes about human resources is what made what they are.

Something that I think is relevant.... A brilliant fellow named Bruce Alexander conducts research on rats to study addiction--commonly refered to as "the rat park experiments". His idea is that by manipulating living conditions, he could manipulate opiate consumption.

And he sure did. So take a rat, alone in a cage, no toys, no space, put a morphine laced water supply and a normal water supply, they end up digging into the morphine. Create a "rat park", where there is space, toys, room exercise to be had, other rats, reproduction, pup rearing, etc, and put those two same water supplies, and the rats mostly don't hit the morphine on repeat. (there is the occasional freak of course)

I've been a person of many jobs. I feel like I've seen my share of the low stimulus cages in workplaces--even in "top rated" employers. Throwing the occasional company barbeque and having a human resources dept is not enough to make you The Rat Park.

Now we're not talking about singing kumbaya while holding hands at the camp fire--we're talking about enriched environments to get workers to use their brains to achieve higher targets--for everyone (people chasing big money, people just wanting to feel like they are good at what they do and others see it--there's a whole range of needs out there).

It's not completely crazy.

4/5/15       #5: TPS, idealism and the rest. ...
Derrek

Website: http://closetdr.com

Yes we have implemented lean strategies in our company. No its not Toyota because we don't build Toyota cars. Its our brand of lean. Im not a crazy 100% lean all the time thats all we think about guy, i just want a smooth running business with a great customer experience.
my take on important points.
it has to come from the top. If the owner/ presidents desk has piles of crap on it, lean ain't gonna happen in the shop.
You have to have the right people on the bus and sometimes the bus makes stops to let people off and pick up different people. If your an employee, you might need to get on a different bus if the bus your on isn't working out for you.
you have to take time to fix the problems.
regular short meetings to go over improvements and hand out praise, go over numbers and issues and set expectations. Some companies like Fastcap do this daily and spend an hour or more on it. We do it once a week on Tuesday morning and spend about an hour. We go over comments from customers, we.track our completion and follow up.rates and what the issues are. We go over personal development and safety topics. We discuss problems and how to solve them etc.
Lean doesn't just happen it takes work and effort but it is well worth the rewards. I just got back from a week long vacation with my family. Jobs got sold, things got ordered, projects were installed and money collected and I didn't have to worry about anything while I was gone, thats one of the benefits.

4/5/15       #6: TPS, idealism and the rest. ...
Mel

Sometimes it's the only bus in town. So you make peace with it, roll up your sleeves, and start trying to fix it. To your surprise, some people come out of the bus and start getting in there too.

Turns out they know more then you do, but just needed someone to get in there and start looking at it. You end up learning a whole lot about buses.

Good stuff about taking a week with the family. That sort of thing is essential, even from a business stand point. You're only as good as the last breather you took, imo.


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