Big v Small Lean

The contrast between big company lean and small company lean has been troubling me recently, especially as you consider that in the automotive arena Toyota has the highest levels of recalls.One way to view this is to contrast Boeing, who is purportedly using lean to build its new 787 model and Leading Edge, a 120-employee shop that fabricates hydraulic tubing.

To me, and a lot of my other distinguished colleagues, Boeing uses pseudo-lean. This is summarized by Kevin at Evolving Excellence:

Boeing has outsourced most of the 787’s manufacturing to firms in Japan, China, Italy, South Carolina and elsewhere, while the company itself is concentrating on putting the plane together at its cavernous main facility in Everett, near Seattle.

Yes, that’s something to be proud of. Your core competency becomes snapping six pieces (okay, six very large pieces) together. But then Boeing’s warped understanding of lean, especially the metric of cycle time, comes into play.

Boeing said it will take about seven weeks to assemble the first plane. By the 100th plane, the company expects to lower that to six days and, ultimately, Boeing said a new 787 will roll out of its factory every three days. By comparison, Boeing said it takes an average of 14 weeks for the 777 to move out the factory door because much of the manufacturing is done by the company.

Using that logic I could assemble a Dreamliner in about 10 minutes if everything came complete except for painting the black dot on the tip of the nose.

The Leading Edge approach is summarized as follows:

“It’s a philosophy; it’s really a culture that you develop. It’s the idea that says no matter how good you are, you can always be better. And when you have that belief you’re constantly looking for ways to improve, to eliminate waste, to reduce redundancies.”

Correct!! These guys understand the power of kaizen and need to move away from tools and to a philosophy of continuous improvement. As Mike says over at Got Boondoggle?

On a lean journey, we should never be satisfied, never become comfortable, and never feel secure in the status quo.

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lean manufacturing, six sigma

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