by R.T. "Chris" Christensen

We finally have a collection of techniques, tools and procedures at our disposal to improve our manufacturing capabilities.

Up until now, we had a mishmash of unconnected concepts and ideas. The concepts didn’t function as a total cost-saving and manufacturing improvement plan.

In the past, our best concepts and ideas tended to shift responsibility for manufacturing enhancements down the organizational hierarchy, but never gave the people put in charge the power to make change occur.

Top management delegated the improvements to the operatives and never became part of the team to enact the changes. This was true in quality circles, Total Quality Management, right sizing, down sizing, redundancy reduction, worker empowerment and even just-in-time. We tried to universally fit these into our organizations at the middle-management levels and wondered why they had problems.

The concepts were basically task-oriented and structured toward fact finding. They never really were envisioned as tools to implement change. Yes, JIT reduced the amount of inventory the end-user had on hand, but all it really did was shift inventory location and ownership back on the suppliers. JIT did little if anything to reduce the amount of inventory in the supply chain.

The final objective of quality circles, TQM, JIT and others was to generate the final reports on what should be done. And, just generating the report does not implement improvements. I know there are those who experienced success generating savings with these techniques, but you are the exception to the rule.

I saw the conundrum first-hand several years ago when I was called to a corporation to find out why bottom-line results were not achieved after more than a year’s worth of effort. The company did "everything," but nothing happened.

The corporation, which shall remain nameless, manufactured repair parts for the aviation industry. Past practice led them to carry an enormous amount of inventory, so when an aircraft had a component failure, parts could be brought to the affected aircraft’s location overnight. That way, repairs were made expeditiously and the aircraft was back in service as soon as possible. The goal was to have any part and get it anywhere in the world a repair was needed in 24 hours. A lofty goal, but an attainable one utilizing the tool box called lean manufacturing. But, I am getting ahead of myself.

This corporation wasn’t focused on working relationships or organizational functions. The tools they looked at were not interconnected. When they embarked on the program, they saw it could take three to five days to find a part in their system and deliver it to the mechanic doing the repair. So, they looked at this list of disconnected concepts and read all the books. They read a book on re-engineering and reorganized the staff. They read the books on cellular manufacturing and relaid their facilities. They studied TQM and generated stacks of reports on possible quality improvements.

They read books on worker empowerment and turned the responsibility of meeting the 24-hour delivery to employees.

As top managers, they had no idea what they needed to do to meet the 24-hour goal, so they implemented a series of disjointed concepts and charged the employees to, and I quote, "fix it." Guess what? Nothing happened.

What they failed to do was look at the end result from the customer’s point of view, involve everyone in the process and then select the appropriate tools needed to meet a worldwide, random demand in 24 hours. This is what lean manufacturing is all about.

Lean is a toolbox of concepts, tools, techniques and ideas that an organization uses to meet company goals and objectives. Everyone from the top down is involved.

And while not everything in the lean toolbox may apply to your operations, overall objectives are met when everyone involved chooses the appropriate tools and determines where they fit best.

Now if only that aviation repair parts company had gone this route.

Use the tools from the toolbox and you can attain quite lofty goals. Lean really does work.

R.T. "Chris" Christensen is the director of the University of Wisconsin School of Business' operations management program. If you have an inventory management question, contact Coach Christensen by phone at or e-mail . 

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