Become a Lean Thinker COLUMN BY NATHAN UNGER There have been a number of rebuilder’s conventions recently which promoted the theme of lean remanu- facturing. I couldn’t get |@ out to any of those so I lr > checked out our library’s Web site. This idea comes from Rob Buksar who, in one of his articles called the library “one of the least used (taxpayer funded) resources.” I discovered a book entitled “Lean Thinking,’ by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones, published by Simon and Schuster, 1996. Fascinating. It was not only informa- tive, it was also entertaining. I recom- mend it not only for businesses with many employees, but even for the small shop like mine. The first thing Womack discusses is the identification of “muda.” This is a Japanese word for waste. Muda, he says, must be defined from the cus- tomer’s perspective because that’s who the money comes from. It includes wasted effort, space, or time. There are at least six different kinds of muda: defects; producing goods and services not needed by the customer; unnecessary movement of goods or people including shipping; unnecessary handling or processing of product; waiting between processing steps; and too much inventory. You might think of more. (Also check out the book “The Toyota Production System: Beyond Large Scale Production,’ Portland, Oregon, Productivity Press, 1988.) Then Womack discusses the five principles of lean thinking: Determine value from the customer’s point of view. For my customers that would be a starter or alternator that is reliable, looks good at the time of purchase, and is ready within a reasonable turnaround time at a reasonable price. This does not necessarily mean the fastest or the cheapest. I found when I raised my prices, I attracted some high profile dealerships who didn’t come when the prices were low! I guess they figured that if the prices are too low, then the quality isn’t there either. Determine the steps of the value stream. This principle is going to take a lot of work, but you have to do it in order to uncover muda. The customer comes into the shop, bringing a unit for rebuild. I enter his information into the computer work order, and make arrangements with him to quote a price, book a time to do it, and so on. Then the job goes into a numbered bin on a numbered shelf rack so I can easily find it when I am ready to do the estimate. At this time, I completely disassem- ble it and test the parts. Then I call the customer, receive the OK, and order or gather up the parts and put it back on the shelf. When all the parts are in and the scheduled time has arrived, then and only then do I begin work on it. I try to stick with that job until it is finished, because each trip back to the numbered shelf is the muda of unnecessary han- dling, not to mention the breakup of orderly thought flow. Then I take the bin to the parts clean- ing machines and paint or varnish the parts that need it. Next, I bring all the parts back to the assembly bench and complete the job. Then I stamp the job with my work order number, paint it, box it, invoice it, and put it out for pickup at the front. Then I phone the customer. When he comes, I close off the work order. You get the idea. The more detail I put into this analy- sis, the more waste I will uncover. I did not go into a lot of detail on what is involved in completing the job. This would vary from one unit to another. As it is, you can see some waste going on here already: waiting for my scheduled time, waiting to hear back from the cus- tomer, and waiting for parts. There may be things I can do to reduce or eliminate even these wastes. If I hired an employee for example, then possibly he could look after the customer right away, and give him the estimate on the spot. This would eliminate those first two waits right there. Flow; make sure that all activity produces value as defined by customer. Every step in this process should be focused on getting the reliability, final appearance, and timeliness of that job. Things like trying to combine parts orders in an attempt to save freight money may end up producing the muda of wasted time. A cheap price is actually not the customer’s top priority. If it is, you may want to consider targeting another market, because you will create more defects that way. Pull; make nothing until ordered by customer. If I started producing stuff in order to keep myself busy, thinking, “Oh well, it can just be for stock,” that is the muda of overproduction. Perhaps I should be call- ing on customers during the slow times instead. The idea here is to be doing stuff for which I will get paid. I find that if I am not working on an actual order, I tend to work slower. This concept is very strange to the typical “batch and queue” thinker, but it was conceived by no less than Taiichi Ohno, then president of Toyota, and has been studied and adopted by firms worldwide. Perfection; no scrap, rework, or comebacks. This principle is something that will require cont