7 Major Reasons for the Failure to Implement Lean Production

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We often hear many companies complain that they’re unable to successfully implement lean production in their own organizations, no matter what methods they try. Today, we’ll analyze the seven main reasons why lean production initiatives fail in factory settings! 1 I don’t know what problems I need lean production tools to solve—is it herd mentality or actual problems? Over the past decade, driven by the rapid growth of the production management consulting industry and influenced by renowned management books such as \"The Machine That Changed the World\" and \"Lean Thinking\", the executives in the manufacturing sector have almost all had their minds reshaped. It is well known that Toyota Motor Company evolved from a small, workshop-style automobile manufacturer into a world-class automotive producer. The people at Toyota didn’t only create cars; they also created a management myth that has become a barrier difficult to overcome in the manufacturing industry. Chinese companies also hope that their own businesses can achieve success like Toyota. Every leader who has visited Toyota is deeply impressed by the bright working environment and orderly workflow at the company, and gains insight into the directions for future improvements. Upon returning, they continuously sent middle and senior management staff, as well as those at the lower levels, to visit Japanese companies that are part of the Fortune 500 list, such as Toyota, Ricoh, and Honda, for learning purposes. So that the other party can put it into practice and bring about a dramatic transformation in their own business overnight. Thus, instructions are often given saying, “Our factory too needs to have a clean workplace, just like Toyota’s.” Go buy some green paint tomorrow to make the factory look brighter. Make sure all the labels are clearly marked and attached. ”So it was observed on the green lane that, although things seemed better, road obstruction for work still occurred frequently, and the green paint quickly turned gray. Although the signs are still there, the items themselves have long disappeared; instances of things no longer being in their original state are all too common. The final conclusion everyone reached was that our employees are of poor quality and fail to follow through on what they say. ”“Japan and China have differences in their national characteristics, and Toyota is a product of Japanese culture. And our company’s turnover rate is too high. ”“We work on a piece-rate system, so it’s impossible to implement lean practices. ”2. Failing to distinguish between individual efficiency and system efficiency. At this point, let’s consider three questions together: Question 1: Why can Japanese companies still adopt exactly the same management practices when they invest in setting up factories in China? Even better than mainland Japan? Question 2: Who develops the professional competence of corporate employees? Is it society, the family, a company, or an individual? Question 3: Why did you choose these employees despite knowing their poor quality? Actually, the problem is very simple. Every company hopes to achieve the highest returns at the lowest cost. But because people only focus on immediate benefits and cash, without considering future competitiveness, no one is willing to invest money in employee training. They think once the training is complete, they can just leave. Once the training is complete, if they become good employees, it represents an increase in capital, and therefore wages should be raised. However, what is invested will surely yield returns. For example, for training costing above a certain amount, how long must the employment contract be? It is a solution; solutions of this kind are what arise when facing practical problems and striving to address and improve them. Therefore, it is the right path for a company to improve the current situation, rather than doing so solely for the sake of lean production. Don’t do something just because others are doing it. Don’t do it just because the teacher said so. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean I have to do it too. Rather: I want to adopt lean practices because there are certain problems I need to solve, and that’s why we need to implement lean production. Once you clarify the purpose of what you want to do, the direction of your goals becomes clear. Only then can the project reach the door to success. Clarifying the purpose is just the first step; I call this stage the phase when leaders want to achieve lean operations. When leaders announce that companies must adopt lean production, they align everyone’s focus in the same direction, ensuring that all are turned toward the path of lean. 3. They have no idea what their current level of proficiency is – they proceed blindly. In some companies, everyone from top to bottom knows that lean production is beneficial; after just two days of training, they become familiar with some of the tools and concepts related to lean production. Then, adding the field trip*, I thought it could be done. Because what Toyota sees is advancement through eight modules. Therefore, following the TPS theory and framework step by step, work on all eight modules is being carried out simultaneously. Then it was seen that the promotion office kept demanding weekly reports and summaries, forcing everyone to deal with them passively. With a surge in production orders and high staff turnover, giving top priority to completing production tasks became everyone’s focus. No one pays attention to the Promotion Office; you can do whatever you want. Production comes first. Out of necessity, the boss also tacitly allowed this situation to continue. Push the organization further down the path to destruction. Frontline workers keep all these priorities in sight; they know them inside out. Knowing when one can show their strength also implies, indirectly, that all improvements are fake – completing production tasks is the real skill. People began artificially to separate improvement from the production relationship, turning what was originally a close relationship into two separate entities. Production managers and employees will become even less willing to work with you, because you fail to help them address the issues and achieve the goals that are important to them. In other words, the goals of the promoters and production managers are not aligned; the goals mentioned here fall into two categories: one is the current-phase goal. Problems that need to be solved urgently and absolutely. One is a long-term goal; figuring out a way to prevent problems before they occur is important, but it’s not an urgent matter. Therefore, to ensure the smooth progress of lean production, the second thing that must be done is to address the current issues within the company. Enable enterprises to have more energy to face the future and strengthen their capabilities. Of course, if your company is new, then this step isn’t necessary; you can proceed directly according to the established procedure. But in fact, the problems many new companies face may not be related to production, but rather to the survival of their business or to infrastructure issues. Only those companies that focus solely on expanding their production facilities can proceed with all eight modules at the same time, as they are already in the production preparation phase, with no conflicts arising from this, allowing these tasks to be given top priority. 4. It’s unclear who would be the most suitable for this role – there is reluctance to part with employees, yet there is a desire to contain any potential problems; inherent factors such as the priority given to production tasks and the low educational level of current managers influence many company leaders. There is a tendency to have new university graduates, newcomers, or even clerical staff take charge of projects related to lean production. There were a few clients who hired ten college students when implementing their projects. Ten college students, and then have an administrative supervisor lead the implementation. As a result, not a single manager in the production department paid any attention to them. Some said it was because the top leadership hadn’t given any orders; if they were given the power to decide lives and deaths, would they even pay attention? In fact, there was also a client whose promoter himself felt that he couldn’t drive things forward simply because he had no decision-making authority. But after conducting an assessment, I believe that even giving these new college students complete authority over life and death would be useless. Because he didn’t know how to kill, whom to kill, why kill him, when to do it, what cost the company would bear, and how to recover from the losses. These are handed over to university students and administrative supervisors; I won’t say anything else, but I’m afraid the leaders themselves must be feeling nervous and anxious. In fact, a corporate leader actually said that anyone who fails to cooperate will be fired, stating that if people don’t change their mindset, they’ll be replaced. This language, which seems to place great emphasis on something, can make one feel that it lacks strength when put into practice. Because the beginning of a revolution always sees a few following, the majority watching, and a few rebelling. Often, the minority of rebels are mostly skilled in production techniques, and they are essential talents for innovation movements. Once the decision to dismiss is made, it cannot be undone. The banner of innovation has already fallen. So don’t try to intimidate your employees, let alone coerce your talents. What kind of person is qualified to take on this important role? You can have one person who possesses the following role, or you can have two to three people, each with the aforementioned characteristics. Regardless of the size of an enterprise, an organization that drives change needs at least two people; usually, three to seven people is ideal, with five being the best number. 1. People who enjoy prestige in the enterprise. A charismatic leader is the best choice to drive things forward. II. People within a company who are familiar with the production process. Because of your familiarity with product production, no one will try to deceive you. III. Leaders who are good at utilizing people. IV. Leaders who are good at communication. V. Leaders who are good at summarizing and promoting. 5. It’s unclear which teacher would be most effective in providing guidance to one – in terms of values, Chinese business leaders tend to favor teachers with social authority, such as foreigners, university professors, and doctors, believing that only such people are capable of providing good guidance in business management. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but most manufacturing industries are not composed of employees with a university degree or doctoral qualifications. University professors may be able to bring about conceptual changes among corporate executives, but they cannot change the behavior of employees at middle and lower levels. This is why, in the implementation of lean production, many companies consider the execution quality to be poor. Because the middle and lower levels are the execution layer that carries out tasks. How to do it, to what extent, and how to combine theory with practice to do one’s work well – these are the things that give them the most trouble. No matter how good the concepts are, if guidance cannot be provided by combining them with practical experience, they are all meaningless. Just as a grand strategy cannot guide a team lacking execution capability, a strategy that fails to be transformed into tactics cannot take root. Therefore, as part of efforts to promote lean production, corporate leaders should think from the perspective of frontline employees and consider what kind of guidance their staff actually need What kind of teacher is needed? Rather than what kind of teacher the leader needs. A trainer who can truly mentor middle and lower-level managers must possess the following capabilities: 1. Have practical experience in lean production. Generally, those who come from grassroots levels for promotion need to have 5 years of practical experience. Ideally, they should be managers who have graduated from university and have more than 3 years of experience working at larger foreign enterprises or outstanding lean organizations. 2. Choose teachers with experience in implementing projects. Generally, instructors who have worked on implementation tasks in companies, developed systems and organized related work for over a year, and have more than 2 years of consulting experience are usually capable of independently carrying out lean production projects. 3. Generally, if one is looking for someone with experience, it’s better to choose someone who has held managerial positions and has at least 5 years of management experience in a Fortune 500 company; it’s even better if they have worked as managers at various levels, as this allows them to understand the psychological state of people at different hierarchical levels. It is easy to communicate effectively at all levels. Over 5 years of consulting experience. This falls under the category of senior consultants. It is best to combine experienced teachers with those with less experience. Such execution is the best. Due to their extensive experience, they are able to manage the progress of the entire project and guide the team out of difficult situations. Teachers with less experience are generally more agile and can effectively motivate frontline employees. 6. Not knowing what to do – A tendency to rely on consulting firms is quite prevalent among the leaders or department managers of many companies; they prefer to entrust lean management practices to consulting firms. Since you think I’ve spent so much money bringing you here, it’s to have you do the work. So a contract is signed with the consulting firm, and payment will not be made unless certain criteria are met. Guided by this contract, all middle managers began to develop a certain attitude toward the consulting firm. Since this is a matter related to the consulting firm, we are working in coordination with them. The worst part is that the leadership also said, “The consulting firm has signed responsibility targets with us.” ”Promote it among middle management at the conference. Whatever the intentions of the company’s leadership, this is a fatal misstatement regarding the implementation of lean production. We call it suicidal propaganda campaigns. The correct approach should be as stated by the CEO of an American-owned company: \"It’s not me who needs to implement lean practices, nor are it the consulting firms; it’s everyone here who needs to do so.\" ”This role positioning is correct. Because lean production is something that is implemented in practice; if a company feels that the guidance provided by consultants is not sufficient, it can simply stop working with them and hire better experts instead. Using such so-called indicators to ensure quality is, in fact, just making fun of one’s own company. No company’s lean production is created by consulting firms; these firms merely claim to have coached that company. Prove that you have an understanding of this industry. Nor does any company, after achieving success, claim that it was done by a certain consulting firm; instead, they say that it was the result of using certain methods and going through various challenges to reach that achievement. 7. Some companies attempt to achieve lean management solely through assessment systems – using penalties in place of supervision and rules in place of training. This is especially the case for those companies that have not hired professional trainers and are trying to implement such systems on their own. The top priority is to establish a set of assessment methods. Then, the electronic versions of the assessment system and procedures are distributed to various departments. Immediately thereafter, an assessment and inspection are carried out once a month, with fines imposed. It seems to work after a month. But these are only superficial; the deeper problems and negative aspects remain unseen by everyone. You’ll find that after 3 months, everyone is full of complaints. Implementing it is extremely difficult. As a management transformation, lean production aims to achieve more precise alignment between product logistics and information flows, by managing each individual aspect of the company’s 4M activities in detail; this helps to reduce production costs. Based on customer-driven value creation, it seeks to foster closer collaboration among R&D, sales, and production teams in order to generate higher added value. For such a systematic task, to implement systems from other companies without first having a thorough understanding of the current situation and without discussing appropriate methods is like trying to transplant a large tree to a place without soil; it’s foolish to expect that tree to thrive in such conditions. The correct approach should be: first, to carefully assess one’s current situation and understand what is lacking. What needs to be replenished the most. Any company will face problems at some point, but do these problems hinder the company’s development, and are they the most urgent issues that need to be addressed? It needs to be systematically examined and analyzed. If you don’t know how, please bring in an expert. II. Strive to learn the relevant basic knowledge. Required external or internal training. III. Understand the principles behind the knowledge and their relevance to one’s own company. IV. Organize people you believe can drive this change and grant administrative authority to this organization. V. Identify several suitable areas for pilot implementation in order to master the techniques for advancing it. VI. Summarize the problems and effective methods encountered in the pilot phase, and explore corresponding standardization and improvement measures. VII. Methods in the overall training pilot. VIII. Establish a target management system for overall advancement and a system for everyone’s participation in improvement. IX. Designate a 3-day improvement day. X. Regular summaries and reports. XI. Organize exchanges, observations, and presentations. XII. Create an open and transparent working environment for academic competition.