精益生产英文文章 奉献一篇美国人写的关于精益生产的文章

奉献一篇美国人写的关于精益生产的文章：

April 5, 2006 -- Increasingly, global competition requires that manufacturingcompanies improve their production efficiencies or face extinction. And indeed,by adopting Toyota's Lean System, companies have achieved tremendous gains inproductivity and profits by removing the waste, or muda, from their productionprocesses. Many firms have realized the same improvements by applying leanprinciples to their critical business processes.
However, creating a lean business process is only half the battle against muda.The knowledge workers involved in these processes must also develop lean workhabits. A firm that only creates a lean process without creating lean workhabits is like a sprinter with a track spike on one foot and an army boot onthe other -- and that's a sure way to lose the race to satisfy the customer.

Our work with a major manufacturing firm illustrates the difference between alean process and lean work habits. The labs were immaculate -- a model of 5Simplementation -- but the lab manager's office was a mess: inventory wasdisorganized and critical information was difficult to retrieve.
Our company has taught lean work habits to a variety of manufacturing firms,including Toyota, over the past several years. These firms have realizedincreased employee efficiency, improved worker response time and increasedcustomer satisfaction. Most significantly, by reducing the muda endemic in mostknowledge workers' behavior, employees have gained nearly 10 hours per week forwork that creates customer value.
Lean work habits are critical for knowledge workers, because the multiple valuestreams flowing through them create a constant tension. Without lean habits toguide their work, the critical flow of information in the value stream clogsup. Think of the information bottlenecks in the form of backlogs on theirdesks, or the hundreds of unanswered email in their inboxes. Think of theenforced waiting throughout a department when decision-makers read but don'tact upon a request. Think unnecessary motion of managers searching fordocuments amidst the masses of paper piled on their desks. Each of these wastesundermines the gains made by any improvements in the design of a company'sbusiness processes.
And these wastes can be catastrophic: in 1999, NASA's Mars Climate Orbiterburned up in orbit due to a miscommunication regarding English and metricunits. A task force found that a simple, unanswered email about the correctmeasurement units led to disaster. The total loss to NASA: $327 million.
In response to these problems, we have developed the following principles thatcreate lean knowledge workers and improve the flow of the value stream:
Principle #1: Screening Muda
Knowledge workers are inundated with information each day. Yet most studiesshow that 50% of this information has little or no value to the worker.
By contrast, production line employees don't have to deal with this problem.They have limited and clearly defined materials that come down the assemblyline to their workstation. They know what to process and how to do it. Imaginethe chaos if new raw materials or irrelevant parts suddenly came down the line:they wouldn't be able to do their jobs efficiently.
Therefore, we've taught knowledge workers at ImagePoint, Ernst & Young,Pfizer and other companies how to screen the information that enters theirsystem in order to identify and reduce the muda. They have removed themselvesfrom unnecessary mailing lists, and proactively told co-workers what types ofinformation they need to see and what types are irrelevant to them. They havelearned to discard low- or no-value information immediately, rather than let itclutter their inboxes. They have created rules in their email software todirect mail to appropriate folders so that it doesn't sit in their inboxes.Employing this lean work habit, they have reduced the amount of time spenthandling email by 22%.
Although it's impossible for them to eradicate the scourge of unnecessaryemail, memos and magazines, learning to screen the information helps ease theburden and saves time. Even more importantly, reducing the amount of low-valueinformation entering the system improves the "signal to noise ratio",which enables workers to identify the high-value information more quickly andeasily.
Principle #2: Managing The Flow
Receiving, processing, storing, distributing and tracking the information andtasks that comprise their work is a formidable job. Unfortunately, without leanwork habits, these tasks pile up until they're overwhelming. As a result,projects deadlines slip; coworkers wait idly for information and businessprocesses grind to a halt. Muda floods the system.
Production line workers, of course, don't have the option of leaving tasksundone. The process of manufacturing makes the work flow tangible; they can seethe work-in-process inventory building up behind them, and they can see theircoworkers farther down the line standing idle. Their muda is visible. They musthandle the work as it comes to them, or the line stops.
Knowledge workers have learned to keep value flowing through the businessprocess by applying the "4 Ds" to their work. When something enterstheir system -- an email, a phone call, a memo, a project, etc. -- they musttake one of four courses of action: they can Do it, if it can be completed inless than two minutes; they can Delegate it to someone better suited to handleit; they can Designate time for it in their calendars, if it's a morecomplicated task; or they can Dump it, if it's irrelevant or insignificant.These are the only options open to them.
When workers rigorously apply the 4 Ds, nothing returns to the inbox; valuealways moves forward. And indeed, employees who practice the 4 Ds consistentlyhave reduced the amount of time spent working on backlog -- which is nothingmore than a form of waste in a lean system - by 45%.
Principles #3: Moving Value Forward
The variety of sources of information (email, Blackberries, voice mail, paper,casual conversations, etc.) does increase the speed, volume and access toinformation. However it also creates serious problems for knowledge workers.They lead to the continual interruptions that fracture the focus needed forefficient, high-quality work.
Mary Czerwinski of Microsoft Research Labs points out that once someone isinterrupted, it takes 25 minutes to cycle back to the original task. And 40% ofthe time, workers wander off in a new direction when an interruption ends. In afive-year study, IBT-USA found that executives lose 4.5 hours per week to interruptions.Basex estimates the loss even higher, at nearly 11 hours per week - whichamounts to a staggering $588 billion cost to the U.S. economy.
Production line workers, of course, don't face this problem. While the line isrunning, they have to focus on the task at hand -- they don't have the luxuryof distractions while working with an arc welder or a circular saw. And whenthey do handle process improvements or machinery maintenance, they don't do itwhile the line is running. They address those issues when they're off the lineand can concentrate. But with the variety of inputs and types of work thatknowledge workers address, it's easy for muda to overtake the business process.
One way that lean knowledge workers reduce the number of interruptions andincrease their efficiency is by grouping similar tasks together. They turn offtheir email alerts and only handle email and phone calls at specific times.More importantly, they designate undisturbed time to concentrate on complextasks like word processing, spreadsheet analysis, or handling customer serviceissues. Lean workers report that this increased focus yields higher qualitywork and has reduced time lost to interruptions by 20%.
Lean methodology, whether applied to a manufacturing or a business process, isa vital tool for improving performance. But changing the process withoutchanging workers' underlying behavior severely compromises the potentialbenefits. Muda will never be completely eradicated from any value stream, ofcourse, but it is possible to reduce it with lean work habits and systems. Aswith lean production, it's a process of continuous improvement that yieldsimmediate results.