Tag: mura

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Lean Thinking… in all its forms

Lean

Lean ThinkingLean is an addictive drug.

But I’m not talking about the nasty mixture of cough syrup and soda that is hooking young Americans on codeine and promethazine.

I’m talking about the current favourite method for reducing corporate corpulence, which has been popular for nearly twenty years.

But don’t for one moment think Lean is a passing fad. Its day will come, for sure. But its pedigree is a rich one. And whatever will replace it must share many of its aspirations and principles, just as Lean shares much with TQM*, BPR* and much that has gone before.

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Muda: The 7 Wastes of Lean

The 7 Wastes
The 7 Wastes
The 7 Wastes

Waste is a bad thing. So, any wise manager will do well to eliminate it. You just need to know where to look. One of the many contributions of Taiichi Ohno and his Toyota Production System (TPS) was to catalogue 7 Wastes that we need to eliminate.

The 7 Wastes are now a fundamental part of the concept of lean thinking; whether applied to manufacturing, services, or public administration. By understanding them, you can make just about any process more efficient.

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Japanese Management Lingo

In last week’s Pocketblog, we looked at the 5S approach to ordering and organising a workspace, introducing five Japanese words: seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke.

It struck me that there are an awful lot of Japanese terms that have enriched our business language, so I thought I’d list a few more.  Of course, readers of the Pocketblog will also probably be familiar with gemba too.

I think that some of the concepts that they raise are absolutely fascinating – and necessary to us in the West.  Let’s look at a few more, some familiar, some little known.

Hourensou

Collaboration and information sharing.  Keeping others informed.

Kaikaku

Radical change.  The opposite of…

Kaizen

Continuous flow of incremental improvements.

Kanban

A progress tracking approach that follows instances through a process.  Literally ‘billboard’.  Increasingly used in project management and team workflow.  There is a lovely (free) web-based app called Trello that works on Mac, PC and mobile app formats.

Karoshi

Literally: ‘death from overwork’.  Don’t!

Kyosei

The spirit of co-operating for the common good.

Meikiki

Perception and foresight, coupled with good judgement.

Mottainai

The sense of regret when we become aware of waste and failure to use well any things of value.  (I am so glad I now have a word for this).  It comes from the concept, ‘mottai’ that things have inherent value, or dignity.  Nice.

Muda, Mura and Muri

… are the three forms of waste

  • Muda
    Wasted effort
  • Mura
    Inconsistency
  • Muri
    Unreasonable – even ridiculous – requirements

Nemawashi

Literally, ‘going around the roots’.  Refers to the informal stakeholder alignment and political process that lay the groundwork for effective consensus or change.

Pecha Kucha

Currently popular style of presenting, with 20 slides, each lasting 20 seconds.  Gives a fast and dynamic way to present an idea.  Pecha Kucha nights often consist of a dozen or more presentations.  Literally, ‘chit-chat’.

Poka Yoke

Making error proof.  Creating something so that mistakes cannot be made.

Tatemae

Public truth.  The things that are appropriate to share in a public situation.  It literally means ‘facade’ and we might contrast it with ‘honne’, meaning your true feelings.  Puts me in mind of the Johari Window.

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