A review of Kojo Kanri magazine, 10/96 (Vol. 42, No.

11)
Michel Baudin, 11/18/96 "Kojo Kanri" (factory management) is a monthly magazine published in Japan by Nikkan Kogyo and discussing JIT/lean production subjects for the benefit of production supervisors and managers. It contains nitty-gritty case studies as well as reports on the improvement strategies of major companies. The big red Pokayoke book, among others, stated life as special issues of Kojo Kanri. To our knowledge, this magazine has no equivalent in the US or Europe. The 10/96 issue was dedicated to a series of articles about 101 things shop floor managers should not do, covering the following major areas in about 205 pages:

Productivity Quality management Cost management Quantity and delivery management Labor and safety Information management

I took a closer look at the productivity section, where I expected to find a list of behaviors that plant and manufacturing managers actually engage in but shouldn't. On that score, I was disappointed: the list of "don'ts" is really a checklist of "do's," rephrased as "Don't neglect A" or "Don't overlook B." The exhortation to apply time and money to specific issues also begs the question of how much of each and how to balance multiple obligations. The body of articles in that section contains suggestions on this matter. Following are:

A translation of Kojo Kanri's 10/96 summary table of productivity "don'ts" . Most of the points are self-explanatory. For those that aren't, a paragraph of discussion is attached. For comparison, my own list of 5 plant manager "don'ts."

Kojo Kanri's 10/96 summary table of productivity "don'ts" Management area Problems
People The "3Ms": unevenness, unreasonableness, waste. The 7 types of waste: overproduction, waiting,

Management tasks/tools
Efficiency analysis Process analysis Time & motion study

"Don't" items
1. Don't overlook the "3Ms." 2. Don't empty

transportation, processing, inventory, motion, defects. Errors and slips.

QC methods Resource management Load planning Standardization

the operators' work of all substance. 3. Don't neglect preparation, training and practice. 4. Don't skimp on time and money for improvement activities. 5. Don't skimp on ways to improve motivation.

Equipment/facilities Failure rate. Low efficiency.

Flow analysis Layout analysis Product-Quantity analysis Efficiency management

1. Don't base a new layout on "insight" or on extension of current layout. 2. Dont' make TPM the work of one department. 3. Don't skimp on time and money for setup time reduction.

Materials

Reject rates. Quality problems. Shortages.

Control charts Activity index Standard stocks

1. Don't neglect overproductio n. 2. Don't overlook the production of defectives.

Information

Information too late or in Standardized, error. systematic communication. JIT through

1. Don't procrastinate on communicatin

Kanbans

g information. 2. Don't neglect the JIT philosophy

Improvement and standardization

Disregard of standard operations. Low-hanging fruit improvement proposals. Increasing rigidity of procedures.

Rules for promotion and maintenance of standard operations Target numbers for proposals Machine capability analysis

1. Don't ignore standard operations. 2. Don't neglect improvement. 3. Don't cast methods in stone.

Don't empty the operators' work of all substance. What the article says is that JIT/lean production reverses the trend towards lower skills and simpler operator tasks that was parodied in Chaplin's "Modern Times." The ultimate goal is to have operators focused on improvement, innovation, and development, while all the routine work, both value-added and non-value-added, is automated. Don't base a new layout on "insight" or on extension of current layout. What the article says is that necessary changes in equipment layout occasion large losses when they are designed too quickly, based on someone's insight or on extending the current layout. It proposes the following evaluation criteria: 1. Clear goals and objectives. 2. Scale and level settings for the change. How many years into the future should the new layout be able to respond to production demand? 3. Type of flexibility in volume and product variety. 4. Processes in flow lines with minimum distance between operations, particularly for major, representative products. 5. Ease of management and supervision, and efficiency in all dimensions of people, machines, materials and methods. 6. Consideration of installation costs and improvement in the efficiency of space utilization. 7. Attention to safety and the environment. The main methods needed for layout design are: 1. Product-Quantity (P-Q) analysis to determine the breakdown of products by volume. 2. Material flow analysis, to determine how raw materials go through every stage of work in process to become finished goods.

3. Activity analysis, to determine the specifics of how parts go in and out of every machine, and move between machines.

My list of plant manager "Don'ts"

This list is narrower in scope and not intended to be a thorough audit checklist, but it is based on actual observations of things managers do that they would be better off not doing if they want to implement JIT/lean production. 1. Don't fire everybody who does "nonvalue-added" activities. The term nonvalue-added can be misleading. Just because an activity does not change a part doesn't mean it can be eliminated. If you fire the people who move parts between departments or tools between Resharpening and Machining, you just burden the production workers with thoses tasks, which disrupts the value-adding work they would otherwise do. As you move to JIT/lean production, some aspects of the necessary support work may actually grow. For example, preparing parts and feeding them to the assembly line may end up using more people than before. 2. Don't overestimate what workers can do. Many managers jump from a traditional attitude of not thinking that operators have any idea of value to the opposite extreme of relying on "empowered" operators for the basic design of the production system. This is equally misguided. Even with classroom training, operators will not design cells, assembly lines, or production control systems. Their input and their creativity are needed in such areas as the detailed design of work stations or in setup time reduction, but not to reinvent the results of 40 years of JIT/lean production practice. Operator participation in improvement projects needs to be thought through with realistic expectations. 3. Don't spend all your training budget on methodology courses. Improvement methods are best learned on-the-job through actual projects, with limited classroom training. The core process technology of the company, on the other hand, is best taught in a classroom. Employees are typically hungry for this type of knowledge, and a better understanding of what the machines do improves their effectveness, be it as a basic level for operators or an advanced level for engineers. 4. Don't get involved in detailed engineering discussions. Managers who are former engineers sometimes can't resist the temptation of contributing to technical discussions. When managers do this, most of their subordinates will agree to anything the boss says; the others will make a point of disagreeing systematically. No one will evaluate the idea on its own merits as if it came from a peer. 5. Don't "cherry-pick" items for implementation. The implementation of JIT/lean production is a big project, involving many tasks. It is tempting for managers to select a few that look easy and postpone the rest. This is a mistake for two reasons. First, what looks easy -- 5S for example -- isn't necessarily so. Second, JIT/lean production is a consistent whole, and the benefits of implementing only one aspect of it are limited.

Getting Kojo Kanri: If you can't read Japanese, don't bother. If you can, mail order Kojo Kanri from the Kinokuniya bookstore in San Francisco, at (415) 567-7625.