Deepening our Understanding of Lean Manufacturing and Respect for Humanity with Norm Bodek *

Remastered audio June 2021

Show notes https://www.leanblog.org/2  

Here is the second LeanBlog Podcast, featuring author and consultant Norman Bodek, President of PCS Press.

The first one can be found here and you can visit the main Podcast page, which includes information on how to subscribe via RSS or via Apple Podcasts.

LeanBlog Podcast #2 Show Notes and Timeline

• More on airport near misses here and here
• 2:55 Respect for people, the key difference between Toyota and American companies who aren't maximizing lean
• 4:45 Why managers are responsible — not setting up the process properly and not giving power to the people who are in contact with the customer
• 6:00 Toyota realized that to give people respect, you have to give them power
• 6:30 In his first trip to Japan in 1981, Norman didn't see people waiting in the factories
• 6:55 How “jidoka” and the separation of man and machines allowed one person to run seven machines
• 8:21 Why it's OK to have the machine wait instead of having people wait
• 8:31 Norman is speaking at the Lean Accounting Conference
• 9:30 “The machine should be no bigger than five times the size of the part.”
• 10:45 How do we get managers to take responsibility for the design of the system?
• 11:55 How Fujio Cho changed the “line stop” by adding time buffers, so the whole factory doesn't shut down — why Taiichi Ohno wouldn't have liked that
• 12:20 Ohno liked the whole plant to shut down because it forces you to find the root cause
• 13:32 Why you don't criticize people as a manager, how to bring out creative ideas
• 14:54 “Toyota was the most ruthless organization in Japan… Ohno was a terror… but from this comes the most humanistic management system.”
• 15:34 “A Toyota manager is told to ask, not tell.”
• 16:55 “Blame closes people up like an oyster.”
• 18:39 Why we should want people to make their own work easier and more interesting
• 19:25 “If we want to compete with the Toyotas of the world, we have to learn how to bring out the best of our people.”
• 19:38 “We send work to China and Toyota comes here to make cars.”
• 19:50 Discussion of Toyota's hiring approach and selectivity
• 22:10 Our management system is broken…
• 23:00 How healthcare is better about no layoff pledges along with lean and how
  that helps