The Toyota Way Fieldbook phần 10 potx

the walls of one of the great pyramids. Though the EF symbol looks
intriguing, its meaning has nothing to do with advanced manufacturing
technology, but everything to with people and philosophy. This
symbol is also called the “Takahashi Triangle” after Denso chairman
Takahashi, who retired as a Toyota senior executive. Driving it hard
through DMMI is its President Akio (Alex) Shikamura, a true disciple
of TPS. Certainly having a true believer at the top has been a key
driver for deep change.
It is called EF Activity, not EF Program. What activities did DMMI begin
in the name of EF? In the past they had many excellent technical
programs to improve performance, including engineering-led kaizen
through 1996, Total Industrial Engineering (TIE) from 1996 to 1997,
and TPS concepts in 1998 (small lots, kanban). From 2000 to 2003
DMMI realized they needed more team member involvement so they
created a program called WOW (wipe out waste). And each program
had a major impact on manufacturing performance. But still, they
realized they were significantly behind Toyota plants. So in 2002 they
started EF activities with the following purpose:
Chapter 19. Lean Implementation Strategies and Tactics 421
Build a fellowship
Passionate image that upsurges
the sense of connectedness
through improvement
The fellowship is formed
naturally if people share the
awareness. Greeting will take
place naturally through the
fellowship and with a sense of
connectedness.
“Horizontal” communication
Warm job site image with active communication due to

improvement
Effective explanation to the associates refers to how close the point
of view between supervisor and the associates. Thus, it is called
horizontal communication, instead of top-down
Improvement awareness
enhancement
Cosmic image with infinite improvement
Humans want to be creative. It is very
important to put the idea into action, instead
of merely suggesting the ideas.
It will lead them to think worth working
since their own abilities develop with the
consequence of the improvement. The basic
of worthy to work
Awareness sharing
Threatening image to show awareness
in order to promote improvement.
With team members’ or organization
people’s awareness, everyone will share
“what the issues at job site are.” It is a very
significant leader’s role and will lead to
value of the job site.
Improve them yearly in terms of what the
mission is and how to depict them in
numerical value. If the activity achieves the
level that they can compare horizontally at
the job site, the mood will be created at the
job site that whether they are superior to
others and working harder.
Figure 19-12. Symbol for Denso’s Efficient Factory activity

1. Increase the “kaizen mind” of all associates.
2. Create a common target (vision).
3. Reduce costs by eliminating waste throughout the value stream.
EF focused on associate involvement to reduce waste throughout the
entire product stream, from supplier DMMI to the customer. They
realized that to bring TPS to the next level, they needed to invest in
TPS experts in the plant. They selected Andris Staltmanis to lead the
Manufacturing Engineering Department to a higher level of TPS.
Andris has 18 years of production engineering and manufacturing
engineering experience and was one of the originals at Battle Creek.
In Yamanouchi Yutaka, vice president of Production Control and
Planning from DENSO in Japan, he had a sensei to teach him.
However, it was understood that the key to success was production
ownership. Joe Stich (general manager of Production) was also well
versed in TPS and needed to drive this activity from within.
For deployment, they split the plant into three focused factories:
HVAC (heating, ventilation, air-conditioning), condensers, and radia-
tors. Within each of these they selected a product family to become a
model line—to go and see and improve. At first Manufacturing
Engineering facilitated the model area, and then responsibility was
gradually transferred to Production. The approach included basic
process kaizen, floor management improvement, and value stream
improvement. Some of the tools used were visual control, standard-
ized work, small lot size, frequent delivery and pickup, and a heijunka
(product load leveling) board.
Bryan Denbrock, section leader in the M.E. Department responsible
for implementing the high-level model system in the HVAC plant,
described establishing plantwide heijunka as particularly challenging
due to the variety of products and customers. With the target of
becoming a “world class” company, the HVAC model line created a

system for finished goods production. This model line served as the
tangible reference example for the rest of the plant.
The finished goods are shipped from a warehouse to the customer.
Three hours worth of customer orders are brought to a large customer
staging post. While the product is being staged for the customer, the
kanban are removed. These kanban are then taken to the heijunka
post. Kanban are arranged in order to level the production signal, which
has a pitch of 10 minutes. This means every 10 minutes the material
handler brings an order (kanban) to Production to collect the required
product to be replaced in the warehouse, which represents what the
customer has actually purchased. The warehouse kanban are exchanged
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK422
with the production kanban, and creates the next 10 minutes worth of
production. This paces the one-piece flow assembly line.
5
When this heijunka process is applied throughout the plant (using the
visual management boards known as heijunka posts), it’s possible to
see the state of the whole process for a whole day in one place. It is
natural within the Toyota philosophy to use the material handler—or
“water spider,” as they are sometimes called—in this capacity, since
they can see the entire material and information flow in their route.
By creating this leveled condition throughout the plant, all forms of
work can be standardized based on the 10-minute interval. This sim-
plifies each operation, and it becomes immediately apparent at a
glance if the standard is being followed. Once this condition is met,
highly capable individuals who can carefully observe, understand, and
think can understand the condition of the entire plant.
The heijunka post levels production across many part numbers. To
achieve this, changeovers (fixture changes on the assembly line) were
reduced to less than the takt time (takt time equals available work time

divided by customer demand). A two-shift assembly line is changed
from 90 to 125 times per day. The takt level is achieved through
conveyor line spacing and the rebalancing of work elements for the
team of associates on the assembly line. Internally there is a two-way
kanban to an intermediate parts store (withdrawal) and then to a
manufacturing process (production) for the parts pulled for use by the
final assembly area. Kanban are brought to the store 88 times per day.
Achieving these kinds of pickup and delivery frequencies requires a
fine-tuned process that is highly stable. Even small problems will disrupt
production and show up almost immediately. For this reason, for a
company to be successful with these interruptions it must be committed
to fixing problems immediately and then following up with permanent
countermeasures. In terms of the continuous improvement spiral in
Figure 3-4 (Chapter 3), the plant is several iterations down the spiral of
stability, flow, standardization, and advanced production leveling.
Performance results on the model lines have been impressive. Product
cost has been greatly reduced, while quality and delivery have risen to
noteworthy levels. Most important, DMMI can utilize the success of
this activity on other existing assembly lines. DMMI team associates
have been directly involved and are transitioning to a new level of
“kaizen mind.” This allows the company to foster a new culture where
associates’ kaizen power can be tapped and implemented quickly.
Chapter 19. Lean Implementation Strategies and Tactics 423
5
In fact, the process is similar to that shown in Figure 19-5, though the assembly is a true one-piece
flow, and there are no FIFO lanes in the process.
Lean implementation is a learning journey, even in advanced stages. Every
experience is an opportunity to learn and grow. But you have to take the time
to check and then think about what actions will improve on what you’ve
already done. We’ve heard statements like the following when preaching this

learning perspective: “But we are in business to make money. This is the real
world.”
Toyota is making lots of money. But it took decades of work to get to the
point where they benefited from early investments in learning. When we give
this advice—to make the necessary investment—it’s obvious to us that there’s
waste everywhere and the company can benefit from better quality, shorter lead
times, more flexibility to respond to change, and increased productivity.
Making some up-front investments in learning will greatly multiply long-term
savings. Remember in the 4P pyramid, the base is “thinking long term, even at
the expense of short-term financial considerations.” Organizations that view
lean as a short-term cost-cutting program are never going to achieve what is
possible. They will never become high-performing organizations.
Many companies are anxious to spread lean quickly to the enterprise and
extended enterprise levels. Simple analysis will show that most of the costs are
typically in supplied parts. And it is well known that the impact of upstream
processes like product development have multiplier effects on manufacturing
that are far greater than the investment in product development. So why not
start in those areas right away? Our experience is that starting enterprisewide
and extra-enterprise level programs prematurely does more harm than good.
There are a number of reasons for this:
1. Lean is easier to see in physical operations. Remember that much of
the early stages of lean are about learning. It is also, unfortunately,
about politics—selling the decision makers who hold the purse strings
by getting visible, measurable results. This is easiest to do in routine
physical processes. In pure service organizations it’s easiest in the
most routine parts of the business, for example, order entry, or the test
labs in a hospital.
2. There is a risk of overtaxing resources. Management is likely to assign
only so many people to lean. Focus on those from whom you’ll get the
best results and learning. Even if a separate staff is assigned to a “lean

office,” they’re better off first spending some time in the trenches work-
ing on the core value-adding operation. They will start to understand
lean at a deeper level, and much of that learning will transfer to the office
environment.
3. Lean service operations should support the core value-adding opera-
tions. You can lean out a support function by making it more efficient,
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK424
but any lean project should start with the business purpose: Who is the
customer? What do they need? If the customer of the service operation is
some type of physical transformation process, first go see what that will
look like when it’s lean, so you can understand how to support it. When
Glenn Uminger was asked to set up the accounting system for the Toyota
Georgetown plant, he first spent a year doing TPS projects on the shop
floor, which dramatically changed the way he looked at and developed
the accounting system to support TPS. It was simpler, less cumbersome,
and leaner.
4. There is a risk of turning lean into the latest “program.” Often, the best
lean consultants and experienced lean people are assigned to the manu-
facturing or core value-adding process in a service organization. Support
functions are left to largely fend for themselves based on a short training
program. The continuous improvement group does a superficial job, and
lean starts to look like the program of the month. Doing it right is more
important than doing it early.
5. Trying to lean out suppliers before you’ve done it yourself is hypocritical
and dangerous. What right do you have to teach lean to your suppliers
if you’re not lean yourself? You need to earn that right. Also, since the lean
supply chain is a hierarchy of many different elements that must be in
place, if you start “developing” suppliers before you have mutual under-
standing and trust, suppliers will view the development as your excuse
to hold them up for price reductions.

What we’re preaching is patience. Think about the Buddhist monk teach-
ing a young disciple, or the karate teacher, or for that matter any good teacher
of a complex skill like a sport or musical instrument. You do not begin by play-
ing the sport or playing songs. There are tedious exercises necessary to prepare
yourself. You need basic muscle control and concentration. A top golf instruc-
tor taught by one of the world’s great golfers said he spent the first three
months learning golf without ever hitting a ball. Think of the Ohno circle.
Stand in the circle and look. This need for patience and discipline extends to
the problem-solving process. Do not race in and start implementing solutions.
Take the time to find the true point of cause and then ask the Five-Whys for the
root cause. Take the time to teach each employee step by step, using job instruc-
tion methods, before throwing them into the work routine. Take the time to
check and audit and develop countermeasures to learn and improve. Make
many little improvements, not just the big, visible ones. This patience takes
vision for what can be in the long term. It takes a philosophical understanding
of the purpose. It is the hardest part of lean. But in the long term, the payoff is
remarkable.
Chapter 19. Lean Implementation Strategies and Tactics 425
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK426
Reflection Activities
Most of the readers of this book will be part of organizations that
have done something with lean in the past. Many will have done
quite a bit over a number of years. For those with some experience
we would like you to reflect on where you have been and then
develop a plan for what you should be working on next in the
“process level” of the 4P model. For those complete novices here
is an opportunity to work out a plan. This is a reflection that will
need to be done together with a team from your organization—
a team of decision makers that can legitimately set a direction for
your lean initiative.

1. Take some time to list the process improvement activities you
have worked on in the name of “lean.”
2. Classify the most important lean activities in the 2 x 2 matrix
of Figure 19-11. Where has most of your activity been located?
3. Now classify the most important lean activities in the matrix
in Figure 19-11. Where has most of your activity been located?
4. Now think about how you can build on what you have accom-
plished. Where should you go next in the models in Figure
19-10 and 19-11? For example, if you have mostly focused on
tools or hot projects it may be time to undertake a value stream
model line. If you have a good deal of experience on the left
side of Figure 19-11—the tool side of the matrix—it may be
time to work on the people development side. Note the les-
son from Denso that working on the people side still means
involving people in concrete improvement activities at the
process or value stream levels.
5. Develop a high-level work plan. You can use as a framework
the simple conceptual diagram in Figure 19-10 with some
rough dates.
Can We Avoid Politics in Lean Transformation?
Changing to lean is a political process. There, we said it. Everyone knows poli-
tics are bad, right? Politics is what happens in organizations that are not being
run rationally. A good, healthy organization is one in which reason rules and
everyone is aligned toward a common goal. We have described Toyota as a
utopian environment where everyone shares common goals, which start with
the customer. So if you want to learn from Toyota, you should start with the
assumption that everyone is working toward the same goals, right?
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Or as a harsh Japanese sensei exclaimed: “Stupid!
Stupid! Stupid!” (As a young, petite woman translated from Japanese to English,
to the horror of an American).

What do we mean by a political process? We mean that in any real-life
organization, even Toyota, there are different people with different interests and
agendas. Those who are passionate about any change in the organization have
a vision. This vision will be embraced by those who see it as supporting their
interests and opposed by those who do not. The degree of support and opposi-
tion will vary depending on a number of factors, such as how strongly it sup-
ports or violates interests, how strongly the interests are held, and the degree to
which the organizational culture supports alignment around common goals.
The political process is how these different interests work themselves out over
time. Those leading the change would like to simply have everything fall into
place like moving pieces on a chessboard. In reality there are always compro-
mises to navigate through the murky waters of other people’s interests. Push
too hard, violate too many interests, and you will create a block of organized
resistance that can stop the change process in its tracks.
Leading the Change
Chapter 20
Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click here for terms of use.
Politics is about power, and power is the ability to get things done even
against the will of others. Think of different people as having different pots of
power: Once the pot is empty, you’re done. That’s a gross simplification, but
power does need to be used sparingly. A wise leader knows when to give in,
when to attempt to persuade, when to call in a favor, and when to use the for-
mal hierarchy of authority to get official orders. Some leaders intuitively know
how to use power, and others bobble it continually.
Leadership is about power. A leader needs to lead and is only a leader with
followers. Getting people to follow you in a direction they are going anyway is
not being a leader. The challenge is to get people to follow in a direction they
might not otherwise go. Leaders must have a sense of direction. We sometimes
call that a vision. Then they must share the vision and get others to buy into it
and actively help achieve it. If they do this, especially when followers would

not have done it on their own anyway, this is the definition of power.
There are a number of sources of power as described in the classic typology
by the father of sociology, Max Weber
1
:
1. Rational-legal. This is formal authority. You are the boss in the formal
hierarchy and can order things to happen, and others are supposed to
obey. You have the legal right to give the orders. Your position confers the
right onto you. This is often thought of as bureaucratic power.
2. Coercive. You can threaten negative consequences of failure to comply.
3. Reward. You control some type of reward and offer it contingent upon
being followed. This could be a tangible reward like money or an intangible
reward like praise. This was not included in Weber’s original typology
but it is the flip side of coercive power—instead of a threat, it is a promise
that certain behavior or results will yield a certain reward.
4. Charismatic. When you have charisma, people simply want to follow you.
There is some sort of animal magnetism that exudes a force that moves
people to do as you request.
5. Traditional. It is the way things are done. It is part of the cultural
heritage that on Sadie Hawkins day the girl asks the boy to dance and
he should agree. It is part of preservation of our values and social
norms.
A good leader is apt to use all of these sources of power at one time or
another. Generally we think of someone as being a leader, rather than merely an
administrator, if they have at least some degree of charisma. Any bureaucratic
manager can use the first three sources of power. Give them a title and access to
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK428
1
Max Weber. From Max Weber, translated and edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1946.

formally sanctioned rewards and punishments, and they can get a lot done. But
the leader is the person who has a variety of tools available and knows when
and how to use them. When should I use my formal position? When should I
use the hierarchy to threaten punishment? When should I use my personal
charisma to meet with people one-on-one and influence them? When should I
make a speech to the team that leaves them crying? When should I preside over
a formal ceremony and draw on the power of tradition? Effective leaders learn
over time how to use all of these sources of power effectively. Ineffective leaders
are like kids with a loaded gun randomly aiming and firing.
We’ve had many opportunities to see large multinational companies imple-
ment lean as a corporate approach, companies like Ford, General Motors,
Delphi, PPG, Boeing, Northup Grumman, the U.S. Air Force and Navy, United
Technologies, and many more. In all cases there’s a clear trend: Some individual
manufacturing plants take off with lean and get way ahead of the pack, and many
(often most) lag behind and implement lean in ritual and superficial ways. Visit
individual plants and check them out. What’s the difference between them? The
answer is always leadership. In at least 90 percent of the cases where the lean
effort has been successful, there’s a plant manager who believes in lean, has a
vision, and knows how to lead. In the remaining 10 percent, another high-level
manager in the plant—perhaps the manufacturing or assistant plant manager—
has led the charge and the plant manager did not interfere.
Leaders know how to lead, and leading means using power effectively.
How do we teach that? There are many debates about what can and cannot be
taught in business school. We say leadership cannot be taught in business
school. The real question is if it can be taught at all or whether it’s in our gene
structure. In any case, companies can do a number of things to foster leadership,
including:
◆ Carefully selecting leaders
◆ Mentoring potential leaders by effective leaders
◆ Providing opportunities to challenge people to allow leaders to emerge

◆ Providing leaders the support and tools to be effective
These are all things that Toyota does extremely well, from the team leader to
the group leader to the general manager to the chief engineer, and to the executives
of the company. Leaders are carefully groomed and carefully selected. Every
leader knows one of his or her most important jobs is to develop people, and
among those activities is developing future leaders. Everything about the Toyota
Way is designed to challenge people to grow, and in that environment leaders
emerge and blossom. And the tools of the Toyota Production System (TPS), the
culture of the Toyota Way, and the unified management framework of senior exec-
utives, provide a fertile ground for natural leaders to be effective.
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 429
Leadership from the Top, Middle, and Bottom
Change is impossible without effective leaders.
2
But where in the organization
should those leaders be located? The answer is that leaders are needed at the
top, middle, and bottom. Let’s go into each of these levels, and then look at
what’s involved in becoming a lean teacher, or coach.
The Role of the Top
Behavior in the trenches of the organization is a reflection of the leadership of
the top. We saw in Chapter 11 that the leaders at Toyota are hands-on. They’re
on the floor or in the engineering offices or wherever the real action is. They
have learned the art of genchi genbutsu, understanding how to observe deeply
and see what is truly going on. Wherever they go, they are coaching and
teaching.
But like all leaders, they too must work through other people. In fact, this is
the definition of a leader—they have followers. We would not expect them to
do a lot of the detailed design or implementation. So what exactly is their role?
Figure 20-1 shows a typical structure for a lean transformation. Each of the
roles in the diagram is necessary, with the Executive Sponsor involved in two

aspects of the process. On the one hand, he or she provides the resources nec-
essary—resources that include but are not limited to money—and on the other
has all the sources of power available to make things happen.
Remember, this is a political process. There is always resistance to change.
There are people who will see their interests or the interests of their departments
threatened by the change. Let’s consider an example.
At one defense client that repairs aircraft, the labor hours of all repair workers
have to be charged to accounts. To get shop floor workers involved in lean proj-
ects, they had to be taken off of their normal work and assigned to teams to par-
ticipate in kaizen events. Implementation was aggressive, so a number of projects
were conducted in parallel involving dozens of workers. There was a lot of
pressure to get the aircraft out significantly faster to support the needs of the
customer. The results of the lean transformation were impressive and moving
this facility toward becoming the fastest in the business. The results were poten-
tially worth tens of millions of dollars. But in the meanwhile the workers’ time
was charged to a lean account, which was falling further and further into deficit.
An executive operating committee for the base was pressuring the head of the
plant to stop the lean activities. Under similar circumstances an engine repair
facility on that base had stopped lean events. This leader might have succumbed
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK430
2
Many of the ideas and figures in this section were derived from the work of Bill Costantino, for-
mer Toyota group leader and private consultant.
were it not for the captain of the base, who authorized him to continue to use
the workforce to run the events. The captain knew it was the right thing to do
and was committed to lean.
It’s interesting that the great “expense” of the project was an artifact of the
command and control measurement system itself. All of the workers involved
were hourly, but were paid a salary whether they worked on the lean project or
on repair of the aircraft. In fact, with the lean activities, productivity was improv-

ing and many of the workers were not needed to work on the aircraft. There was
no variable cost associated with the operators’ time, but the internal accounting
system that forced charging time to the lean account increased the lean account
deficit. Since the executive committee managed by these numbers, they were up
in arms about overspending on the lean program. They saw costs and not benefits.
In reality there were large benefits but no marginal costs associated with workers’
time. And the workers were learning and strongly supported the lean activities.
There will always be ongoing difficulties in making progress on lean: finances,
individuals trying to block progress, lack of support from needed functions like
engineering and maintenance, individuals citing rules that are being broken, etc.
The executive sponsor must be able to see the bigger picture: Lean can fundamen-
tally change the business to a high-performing organization. An effective executive
sponsor running interference is the difference between progress and stagnation.
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 431
Sponsor = Executive or manager underwriting the activity of the team. Not member
but provides accountability.
Process Owner = leader of the team and is personally invested in seeing the team succeed.
Relationship between Sponsor and Owner is key. Sponsor should be spending time
weekly with the Owner coaching, challenging thinking and thoroughness, and
providing needed support.
Executive Sponsor
Process Owner
Lean Coach
Value Stream Team
Change Staff
Line Organization
Sensei
Resources Accountability
Figure 20-1. Role structure in the change process
In our experience it’s easy to get executives to see the benefits of lean and

even get enthusiastic about it. But the difference between success and failure is
the difference between head nodding and verbal support from the top and get-
ting real action from the top. One dictionary defines “commitment” as devotion
or dedication to a cause. Lean is a cause. A leader needs a vision of a lean learn-
ing enterprise and then the dedication to move toward that vision. Even in the
face of opposition, the leader must press ahead and be unwavering in support.
If the leader wavers, then subordinates will certainly waver. And if the leader
turns every lean step into a cost-benefit analysis of whether it’s worth doing,
that will be seen as wavering.
A committed leader must provide the resources to keep things moving.
This includes top-notch people to work on lean, financial support, and account-
ability for delivering results. It must be clear that this is important to the com-
pany and participation is not optional. It must be clear that the Process Owner
in Figure 20-1 is responsible for success and will be held accountable. This goes
both ways. The Process Owner needs to be accountable upward, and the Sponsor,
as the diagram shows, must reward and encourage the Process Owner for hard
work and results. This suggests that the Sponsor must know what’s going on—
not in the bureaucratic sense, but in the Toyota Way sense of genchi genbutsu.
The sponsor must go and see to truly understand the status of the improve-
ments.
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK432
TIP
Schedule Regular Reviews of Progress on the Floor
Unfortunately, top leaders get into a pattern of e-mail, meetings,
and travel, and walking the floor to see firsthand lean progress is
at the bottom of their priority list. Fujio Cho (quoted in The Toyota
Way) describes getting Americans to seriously use the andon sys-
tem by personally going to the floor every day to encourage them
when he was president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing in
Kentucky. This is a serious commitment and requires the execu-

tives to know enough to understand what they are seeing. There
should be a regularly scheduled walk-through of the facility . . . or
multiple facilities. There should be visual indicators of progress in
the lean projects, and general metrics so it’s clear when walking
into the area how the projects are doing. A checklist for the execu-
tives, noting what to look for in their go and see walks, would be
a good addition, at least at first. And these visits should be seri-
ously scheduled and moved to the top of the list of priorities.
Stuck in the Middle
Pressure from the top, from the bottom, from all sides. Welcome to the life of the
middle manager. We’re using the term “middle manager” broadly to include
everyone from the first line supervisor to the department heads. Their jobs are
to turn the great ideas of the people at the top into concrete action and results.
This means they must affect the lives of people at the bottom and work through
these people. They must deliver daily production, be accountable for quality
and service, and deal with all the “experts” management sends along to “help”
them do their jobs better.
To people in the middle, lean is one in a long line of great ideas from man-
agement coming to them by way of staff. Middle management has another
peculiar characteristic. Despite the formal power of people at the top of the
organization, middle managers have the power to either get things done or
stonewall. They can be the difference between the success or failure of lean. To
a change agent, the middle managers can be less than pleasant. This is not
because they are naturally stubborn, resistant folks. It’s because of their posi-
tion. The buck stops with them.
For a lean change agent, the middle management level poses the most serious
challenges. On the one hand, this level provides the most leverage for lean trans-
formation. It is nice to have the support of an executive sponsor, but they’re not
going to drive the real action. The middle manager will. In fact, we saw that the
group leaders at Toyota drive most of improvement at the operating level. On

the other hand, it’s unrealistic to expect many middle managers to come for-
ward and become the leaders of the lean change process in their areas. The team
leaders do a lot of that at Toyota, but only after years of mentoring and coach-
ing and creating a particular culture. And it is based on the Toyota system of
group and team leaders discussed in Chapter 10.
There are some exceptions. There are particular individuals in different
parts of middle management—engineering, quality, and manufacturing—who
naturally relate to lean and get excited about it. If they grab it and take off, they
can begin to win support upward even if senior management is not initially
behind them. Unfortunately, these cases are rare. It must start at the top.
So in most cases lean transformation will rely more heavily on the lean
coach using the hierarchy and power of the executive sponsor and working
through middle management. Over time, if the company is successful in devel-
oping a true lean culture, there will be a flip-flop and the lean coach will be
there to support middle management in driving the change.
Finding the “Sociometric Stars” at the Bottom
Organizations are “networks” in social science terms. Individuals are connected to
other individuals through communication ties, social ties, and emotional ties. If
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 433
you draw a picture of these connections, for example, mapping the frequency of
communication, it starts to look like a big spiderweb—a network. If you look more
carefully, you’ll see that certain parts of the network are denser than other parts.
At the center of these dense parts are particular individuals sometimes called
“sociometric stars.” That is the academic term for people who are popular or even
natural leaders. Some people’s opinions count more than others. If you can win
over these opinion leaders, you can change the culture by working through them.
These leaders are not difficult to find. Since they’re so well-connected, you
can find them in many different ways. Those in the organization generally
know who they are, as do their bosses in middle management. These are the
people Toyota tends to find and make team leaders.

There are many ways to involve them. The lean coach can seek them out and
informally talk to them. But a better way is to formally involve them in the
change process. The kaizen workshop is one great format for involving these
natural leaders. If you break the larger group in this kaizen event into smaller
subgroups, you might even make these individuals the head of a team. That, of
course, means management must pay them to be part of the event, but it’s a
trivial investment in the long term, with a large payoff. Some companies will
find a few of these people and make them full-time members of the kaizen pro-
motion office. It is one thing for middle managers to come to the floor to enlist
the support of the workers, and it’s another for a respected peer to make a case
for support. So, find these people and find ways to involve them.
Becoming a Lean Coach
The lean coach is a staff position. It is some person or group inside the company
that has been assigned to be the internal expert or experts. In the transition to
lean, this role is critical. Unfortunately, everyone is busy, and lean is just one more
thing to do. For a full-time lean coach, this is their job, and it usually becomes a
passion more than a job.
Lean needs to be driven by the line organization, not a staff organization.
The line organization has responsibility and accountability for delivering
results. The people doing the value-added work are in the line organization.
They need to use all the lean systems, so they should own the lean systems.
Take, for example, standardized work. Going back to Frederick Taylor, the
father of time and motion studies, the idea of standardizing how work gets
done was thought to be a staff job. Taylor envisioned large staffs of industrial
engineers who were expert in “scientific management.” With their scientific
management, which people on the floor did not understand, they could deter-
mine the one best way to do the job, and the foreman was required to enforce
this one best way. The unanticipated result was the conflict this created between
labor and management and the antagonism toward the “efficiency experts.”
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK434

This led to more waste, and a separation between the goals of management and
the goals of the workforce.
We saw that at Toyota standardized work is a tool used by value-added
workers and their team and group leaders. It is a tool for continuous improve-
ment. If we create a staff of “lean experts” pushing standardized work onto the
workforce, we‘re right back to Taylor’s scientific management.
Having said that, in the transition state to lean, the lean coaches are perhaps
second only to top management in their importance to lean. It is the unfortunate
reality that the workforce does not know enough about lean or have enough
motivation to change to something they do not understand. Senior management
may be “committed” but have so many other pressures they cannot focus a great
deal of attention every day to driving lean change. Thus, much of the responsi-
bility falls on the lean coach or lean team.
Given these considerations, can lean be a part-time assignment added to
someone’s full-time job? Presumably, if five people each spent 20 percent of
their time on lean, it would be as good as or better than one person spending
100 percent. But five people with full-time jobs that always seem to expand to
120 percent of their time will not find the 20 percent to devote to lean. It is rare
that we see a lot of success with lean without at least one full-time lean coach.
In the last chapter we described Denso’s approach to lean. As part of their
Efficient Factory program, they’re creating internal lean experts from their man-
ufacturing engineering group. There is a general movement within Toyota, includ-
ing NUMMI, in North America, to develop stronger TPS experts within the
plant—at least two full-time TPS specialists per major process (e.g., paint, body
shop, stamping, final assembly). This is a part of the recognition that outside of
Japan, where TPS has become part of the culture, there is a greater need for TPS
specialists to raise the bar on TPS in the plant.
The job of the lean coach includes:
1. Leading model line programs
2. Leading value stream mapping

3. Leading kaizen events
4. Teaching lean tools and philosophy (short courses and through lean
activities)
5. Coaching leaders at all levels
6. Developing the lean operating system (principles, metrics, assessment
approaches, standard operating procedures)
7. Internally promoting lean transformation
8. Externally learning and bringing back new ideas
The organizational structure of the lean program in Figure 20-1 that we looked
at earlier suggests that the Sponsor, Process Owner, and Value Stream Team are
leading the transformation, and certainly that would be ideal. Unfortunately, it’s
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 435
unrealistic in most cases, particularly early in the life of the lean transformation. It
simply does not happen. External energy from outside lean sensei (consultants) is
needed to keep teaching, driving, and pushing. On the other hand, when the ben-
efits start to become clear to the line organization, there will be an increasing pull
for the services of the internal lean coach: “Please come to my area next.” This is a
great sign of progress and makes the job of the lean coach a whole lot more fun.
Since the lean coach is so critical to the process, he or she needs to be care-
fully selected. Lean coaches must have the following characteristics:
1. Smart
2. Quick studies
3. Love to learn
4. Hands-on
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK436
TRAP
The Microwaved Lean Coach
Since lean tools and concepts are by design straightforward, it
seems it should be easy to train a lean coach. Many universities
and professional associations will certify your lean coach. But

while these programs can teach useful things, they will not pro-
duce a qualified lean coach.
There are two kinds of knowledge: procedural knowledge and
tacit knowledge. Procedural knowledge can easily be taught in the
classroom—the steps to follow to develop a cell, for example. Tacit
knowledge is what you learn from experience, guided by a strong
coach. Knowing when a cell is appropriate, when the level of sta-
bility allows for a one-piece-flow cell, how to sell the concept to
management, where the cell fits into the connected value stream,
what size and shape cell will work best, and so forth, is based more
on tacit knowledge. The “Tale of Two Pistons” case in this chapter
illustrates how well-intentioned managers and engineers with a
good deal of formal lean training ignored a true TPS expert and
made many wrong decisions in setting up a machining cell. The
seduction of microwaving a lean coach through immersion in a
short training program is overwhelming for some managers. But
resist! It takes several experiences implementing a true lean value
stream as a team member and then as a leader over several years
(see the model line program in Chapter 19) for an individual to
begin to have a foundation to become a good lean coach. That
experience should be guided by an experienced lean coach with at
least 5 to 10 years of serious lean experience.
5. Passionate about improving processes
6. Leadership skills
7. Strong interpersonal skills
8. Excellent communicators (writing, speaking)
9. Basic technical skills (comfortable with spreadsheets, graphs, data, etc.)
10. Systems thinkers (able to understand process flows, etc.)
11. Natural problem-solving skills
12. Read books

13. Open to new ideas
14. Personally organized
These are raw skills and attributes you should be looking for. But someone
with these characteristics is not automatically a lean coach. The lean coach also
needs to be trained. Some of this is technical training in lean tools. Reading
books and perhaps taking a lean course at a university can do a lot in this
regard. But the deeper training that makes a difference is on-the-job training,
and it can only be done by someone who already is a strong lean coach. It is a
mentoring process. This is the role of a lean sensei.
Learning from the Lean Sensei
In Japan any teacher is a “sensei.” But the term connotes more than this. It con-
notes a relationship. The sensei is deeply respected for having knowledge and
wisdom. The student wants to learn from the sensei. The sensei has walked the
path before and the student is starting down the path.
Some companies are fortunate to have internal sensei, who can coach and
teach. It could be someone they bring in who has been mentored in another
company or a manager they hire. Some plant managers or vice presidents are
former Toyota managers, for instance, and they become natural internal sensei.
But more often these sensei are outside consultants who have learned through
deep experiences, perhaps working for Toyota.
The most important thing about the sensei is that they are teachers. They are
not the ones to come in and do it for you. Teachers are only as good as their stu-
dents. Thus, picking the right internal lean coaches to learn from the sensei will
determine whether you get leverage from the sensei.
There are different styles among sensei. Ohno’s original approach was harsh
instruction, an approach in which the sensei psychologically, and sometimes
even physically, beats up the student. The sensei’s job is to find fault, criticize,
and ridicule the student, who learns that he or she is inferior and has to work
hard to become adequate. Some hired sensei—experienced lean consultants—
find they need to be kinder and gentler and go too far. They know if they are

overly critical they may lose the job. So they become a member of the group and
do a lot of the work themselves.
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 437
In most situations, the approach of the lean sensei should be somewhere in
between harsh and soft. The lean sensei cannot become a pair of hands doing
the work. They must challenge those they are training. This often means giving
challenging assignments and stepping back, allowing the students to struggle
and even fail. They can then step in and coach. This is the learning by doing
approach. The student must be doing, and feel personally challenged, in order
to learn. They will not learn nearly as much by watching the sensei.
There are different models for the frequency of visits by the sensei. It can
range from full-time to leading a kaizen workshop every other week to a couple
of days per month. Full-time is usually too much, and two days per month is
usually a minimum.
Typically, sensei who are there full-time are doing, not coaching. This
may be necessary if there are no strong students assigned full-time to the pro-
gram. It also may be necessary to move fast. But it is only useful as a transi-
tion strategy. If the full-time sensei can drive enough change to demonstrate
what lean can do, it will hopefully motivate management to assign a strong
full-time person to work with the lean sensei. Then the sensei can reduce
involvement.
The every other week workshop approach can drive a lot of change quickly
(see the Tenneco case in Chapter 19). If the sensei is truly leading a kaizen work-
shop every time he or she comes, they are probably not doing much coaching
other than on-the-job teaching through the workshops. And there is a strong
value to coaching beyond the workshops.
The two-day-per-month approach is very powerful if there’s a strong inter-
nal team to coach. The sensei reviews progress since the last meeting and pro-
vides challenging feedback and assignments for the next month. The sensei may
demonstrate a tool or help with a tough technical issue and then leave. With this

model, the sensei cannot do, but must teach, or nothing gets done. The students
learn they cannot be dependent on the sensei.
When we put together the elements needed to make lasting change, it looks
like Figure 20-2: the structure of the change process in terms of roles and respon-
sibilities, the broad participation and ownership needed (especially within the
line organization), as well as accountability, mentorship to learn by doing, and
committed, knowledgeable leadership.
The importance of committed leadership cannot be overstated. The “Tale of
Two Pistons” case following highlights the importance of committed and knowl-
edgeable leadership. This case seemed to have everything going for it—high-level
management support for lean, a good change structure, ownership by the line
organization, and even one of the best lean machining experts in the world. It was
a new line, so it could be developed lean from scratch. One area under one
project engineer learned from the lean sensei, and the line was lean and highly
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK438
successful. The other was led by a project engineer who did not understand or
want to understand and took his lead from a plant manager who did not take the
time to try to understand. The predictable result was failure.
Case Study: A Tale of Two Pistons: Toyota Machining
Philosophy in an American Firm
“It’s like there’s a delicious glass of beer sitting there, right in
front of me,” explained Ishiyaki Yoshina, 30-year Toyota
Motor Corporation veteran turned consultant for Engineering
Integrators Company (EIC). “Every time I reach for the ice
cold beer to take a drink, my hand runs into a transparent
wall that has been put there in front of me.” Yoshina-san
spoke in the kind of metaphor that often characterizes Toyota
associates. His analogy was colored with frustration over
Acme Systems lack of progress toward a lean environment in
the one and a half years he had been with them.

3
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 439
Learning by
Doing
Education &
Mentoring
Change
Effort
Participation
&
Ownership
Lasting
Results
Accountability
Committed,
Knowledgeable
Leadership
Structure
• Organization
• Documents
• Roles/Resp
Figure 20-2. Key ingredients for change
3
This description has been adapted from a case developed by David Ostreicher. It is based on
actual events, though names have been changed and some facts modified to make the discussion
points clearer; in essence, this case represents events that actually happened. Please feel free to
send your feedback to David Ostreicher at for further clarification of the case
and/or ideas to make the case a better learning resource.
Introduction
We have emphasized that lean transformation is a political process,

one that requires committed, informed leadership. A great example
of this was a case David Ostreicher experienced as a student intern
working for Acme Systems—one of the world’s largest and most
diversified suppliers of automotive components. David was assigned
to work with a retired Toyota engineering manager who was a leading
expert on TPS applied to machining. Employed, at high daily rates, as
a lean expert based on his 30 years at Toyota in production engineering,
Yoshina was particularly familiar with plant launches of machining
technologies. He had extensive experience with equipment installation
throughout Asia during his career with Toyota, but this was his first
attempt to apply Toyota methods in the United States. David was
excited to further his TPS education by learning from Yoshina, and
excited about the company. Acme was committed from the CEO
level on down to building a lean enterprise, and had nearly a decade
of experience. Yoshina was hired to launch several new product lines
in what was to be a showcase for TPS applied to machining.
Two separate machining lines that made different versions of com-
pressors were being installed in the same plant—the A1 and the X10
lines. Each had a different project engineer. As it turned out, the A1
project engineer embraced Yoshina’s advice, following it to the letter
with great results, while the other X10 project engineer tried to cut
corners for the sake of short-term cost reduction and expediency,
with poor results. Interestingly, both had the same ambitious goals
and access to the same world-class lean expert.
“First Time Quality” was defined as the percentage of manufactured
parts that passed all quality inspections the first time they were tested.
The current First Time Quality levels were stagnant at about 85 percent,
while the target called for greater than 98 percent. “Operational
Availability” referred to the percentage of time equipment was available
to produce parts when that equipment was required to produce parts.

Machining operations at Acme typically had Operational Availability
in the 60 to 70 percent range, and the team was being asked to bring
this to over 85 percent. The business returns that were targeted (min-
imum net income, operating return, and return on net assets) were
aggressive but attainable. It was obvious that there were high hopes
for this new lean showcase.
The A1 project engineer was responsible for transitioning the older A1
family from an existing plant to the newer plant with completely new
equipment. Simultaneously, the X10 project engineer was responsible
for coming up with the best X10 line concept possible to be added to
the two other X10 modules already operating in the newer plant.
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK440
Though the two lines produced pistons for different product families,
the process used to create them was similar on paper.
Machine builders had already been selected for both the A1 and X10
lines. For the X10 line, the current plant manager’s preference won
out and the same types of machines that were already producing X10
pistons were selected for the sake of consistency. For the A1 line,
Yoshina’s recommendation prevailed and Toyoda Machinery Works
(TMW), a relatively new player in the U.S. market for machining cen-
ters—though an established player in grinders—was selected with the
hopes of initiating a long-term and more far-reaching relationship
with Acme.
We will discuss some of the detailed technical decisions made by each
of the two teams. This is not intended to teach a course in machining,
but to illustrate some of the detailed thinking required to develop truly
lean production lines.
Yoshina Meets with the A1 Team
Yoshina’s approach was to provide guidance without dictating how to
make all the engineering decisions required. He gave general advice

and then commented on the ideas of the teams. The A1 team listened
carefully to learn all they possibly could, then translated the lean
concepts into decisions. One issue was how to make the material
flow, given the desire to achieve one-piece flow, while considering
the practical constraints they faced. The team decided that instead
of one-piece flow, they would machine four pistons at a time. There
were two main reasons. First, work would be balanced nicely, since
four pistons would be loaded into one machine (two pistons in each
of the operator’s hands), a whisker switch would be activated, and then
the operator would go to the adjacent machine to pick up the auto-
ejected group of four pistons to place in the next process. Second, based
on machining cycle times, four would be the number of pistons required
per cycle to ensure that the A1 assembly area was not starved for parts;
that is, to achieve the takt time required to make four pistons at a time.
However, with the amount of chips produced if four parts were
machined simultaneously, they were not sure how to keep the jigs that
TMW was providing with their equipment clean—and without clean jigs
for every part, First Time Through Quality levels would be negatively
impacted. The team’s current idea, brought to the table by TMW based
on their process database, was to machine the pistons horizontally so
centrifugal force and gravity would throw the chips away from the parts
and jigs. They were not sure if this would work, and looked to Yoshina
for some sort of reaction. Upon hearing this, Yoshina nodded in
agreement.
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 441
The next issue concerned the footprint of the machining line. There
was not much room in the proposed A1 area, but the team wanted
to follow Yoshina’s recommendation to maintain a straight-line flow.
They recalled Yoshina’s comments on the strength of this approach
during an earlier meeting:

A plant is like a show window for customers. The way the
machines are laid out should make a good impression on
visitors. No isolated islands are allowed. The lines and machines
should be laid out straight so we can see far ahead along the
neat line. The flow from receiving the material to shipping the
finished goods should be simple. Only when cycle times are
fairly long and the operator has to handle multiple processes
and walk around a fair amount should U- or L-shaped cells be
introduced to reduce the waste of walk time and distance.
Always be thinking as if you were the part: Where would you
want to go next? Would you want to go along a complex route
from receiving to shipping, or would you prefer a simple path
from supplier to customer?
Maintainability was the last topic brought up. The previous generation
of A1 machines was infamous among the maintenance staff for being
hard to keep running. Gauges and oil points were located all over the
machines, and there was no set schedule for preventive maintenance.
Struggling with this culture, the A1 team decided to take the first step
and at least make the visual aspects of maintenance accessible to the
staff from one place on the machine’s rear side.
Yoshina took a hard look at the material that had been presented to
him and seemed pleased. While he did not think that everything
would go according to plan without countermeasures for issues that
would arise throughout the process, he did reaffirm the team’s funda-
mental philosophy, which underpinned each decision they had made.
Yoshina Meets with the X10 Team
The X10 team had a different view of Yoshina. It seemed everyone
was of the opinion that his presence was a distraction from their
more immediate deadlines. They politely listened to his ideas but
then went about making decisions using more traditional criteria—

mostly short-term cost.
They presented their ideas to Yoshina, beginning by touting the cost
savings they were projecting by ordering jigs from a local company
instead of the machine builder. The purchasing leader for the X10
product family identified an 8 percent up-front cost savings by using
a local jig maker. In addition, the close proximity of the jig maker to
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK442
the plant would allow for quick replenishment of damaged jigs or
changes to existing equipment.
They next described their accomplishment in the area of one-piece
flow. The group knew this was the ideal in lean manufacturing, based
on an internal Acme workshop they had attended, and believed that
Yoshina would therefore approve of their approach. The team was
even prouder to report that due to the final machining cut, the initial
one piece would become two individual finished pistons downstream
in the process. Therefore, the line would enjoy enhanced productivity
numbers, since handling one piece upstream meant two pieces of
finished product downstream.
They then moved on to discuss the work flow in their cell. Everyone
knew that the machine from Vendor 2 was about 66 percent faster
than the machine from Vendor 5. Instead of waiting for a challenging
question from Yoshina with regard to operator balance, the team
anticipated the query and presented a chute concept that would be
installed on several of the machines to hold a dozen pieces of work in
process. Since the Vendor 2 machine was faster, it would be manually
loaded and unloaded by an operator. On the other hand, due to the
slower cycle time of Vendor 5, an automatic load/unload option had
been purchased for that machine. In this way, it was calculated that
the additional time the human operator took to load and unload parts
from the Vendor 2 machine would offset its faster cycle time, thus

bringing it into rhythm with the Vendor 5 machine. To complete the
system, the dozen pieces of work in process would act as a buffer,
just in case the automatic load/unload mechanism and the manual
load/unload operator got out of sync with one another.
As for how the tool actually hit the metal, the X10 team decided to
clamp the piece of metal to be machined in place, then move the
tooling up and down above the piece in order to machine it. Coolant
would be sprayed over the workpiece, and the plant’s first implemen-
tation of standardized work would require operators to remove the chip
build-up from the fixtures and tooling every hour.
These decisions enabled the new X10 module to fit into an unusually
shaped space on the manufacturing floor, next to the two other X10
cells (Figure 20-3). Achieving this co-location goal was projected to
save the material handlers supplying the line over 200 hours annually.
The X10 team also reaffirmed the decision of previous X10 teams to
keep the two metal-coating processes at an outside vendor, though
their quality had taken a turn for the worse. This would increase work
in process levels by 15 percent, but they would not have to invest in
the $95,000 equipment and associated training.
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 443
They concluded the presentation with an update from the quality
leader on the team. Due to the projected savings from various decisions
throughout the design process, the team was planning to use surplus
funds to invest in a data collection package that would monitor each
machine’s performance. Data could then be gathered at a PC with
software capable of producing reports showing various metrics of
interest such as down time, number of pieces produced, and machine
cycle time. Collecting this sort of information was extremely important
since the quality level of the current two X10 modules were not meeting
targets.

With this, the presentation was over. Yoshina did not specifically
comment on any of the plans presented. Instead, he approached the
table and handed them a suggested layout for the X10 line that he
had sketched during the presentation. They were surprised to see that
Yoshina did not constrain the line to the oddly shaped space that was
available next to the two current modules, but instead had sketched a
straight-line layout. They agreed to discuss this proposal with the plant
manager. Yoshina then thanked the group for their time and said he
looked forward to hearing the layout decision.
Four days later Yoshina received an invitation to meet with the industrial
engineer on the project. In the meeting, the engineer reported that
after talking with the plant manager, it was decided that the layout would
remain as the team had originally suggested. The plant manager did not
understand why a layout that would require rearranging the proposed
area to accommodate a straight-line flow was suggested. Yoshina
realized that if the plant manager had taken a few minutes to go out
to the floor, he would have seen the uneven risers, snakelike walk paths,
and tight confines that characterized the convoluted layout he was
supporting (Figure 20-3).
Upon hearing this news, Yoshina was obviously very disturbed. He could
not figure out why Acme was paying his company hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars in consulting fees for recommendations that would
only be rejected. He got up from the meeting and stormed off, mut-
tering a barely audible “Yappari”
4
under his breath.
Performance Results of Two Machining Lines
Which line performed better? In late 2004 both the A1 and X10
designed piston lines had been installed and were running for
approximately two years. Though minimal official data exists for

the performance of the A1 and X10 lines for the time they had been
THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK444
4
This Japanese word evokes a feeling something to the effect of “as was expected,” or “just as I
thought.”
Operator 1
Initial
Lathe
TMW
Grinding
TMW
Rough
Machining
TMW
Finish
Cut
TMW
Gauging
(1pc/1000)
Initial
Machining
Previous Process
A1 Line
Initial
Lathe
Vendor 2
Outside
Coating
Offsite
Grinding

Vendor 3
Rough
Machining
Vendor 4
Finish
Cut
Vendor 5
Gauging
(every piece)
Operator 1
Op.
2
Operator 3
Initial
Machining
Vendor 1
X10 Line
Select A1 Line Characteristics
• 4 pieces in grinder at a time
• 4 pieces WIP at a time
• 1 machine builder
• Same builder for jigs
• No outside processes
• Gauging line-side
• Straight-line flow with
consistent machine heights
Operator 2
Initial
Lathe
TMW

Grinding
TMW
Rough
Machining
TMW
Finish
Cut
TMW
Initial
Machining
Previous Process
Select X10 Line Characteristics
• 1 piece in grinder at a time
• Uneven WIP among machines
• 5 machine builders
• Multiple jig builders
• Outside coating process
• Gauging 100 yards away
• Confusing line flow with
inconsistent machine heights
Figure 20-3. Technical characteristics of A1 vs. X10 Lines