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Part Three
Planning and control
Figure 15.4 The different views of capacity utilization in (a) traditional and (b) JIT approaches to operations
Respect for humans
Basic working practices
The involvement of everyone
Lean philosophy is often put forward as a ‘total’ system. Its aim is to provide guidelines which
embrace everyone and every process in the organization. An organization’s culture is seen as
being important in supporting these objectives through an emphasis on involving all of the
organization’s staff. This new culture is sometimes seen as synonymous with ‘total quality’
and is discussed in detail in Chapter 17. The lean approach to people management has also
been called the respect-for-humans system. It encourages (and often requires) team-based
problem-solving, job enrichment (by including maintenance and set-up tasks in operators’
jobs), job rotation and multi-skilling. The intention is to encourage a high degree of personal
responsibility, engagement and ‘ownership’ of the job.
What are called basic working practices are sometimes used to implement the ‘involvement
of everyone’ principle. They include the following:
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Discipline. Work standards which are critical for the safety of company members and the
environment, and for the quality of the product, must be followed by everyone all the time.
Flexibility. It should be possible to expand responsibilities to the extent of people’s capabilities.
This applies as equally to managers as it does to shop-floor personnel. Barriers to
flexibility, such as grading structures and restrictive practices, should be removed.
Equality. Unfair and divisive personnel policies should be discarded. Many companies
implement the egalitarian message through to company uniforms, consistent pay structures
which do not differentiate between full-time staff and hourly rated staff, and open-plan
offices.
Autonomy. Delegate increasing responsibility to people involved in direct activities of the
business, so that management’s task becomes one of supporting the shop floor. Delegation
means such things as giving direct-line staff the responsibility for stopping processes in
the event of problems, scheduling work and materials arrival, gathering performance
monitoring data, and general problem-solving.
Development of personnel. Over time, the aim is to create more company members who
can support the rigours of being competitive.
Quality of working life (QWL). This may include, for example, involvement in decisionmaking,
security of employment, enjoyment and working area facilities.
Creativity. This is one of the indispensable elements of motivation. Most of us enjoy not
just doing the job successfully, but also improving it for the next time.