Follow-up to Lean Jargon-Japanese Translations

I found this wordpress blog with some Japanese translations of common words that come from the Toyota Production system. I find the translations of Heijunka and the interpretation to be more accurate in that it describes Heijunka as "simulating demand" over a long period but leveling through that period. This assessment matches up better with the definition in Toyota Production System book published by IIE, versus the North American take on Heijunka as still panicking/reacting to customer orders as they come on a daily basis. Heijunka takes some forecasting into play and then locks in the number for a specific period, or so I'm told, but then levels production to smooth out the process and take control of QCDS. Anyway, thought you might find this person's hard work in learning Japanese and applying it to his studies useful for learning more about Lean and TPS.

Lean Jargon – Part IV, Kaizen, Muda & Gemba

I asked the question in the first post of this four part series: "Is lean jargon helpful?" What I wondered is the jargon helpful in understanding lean? For me, yes, the jargon is helpful. The previous three posts described the literal translations of the following words, kaizen, muda, mura, muri, genba, genbutsu and genjitsu. Now, I'll try to bring this together and explain why it is sometimes helpful to understand, what exactly do these words mean? Let's give this some context:

In summary of the three previous posts, kaizen means literally, “virtuous reform”. Within an organization, which involves every person, we want people to make small changes that benefit the group. How do we get people to make changes? We ask them to consider muda (wastefulness, or the seven wastes), mura (heavy burdens) and muri (unevenness). Genba is the “actual place”, genbutsu is the “actual thing” and genjitsu is “the actual condition or situation”.

Kaizen is done by looking for the 3Ms in the place where the work is done and by dealing with the reality of the situation, the 3Gs. None of this is done in the conference room. Anything done in the conference room is generally not done for the workers’ sake. By going to the genba, we are seeking out ways to make the workers’ job easier and more fulfilling, by focusing on the actual process and engaging the mind of the person doing the job. This is the premise behind Toyota’s “Respect for People” and has roots in classic work simplification programs created in the U.S.

The flaw, or blind spot if you will, in American lean systems is that we try to kaizen in the conference room. A term that was lost in Japanese translation, early on in America’s Lean journey was “teian.” Kaizen Teian is actually the way Toyota and other Japanese companies engage their employees. Americans do not have very good experience with Kaizen Teian, or the formal suggestion system. Many American managers have a bad taste in their mouths with suggestion boxes. But Kaizen Teian doesn’t even use a suggestion box. The way proposals are created and implemented is by having shop floor leaders teach others the 3Ms, the 3Gs and then seek out small improvements that they can make in order to learn by doing.

Incidentally, this model was proven, ironically, in an American WWII production plant in New Jersey. Picatinny Arsenal employees, where 18,000 people manufactured munitions, saved the plant over $8 million per year for three years during the years of 1942-45. This was done through the TWI Service’s Job Methods program, the precursor to Japanese work simplification programs, or Kaizen. Adjust that $8 million for inflation in 2007 dollars, just make sure you are sitting down first. With this in mind, we can begin to understand how Toyota can claim and achieve, billions in cost savings per year.

Kaizen Teian activities involve evaluating the standard work, getting people to see the 3Ms in their work, and then soliciting and coaching people through the process of making those improvements. This requires the skills of methods instruction (how to lock in standards), the skill of methods improvement (how to kaizen) and the skill of maintaining good relations (how to lead people). These are the three skills taught TWI and have been taught in Toyota since the postwar period, and continue to this day.

This is why TWI is so important…you can’t see this level of activity which is hidden in the relationships between people on the shop floor and their immediate leaders. It’s the blind spot in American Lean Theory. It is much easier to see the results of JIT, SMED and Poke-Yoke rather than develop our soft skills so that we can develop our people. We want fast results and the specialized lean tools give us that. Don’t get me wrong, the flashy JIT and SMED tools are necessary, the trick is in how to get them to stick; TWI is one part of that answer.

The other part is this: 30 years elapsed before we caught onto JIT in the 1980s. Now in 2007, another 30 years have slipped by before we really began to understand how Toyota conducts Kaizen. When we go to the shop floor (3Gs) to see and evaluate the reality of the problems (3Ms), it requires patience and persistence. Patience is not a strong characteristic of Americans. How will we overcome this problem? If it took us nearly 60 years to notice the secrets to Toyota’s success then I’d bet that it will be more than half a century for the next Toyota to emerge from American roots. We are just beginning to see, now we have a lifetime to learn!

Lean Jargon - Part III, Gemba (Genba), Genbutsu, Genjitsu

There is another often used word in Lean that could use some discussion: Gemba. Actually, I couldn't find a translation* for Gemba. It turns out, the American word is Gemba, the Japanese word is Genba. Why this is true I don’t know, but thanks to the new book “Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management”, we have some clarity and can begin to understand the “gen” words: genba, genbutsu and genjitsu.

First of all, gen means actuality or reality. When we look at the word gen-ba, it means the actual place. In the terms of manufacturing, we can loosely translate this to mean where the work is done. Why is this meaningful? It is not until we understand the other gen words that this begins to make sense.

Second is gen-butsu. Butsu means, the condition of the thing. In terms of manufacturing and considering the word gen-ba, we ask ourselves, “what are the conditions of things in the workplace, where the work is actually done?” The things we are looking for? The condition of the design, the quality, the process, the people, the methods, the equipment, etc. When we think of genba and genbutsu, we are looking to see if the conditions of our standards are deviating in the workplace. This forms the basis for standardization of all aspects in the business.

Third is gen-jitsu. The actual situation. We are looking for facts so that we may understand the gap between reality and standard. We are not looking for what it should be, we know that. We are looking for actual situations, or the facts. This helps us begin to dig for the actual root cause.

If we only consider the standards we tend to sit in a meeting room wondering why the equipment, the people, the materials and processes don’t meet standards. The only way to truly know, is to go to the actual workplace, observe the actual conditions and collect the facts. This leads to true understanding of reality. Otherwise our solutions we invent in the meeting room are for problems that are not really happening in the workplace. This is the reason why problem solving begins with the saying, “go and see for yourself, in the workplace where the work is actually happening.”

Next post: Lean Jargon - Part IV, Kaizen the 3Ms and the 3Gs

*translations via alta vista babel fish.

Lean Jargon – Part II, Muda, Muri, Mura

In Part I, I talked about how lean jargon in the form of Japanese words, like Kaizen, Muda and Genbutsu tend to do two things in our industrial culture: 1) workers see through the transparency of words that provide no useful purpose other than to communicate concepts rather than solve real problems and 2) managers tend to rely on words - setting the expectation that you have been told to kaizen, therefore you will kaizen. Of course, the two are irreconcilable; people solve problems, not foreign words. Part of the problem is not understanding the words in the first place.

Kaizen. It is made of two words. Kai, meaning “virtue” and “zen”, meaning “reform”.* I like to think this gives a slightly different meaning to kaizen than we are used to hearing in the U.S. In the states, people see kaizen as continuous improvement. We conduct large kaizen events where radical change is considered the best practice. In other cultures where the group benefits from individual contribution, kaizen means the improvement benefits everyone.

Muda. This word means, “wastefulness”. It applies to everything. It is everything that is non-value added. It seems Kiichiro Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno were able to classify wastefulness into seven buckets commonly seen on the shop floor, but most importantly in the context of the conditions of that time. For them, they faced a small market controlled by the government, where materials, machines, money people were a scarcity. Wastefulness was not an option. They found that inventories that were too big hurt the ability for cash to flow through the business, where it was needed, when it was needed. This is true for the American war production story during WWII. Steel, copper, people, equipment entire factories were controlled by the War Production Office. Profits were slim. Wastefulness in the form of large stockpiles of material inventories was not an option during critical war production.

Mura. This word means, “unevenness”. It applies to everything. This word embodies the concept of JIT, or Just-In-Time. If we have unevenness, we are batching. We are not making the right parts, in the right quantities, at the right time. The concept of “takt” time, is used to create a pace for people to work to. Takt is a German word, just to make it more confusing, meaning pace or beat. The takt time is the pace of customer demand. If we build to demand, we avoid unevenness in our work. We are making the most efficient use of people, materials, and machines available.

Muri. This word means, “heavy burden”. It applies to everything. This word embodies the concepts of standard work. When we observe the job, we see what is actually happening from the viewpoint of the worker. We see the potential safety issues, the ergonomic issues, the searching for tools, the walking for help, the waiting for approvals, etc. In other words, our current system, as we designed it, is a burden for our customers, the operator. All improvement is done for the operators in order to reduce the burden. The lean tools of standard work help us improve the job for operators, while improving the process for our quality, cost, delivery and safety objectives.

*translations provided via alta vista babel fish. http://www.altavista.com/

Lean Jargon, Part I - Is it helpful?

Regarding Lean “jargon”…

People don’t like it. Experience tells me there are two things at play here regarding the Japanese terms.

1) When we talk lean in America and mix in the Japanese terms people see this as transparent. Reason: once people acquire the knowledge of the seven wastes, they do get it and they see why the Japanese are successful at this. People know that the "real trick" is for leaders to follow up with them so that they learn about how to eliminate the waste through the concept of learning by doing. This is a key concept behind the Japanese word, “kaizen”, is it not? Make small improvements, otherwise the knowledge is lost. When we don’t follow up, this is a key point, we are just telling people that muda is the seven wastes. We aren't showing them why, and we certainly aren't supporting them in making actual improvements. Our problem in the U.S. is that we do a good job of developing people’s ability to see waste, we just don’t do a good job of developing people’s ability to eliminate waste within their small sphere of influence. Jargon doesn’t develop anybody’s skill. People can easily see through this.

2) People say they that their workforce can’t handle the Japanese terms and management methods. This is an American culture, not a Japanese culture.

This is generally a true statement, especially the part about culture. It doesn’t mean that we can’t try to learn what the terms mean. In fact, this is really the key point in starting your lean journey. What these people are really telling us is that as managers, we can’t handle the lean terms because we don’t understand them. Why? Our thinking is not rooted in a lean context and we are comfortable with our current thinking: command and control the hands you have hired. Supplement that bias with the notion that the terms are of Japanese origin and you don’t stand a fighting chance. Is it possible that the Japanese terms were developed so that the Japanese could understand and communicate Western management methods exported to Japan in pre and post WWII eras? Is it possible that Ford, Juran, Deming, Mogensen, Gilbreths, and the four horsemen of Training Within Industry heavily influenced Japanese management thinking, long before the 80's JIT failures and the 90's Lean explosion? How many of those English terms directly translated to Japanese? I argue that 98% of the time, you will find the literal english translations of Japanese management terms rooted in American management jargon of the pre-WWII era. The Japanese just took this stuff seriously into the workplace...oops sorry, genba.

This problem of understanding the Japanese management methods is a real problem. The root cause is that we don’t have the patience to stick with problems. I for one have learned a great deal about the origins of Lean, which are solidly rooted in the Training Within Industry program, and other influential work simplification programs, simply because a few of us have stuck with the difficult task of trying to understand the terms and history of TPS. When delivered to Americans, many people understand the American management concepts taught during WWII of “how to instruct”, “how to improve methods”, and “how to lead” people. These skills lead us to standardize, improve and work together in harmony. Sound familiar? By the way, Toyota uses TWI’s Job Instruction, in more or less unaltered format, 60 years later. The problem is not the tools, the jargon or who invented Lean. The problem we are trying to get at here is “us” and the way we learn, think and act...not the way we talk.

The first part of learning lean is to understand the context at a very basic level: 1) elimination of waste, 2) problem solving, 3) standardization, 4) customer focus, etc., you get the idea. The jargon is used to communicate these ideas to others. The usefulness of jargon ends here. The problem with the jargon is that it does nothing to help us break down our old habits of thinking and start building up new habits around the lean context I just described.

Jargon doesn’t break down old habits. People do!
Jargon doesn’t build up new habits. People do!
Jargon doesn’t think systematically. People do!
Jargon doesn’t solve problems. People do!
Jargon doesn’t implement two million improvements per year. People do!

So, Mr. & Ms. Lean Leaders, where will you focus your efforts? On the jargon? If so, that is fine, but you better be prepared to follow up and learn together with your people, or suffer the flavor of the month.

Next post, more Japanese Lean jargon, their meanings and ties to early American management methods.