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It was tough to keep my attention while listening in the car - and it wasn't because of the content. I listened to the audiobook version, and this review pertains to that. Womack is arguably the genius behind US lean thinking, but he's not well suited to be a recording artist. I've listened to some great audiobooks done by professional readers who can bring material to life - and would have recommended that these guys do the same thing next time. The material was pretty good, and the examples - like the airline industry and auto repair - bring lean into a perspective that every listener could understand and relate to. It was easy to see how lean methods could be applied - and also the examples went beyond the obvious to things like point to point private jet service, and redesign of planes to permit faster turn times, as examples tpo stretch the imagination.The audio, which was James Womack himself, was a little slow paced and done in a monotone.
Womack and Jones recommend the following:*Draw a Consumption Map - a list of the steps in the consumer process. Roger Burlton and I have found that the more challenging service processes are those that are non-linear. Anyone working with customer processes quickly realizes that the effort to make things easier for the customer must often make things harder (more expensive) for the service provider. The model shows where both the customer and the provider are wasting time. Roger Burlton describes a class in which a student trained in Lean insisted that transportation was "waste," and that, therefore, a pizza company should not deliver its pizzas. (I would suggest that some of what they are doing is what people in the process management tradition have been doing for some time, and one of the reasons people in the process management tradition have thought Lean was limited to manufacturing - but that's a quibble. As it happens Lean Solutions was published in 2005 and for some reason www.amazon.com is currently offering the book marked down to $7.99.
Thus, analyzing the network and determining where there is information that you gain from one activity that can improve the customer's experience at the next activity, no matter what path the customer chooses, is another key element in analyzing and designing good service processes. (The time the consumer wastes).*Determine the "perceptual time" of each step. Time each step.*Determine the value of each step in the provision process. Time each step.*Determine the value of each step in the consumer process. It would be nice if Womack and Jones had explored this issue in a bit more detail and suggested some heuristics for dealing with some of these enviable conflicts. It involves searching for, obtaining, installing, maintaining, repairing, upgrading, and eventually, disposing of many goods and services.How does this work in practice.
It is the kind of book that changes your view of the world and forces you to rethink what you know about process work. (We prefer to refer to the customer's gemba as the customer process, and the company's process as the business process, but either set of terms will do).As Womack and Jones say: "Consumption is a continuing process - a set of actions taken over an extended period - to solve a problem. Womack and Jones have solved this problem. Obviously service companies have backroom operations, and obviously there is waste present in service companies, just as there is in manufacturing operations, so Lean must somehow apply, but I wasn't convinced that reading a book on "Lean for Service" provided any important new ideas.
(The time the consumer wastes).*Determine the "perceptual time" of each step. As we maximize the value of the customer process, in this case, however, we impose a burden on the pizza company's production process. To eliminate waste in the customer's process, the pizza company needs to accept waste in its own process - it needs to deliver the pizza to the customer. This book will challenge the thinking of those Lean practitioners who regard Lean as a set of simple rules - it begins to introduce the complexities of BPM into lean practice.Most companies today are service companies. Among the most prominent are defining a value stream and then examining each step in the value stream to determine how long it takes, if its creating value, and whether it relies on push or pull. I have often commented on Lean, and mentioned the fact that Lean derives from the Toyota Production System, and thus from a manufacturing background.
At Toyota, and in almost all books on the Toyota Production System or on Lean, the gemba is understood to be the factory floor where production processes takes place.What Womack and Jones have done is to imagine a new gemba - the place where the customer lives. I had a student challenge me on this recently and suggested I read Lean Solutions - a book that James Womack and Daniel Jones - the ultimate Lean gurus - had written in 2005. They have extended Lean to make it much more flexible and powerful, and show how to move towards a true service-oriented Lean Six Sigma approach - by focusing on the customer's gemba.Every process practitioner should read this book. It does not show where the provider is producing any value time. In essence, when we look at a service problem, we are looking at two processes: the customers process and the service businesses process.
They go on the discuss how they would systematically improve the customer and then the provider processes and then move on to consider lots of other service processes and to provide lots of good advice on how to deal with a variety of service process problems.The new ideas of Womack and Jones will create some problems that they fail to address in their book. Womack and Jones have made a major contribution to this newly evolving practice. That is an amazing bargain for anyone who wants to read one of the most important books published in the process domain in this decade. Roger tried to explain to the student that much of the value of a pizza, for many of us, consisted in its being delivered, but he didn't convince this particular individual who was determined to eliminate all possible "waste" from the production process. The pizza business is a service business. We don't want to have to travel to pick up the pizza.
There really are exciting ideas that Lean brings to analyzing service industry problems.Lean includes a number of different techniques. (Is the customer happy or unhappy about waiting).Next Womack and Jones turn to the company's provisioning process (the company's gemba), and they repeat the steps:*Draw a Provision Map - a list of the steps that the company goes through to provide service to a customer. I was certainly aware that there were books on Lean Six Sigma for Service, but having glanced at a couple, I wasn't convinced that they had really made the transition to a service orientation. Moreover, they are complementary, such that, in many situations, decreasing waste for the customer must necessarily increase waste for the business. (Note that in doing this Womack and Jones have moved beyond Lean as a set of practices derived from the Toyota Production System, and have started to create new Lean techniques for the service industry. They key is that they have arrived at the right solution).The essence of Lean Solutions is the following statement: "Customers have a gemba, too. The reality, however, is that if you want to analyze this problem effectively, you have to conclude that the overall hotel process is a network and that the customer could go from one specific activity (Check In) to another (Restaurant, or Room, or Conference Lunch) in whatever order the customer chooses, and the good hotel will want to support whatever choice the customer makes.
Most process technologies were developed to deal with manufacturing processes. I hadn't realized that Lean Solutions was focused on the service business, but sat down and read it.Lean Solutions is a great book that anyone in process work, Lean or otherwise, ought to read. We are in the midst of a transition as we all learn more about how to analyze and redesign service processes. It would have been nice to have Womack and Jones address such a process.A subtler issue also deserved more attention. We want to eliminate the waste by getting the pizza people to deliver our pizza right to our door when we are ready to eat it. For us, as customers, transportation is waste. Consider staying at a hotel.
You could break the overall process into lots of little processes: Checking In, Going to a Restaurant, Spending the Night in a Room, Attending a Conference Banquet, etc. Thus, for example, everyone at Toyota is urged to "always go to the gemba." (a Japanese term for the place where the work is actually done). In essence the redesign strategy is to clean up the customer process, eliminating all possible waste in the consumer process, and then to turn to the provisioning process, adjust it to support the improved customer process, and then finally, to eliminate what waste you still can from the provider process.At this point I have only considered what Womack and Jones discuss in the first 50 pages of their 350 page book.
This is especially the case when we focus on service processes that interact with the customer, and not just with back office operations at service companies. The techniques are mixed in with a lot of heuristics, often derived from practices at Toyota. We begin by analyzing the customer's process and try to make it as efficient as possible.
Throughout the book Womack and Jones focus on processes that have a more or less linear flow: Repairing an Car, a Patient Visiting a Healthcare Facility, an Airplane Trip. It's the path they follow to solve their problems." In other words, if you want to find out about service processes, you go watch what customers do.Womack and Jones refer to the customer's gemba as consumption, and refer to the service company's process as the provision process. (Is the employee happy or unhappy about the step).In each case, the authors first create a list of steps and then shift to a diagram of the steps.
The whole book suffers of lack of imagination, it keeps focusing on automotive industry and related services, as if there is nothing else in the world. Interesting, but not innovative. By now everyone knows that the customer must be the focus of any activity.
A lot of the content in the book is real common sense. If you are expecting content such as how companies do VSM, and tactical challenges in doing VSMs you are reading the wrong book.
***DONT EXPECT TO BE IN A POSITION OF LEADING A LEAN INITIATIVE AFTER READING THIS BOOK***Good book for getting introduced to lean concepts. But if you are interested in knowing what is a VSM, and high level overview of how VSMs are done, then this may be the book for you.
I was expecting real life, in depth case studies. The book tends to spend 3/4 of its time trying to make that statement, with some high level strategic content thrown about.
Not much for those looking beyond concepts. Instead I got a rather simplistic view of lean.
There is no doubt that lean processes are a must for the company.
The provision of goods and services to consumers is definitely the next target in the lean revolution and the authors note some particular example organisations that are achieving lean in the service sector. Only a few vague pages are presented.Secondly, the book would, in my view, really benefit from the input of retail experts and academics to comment on and improve the ideas that are floated by the authors.
It presents a compulsive argument for change, though no clearly worked through solutions. As it is, I am left with the feeling that some of these ideas are pie in the sky which would never work in the real economy.Clearly the aim of this book is to stimulate thought and discussion on the application of lean principles to consumer service.
The authors of "Lean Thinking" move their attention from lean production to "lean provision", particularly focussing on retail and services. Firstly, the books lacks detail on the metholodogy for achieving lean provision.
It moves the lean management focus onto the provision of goods and services to the consumer - where it is much needed - and, as such, is required reading for anyone involved in retail and customer service. The book makes a number of excellent arguments in a beautifully clear and readable style.
Tesco comes in for frequent praise.The book does have a couple of weaknesses.
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