(Nick Rich and Denis McCarthy)

Building on the success of achieving a stable operation requires a change of outlook at all levels, in particular the need to move away from action stimulated by operational fire fighting to that stimulated by a passion for improvement. This process will be a frustrating and ultimately unsuccessful unless it is led by a desire to transform the business. As such, change is as much a matter of cultural design as it is technical improvement.

Whilst the technology employed by the factory may be the most sophisticated in the world, it is ultimately the workforce who determines the efficiency of the factory. For employees it is important to take the view that the value of the typical operator must be continuously enhanced so that a lifetime of improvement contribution can be extracted and the quality of working life improved for the individual. Modern manufacturing has less and less room for 'just a pair of hands' and increasingly demands more and more technical/interpersonal skills. The value of employees - the most important source of value to a business and although the mantra that 'employees are our Number One asset' rolls easily off the tongue, the reality in most factories is that employees remain under conditions that have little changed since the 1920s. The elimination of chronic losses and the optimisation of processes (the other assets) are determined by the employees. In fact, factory efficiency is the result of the employees. Even the most up-to-date machinery will have a reduced efficiency if employees don't know how these assets work and what signs of abnormality can be used to detect failings and take the appropriate countermeasures. Not just that, no business stands a chance of optimising what it does if the skills of the employees are not improved and constantly improved to allow waste to be identified and the reduced. To some this may seem a bit of a waste in terms of giving employees these highly sensitive diagnostic skills but there again these are also the managers who would have believed they had achieved a 'lean business' well before this stage. It can be no surprise that Toyota - the benchmark of all lean businesses continues to promote 'Good Products and Good People' as the basis for its almost 60 years of improvements.


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