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I'm immensely curious to see how you've applied or adjusted lean practices during the current pandemic and what you anticipate changing longer-term. How will Kaizen events change with social distancing? Just-in-time -- how are you changing supplier and inventory practices after the parts shortages experienced? How are you staying customer focused and trying to meet their expectations while dealing with operational uncertainty? So many questions -- these are just a few thought starters! What changes are you or your company making in your lean practice as a result of COVID?
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Thanks for starting this thread, Kris!
I have been very happy with what I have seen from the lean community so far. Lean practitioners have taken up the challenge and many are doing great work in helping people rise to the challenges presented by COVID-19. There is still so much to do!
I have been very happy with what I have seen from the lean community so far. Lean practitioners have taken up the challenge and many are doing great work in helping people rise to the challenges presented by COVID-19. There is still so much to do!
Not too long ago, I facilitated an SME webinar on Lean in the Age of COVID-19. I pointed to a couple of the examples of how Toyota used the Toyota Production System to respond to major crises in the past, showcased some lean tools and techniques that can help people with some of the most common COVID-related challenges, and offered tips for better problem-solving.
It is available here https://primetime.bluejeans.com/a2m/events/playback/593aff4e-3d45-4a78-9644-61cb872724dd
Everybody has been thrown into the deep end of the pool. Lean is a great way to help others systematically experiment forward, learn and adapt to new challenges! Keep up the great work, Lean Thinkers!
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In some ways that is true. For us SMART/Industry 4.0/Tech Transformation became buzz words that meant different things to different people. We try to talk in terms of our use cases so that people are clearer on what work we are doing. Yes, all of this work was being driven by our Digital Supply Network initiative, but there are so many pieces to it, that we have to talk more specifically.
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Calvin, thanks for the insight! It almost sounds like you've expedited a SMART/Industry 4.0 transformation because of COVID?
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The biggest thing for our group has been staying connected remotely and being able to coach and train. We were using collaborative tools before but now it is a constant to leverage webex and MS Teams (zoom, gotomeeting, etc. are also used but these are our main two). The other area is a remote support software platform that supports phones, tablets and smart glasses. The usage of that system has gone up a factor of 10 easily. The other area I will mention is video/on demand training vs. a set time/date with a classroom. We were already leaning into this but we've had to accelerate due to the covid-19 crisis. There are other areas like camera systems for troubleshooting, data automation, going paperless, etc., but I believe I have hit the main ones that have been critical over the last few months.