Beliefs of the Lean History Makers Part 2

This is the second part of Believes of the Lean History Makers.

Divine Wind:

Divine wind was also a strong belief in Japanese culture. It is also known as "Kamikaze" in Japanese language. They belief that some miracle will save them from odd and difficult situations. They have to do nothing, just stick to the old culture and mind there own business. They don't have to interact with any one. No trade is required with other countries.

How this belief developed?

It was a great event which took place around 1273. Kublai Khan's forces attacked Japan. The battle was fought by the Japanese very bravely the whole day. At the night time the fight stopped, now the Japanese were filled with horror of defeat the next morning. But a miracle happened, A wind blown across the sea and devastated the forces of Kublai Khan. In the morning, Japanese were stunned to see their enemies condition just a few left, all the ships were broken. Japanese were very happy about this miracle.
After 7 years the Kublai Khan again sent his army to conquer Japan with even more ships and soldiers. This time when Japanese come to know that thousands of ships are to attack Japan, they were sure about their defeat. They fought well in the day time and kept the attacker out of Japan. At night they started praying and were terrified. Surprisingly a wind again blown and destroyed the forces of Kublai Khan.
After these incidents Japanese felt that no one could conquer them. There is a divine wind which is there to save them.

Beliefs of Lean History Makers

Can you imagine below mentioned beliefs belongs to a nation which is going to create a history for the rest of the world to follow, A great history of Lean History Makers.

Who were samurai?

The warriors were known as the samurai. They were proud of their weapon was a sword. They have superiority over the common man. In short the powers belongs to political and military leaders.

Not embracing the new technology

The Portuguese seafarers introduced guns to the Japanese, they quickly taken them to use in battles but soon they realized that there is no honor in using gun. Any body could shoot gun, a child, a coward or a dishonorable person. But sword fighting was a great skill. They declared guns are inappropriate. So the demand for gun decreased and swords increased. They believe in the old traditions and strict to their own business, not interested in western culture and advancements. In short they were the fundamentalist, contented and satisfied with their current situation and they thought they were perfect and they require no advancement. Further more they believe in divine wind which will be discussed in the coming post.

How can I help save the Earth by Using Lean Tools

As we are using Lean Manufacturing tools to save our earth. Here we will discuss the main step to achieve our goal.

Open up your eyes

The key to achieve results in this case and most of others is "observation". So make your observation strong. Observation leads to clarification of thoughts and shows the true picture. We are living in an apparent world. We are unaware of so many things that we feel satisfied with the current situation. So open up your eyes to see the real situation. You need a power of vision. A vision to see beyond the bright lights and racing automobiles.

Start Learning Lean Tools

Lean tools are one of the excellent strategies on earth to date for a success in business. These were initiated and adopted by Toyota motors and see where it is now. Now a days Lean Tools have become a recipe for success in almost each sector. Thousands of companies are implementing and thousands other are about to start. So this is the best way to save our earth. Now the question is "How to Learn Lean Tools?" Its pretty easy job as mentioned below

3 Easy steps to Learn Lean Tools

1. History of Lean

This step is very important in Learning, it will lead you to the depth of the tools and their evolution. It will give you the insight of the feelings attached to specific tools. By going through the history, you will have a confidence during the implementation phase and it would be really easy for you to relate a particular situation to its historical context. Finally you will find a positive change in yourself, may be you can call it positive energy. In the coming posts I am going to start history of Lean, so stay tuned.

2. Knowledge of Lean Tools

There are numerous Lean Tools having practical implementation. This step is pretty vital, as here basic concepts are going to be developed so these concepts must go in right direction otherwise it would be dangerous to implement these tools with a false concept but I assure if have gone through the history in detail then there is no way to have a false concept. These tools will also be shared after the "history of Lean".

3. Implementation of Lean Tools

There is a saying "Knowing is not enough, we must apply". This is exactly what we need to do. Not only after acquiring all the knowledge but in between just after the first tool you learn immediately start implementing it. This will also be shared after the "Knowledge of Lean Tools"

Top 4 Reasons to Learn Lean tools for individuals

Lean saves your time, money and makes your life easy.

Time:

If you have no knowledge, you can improve it by study. If you have medical problem, you can get it solved by medicine. But if you have lost your time nothing could bring it back. This shows how important time is? Lean focus on eliminating non value adding activities and according to Lean 50% - 95% of the time of any activity is non value adding. The problem is that it is difficult to differentiate between value adding and non value adding activities. Once you have got familiarization with the types of wastages, defined by Lean, you can easily save 50% - 95% of time by eliminating the waste activities(non value adding).

Money:

It is one of the most important necessity of life and sometimes it is the only objective of life. Lean thinking provokes you to analyze wastage of money and resources. Important thing is that, with Lean thinking, it would be very easy for you to make decisions regarding money matters. You 'l have solid background/believe in what you are doing. The problem is that, we are not able to know where we are wasting money? Is money being wasted or not? Lean thinking could really change your mindset.

Making life Easy:

There is a saying "A place for every thing and every thing in its place." This is the basic principle of 5S( A Lean Tool). By applying this tool you sort things on basis of need. Items needed and not needed are segregated. Items not needed are sold out or disposed off. Then needed items are arranged in an order depending upon the frequency of usage. A permanent place is assigned to every needed item with its description and a marking around its boundary. After this cleaning is carried out and then cleaning is made a daily habit. By this tool you can got rigid of your old broken furniture, unused racks, old books, digest, magazines, cloths and household items. You can achieve 50% reduction in overall items. Increasing space and cleanliness. Similar operation can be carried out on your office work bench and on you personal computer to achieve the same results-Making life easy for you.

Striving to make the earth a better place:

Natural resources are being consumed at a rapid rate, going towards an end. For example, Oil has reached to its peak value. Fresh under water resources are very limited. Food items production is not increasing at rate at which its consumption is. So where are we going? Going to an end? Yes surely if we didn't wake up individually. Fresh water is limited and still we waste it during tooth brush, shaving , bathing etc. Excessive water for gardening. Extensive car washes. Excessive cleaning and washing of house floor and cloths. These all factors are in our control. Can we save water? This question is up to you. If we analyze food supply chain, there is a huge wastage of 30% to 50%. So there is a great margin of improvement for us. We can reduce all these wastages

Every journey begins with a small step. Small drops of water make mighty oceans. So, start your life in Lean way.

Top most sectors to implement Lean

Lean is a beautiful philosophy, set of tools and a general guidance. It has changed the fortune of many industries, from a really bad situation it makes an organization the best in the world. What so ever is the problem, it has a very simple, doable and result oriented solutions. Toyota Motors emerges from the ashes of second world war and becomes the top automobile company of the world. This company is on the move for continuous improvement, even the global recession wasn't able to affect it. The only reason behind this success is Toyota production system which is based on Lean. As an industrial success this system can be utilized in every day life and different sectors. Some of them are as below:

Hospitals:

Lean tools can be effectively used in hospitals for an ever improving service to its patients. Patient and doctor interface can be dramatically improved. Patients waiting time can be reduced. Hospital operating procedures can be made fool proof and patient friendly, leaving no room for mishap or clinical accidents. No of paramedical staff required for a certain load of patients can be effectively calculated and deputed accordingly. And the concept of continuous improvement can make a hospital a world class success regarding patient safety.

Education:

Education is also a basic right for a human being but now a day its really difficult to find a good educational path. There are thousand of scholarships for the students but still millions of students across the glob are suffering from poor education. Educational system should be transparent and easily accessible. So if we require improvement in the current educational system then the best is to implement lean tools.

Food and agriculture:

One can't neglect the importance of this sector. Food is the basic necessity of life and agriculture is the source of food. If we analyze the supply chain of food and agriculture, there is 30% to 50% wastage. Lean is meant to reduce and eliminate wastages so, this sector is also waiting for lean.

Government:

Lean is best suitable to improve a Governmental structure. There is much room for improvement here. As Toyota Motors is a world class success by following Lean, any Government could become world's best by doing the same. In this regard, cultural aspect of lean is very important because implementation of lean requires a change of mind set. All the problems today we are facing in society can be resolved automatically by the implementation of Lean in Governmental setups.

In the comming post I'l continue with this topic.

Why I Started a Blog on Lean-A way of life?

I have just started this blog on Lean tools and techniques to be employed in our daily life. I have a background of Industrial Engineering and now I am doing a job in an organization to implement and teach lean tools.

When I was doing Industrial Engineering, back in my university days, All of our class fellows started implementing IE tools in daily life and all of a sudden we were changed. Started to think of better way of doing things in our daily life. We changed our usual way of breakfast, lunch and dinner. We started to organize things, implementing 5S, drawing process charts for our activities whether we are going to bath room to take shower or going out for soccer, our every thing was based on the scientific management principles. We started to calculate timing of our different activities and developed standard times for shopping, Taking shower, breakfast, lunch, dinner etc. We eliminated a lot of waste activities from these processes. And the most important thing every one keep on thinking to improve the existing process. So that was a great inspiration for me to think about implementing Lean Tools in our daily life.

Below are some of the reasons to start this blog.

I wanted a waste free world

When I looked around, Our earth is heavily damaged and sucked, There is little remaining in it. If we continue to extract, every thing will be finished. The people are wasting resources instead of gaining the full potential and still not thinking to improve their way of working. So this blog would be a medium of communication with those people who unintentionally wasting resources and never think about it.

To develop a team

As you know, Team work divides the effort and multiply the results. In order to accomplish dream of waste free world, a team is required so this blog is a good platform for the team formation. And one of the most important thing is that we are not bounded by the countries and we can form a cross country team to do something for earth and our coming generations.

To spread Lean knowledge and learn from others experiences

Heart of the blog is this statement. We can not bring change until we first educate people about change and teach them some tools and techniques. So, we will be learning, teaching and implementing lean tools and techniques to make this world a waste free world. We will start to change our attitude towards the small things which we are wasting on daily basis and polluting our earth. We will start to devise new, efficient and less polluting ways of doing our routine jobs. And believe me this would be a deed of kindness which will pay you back very soon.