Monozukuri Acting With Focus

By Steven Blom

Many companies have introduced Lean, WCM and 6 Sigma, trying to realize the promise of these techniques: twice as much production at half the costs. But in the West we are less successful in achieving these goals than the Japanese. In this book, Steven Blom explains why and proposes ideas and methods to make real progress in increasing productivity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9789080746640

Book preview

English translation

July 2015

Steven Blom

Marcel Metze

Blom Consultancy BV

Kanaaldijk 6

5735 SL Aarle-Rixtel (NL)

T. (+31)(0)492 - 47 41 49

[e-mail]

www.BlomConsultancy.nl

Edited by: Marcel Metze

Layout: Rudi Haryono

Cover design: Michel Kobus, Mars Media, www.marsmedia.nl

Prepress: Van Stiphout Grafische Communicatie, Mierlo (NL)

ISBN/EAN: 978-90-807466-4-0

© 2012 Steven Blom

All rights reserved. English version published by Blom Consultancy BV.

No part of this publication may be reproduced and / or made public by means of printing, photocopying, microfilm or any other means whatsoever, without prior written consent of the publisher.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used for identification purposes only in this publication.

Contents

Introduction Acting with focus 5

The philosophy 1. Top level production 9

2. Monozukuri: the art of making 13

3. Inspiration and Commitment 22

4. Awareness 25

5. Craftsmanship, Character and Career 30

6. Managers, not MBAs 36

7. Credible, sustained and constructive leadership 41

In Practice 8. Implementing monozukuri: the four phases 51

9. Why Lean often fails 57

10. Vision, mission & strategy (phase 1) 62

11. Screening ongoing projects (phase 2) 67

12. Policy deployment (phase 3) 68

13. Setting up improvement teams (phase 4) 73

Epilogue 83

Footnotes 87

Literature and sources 91

Introduction

Acting with focus

According to Zen Buddhism, each and every person can reach ‘enlightenment’, a state of utter bliss that is achieved through acceptance and being fully aware of the ‘now’.An enlightened being is no longer tormented by grief or pain from the past or by fear of what the future may hold. The most important way to reach enlightenment is through meditation. Zen believes that talent and creativity come from within. Whether these factors manifest themselves, and in which way, depends on how one deals with them.Being fully aware of the now and complete focus are crucial.

This is exactly the concept of Monozukuri when it comes to ‘making things’. Monozukuri is a mindset. It can be described, in the words of the Japanese Institute for Trade and Organization (JETRO), as ‘having the spirit for producing excellent products and the ability to constantly improve a production system and process.’

Monozukuri is not unlike some European traditions in the Middle Ages. At the time, it could take decades to complete large structures, such as churches. The continuity of crafts and skills was essential. The building masters made sure that enough young apprentices were hired. They were assigned simple tasks and earned nothing at first. An apprentice stone mason began by roughly hewing crude lumps of stone to size.Only after he had proven himself to be capable and had shown some degree of skill, he could become a journeyman and receive pay. After many years of service, he might have the opportunity to complete a masterpiece. As a master, it would be his turn to train new apprentices. This way, craftsmanship was preserved and passed on. The masters organized themselves in guilds: they felt united in their craft and appreciated each others’ accomplishments. In general, life in this period was closely linked to labor. A cobbler’s children could see their father at work each day. Workshops and small factories were located in urban neighborhoods instead of hidden away in industrial complexes.

In the early industrial firms, which arose at the beginning of the twentieth century, the atmosphere of craftsmanship still remained alive. These companies often started from a collaboration between investors and engineers. Engineers - people who are ‘ingenious’ like to invent new things and to create, not to become rich but to improve our way of life and to create beautiful and innovative products. Henry Ford, Gerard Philips and others continued expanding their companies, even after they had become very wealthy men.

This culture of craftsmanship has largely been lost in the western world. Too few new craftsmen are trained these days; many people regard office or management jobs as more respectable than crafts involving manual labor. It has become increasingly difficult to find skilled carpenters, painters, plumbers or other craftsmen. In many countries, the manufacturing industry is now smaller in size than the services sector. And even inside large industrial organizations, the culture of manufacturing has been overtaken by a culture of marketing and sales. Automation and information technology have had a big impact on the cultural transformation of the manufacturing industry. They have shifted managerial attention away from the factory floor and created a virtual world which hardly bears resemblance to physical reality. Before the information era, managers used to meet on the factory floor. Now they work behind computer screens, trying to interpret each others’ data. Many marketing & sales managers lack any feeling for the art of making. Frans Swarttouw, CEO of Dutch airplane manufacturer Fokker Industries in the eighties of the last century, once said: ‘Selling airplanes is the wonderful, but it’s a pity we have to build the damn things too!’

Another factor that stimulated the decline of the culture of craftsmanship was the emergence of the professional manager. During the twentieth century, many companies grew so large that the owners (often families) could no longer oversee their operations and started to hire managers to assist them. After World War II, an increasing percentage of them came from business schools (Master of Business Administration) or had a financial background. Their main focus was to increase profitability, the nature and quality of the goods their companies produced was less important. Many of them embraced the Anglo-Saxon, neoliberal economic model, in which managers receive options and bonuses related to the revenues, the market value and the size of the company. In the neoliberal era, which started in the early eighties, the emphasis in management shifted towards financial reporting, short-term results and the share price (shareholder value).

In order to boost their salaries, corporate managers began to inflate revenues and short-term profits. They stepped up the number of mergers and acquisitions, decreased the level of investment and moved production to low wage countries. In the eighties and nineties the electronics firm Philips, once the largest manufacturer in the Netherlands, outsourced all of its main production lines abroad, with the exception of electric shavers.

An increasing number of manufacturing companies fell into the hands of investment companies with a simple strategy: cut costs, improve short-term performance, sell and quickly cash in. These hostile takeovers were often financed by burdening the acquired companies with debt, thus leaving them unable to make the necessary investments for the future. This form of stripping companies inevitably leads to ‘business anorexia’, with a large risk of divestments, the disposal of less profitable subsidiaries and even closure.

It is about time that we stop this downward-spiraling trend. The Netherlands, a country with one of the highest population densities in the world, cannot allow an even larger part of its industry branch - one of the main reasons why it is one of the world’s richest countries - to be moved abroad. This will negatively affect its economic and innovative force, and it isn’t even necessary, as there is still plenty of potential for improving the efficiency of our manufacturing industry. The effectiveness of production lines can be expressed in an Overall Equipment Effectiveness ratio, which describes the relation between the theoretical maximum output and the actual output. For the average manufacturing firm in The Netherlands, this ratio will not eclipse 40 percent, while 85 percent should be achievable.

In order to reach this objective and to cultivate a new spirit of (industrial) craftsmanship and élan we need young people to be enthusiastic about building things. Monozukuri offers important tools for stimulating such enthusiasm. In Japan, Nissan employees visit primary schools and teach children how to set up a production line for building Lego cars: in other words, through play. They also teach them to use electric screwdrivers and torque wrenches. It is about time that we, in the west, started embracing the principles of Monozukuri and developing our own interpretations of this philosophy. We should start teaching our children once again that building is fun and that the results of building things are enjoyable. Schools should not only focus on teaching math and languages but also on the art of ‘acting with focus’, and thus stimulate the pride in mastery and craftsmanship.

But there is no need to wait for this new generation to enter the labor market. Current employees and managers can also benefit from the teachings of Monozukuri. This is what this book is about.

The philosophy

1. Top level production

Efforts to increase productivity have been going on for ages. An important leap was the introduction of the steam engine in the late eighteenth century. Factories grew, production lines expanded, and work organization and fragmentation first appeared. At the end of the nineteenth century, a second industrial revolution took off, triggered by inventions that were based on newly discovered physical and chemical principles such as oil refining, electrical appliances, the combustion