Lean -v- Agile

Gerry Brame Managing Director Powrmatic (& SFL) UK Ltd

7th March 2007

Definitions
• What is Lean?

Lean = Q+C+D Quality Cost & Delivery

• So what could Agile possibly be?

Agile = (Q+C+D)+F where F = Flexibility

Who Promotes Lean?
• Toyota, Dell, Ford, Porsche, Wiremold,
Samsung, Honda, P&0, Ryan Air, Rolls
Royce, Boeing, Airbus, GSK, Becton
Dickenson, Parker Hannafin, Rittal,
Bardon, Toshiba, Pfizer, Bespak, Tesco,
Easy Jet, NHS? Nissan, Hyundai, West
Pharmaceuticals, Pall Corporation,
Augusta Westland, etc etc
Who Promotes Agile?
• The Agile Mfg Forum
• Cranfield School of Management
• Association of Manufacturing Excellence (AME)
• Iacocca Institute, PA.
• APICS
• Cusumano & Nobeoka – Thinking Beyond Lean
What is Lean
• Lean is a business philosophy that
reduces the resources and time
required to complete any process by
eliminating waste and making value
flow to the customer at the speed that
the customer requires by applying the 5
Lean Principles
 What Does Lean Promote?

• Specify value from the point of view of the

customer
• Identify the value stream
• Make the value Flow
• Pull according to customer demand
• Aim towards perfection
Womack & Jones, 1996
What is Valued?
• Reduced Safety Stocks.
• Reduced Order Sizes.
• Improved Communication.
• Flexibility.
• On Time Delivery.
• Quality Products, Service, Relationship.
• New Products and Technology.
• Cost Reduction.
So What is Agile?
• Agile manufacturing is a term applied to an
organization that has created the processes, tools,
and training to enable it to respond quickly to
customer needs and market changes while still
controlling costs and quality.

• An enabling factor in becoming an agile manufacturer

has been the development of manufacturing support
technology that allows the marketers, the designers
and the production personnel to share a common
database of parts and products, to share data on
production capacities and problems.
Wikipediea
Key Agility Attributess
• Goldman et al. suggest that Agility has four underlying
components: -

• delivering value to the customer;

• being ready for change;
• valuing human knowledge and skills;
• forming virtual partnerships.

• The first three of these are also attributes of

lean manufacturing.

L. Goldman, R.L. Nagel and K Preiss, Agile Competitors and Virtual Organizations -
Strategies for Enriching the Customer
So again, what is agile?

Technology System
Planning Modularity

Lean Enterprise The Agile

Enterprise

Organisation Customer Service

Environment Logistics
What Does Agile Promote
• Postponement - Benetton
• Virtuality – Dell
• Commonality – Software – Boeing
• Compatability – equipment- VW
• Modularity – VW Mexico
Views on Agile
• 98% the same as lean with the addition of
Postponement – J Bicheno
• Big Marketing Trick by Cranfield University
– Darrell Mann
• Not a subject, still a concept – Professor P Hines
• Lean repackaged but not endorsed by Toyota
– C Morse GSK
• Conceptually inept without a effective Lean base
– T Hankin Honda
Reverse Lean !
• What is it ?
• Flow not Tools
• What does it achieve ?
• Instant T, I, OE improvements
• Has anyone ever done it ?
• Not Documented; but Alcan, Otukumpu,
Powrmatic !
Flaw’s of a Traditional Lean
Implementation
• Focus misdirected; waste (Muda) not Operating Expense!!
• Ignores product ‘Throughput’ time.
• Minimal attention paid to total Inventory.
• Total internal focus, isolation from Customer Demand &
Expectation.
• Random Muda reductions cannot ‘drop through’ diluting
confidence in Lean concepts (loosing faith).
• 5S activities require too much time & effort to be effective &
sustainable, plus no tangible benefits to the bottom line.
• Tools such as SMED become miss-understood, Capacity not
Flexibility and miss applied ie;- Implementing SMED to non
bottleneck process’s.
• Tools are Tools not objectives or Goals.
Reverse Lean
• WHY “REVERSE”?
• Massively more effective than the traditional Western
approach to Lean Implementation.
• More replicable of original Japanese disciplines of Lean
Implementation
• Create Flow 1st, Then use tools to Maintain Flow & to
Organise for Flow

• WHY IS IT REVERSE?
Re-Prioritisation; -
• 1/ Mura (unevenness of operations).
• 2/ Muri (overburdening of equipment and people).
• 3/ Muda (waste).
Lean, Agile or Reverse Lean
• No right answer
• All are very difficult & expensive
• >80% of all implementations fail
• Nobody is Lean.
• Toyota & Honda leading (Porsche)
• Chosen to suit specific need; - Competition, Crisis, Survival,
Cash or Growth.

• But do one !