Lean Institute
Africa is legal! We finally got the news
last week that we have successfully registered as a not-for-profit. Furthermore we have been officially accepted
as the sixteenth member of the Lean Global Network.
To add to the
energy of the moment, the momentum around the Lean Summit Africa 2008 is
growing. The programme is finalised and
people are signing up to attend both the workshop sessions on 15th
October and the speaker sessions on 16th October. If you have not already done so, I encourage
you to go to http://www.upavon.co.za/Lean.asp to view the
programme and register.
I am grateful
to the many people who submitted papers for the Summit.
Sadly, with the reduced time available this year, we had to decline
several really promising stories. What
we are running with on 16th October is a rich and exciting
selection; the plenary speakers are:
Ø
Overseas guest, Stephen Parry, recently
anchored the inaugural Lean Summit in India. He has a practical track record to support
his refreshing and effective ideas for providing customers with real value
whilst building a sound and profitable business
Ø
Doctor Gio Perez, a health services
director from the Western Cape who has
provided the leadership for an extensive set of lean healthcare trials in the
poorest areas of Cape Town
– the role of the lean transformation leader will be very evident from his
presentation
Ø
Henry Pretorius, Toyota South Africa
Senior Vice President, will be the Summit
capstone speaker setting out the application of the Toyota Production System to
the elimination of environmentally damaging waste – going green through lean,
amongst other things.
Speakers in the
tracks will cover a range of lean application areas, from the National
Prosecuting Authority to mining, from banking to body parts (automobile). Many LIA members are passionate about what
lean can contribute to the national priority of ‘service delivery’ and several papers
will speak to this topic. Of course the
topic is relevant not just to the public sector but any service business. There will be plenty for everyone to chew on
at the Lean Summit Africa 2008 – and of course plenty of people with whom to
network and exchange ideas. Please join
us as we continue to build the community of lean practitioners in Africa.
Of late I have
had a rich and varied set of experiences.
I was particularly struck by a series of conversations in Toyota and Toyota-affiliated companies in Japan a few weeks
ago, about how people are identified for promotion in these companies. The process involves this evaluation:
1. Competence, as
indicated by the completion of appropriate company and national training
programmes. (In several companies a ‘skills
matrix board’ is prominently displayed on the shop floor, making this
information available to all.)
2. Particular
competence, as indicated by how well the candidate had done on the training
courses over a number of years.
3. An
‘assignment’; this is not prescribed – rather the individual is expected to
devise his or her own project and work on it over several months. The project culminates in a series of
presentations to increasingly senior management. These senior managers assess each
presentation in terms of the relationship with the strategic priorities of the
company (hoshin kanri) and the degree
to which the candidate was able to harness the energies of people outside their
own department.
Of course this
takes place in a company where promotion from within is the characteristic
pathway to management. I am particularly
struck by the way in which training participation and demonstrated project
ability are combined to identify those suitable for promotion.
Let me say a
bit about LIA’s registration process. At
least in part the long absence of LIA newsletters is because of the protracted
process of registration. Three times our
documents were sent back with vague indications of what needed to be corrected. Three times we dutifully interrogated and improved
our documentation. After the third
rejection we took up the kind offer from Old Mutual to have some of their
lawyers assist us. Alas, even that set
of documentation suffered rejection. So
it was in early September that we made an even more robust and assertive query
as to what exactly was at fault in our submission. The response, from the company assisting us
to register, reads as follows:
The
company documents was out on query again reason Cipro stated that the
"powers was obmitted" once again Mr (name of attorney at company assisting us with the registration) has
been in touch with the relevent department at the Registrar's office regarding
this matter. All the documents that you emailed me was correct there was
nothing wrong the person that was dealing with this matter was not doing there
job properly.
So, unlike the
language of this communication, it appears there was never anything wrong with
our documentation. But when I read the
above two-sentence paragraph from a legal firm, I must feel grateful that we
finally got our application through the system.
Michael Bale would undoubtedly have a few things to say about commitment
to quality and zero defects!
Sadly, having
taken the lead for us in shepherding the documentation through the process, Ruzivo
Chigwedere has taken up an appointment in Johannesburg. She made a great contribution to the work of
establishing LIA. We wish her well in
her new job. She will however still be
involved at the Lean Summit next month.
We look forward to seeing her, and you all, at that event!
