Many of you took the time to respond
to my questions regarding a name and legal entity: overwhelmingly you opted for
‘Lean Institute Africa’ and a not-for-profit registered company. A majority also wants to keep the momentum of
the Lean Summit Africa 2007 and called for another Summit in 2008 – so, with Upavon, we are
exploring that.
It has been great to have continuing
messages of support for LIA and the promotion of Lean, as well as individuals
volunteering skills and resources – including the domain name: www.lean.org.za!
Lorraine Govender and I are making slow but steady progress in getting the
legal stuff together, including getting the founding documentation from Lean
Enterprise Australia.
I am delighted to report that Clive
and Jenny Froome of Upavon have volunteered their organization’s considerable
administrative competence in support of LIA for six months at the ‘cost of
incidentals.’ We are also planning to
run workshops on the Lean workbooks through them during 2008.
Lorraine and I have also spent many hours analyzing the DVDs
of the Balle game in order to re-constitute it.
Michael told us we could try, but ‘would not succeed’! We have had one trial at running the game
ourselves, with more than enough success to encourage us to press on.
My ongoing research and counseling
in the Lean arena continues to both challenge and inspire me. I have seen some great applications in
healthcare recently, and reviewed some fascinating applications in the
financial services sector. Visits to
some factories have reminded me of how little uptake there has been in South Africa – and what an opportunity that
presents as we press ahead in the effective practice of the principles.
So why has the uptake been so
slow? I was reminded that this is not
just a local question when reviewing Jim Womack’s LEI website a few days
ago. One of Jim’s correspondents, Dan
Mulloy, had this to say: ‘I
worked at Toyota,
GM and as a consultant and have always marvelled how difficult it is to learn
Lean and truly understand TPS. While at Toyota, I learned that the (Toyota) experts appreciate and insist on what
I call the value of “discovery.” The
expert should only guide the journey of discovery. You cannot pour an understanding into
someone's head, Lean and TPS must be experienced.’
Mulloy goes on to complain that ‘Many
companies try to implement one of the lean tools by buying an expert and
expecting the organization to accept and internalize by either the strength of
personality or other enlightenment. These initiatives usually end with
operations going back to the old way soon after the expert is no longer
engaged.’
But, remember he has also worked as a
consultant. Oftentimes an organisation
can only make progress with a consultant or sensei at their side. Consequently he admonishes: ‘The expert
should only guide the journey of discovery.’
And, as Michael Balle likes to point
out, there are no experts; there is only experience. So I wish you more experience in your Lean
journey of discovery in 2008!
