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Leonardo da Vinci’s comment, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” could easily serve as a lean tag line.
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Surely, lean tools, like standard work, visual controls, and mistake proofing devices, are only truly effective if they are easily explained, understood, deployed, maintained, and adjusted. Heck, lean principles are simple too, just hard to implement.
This whole simplicity stuff is consistent with the Shigeo Shingo-identified first objective of continuous improvement—easier (followed immediately by better, faster, and cheaper).
But, some folks in their rush to keep things simple, careen into “simplism.”
Simplism, defined by thefreedictionary.com, is, “the tendency to oversimplify an issue or a problem by ignoring complexities or complications.”
I think a lot of simplism is driven by a type of unthinking, lean just-do-it machismo, detachment from the gemba, or ignorance of lean principles, systems, and tools.
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Comments
Right On!
I worked with a manufactureer allegedly reputed for its quality management. Only problem was, every local business could operate according to its own management model, and mine was Theory X to the max.
The Factory Floor Manager (I use an alias to proect the innocent) had heard about the benefits of reducing layers of management, and decided to do likewise. Nearly overnight, people who had been supervising 5-10 people found themselves supervising 20-25. The only problem was that nothing else had changed - none of the work was streamlined, nor had any of the people being supervised were given a microgram more empowerment. All that happened was that previously crushing workloads were doubled or tripled for the supervisors.
Within three months all the really good supervisors got out of Dodge. When forced to confront her simplism, the factory manager blamed it on bad supervisors and bad workers. There's always time to blame!
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