Advice and Assistance for Manufacturers
July 2014
At my first meeting with a client company project manager, some years ago, one of the first things he said to me was “Don’t use the term ‘Lean’ around here. We tried Lean a couple years ago and it was a disaster. You won’t get any cooperation if you tell them we’re trying to do Lean again.” I was at a different company just recently where the plant manager was talking about the great strides they had recently made in rearranging the equipment for better work flow, posting a series of clear, specific measurements for each department, instituting physical replenishment triggers, and so forth “We’re implementing Lean,” 
he said, “without telling them that‘s what it is.” Why the secrecy? Same reason as before – there was a bad experience with Lean at this company and any attempt to re-institute Lean at the plant would undoubtedly generate resistance.
To be fair, some companies and employees have developed similar unhappy associations with other improvement efforts like ERP implementation, just-in-time, six sigma, and so on. Once burned (and there are lots of ways people can feel ‘burned’ by an unsuccessful project experience) it’s natural to resist a potential repeat of that bad experience. And that’s especially true when jobs were lost.
Ever since computers and performance improvement ideas first entered the workplace, they have been closely associated with job losses. Think of the 1999 movie “Office Space” or the 1957 Spencer Tracy – Katharine Hepburn film “Desk Set” or many, many others along the way. In each case, a consultant (called an efficiency expert in the 1957 film) comes to the company to help improve performance and the employees all know instantly that jobs will be eliminated. Is it any different with Lean? There’s usually a consultant, things are going to change, the company wants to save money (improve performance), and one of the most obvious money-saving actions is to reduce payroll.
Add to that the natural fear of the unknown, the disruption that change programs bring to the workplace, an expectation that everyone will be asked to work harder (and longer) with no additional compensation, and perhaps some past experience to reinforce all of the above and you can clearly see why change management is a critical element in successful Lean implementation.
All or most of these elements are present in your plant, so be careful when you introduce the term Lean (or ERP or Six Sigma or any other improvement program). They all have reputations – both good and bad – but it’s those negative connotations that can sink the project before it even begins.