Why Lean fail

Some improvement initiatives failed because they were applied in a

piecemeal way – grafted in place but rejected by those people who did

not select or necessarily understand ‘why’ change was necessary but

were tasked with implementing it and working in a new way. Others

failed because they were little more than ‘technical quick fixes’ and

‘sticking plaster’ solutions and many such changes were quickly

reversed, failed or left as the manager jumped quickly into the next ‘fix’.

Examples of these programmes included attempts to compress the set

up time of machines in a belief that the company would be capable of

producing high levels of variety and missing the fact that the existing

machinery was not capable of meeting the quality tolerances needed of

it. Indeed, whilst many project managers claimed massive ‘time savings’

from such a programme very little tended to be added to the bottom-line

profit of the firm. These ‘time savings’ simply vanished because batch

sizes were not reduced, quality was not improved and inventory was not

withdrawn from the production facility. The failure to exploit these

‘point improvement activities’ is unsurprising and many companies have

failed to develop and operate a standardised/stabilised production system

that forms the basis of managing effectively. Without an effective

production system concepts such as ‘Zero Breakdowns’ are seen as

unattainable, and the mechanical cost-reduction programmes are used

indiscriminately and without ‘against learning from experience’. As

such, any change is installed piecemeal and without a supporting environment

within which the practice could be sustained (Storey, 1994).

In this manner, the impact of isolated projects deteriorate after the

project closed as management attention passes away to the next ‘firefighting

crusade’. These have created many disappointments, from the

management, the business and employee viewpoints. What ‘glittered’

and promised so much at the beginning of the change programme often

delivered very little, damaged the credibility of managers as business

leaders and tarnished all other change initiatives within the business. As

these tools worked in some companies and not others, the techniques of

World Class Manufacturing (WCM) are not at fault. To isolate the real

culprit we need to dig deeper.

Management outlook
In most cases manufacturing businesses are dominated by historically
derived patterns of behaviour and not behaviour that meets the needs of
the modern market place. These patterns, based on a past wisdom, are
rarely questioned as long as they don’t fail completely. As mentioned
earlier, past success is no indication of future performance and when
faced with a declining financial position, poor management teamwork
leads to uncertainty over the need for a new approach. Individually,
managers can only engage in crisis management. As financial conditions
worsen, attempts to ‘weather the storm’ characterise a ‘denial’ phase.
Ultimately, a new commercial model is sought only when results get so
bad that they cannot be ignored. The new model frequently involves
redundancy (downsizing) and a new management structure. The success
or failure of the new organisation will depend heavily on collective will
and reshaping the business behind a single change agenda (Figure 1.1).
Strategically, downsizing reduces the chances of long-term business
survival. At the bottom of the trough, often there is no choice to do
otherwise. Companies who grow also call on the collective will of
their organisation to co-operate behind a single change agenda. The
difference is that they have learned to use opportunity as the trigger for
change rather than rely on fate. The lost opportunity is impossible to
measure but it is significant nevertheless.
Ignoring the potential of growth and adopting a strategy, which
matches the business to the state of current markets, is no easy option
for management. It is painful, there are dozens of examples as to how
this approach has resulted in ‘death by a thousand cuts’ as the course of
the organisation is dictated by the chaos of market forces. The end game
of this strategy is totally predictable. The organisation eventually falls
below critical mass where the form of the business is unable to support the
overheads necessary to operate in its chosen market. Merger/Acquisition
becomes the only alternative to receivership. As over 50 per cent of
these fail to produce real benefits the cycle repeats itself.
Consider the following joke levelled at management by the workforce.
An operations manager, on taking up a new position, found
three sealed envelopes in the top drawer of his desk. The first envelope
contains a page of paper that holds the following advice ‘Blame your
predecessors and if things don’t improve open envelope 2.’ This works
for a while but eventually the manager opens envelope 2 seeking
advice. Envelope 2 contains a similar piece of paper that urges the
management to ‘Restructure the organisation and if this fails then open
envelope 3.’ Dutifully the manager follows the advice but eventually
he finds he has to open the third envelope. This letter states ‘Find
another job but before leaving photocopy these three letters and leave
them in the top drawer of this desk for your successor.’
As with all jokes, it has a ring of truth about it and presents a view
of management, which is unable to manage, and can only react to
events. This depressing reality occurs all too frequently due to:
A lack of strategic clarity and analyses of market trends;
Inappropriate Key Performance Measures;
Fragile Technology;
Departmental/Silo Thinking.
Levels of participation
In the environment of top-down driven initiatives, the potential of the
vast majority of problem-solvers in the firm is ignored. Here management
expect 90 per cent of employees to receive rather than initiate
improvements. They will be involved in the implementation rather
than participate in the evolution of future working practices. This is
despite the fact that these employees are the experts in their individual
areas of the transformation process and are also often customers. Not
only does this miss an opportunity to accelerate the pace of improvement
but also it increases the risk of failure.
A recent survey of unsuccessful change projects revealed the following
reasons for failure:
The key ‘influencer’ left or moved positions;
Goals too distant or too vague to engage all levels of personnel;
Benefits/results disputed or not properly recorded;
Insufficient training;
Competing crisis distracts attention.
Scratching the surface of these responses using ‘5 why’s’ analysis
suggests a common root cause for all these problems
These are failures to understand how to change habits/patterns of
behaviour/culture.