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11/22/2010 04:57 PM
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In a recent email John Shook made the statement that Lean Thinking IS Systems Thinking. I've been a Lean Thinker for many years and only recently have I been able to take a course in Systems Thinking. There is something to be said for this statement if you look at Systems Thinkers like Russ Ackoff and his techniques on Mess formulation and Interactive Planning. This could akin to going to the gemba, seeing for yourself, making a value stream map (current and future) and then using PDCA to attack a set of problems.
Or Lean Thinking could fall short of Systems Thinking because it is too quick to degenerate into reductionist thinking by sub-dividing problems and trying to force fit a pre-defined tool set as a solution.
What do you think?
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11/23/2010 09:28 AM
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I would focus on the good that can be gained by understanding the overlap and possible differences of the two. Systems appears to get a little theoretical at times depending how deep you get. Understanding the differences of mechanical versus complex systems and how the human aspect contributes to the complexity and long term uncertainty and performance of the organization is good, but I'm not sure it's completely understood. Is Lean required to apply 100% of systems thinking methodology to be considered a "systems" approach to managing an organization?
It might be of interest if you had some examples of where Systems tools outside of Lean tools were applied where Lean methods might have led to lesser results?
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11/23/2010 01:25 PM
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Understanding the statement that "Lean Thinking is Systems Thinking" will depend upon a person's definition of what a system is. In engineering terms a system consists of input, process, output, and feedback. Applying that to manufacturing would mean that a production line is a system since it has input, process, output, and feedback. It would also mean that each operation in the production line is a system since it also hs its own input, process, output and feedback elements.
A system could also mean an entire end-to-end process such as an order fulfillment process that goes from receipt of an order to delivery of the product to a customer. In this case the entire system includes activities from multiple departments.
A system could also mean the entire company process of receipt of an order, ordering of material, scheduling of the factory, receipt of the ordered materials, the manufactruing process, quality control, packaging, shipping and invoicing the customer. This total system approach can be presented in the form of a value stream map which includes all the areas. Systems Thinking in this case covers all these activities since they are part of the overall business system.
Systems then can refer to individual production line operations, a total production line, an end-to-end process of multiple individual systems such as order fulfillment, or to all the system elements appearing in a typical value stream map.
Comments?
Sam Tomas
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11/29/2010 09:57 AM
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Sam,
The system elements you describe in your examples are certainly valid in defining what the system is. However, they are all from a transactional/mechanistic point of view. A systems thinker might ask where the human element is in this system. By human element I don't mean how many warm bodies are needed to execute, I mean what is the attitude and motivation of those people. How are they organized and rewarded? Additionally, we can focus on the customer and ask what kind of feedback they give to the system besides and order to produce something?
Regards,
Neil
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12/01/2010 02:36 PM
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Neil
Could you post a copy of this email from John Shook about lean being systems thinking on this forum?
I know a number of people who would like to read the whole thing.
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12/02/2010 02:09 PM
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Howard,
Attached is the text of John's mail:
Thank you to the over 350 of you who replied to my letter of last month by sending in suggestions for a Learning Session at the 2011 Lean Transformation Summit.
I've spent some time reading your suggestions, in addition to hundreds of emails over the past couple of months, as well as your responses to LEI's annual Community survey. Also, throughout this year in a global spirit of Go See, I have visited the gemba of many of your companies and met hundreds of you at Lean Summits in Australia, China, Poland, Brazil, and South Africa. So, what have I learned anew about the Lean Community?
The Lean Community Today
The positive feedback I have seen has been remarkable. And also remarkable is how much more diverse our Lean Community is than when LEI was founded 13 years ago. After an early focus on process and improvement tools, LEI and many in the Community have increasingly focused on "management." I expect that focus will probably continue.
What I do know is that LEI needs to be able, on the one hand, to engage usefully with cutting-edge thought-leaders, with practitioners who have been at it for a couple of decades, and with pioneers in new applications such as healthcare and basic science. On the other hand, LEI must maintain capability to meet the needs of its traditional Community members.
On the cutting-edge thought-leader front, Doc Hall, for example, is challenging us to extend lean thinking to profound issues such as sustainability and basic quality of life for every global citizen (see his book and website http://www.compression.org) through what he calls "Compression." Similarly, H. Thomas Johnson continues to challenge us to question some very basic assumptions of the purpose and function of the modern for-profit corporation. Additionally, many of us are exploring the relation between lean thinking and systems thinking or "complexity" in all its forms and theories.
Yet, at the same time, many of you emphasize that we all go to work, we try to do our jobs with deep engagement, to be effective and efficient. We are front-line, value-creating team members and senior leaders; we may work in a factory, a retail store, an engineering operation, or a government office. System theory sounds interesting, but, really, I have a job to do and pressures to reduce cost while responding to my customer's changing demands. I need practical help. Today.
On the gemba side of lean (is there really another?), I have learned that some of you have come to think that LEI has left you behind. LEI talks more and more about "management." Some among you feel that, while that all sounds good and is probably important to someone, those discussions don't really help you with what's in front of you RIGHT NOW, when your on-time delivery scores continue to decline and that new machining center is down again. You ask, "Can your management theorizing help me with THAT?" (The answer is that, yes, we think there is a connection, but still - point taken.)
In the meantime, another group of you charge that we remain stuck in the tool age. Literally. While forward thinkers are working on progressing the realization of the learning organization, you LEI-ers keep pushing tools like maps and fulfillment algorithms.
So, what is LEI to do? Stick with our traditional factory gemba members and focus on plant-floor improvement methods? Move on to matters of broader, more organizational nature?
The answer is that we need to - and can - do both. Not unlike the old, "Which do you want: cost, delivery, or quality?" the challenge here is not a matter of simply choosing an easy either/or path.
Frontiers and Fundamentals
So, my conclusion is that at this junction of its existence LEI must embrace an approach that I call Frontiers and Fundamentals.
Our challenge cannot really be summed in a question of either this or that. Lean thinking IS systems thinking, at essence a learning process at the individual and organizational levels. But, lean thinking also represents a bias for action, to making things and providing services. Lean thinking and doing is continuous PDCA, an adaptive, evolving, and involving process comprised of people forever improving and learning as they solve real business and organizational problems. It is root-cause problem solving on the one hand while comprehending multiple and mutual causality relationships among factors on the other.
Here are two fairly representative suggestions for Learning Sessions at the Summit next March (registration is now open, by the way) from your fellow Community members:
"I would love to see LEI address how both society at large (Bucky Fuller, etc.) and entrepreneurialism can be merged usefully."
"I suggest a review of the tools available. I still think that a good tool helps drive the process."
At LEI, we will stretch ourselves to push the frontiers of lean thinking while embracing the back-to-basics fundamental focus on value creation that gives lean thinking its unique value.
Until next month,
John
John Shook
Chairman and CEO
Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc.
jshook@lean.org
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12/02/2010 05:14 PM
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Hi All
Why would it ever surprise anyone that Lean overlaps other concepts, lets all remember Lean was not born in a vaccum, it came from distilling the best ideas out of what already existed, and then built on them.
Reality is nothing is totally new, we just recycle and refine, but sometimes we forget history and repeat stupid mistakes, something hopefully Lean implementers will try to avoid.
There are people who think 5S is a realitively new idea, but centuries ago the French Charcuterie Industry (food preservation), already had it; it was called "mise en place", which simply means everything in its place. Good chefs know it by heart, just watch any episode of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, and I can guarantee you he was never was taught Lean, but he could teach us if he stopped to learn the lingo.
John just stated a fact that Lean is related to Systems, but it is related to a lot of other things as well, lets not get stuck in a rut, by thinking there is only one-way, to get to the right place.
Good Luck to everyone on their Lean Journey, but remember to keep an open mind there may be times when there are others tools or ways to get the job done better.
Robert Drescher of ELSE Inc.
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12/10/2010 09:48 AM
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Robert
Really interesting to read your information regarding Lean, the history of 5S and how it ties in to everyday ideas.
I'd be really keen for you, and any of the others in the group, to read our guide to Lean thinking and offer your thoughts?
Many thanks
Thomas
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09/09/2011 02:10 PM
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Lean is the same as systems thinking. Absolutely NOT.
ST covers
SD,
SE
SSM
CHAT
VSM (not value stream mapping)
SODA
CSH
CST
and includes concepts such as multiple perspectives analysis, boundary critique, terminal ends, relationships, emergence. Where do I find these concepts in LEAN
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09/09/2011 02:10 PM
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I'd say ST provides more depth but the language and perceived theoretical nature of it isn't well received in the current culture, so it can put people off.
Aspects of ST sit outside that which a lot of Lean practitioners know, so their defence mechanisms cut in and they try to shoe-horn it into their own reality tunnels, seeing some talk about 'Lean-Systems-thinking' while still only promoting the fundamentals of Lean and having little knowledge of ST.
The aspects of change that ST covers in more detail than Lean are in the realms of development that the founders of TPS took for granted - i.e. when looking into open-loop cybernetic systems (people) as well as Closed-loop deterministic systems, ST starts to get into the realms of Honesty, Respect, Trust etc. as challenged through models like CSH (Critical Systems Heuristics).
For me, even this doesn't go deep enough into the Psychology and Neuroscience of leadership, (see Deming's SoPK to see how this fits with, in his terminology, Variation and Systems). This area of development, innovation, sustainability and improvement is largely covered in the East by the cultural mindset, as influenced by the Buddhist, Confucianist & Taoist beliefs that influence the Shinto religion and thus mindset of leaders (of State and corporations), but these aspects of ST are better than nothing and they at least fill the gap that the Western translation of TPS failed to address.
Basically, the Japanese didn't create any models or tools to depict their 'Culture', so there was nothing to for the West to copy, leaving us copying only half the picture for the last 40years .... ST benefits this, but is it really different in essence from the original TPS, or just different from the poor cousin we've ended up with in the west?
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09/12/2011 10:09 AM
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From personal experience TPS is systems thinking from Concept to Customer. LEAN is no longer TPS as people have grasped only part of the system and frequently apply only the tools. So many people that have visited Toyota Plants come away with some understanding of what they have seen. This is only the tip of the iceburg. What you can't see is what is most important and that is the total system.
Ron Turkett
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09/13/2011 02:46 PM
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Ron's response is very valid. One way to understand system thinking is in terms of systemic (system) problems. In other words, in any problem solving situation it's impoprtant to first identify the root cause of the problem. But once you have done that and corrected the problem, its important in many cases to go the next step and ask why the problem occurred in the first place. Finding that answer and correcting it will in most cases assure that the problem doesn't repeat itself in the future. In this case you have to look at a much broader system's picture of what happened.
For example, assume a piece of motor driven equipment stopped working. Investigation showed that a bearing in the motor froze up. Replacing the bearing will get the equipment going but it would be important to know why the bearing froze in the first place so it can be prevented from happening again. It was then determined that the bearing was not lubricated. The maintenance department was asked why the bearing wasn't lubricated and their answer was that while the department had a maintenance schedule, lubricating this particular bearing required that the equipment be shut down for safety reasons. But business was so good that the equipment was operated 24 hours a day non-stop which prevented lubrication from taking place. That was the systemic problem obtained only by understanding the entire system of equipment operation, safety issues, and maintenance.
BTW (by the way), this procedure for determining systemic problems is similar to the familiar Five Whys.
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06/06/2012 10:20 AM
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Neil, we might need Critical Thinking to resolve the quesion of whether Lean Thinking is Systems Thinking because, I suspect, different people will have different opinions..
What is Critical Thinking?
The rigorous use of information, observation, experience, and logical reasoning to evaluate and analyze any situation needing clarification or resolution for the purpose of guiding one's beliefs, decisions, and actions.
And, some more definitions;
Karen I. Adsit, Ed
Grayson H. Walker Teaching Resource Center
University of Dayton, Education
"Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action" (Scriven, 1996).
"Most formal definitions characterize critical thinking as the intentional application of rational, higher order thinking skills, such as analysis, synthesis, problem recognition and problem solving, inference, and evaluation" (Angelo, 1995, p. 6).
"Critical thinking is the ability to think about one's thinking in such a way as 1. To recognize its strengths and weaknesses and, as a result, 2. To recast the thinking in improved form" (Center for Critical Thinking, 1996c).
Perhaps the simplest definition is offered by Beyer (1995): "Critical thinking... means making reasoned judgments" (p. 8). Basically, Beyer sees critical thinking as using criteria to judge the quality of something, from cooking to a conclusion of a research paper. In essence, critical thinking is a disciplined manner of thought that a person uses to assess the validity of something (statements, news stories, arguments, research, etc.).
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