Roll Back & Roll Forward..The LEAN Way
 

Any ideas on how this is working ?

Are we better off, less aircraft in maintenance, improved TRT's, more money left over to spend on something else ?

LEAN was never introduced to save money....in fact it has cost money. Lean is a set of tools and techniques designed to reduce and eliminate waste or non value added activity in any given process. The Lean Methodology as it is better known, can be applied in the Manufacturing Sector, just as easily and effectively through other not so well publicised areas including the Public Sector, namely the Government and Local Council, the NHS and the Private Sector, Banks other Financial Institutions and larger Corporate Organisations such as the Armed Forces.

The Lean tools and techniques were developed by the Toyota Motor Corporation in post war Japan. Following WWII, Japan was a battered and beleaguered country, already lacking in natural resources, the war also resulted in them having less money, less people and materials. Coping with such limitations created an initial foundation for Lean through the economic hardships at that time - to do more with less. A philosophy which is still the bedrock of Lean.

But what makes Lean so attractive and how has it managed to survive where others have failed?
The answers are simple:

· The Lean Methodology, its tools and techniques are simple and easy to understand and to implement.
· They are applicable in any industry type, from Manufacturing to Public and Private Sectors.
· They harness and empower the energy of everyone in an organisation, never isolating or working with va select few.
· It helps create a positive culture for continuous improvement, by allowing employees to take charge of vtheir own work and subsequent areas, whilst also improving employee morale.
· It actively identifies and then removes waste with varied tools and techniques.
· It helps ensure best practise and reduces variation in processes by standardisation.
· It is a cheap methodology to implement, whereby new systems or software will not be required at a vgreat expense to an organisation.
· Most importantly, Lean works! A few simple changes in one area with the implementation of Lean tools vand techniques can almost instantly start illustrating the benefits that Lean can offer.


Taxi for 1 ........

Figures I guess.....as in most innovative approaches to management improvement by governmental agencies. After all.....it is only Tax Money!:ugh:

This is the Achilles Heel of applying "LEAN" in a half assed manner.....something that government shall never accept is having the peasants participating in the "management" of the work process.

About a month ago I heard Jeremy Vine interview a management consultant discussing the demise of FAREPAK and what could have been done. Towards the end they started discussing LEAN and the consultant stated that LEAN is nothing new, just a renaming of Time and Motion Management which has had many different iterations over the years.

Speaking of a front-line unit I think the use of this management tool has been necessary, we are so busy we do need to be smarter in the way we do business, we are so strapped that we cannot conduct our sustained ops and effectively operate back at HQ with our current assets.

The small adjustments so far have made us better:

Best use of aircraft.
More efficient line operations.
More engineering personnel freed to carry out their primary role
These are just a few examples.

We have not spent a great deal, if any cash, just hard work planning and tailoring the plans.

The only thing I would suggest to guard against is allocating people with no knowledge of the LEAN principles to carry out the work - those involved must be properly trained and briefed in.

In our case LEAN has been a trigger to step back from the 'way things have always been done' and take a fresh look at how we can do our business, nothing more than that.

We all need to do this now and again.

Lean
 

SASless has it right, applying Lean in a half assed way, or in a system led by an individual who sees it as a personal opportunity can lead to: http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...t=lyneham+lean which led to rather a lot of discussion, and IIRC upon the appointment of the successor, many changes back to the old way of doing things.

That is not to say that the 'way things have always been done' is the best. The Pi Master indicates that the Front Line is benefitting from efficiencies, unfortunately I feel that the tail could have some Leaning carried out as well, see the recent http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=255738 not to mention the ongoing use of personnel for guard force etc.

Essentially the thing that should be coming across about Lean is that is more than a tool, it is a philosophy and a way of life. Treating it as anything else dooms it to failure and almost certainly guarantees organisational atrophy or even failure. The oft quoted 'There is no I in Team' certainly applies to this philosophy and real change management must come from the bottom up, if the troops aren't onside then it will be nearly impossible to properly institute changes in the Lean style. Yes they can be imposed, but the loss of morale and goodwill will inevitably be crippling, and in the present climate I feel those two assets are particularly fragile.

In short I think Lean, properly applied, trained, funded, monitored and verified works. Miss out any essential part and it will be the proverbial crock of brown stuff that promotes growth.

Lean has its own special implementation regime in the MOD. In industry you introduce lean as a bottom-up cultural change and learn how to make the most of the benefits. In the MOD you run a study, guess how many staff you will save across say STC, negotiate redundancy money with the Treasury, reduce budgets, allocate reductions evenly across the various stn's, and THEN get lean teams to work out how to do the work with whats left. Can anyone spot the difference...

True KB but if you look hard enough you can find a "me" :rolleyes:

Merry Christmas all :ok:

Just incase you've not decided what Santa is to bring you for Christmas...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toyota-Way-M.../dp/0071392319

SMT

(my bold)

The LEAN machine arrived at Cosford during 2006 and began looking at, amongst other things, the length of time alloted to training courses and the activities undertaken therein. The team concluded that the particular course I taught was one week too long and contained, in their view, a wasteful activity. The latter conclusion was drawn because whoever wrote the course syllabus had the foresight to include an alternative (a simulator) to using a 'live' aircraft for the activity should the jet be unserviceable.
Value, in a training course is quite hard to quantify - believe it or not they or not written up on the back of a fag packet! That last hour of the day when the studes have switched off adds no value if you try to carry on blah blahing right up to 5pm. Letting them go at 4pm when they have had enough adds much value as you keep them on board, however that hour is seen by LEAN as waste. Students are not VCRs, recording the lesson as it proceeds, they need time to learn and assimilate the information. Furthermore, using simulators is fine, but utilising a real jet adds greater value to the experience however it is seen as waste by LEAN.
After LEAN had run its course, the conclusion these three visiting sages drew was that we had one week too much time; ergo it was chopped. This caused mayhem, students found they were spending 3-5 hours an evening self-study to try and learn what had been covered that day; in short we had time to teach it, they didn't have time to learn it!
The disgusting thing was, that after leaving us with this unholy mess the LEAN team just vanished to jump on its next victim. It took us six months of studys, letters and student surveys to claw back two days with no comeback on those who had dropped us in it:(

A quote from they work for you.com

"Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South, Liberal Democrat) | Hansard source

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what impact the reduced frequency of equalised maintenance packages has had on (a) costs, (b) aircraft availability and (c) safety assessments; and what savings are targeted for 2006-07 and future years.

Adam Ingram (Minister of State (Armed Forces), Ministry of Defence) | Hansard source

Equalised maintenance packages for the RAF's Harrier GR7/9 fleet were introduced in 2005. This has improved aircraft availability by an average of two aircraft per day. The airworthiness of the aircraft is also considered to have benefited from equalised maintenance packages but this aspect has yet to be quantified. The total technical support and man hour requirement of the new scheduled maintenance cycle is similar to the previous arrangements, albeit delivered more effectively; accordingly, there have been no measurable cost savings to date.

Equalised maintenance packages are currently being introduced for the RAF's Nimrod MR2/R1 fleet. At this stage it is too early to measure accurately the full benefits of this change, but it is forecast that the new scheduled maintenance regime will deliver significant improvements in aircraft availability, and financial savings of approximately £2 million per annum from financial year 2008-09. Before implementing this change a full safety assessment was carried out on the Nimrod MR2/R1 fleet and further safety assessments will be undertaken as the transition to equalised maintenance moves forward"

From this statement cash will be saved from 2008, as for significant improvements in aircraft availability, I guess we'll have to let it run its course and wait and see. My view is that there are too many changes too soon. We always seem to bring in these civilian practices and acreditation bits and pieces because its the flavour of the year. I must admit that IIP (investors in people) has gone very quiet, is it because we all have the IIP badge stuck to the main gate now?

Sadly defence doesn't win votes, so no doubt we will be shafted more in the run up to the next general election.

:ugh:

Lean - Answer or Problem
 

Bluntedatbirth has probably nailed this - in essence, Mr Ohno of Toyota was looking for an efficient and effective means of releasing untapped potential in his organisation, not getting rid of people. Given the generally wise councel offered within this forum, I am saddened by the absence of obvious 1- or 2-winged input to this thread. Gents, be of no doubt, this !!!!! is coming to a Stn near you already or soon, either as a logs/eng tool or as a means of smartening up the flying programme. None of it is rocket science, but it (somewhere) holds the key to sustaining the sort of CFT that we all know is really required but few in the Big House are prepared to expose to proper scrutiny.

Lean has probably introduced many improvements - I'm sure many could think of at least one thing - process, rule, etc - however small, that has changed for the better (quicker, easier, or got rid of all together). However, as with all new fangled things it can get a bit out of hand. Evolution; yes. Revolution ..... :uhoh:

Nimrod fleet.... Partnered support???

Nothing to do with lean, everything to do with cost! Still no aviators though..............

Isn't this what it's all about??..

Is this the next move?
http://www.iqpc.co.uk/binary-data/IQ...file/11196.pdf

You too can be a black belt.

Ermmm...

'...process improvement speakers...' ???

Lean too far and you fall over......arrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!:ugh: :=

I work on a FJ squadron and LEAN is well and truly under way.

Honestly and truthfully I am hard pushed to think of one single POSITIVE that has come out of it all so far, in my small world. In fact, I feel that the Aircraft Engineering side has been ripped off/conned/downright lied to. In simple terms we've seen Eng manpower seriously carved up, yet we pursue the same amount of flying (arguably more tenaciously) with the same number of aircrew as before, with more aircraft than was agreed to. Despite changes in operations, we struggle more now than I can ever remember in all my different postings.

There seems to be endless RIEs, meeting after meeting, briefing after briefing, change on top of change, lots of writing, lots of big and clever catchphrases and buzzwords from the LEAN and senior officer fraternity.

However, I seem to be doing a lot more work now as there are fewer people to do what is necessary, either because of reductions or diversions (also on the increase). Mealtimes and breaks certainly don't exist anymore. I've noticed lots of my peers are making small mistakes or oversights, unusually for them, and it's because they've too much on their plate but are determined to meet the targets; I've noticed myself doing the same thing. I worry that MY next mistake or oversight will be a big one, and it won't be through negligence either. We haven't even finished trimming the manpower yet!

What I would like to know is, when is the pain going to end? When am I going to have enough manpower to fly AND fix? When am I going to be able to start swimming rather than just fighting to keep my head above water?

LEAN may well have worked for Toyota, however that's the Manufacturing Industry - our game is vastly different and to me, is not conducive to LEAN being the be-all and end-all.

Our own people constantly looking to improve things? Yes.
Highly-paid clingons with no previous form telling us where we're going wrong? No. Sorry.

PS IIP was ditched a while ago. That was sh1te as well.

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Taxi for another 1.....