LEAN ACCOUNTING BEST PRACTICES FOR SUSTAINABLE INTEGRATIONE phần 10 ppt

wife cajoled and prodded the author to achieve the target, the author simply

could not achieve this desired result. The author’s system is incapable of pro￾ducing the desired result. There are two problems with this management-by￾edict approach: First, the author’s system design is such that he will continue

to be incapable of delivering the desired result. Furthermore, the author does

not agree that the two-and-a-half-hour marathon is a necessary target to achieve.

The approach to cost reduction with CSD follows from Deming’s ideas

about system stability.13 He said that an unstable system cannot achieve per￾formance goals or targets. By definition, the author’s system for running a

marathon is unstable. If a system is unstable it is unpredictable and not reliable.

Therefore, the author’s wife places a numerical target on the author’s system,

which is unpredictable; the act of placing that kind of goal on the author is a

type of waste and could lead to disharmony because the wife and husband do

not agree (and have not tried to agree).

Johnson notes that this practice is what most MBO (management by objec￾tives) programs do. The managers place targets on inherently unstable systems,

and continue to do so expecting a different result other than failure.14 This is no

different than forcing the author to try to run a two-and-a-half-hour marathon.

It could do more harm than good when a system is unstable and will produce un￾predictable results. A CSD first establishes collective agreement on purpose,

called the functional requirements. The author’s purpose is to be healthy; the

author’s wife may want him to be healthy, too. But she thinks that running a

marathon very fast would ensure that the author is healthy. So the author and his

wife may, in fact, agree on the following functional requirement:

FR1: Ensure that the author is healthy.

However, it is evident that they do not agree on the performance measure

and the author is irritated by the suggestion (since after all, she can’t run a two￾and-a-half-hour marathon, either). In this example, the wife assumes that the

physical solution to achieving the author’s health FR1 is running.

PS1: Running

The author and his wife have not even discussed whether running is a phys￾ical activity that the author wants to do. Perhaps the author’s wife does not

know, for example, that he has an old football injury and cannot run very well.

What the author really needs is a comprehensive health program that includes

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proper diet and adequate exercise. So the true PS1 is not running, the true PS1

can be stated as:

PS1: Total Health Program

Sometimes lean is similarly implemented by this MBO approach. It is analo￾gous to trying to pour fresh water into salt water, with the hope of getting only

fresh water.15

(c) Sustainable Lean Obstacle 3

Not knowing how to define purpose and the physical solutions to achieve it be￾cause of an ambiguous organizational understanding of lean.

An organization’s success requires a common vision, such as Toyota’s

“true north.” When 30 people are asked what lean means, there are typically

30 different answers about its meaning. In some cases, the answers are con￾sistent with what lean is supposed to represent; but in most cases the defini￾tions are contrary to its real purpose or practice. For these reasons, CSD uses

a language to describe the thinking about a system’s design.

Exhibit 11.4 provides language for the functional requirements and the phys￾ical solutions in detail.16 The functional requirements define what a system

must do to achieve purpose. The primary purpose of an organization must be

to satisfy internal and external customer needs. The physical solutions define

how purpose is achieved. Functional requirements are normally defined with

The Need for a Systems Approach to Enhance and Sustain Lean 277

EXHIBIT 11.4 Collective System Design Language

Functional Requirements Physical Solutions

• Define what the system • Define how the system

must accomplish must accomplish tasks

• Are functions • Are physical things

• Cannot be compromised • May be changed to improve

for “cost reduction” performance

• First word is: • First word is:

—Achieve —Process

—Reduce —Procedures

—Increase —Machines

—Control —Module

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the first word being a verb, whereas, since the physical solutions identify phys￾ical entities, the first word is a noun. Once a functional requirement is identi￾fied and is part of the system design map, it must be achieved. However, many

program managers delete functional requirements to “save cost,” and there is

inherent long-run cost in the system design that does not achieve the defined

functional requirements.

Performance measures (M) are chosen after defining the functional require￾ments and physical solution design relationships shown in Exhibit 11.1.

The measures reinforce achieving the functional requirements or performing

the physical solutions in a rigorous standardized way. Not every functional re￾quirement and physical solution must have an associated measure. Measures

are selected only to reinforce the system design. For example, Toyota uses a

measure that reinforces the PS:

PS4: Standard Work-in-Process (WIP) Inventory

The measure that is used by Toyota to reinforce the PS is a binary question:

“Is the Standard WIP full?” If the answer is no, the measure indicates that pro￾duction is not keeping pace with the system takt time. This measure is used after

each shift. A person is responsible for diagnosing why the standard inventory

is not full and for putting actions in place immediately to correct this problem

condition. PS4 is designed to achieve FR4, Achieve FR1 through FR3 in spite

of internal (Plant B) and external (Plant A) variation, which is described in

the next section.

The system design language creates the structure of an interdependent net￾work of functional requirements, physical solutions, and performance measures

(M) that defines detailed (lower-level) functional requirements based on the

chosen higher-level functional requirement and physical solution relationship

(Exhibit 11.5). Before moving to the next lower level of the CSD map, the ef￾fectiveness of the design FR-PS relationship must be validated. This validation

requires the evaluation of the type of design.17 Exhibit 11.6 shows three de￾sign types. An uncoupled design is the most effective design relationship. One

physical solution satisfies one functional requirement. This design produces

predictable results (see the upper third of Exhibit 11.6). A path-dependent

design is also robust, but less predictable than an uncoupled design (middle

third of Exhibit 11.6). In this example, PS1 affects the achievement of both FR1

and FR2. The design is path dependent since PS1 must be implemented prior

to FR2.

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