Production Management - Ze'ev Ronen - Business Excellence

If a motor burns out because it is old, and it is ten years old, and if our objective is to prevent breakdowns, then we must replace all the motors approaching or exceeding this age. In order to attain the root cause for a breakdown, we can use what is known as the "fishbone" technique, or the 5 Whys.

More than a few companies have begun to implement the 5S method on a high scale, even attaining excellent results, and after a certain amount of time, the excitement fades, we stop maintaining and promoting the improvement and the achievements disappear.

The guiding principle behind our work leads a company to improvement and does not provide it with advice.  We work this way for several reasons: Firstly, we, as people, don't like to receive advice, and therefore, improvements in work methods that are obtained as external knowledge and not as a product of internal work, shall encounter opposition or will not be implemented in the long term.

Many companies wish to improve their performance and seek strategic advice as well as marketing or organizational development strategies, and when they receive advice, opposition emerges throughout the organization and ultimately this advice remains untouched in a book.

In one of the plants where I worked, when employees would approach the Team Manager with new ideas he'd say: "You be quiet, they brought me here to think and you to work".  This statement, which is definitely extreme, has resurfaced, turning up in various guises in many different places.