Stop “Deploying” and Make Something Better

By Ron Pereira Updated on May 16th, 2017

A reader of the Lean Blog left this comment to the excellent post Psychology and Lean.

Unsolicited advice…. but maybe instead of pushing lean (and maybe you aren’t)… figure out what the main problems and pain points in the organization are. Then, make sure you’re using lean to fix problems.

If you can fix problems instead of focusing on “implementing lean” then people should be begging you to bring lean to them.

I cannot tell if this person is ranting and/or being too emotional with this comment. But I must say I agree with them 110%!

Toyota never deployed TPS. Instead they had serious issues and their survival depended on making things better.

Sure there have been successful “deployments” of lean and six sigma. But I personally believe our focus as lean and six sigma practitioners should be on how to make things better using lean and six sigma and not how to make lean and six sigma succeed or look good. There is a fundamental difference in these approaches.

Ron Pereira

Ron has more than 20 years of experience in various manufacturing, supply chain, and senior leadership roles. Ron has held the titles of process engineer, engineering manager, master black belt, and director of manufacturing & continuous improvement. In 2002 Ron was the first American to win the Nokia Global Six Sigma and Overall Quality award in Helsinki, Finland. Ron holds a bachelor's degree in automated manufacturing and an MBA in technology management.

Trudy
June 20, 2007 - 2:56 pm
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I saw this comment on lean blog and thought the same thing. too much focus on deploying and not enough on results will doom any initiative