The tour gave me the chance to see first hand how manufacturers focus on production processes, as well as end products. This approach in Japanese culture was summed up for me by a long term Irish expat. The way he put it, while Westerners are happy with a task when they complete it, for the Japanese people he’d met, it was equally important to perform each step correctly.
The Japanese approach to manufacturing has become well-accepted by Western crane builders over the last ten years. In the West, manufacturers had aimed for a top-down separation of processes into the simplest possible steps. This has the benefit of allowing any worker, however unskilled, to complete their task. But it also means your workforce are alienated from the company’s overall aims, and management’s view of what is happening on the shop floor is obscured.
The Japanese approach to manufacturing instead seeks to engage workers in their job, and in the company’s aims. Kaizen, or improvement, asks workers to suggest better ways of completing their task. This links them to their job, and gives management a clearer view of what is actually happening on the shopfloor.
The corollary of this is connecting workers to the product they are making. One of the companies I spoke to, Kobelco, is in the middle of a project to improve this connection. In the past, the company built to forecast, setting production schedules for the year to their sales and marketing teams estimates of the cranes they would sell. Now, the company seeks to build to order. Workers can see how each step in the production process helps to meet an individual order. At the same time, they are all given the power to stop production when they identify a problem, making each team responsible to the next.
How does this connect to other workplaces? I think that some of the long held practices of the crane industry reflect this approach. For example, as I discussed last month, an operator generally has the power to stop a lift when they think it is unsafe. Talking to safety directors at some of the world’s biggest crane companies, I’ve seen how much importance they place on making sure individual workers can speak out about risks on site. And the best rigging supervisors ensure that each sling used is regularly inspected and rejected if faulty.
That approach, of engaging your workforce in your overall aims as a business, encouraging them to suggest improvements to what they do, and giving them the power to stop bad practice, should be the rule for every business.
Will North Editor
wnorth@cranestodaymagazine.com
