Lean and Safety
As my organization moves more and more towards lean thinking, I've found that my safety background has prepared we well. Many of the tools we use in safety have their origins in lean manufacturing. Of course, lean is more than a set of tools, but there is no denying the overlap. What is your experience with these lean/safety tools?
Five Why's - developed by Sakichi Toyoda (founder of Toyota Industries), this iterative approach to root cause analysis has its faults, but I'm pretty sure we're all familiar with it.
Fishbone Diagrams - These cause and effect diagrams are another tool often used for root cause analysis. They can be used when attempting to identify all inputs to a given condition.
Gemba Walks - Another tool popularized by Toyota but used everywhere. Gemba (or genba) is Japanese for "the actual place". A gemba walk is the practice of getting up and going to where the work happens to make observations.
PDSA/PDCA - Plan Do Study/Check Act...Also called the Deming cycle this is one version of a continual improvement cycle seeking incremental improvements over time
Does anyone else have any tools that cross over between safety and production? I know you do Fitz...
Comments (12)
Oh 100% - tons of crossover from my time spent in Manufacturing!!
I use these tools for every investigation!
I use them all as well.
Here is my take. I grew up in the Auto Business in the 70s and 80s. The 82 Japanese Invasion of our industry was a very hard lesson to learn. It caused a Depression and a Revolution in our industry! By the mid 80s we were forced to make HUGE changes, SPC, Continuous Improvement, Problem Solving Methods (like the 8D), Teams, Kaizen, SMED, VS Mapping, 5S, ISO, and on and on. Then we called it World Class Manufacturing! Some of Lean is a new approach but the concepts are NOT new. Japan rebuilt it’s entire economy using it starting just after WW II.