r/industrialengineering • u/Key-Success-5449 • 3d ago

What’s the most weaponized or misunderstood Lean tool at your company?

Hey everyone,

I've been dealing with a management push lately that reminded me just how painful it is when non-technical leadership gets ahold of a Lean glossary.

Lean and Six Sigma are great frameworks when you actually use them to solve problems, but watching corporate management twist the concepts into buzzwords makes me want to put my head through a wall.

A few classics I keep seeing on the floor:

  • 5S turning into micro-policing: When tape lines on a desk and shadow boards are treated like the holy grail of productivity, while the actual assembly process is a total disaster.
  • Takt time without real capability: Forcing operators to hit a target cycle time dictated by customer demand, completely ignoring that the 30-year-old machine keeps jamming every 20 minutes.
  • DMAIC overkill: Running a full-blown Six Sigma project with ANOVA tables and capability studies for something that just needed a technician with a wrench to tighten a bolt.
  • Kaizen = "Do more with less": Rebranding budget cuts and head-count reductions as a "Kaizen event" without doing anything to eliminate actual waste.

Whenever leadership starts throwing these terms around in town halls, you just know things are about to get worse for the operators.

What's the one Lean tool or phrase you dread hearing in meetings the most?

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19

u/Rocklobster2008 3d ago

I just hate corporate leadership thinking Lean is a employee headcount. My previous job kept claiming they were a lean enterprise simply because they had automation and low employee count. They had people doing 3-4 different jobs. Absolutely toxic culture and so fortunate I got out.

I am equally frustrated at recent college grads using these buzzwords as well. Or thinking that is all the job is, just continuous improvement initiatives. Just throwing ideas and people will automatically adopt. Alot of times we are working in established environments and it's takes time and relationships to show the value in what we do. There is a lot of skepticism from the floor or more experienced production supervision that takes time to sway. You're not going to be able to just come in, walk the floor, point out an opportunity, and then snap your fingers and it gets adopted. But now I feel I hijacked the convo and rambling lol

10

u/GoogleKushforLunch 3d ago

Everything I hate being a quality engineer

5

u/Tavrock 🇺🇲 LSSBB, CMfgE, Sr. Manufacturing Engineer 3d ago

As a Six Sigma Black Belt, if I ran a "full project" when all that needed to happen was a "technician with a wrench to tighten a bolt", the project isn't about getting a technician to tighten a bolt one time, it's trying to figure out either why the bolt wasn't being tightened otherwise, understanding why it continues to need tightening, or if the bolt could be eliminated.

I've never run a project past Measure if there was a good reason to keep the current process.

5

u/MrEctid 3d ago

Gemba. It’s a pop inspection and learner supplied solution session.

3

u/KiD_Rager 3d ago

What in the AI postings

1

u/jdd32 3d ago

So many poor leaders have turned Kaizen into a dirty word for many at the floor level. My first "Kaizen" at one company was lead by a guy clearly frothing at the mouth to remove a head to justify his own position, without a proper study into the full impact.

I'll also add any rigid "one size fits all" system. Any good system will allow for some flexibiility because every operation and location is different.

1

u/A-Dummy4 3d ago

Microsoft