The Lean manufacturing, PPT Plus,
"Back-to-Basics" e-Training Package 
Lean Manufacturing Solutions

Increase the effectiveness of your
Lean Manufacturing Training Program
Lean Manufacturing Simulation Game 

Leadership

Qualities possessed by leaders were consistency, knowl­edge, organization, experience, and consideration. Addi­tional attributes were a sense of humor, creativity, aware­ness of personalities and attitudes, and persuasive speech. The leaders enhanced employee needs and built a back­ground for teamwork. The leaders knew the importance of identity, acceptance, power, meaning in life, and variety for maximum employee development.

Team building fostered a cohesive climate where each individual felt significant and supported by others on the staff. The climate encouraged cooperative action rather than individual competition for rewards or recognition and goals arrived at through consensus rather than compro­mise or imposition.

The leaders focused on the solution, ability to respond and cope, and the present and immediate future.

The leader believed that everyone could be a winner, desired to learn and grow, needed a safe and accepting social context, and had ability. The leader knew how to listen, defused anger through Transactional Analysis, avoided advice giving, trusted people, allowed a wide variety of choices and opinions, gave consistent, regular small praise and positive notice, shared feelings and prob­lems, took people seriously, and shared tasks and respon­sibilities.

Leaders determined types of leadership through use of The Leadership Chart. In building teamwork, the leaders used awareness, evaluation, initiation, implementation, and adoption. The change process became easier to manage with employee involvement and leader knowledge of the resistance curve.
Webbing determined areas of problems to be addressed. Storyboar ding creatively suggested solutions and qualified priorities.

Role-Plays

The worst case role-play assisted development of recogni­tion of attitudes through stimuli and responses and devel­oped skills of dealing with difficult people and recognition of self and others. All participants took part in webbing and storyboarding the leadership role to correct this attitude problem.

Webbing determined the details of specific problem areas. The storyboard was a technique for creative, positive brainstorming. Participants stopped thinking critically and began to let creative ideas flow and build upon each other. This was an accelerated method of communication and had an unbiased facilitator as was required for expe­diting the storyboard.

Participants in the best case role-play practiced leadership skills involved in team communication and saw the results of webbing and storyboarding. All companies had the opportunity to use the brains of each and every person employed. Storyboarding allowed new ideas to surface and brought fun and involvement to the workshop. The compe­tition had the ability to outspend but not the ability to out-think the brains of a people smart/competition wise com­pany.

Successful companies encouraged analytical, critical think­ing in the employees and storyboarding balanced that thinking with creativity. Involved and motivated people eagerly met the challenges of a quickly changing world.

Hands-on, Active-Participation Games

Production to an MRP weekly, lot-sized schedule demon­strated various deficits which included floor space con­sumed with WIP, disagreements, anger, errors, no ship­ments, lack of shop floor success, and negative profit.

Production to a synchronized daily Final Assembly Sched­ule which used a few JIT techniques resulted in no WIP build-up, positive teamwork and attitudes, quality product production and shipment, shop floor success, and a profit.

Summary

Participants practiced attitude changing skills, acquired skills necessary for leadership and teamwork, and experi­enced JIT theory in practice. The workshop interactive
role-plays and hands-on active participation games per­mitted attendees to leave with skills which may be used in their individual companies. Webbing and storyboarding were effective tools in determining areas included in prob­lems, solving problems, and determining priorities.

Conclusion

Through role-plays and hands-on games, the participants learned how to effect simplistic changes in people's atti­tudes and material flow patterns needed to master change and gain the competitive advantage for companies.

Workshop attendees left understanding that change was truly simple to accomplish and therefore left with the tools needed to win all competitive battles.