Talk:Lean manufacturing

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According to a recent article (http://www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2005/456.html?SESSID=6b42cd2b2deb2bf39943e2db62f5119f), lean manufacturing is said to have roots with Henry Ford and Frederick Taylor. Should this be incorporated into the article? Spalding 12:36, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Value Adding Articles - Your Input Requested 2 Lean thinking versus Lean production 3 Promotional links 4 Question 5 Value Stream Mapping 6 Valuable Link Removed 7 Hi Paul, and Welcome to the Club! 8 Lists of Videos/Books 9 Criticism of Software Engineering section

[edit] Value Adding Articles - Your Input Requested

Hello fellow Lean and Wikipedia enthusiasts. Obviously many of us wish to contribute valuable content to the site and likewise include links to information and resources not appropriate for the main article, but complimentary just the same.

The question has been raised regarding a link I posted to a series of 3 articles geared toward preparing managers to implement Lean manufacturing. You may see the first article by clicking here: * Mere Mortal Managers Preparing Managers for Lean Implementation.

Of course I am biased because it is my article, but I have had considerable feedback that this is a value adding article and seek your opinions on this matter.

If enough of you agree that this article adds value to the subject of Lean then it will be re-posted to the "External Links" section of the main page along with the many other links to articles. If enough of you take exception to posting this link it will not be posted.

The article does contain links to my website which is a "for profit site." This, of course is true of all posted links to books and articles housed on other websites as well. There is no sales pitch within the article. Visitors may click for additional information or they may click away to other sites as they see fit. There are no re-directs and no one is compelled to do anything at all.

I believe this link is value adding and will contribute further understanding on the topic of Lean implementation and ask for your support to include the link, or your opinion as to why it should not be included.

Thank You,

Bill --Jbillh 02:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lean thinking versus Lean production

Lean Thinking is separate and different from Lean production. For example, Lean Thinking can be applied to a service industry. It also applies to day to day life, such as the process one might choose in cooking in the kitchen, or gift wrapping packages. Lean production (see Lean manufacturing) is the application of Lean Thinking to manufacturing industries. User Cutler was wrong to merge Lean Thinking into Lean manufacturing. Lean manufacturing would be more commonly labeled Lean production because it represents an advancement over Mass production which in turn represents some advances (and some draw backs) over Craft production.

I cross posted this to the discussion page of Lean Thinking. Chris Murphy July 7, 2005 01:32 (UTC)

I merged the articles because they have too much in common and its poor practice to have very similar content in different articles as it's difficult to maintain. This really is then a discussion about what to call the article. I feet that Lean Thinking is not a widely used term and is too closely associated with the book. I agree with the problems with the term lean manufacturing. An alternative that addresses those issues is lean operations. However, thinking form the point of view of the reader, I think that the terms lean production and lean manufacturing are likely to lead them here. Please sign posts. Cutler July 7, 2005 12:20 (UTC)

[edit] Promotional links

This and other Wiki lean articles are quickly becoming an anchor for consultants and sales websites trying to drive traffic to those websites. The external links policy is reasonably clear:

Links to normally avoid

...

2. In general, any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article here would have once it becomes an example of brilliant prose.

...

4. Sites that primarily exist to sell products or services.

5. Sites with objectionable amounts of advertising.

Both links I just deleted are covered with advertising, exist primarily to sell products, and don't add anything that are a unique resource - in fact, I would say that the wiki definitions of the articles contained in both glossaries are better than those glossaries. If you have something unique and useful to say on one of those links, that's something different. But then, why not just add it to the wikipedia article? ;)

See also External link spamming

Ehusman 03:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

How about the other links on here then? What criteria are we going to use for this and other lean pages? Should the LEI be on there? There are many useful articles, although that is a "commercial" site. The lean blog has many good lean articles linked on it, it's not commercial, but it's valuable? What's wrong with leaving more lean links on there as opposed to fewer? [This was left by User:Mgraban]

I agree. There are primarly commercial sites that may contain useful articles, explanation, downloads even books.

Good question. I am mostly interested in interdicting these links because without some policy they are likely to either explode and burden the article with too many promotional links, lead to edit wars, or both. Less is better than more, not only because Wiki's purpose is neither to serve as an aggregator nor search engine, but to provide an encyclopedic reference. Too much information in an article is as bad as too little since it overburdens the reader. Can you imagine what would happen if we added a link to everything on the net remotely related to Lean manufacturing? It would take minutes to load the article over DSL and thereby defeat the purpose of Wikipedia.

• Glossaries do not provide a resource beyond what is available on wiki almost by definition, and the glossaries that keep appearing here are not as good as the content already provided within Wikipedia for things such as 5S, Just in Time, and so on. Easy case for omitting.
• LEI has free forums and other articles. They sell things, but you can get other value from the site for free.
• Except for the fact that I think there is value in it, the Lean Blog should probably go (it violates item 12 in the Links to normally avoid list, and possibly also 4 and 5). I emphasize that I find it valuable because I'm not sure how to write a standard to differentiate between good and bad blogs. Perhaps there should be another article entitled "Lean blogs" or perhaps "Manufacturing blogs", though I don't know whether that is a useful encyclopedia article. You can easily discover such blogs by searching for them through any of the popular search engines.
• the Cooper paper should probably go - it is original research and exists primarily to promote products
• Not sure about the Manufacturing Magazine article - they don't seem to be promoting anything, the ad content is low, but does it add anything to the encyclopedia article?
• The Curious Cat site contains links to free articles that add value ... by people who have products to sell, but not primarily to sell them. On the other hand, perhaps it would be better to link directly to those useful articles?
• The Archer paper exists primarily to promote products

I think it is obvious that someone is a spammer when they (1) don't bother to register or intentionally cover their identity with an IP address, (2) only go to articles connected to a consulting business to add a link to a specific website, and (3) never add any other valuable content. They aren't here to help wiki, they are here to help themselves.

Ehusman 17:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I still have to register, and I see that of stuff gets deleted due to my IP address. There might be a spammer with the same IP address. Actually I think I can add some value to some of the articles here. Do you think I should register, so that MY OWN EDITS can be traced?! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.2.124.251 (talk • contribs) 13:07, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The link you're adding is to a site that has almost no content at all, and links to information are broken (not yet created?). As such, it doesn't offer anything useful to the article, so please don't re-add it. --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 14:38, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

So where did the term "lean manufacturing" come from? by who? when?

I suspect it came from Womack, et al, but I may be wrong. Ehusman 15:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The first reference came in The Machine That Changed The World by Womack, Jones & Roos. A note about the origin of the term is on page 13. --Kradeka 21:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Value Stream Mapping

I think more information on Value and Value Stream mapping would be required for inclusion into the article!

[edit] Valuable Link Removed

Hi, I came across a Lean Manufacturing article on Wikipedia and thought that an article I have written would be another useful resource. I posted the article, which you may view by clicking here: How to Implement Lean Manufacturing. However the link has been removed.

I added some content to the lean manufacturing article called “Lean implementation program” which was taken from my article, and is still available on Wikipedia. Surely it would benefit the readers to be able to view the full article. Does it not make sense to progress from information on Lean Manufacturing to implementation?

The article sits on a commercial site, but so do all of my articles which have received lots of positive feedback for being well informed and very useful. The content of the article most definitely adds something unique to the Lean Manufacturing page.

I would appreciate any views on the matter, especially as there are links to other commercial sites.

--Paul Aster 10:28, 15 August 2006

People are being real sticklers about "no blogs, no commercial sites, etc." If that's going to be enforced selectively by some, then I'd argue we need to be absolutist about it --- no commercial links then, no matter how helpful they are. That's what google is for, finding other articles.

--Mark Graban 12:20, 21 August 2006

[edit] Hi Paul, and Welcome to the Club!

Many of us would like to see links to "value-adding" articles on an endless supply of relevant topics. Like you, my posts have been deleted by folks claiming to know what is best for Wikipedia while similar links remain. I'm a bit confused as well.

We all need to appreciate that Wikipedia does not want to become a grand repository of links to outside "external" sources, nor does it want to become an advertiser for services or products. Wikipedia wants only to be an encyclopedia; a compendium of "knowledge" not opinion or even great ideas.

In my humble opinion most external articles and perhaps a couple of blogs, i.e., KanBan Blogspot add a great deal of value to the overall understanding and appreciation of Lean, but are not encyclopedic in nature. Are they still of value? Of course they are! But getting them included (without being zapped by editors) is the tricky part and the criteria for inclusion are very inconsistently applied as you can see by current "External Links" that are mildly or blatantly for profit and advertorial in nature. Sure they offer "free" help or information, but rest assured, they are all commercially driven in one way or another, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I tried placing links to the following articles that I believe most would agree "add value" to the subject of Lean, but they were soundly zapped. Mere Mortal Managers that helps management better implement Lean, and A Glossary of Lean Terms A glossary of Lean terms seems like a resource to me and many others.

The problem seems to be that when you search Google (or any of the other major search engines) for the term "Lean Manufacturing" Wikipedia's article on Lean will almost always appear on the first page of search results. All the people wanting marketing benefit (all of us for profit consulting firms) want to be listed in the article even if it is an "external link" so we can gain additional website traffic, and hopefully business. That makes "our" intentions impure and very likely biased. So our goals and motivations for posting are in question. Yes, we also want to add value to Wiki but our possible underlying goals of inspiring others to consider our services or products are an affront to encyclopedic purists and others opposed to capitalism. Wikipedia is and encyclopedia not a marketing arm for business.

In the end, I for one believe we are better off with more links to outside (non-encyclopedic) resources that add value rather than fewer. How we do that without creating a list of thousands of links to external documents is another question.

Since Wikipedia does not want to house our links (that may have commercial intentions) I propose a "Master External Link to Outside Resources" in which we could list "other value-adding resources" that could be housed on an external (not Wikipedia) site. I'll even volunteer a free page on my website to house these links and descriptions. I'll set it up today and edit this section later with the link. People can use it or not.

The site is Free Lean Resources Let's give this a try and see how it goes. I figure we have nothing to lose.

Anyone have a better idea?

--Jbillh 20:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Jbillh,

Good idea and thanks for adding the link to my article. Let’s see what happens!

--Paul Aster 10:28, 15 August 2006

You guys are on the right track - a single link to a directory of other links is usually acceptable and is much prefered to a series of links here (especially questionably-promotional ones). The best type is a DMOZ (Open Directory Project) link. The site is an an open directory, edited by volunteers. If you guys are interested in developing a directory of Lean manufacturing related links, consider signing up as an editor there, developing the appropriate category, then add the appropriate link here. --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 02:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lists of Videos/Books

I removed the list of videos - seemed to violate WP:NOT mostly, as well as WP:EL and maybe WP:SPAM. I'd like to see some trimming of the book list too though not sure how to do so. --Ronz 22:24, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree on both your removal and the need to trim the books section. Probably the best way to do this would be to go through the history of the article to try to determine if any might've been used as sources (ie someone adding content to the article also listing a book), then remove all others. If there really needs to be a list of these types of books, a separate list article would be more appropriate. --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 17:44, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Good idea! --Ronz 00:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism of Software Engineering section

The applicability of any manufacturing concept to software is disputed. See, for instance, articles in The Best Software Writing, Joel Spolsky ed. which contend that 95% of the cost of software development is design, in contrast to all other "manufacturing" industries. This section is also vague and inaccurate --- for instance, individual software components are almost never purchased. I'm removing this section and replacing it with an attribution. Original section follows:

Lean and Toyota Production System (TPS) concepts have also been applied successfully in software development. In software engineering the process begins with a requirement review, to eliminate unnecessary requirements, and substitute mechanical and electrical components with software. Software generally has a lower per-component cost than other disciplines, especially in the large production runs typical of a lean product. The design then attempts to eliminate costly software components, especially those that are purchased. Lean in the Software industry is quite similar to Agile software development - some of which explicitly state TPS as a source of inspiration, including Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP).

66.117.135.137 01:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)David

Spolsky is no expert in software engineering. Ever read how critical system software is made? Given that this article is unreferenced, why not wait until other editors have a chance to respond? --Ronz 01:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The article from Spolsky's book is The Pitfalls of Outsourcing Programmers by Michael Bean. There are both practical and theoretical problems with the application of "lean" methods to software development. Some of the practical problems are outlined in the article. Here is a concise summary of the theoretical problems:

The origins of lean thinking lie in production, but lean principles are broadly applicable to other disciplines. However, lean production practices -- specific guidelines on what to do -- cannot be transplanted directly from a manufacturing plant to software development. Many attempts to apply lean production practices to software development have been unsuccessful because generating good software is not a production process; it is a development process.

—Mary and Tom Poppendieck, Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit

In any case, it is my understanding that mission-critical and life-critical systems not considered "home ground" for agile methods Agile software development#Suitability_of_agile_methods 66.117.135.137 04:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC) David

Update: User:66.117.135.137 is mistercupcake Mistercupcake 04:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Yes, agile methods aren't applicable to critical systems. My point is that lean methods are applicable to critical systems. They're also applicable to large, integrated systems common in government contracting work - which is what I first thought of when I read from the article, "The design then attempts to eliminate costly software components, especially those that are purchased". Since we don't have sources, it's hard to know what the original editors where thinking when that section was first added. --Ronz 05:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I goofed --- I didn't realize that "lean software development" existed. As a concept, lean software development (I'm resisting the temptation to use the three letter acronym...) is brought to us by the Poppendieck shop, and the term does not appear to have received widespread acceptance. According to this comparison of agile and lean software development Toyota applied lean methods to product development, apparently independent of the Poppendiecks, except that where the Poppendiecks tried to apply TPS to software development, Toyota was more interested in applying TPS to car design. I added a reference to lean software development.

In the "determining the original intent" department, this phrase, "...substitute mechanical and electrical components with software" baffles me. Mechanical components are physical. Software is information (intangible). I have a similar problem with the phrase "The design then attempts to eliminate costly software components, especially those that are purchased." The subject of this sentence is "the design," an inanimate object. How can it attempt anything? The design either does or does not eliminate costly components, and it is the actors who must "try." Did the original editor perhaps mean "designers?" I don't mean to provoke, but this really does seem to border on nonsense.Mistercupcake 08:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)