There have been hundreds of books written about Lean and specific topics of continuous improvement. I have lost count, but I know that I have read most of them. All these books provide useful information about continuous improvement principles and tools for the production floor. The need for culture change is discussed, but the approaches all seem to point back to using tools and improving production processes as a basis. The tools side of improvement is visible; therefore, it is easy to learn and unfortunately easy to mimic the improvement activities of other organizations. The behavioral alignment and cultural development side of improvement is invisible; executives have put off this side of improvement because it is too slow, it takes too much time and effort, and the human element is complex. For decades most organizations have cycled their way through numerous fad improvement programs with a documented failure rate of over 80 percent. Over this period many organizations have acquired varying degrees of knowledge of Lean manufacturing tools, principles, and terminology and have also achieved varying degrees of success. Most initiatives become derailed because of the lack of longer-term leadership commitment and the permanent architecture to establish a formal, adaptive, systematic, and sustainable management process of continuous and sustainable improvement. During this same period Toyota is the only organization that I am aware of that has focused on a single approach to improvement: the Toyota Way and the Toyota Production System (TPS). Toyota’s unmatched success is also the result of paying attention to both the visible (principles, tools, best practices) and invisible (kata) side of continuous improvement.
We began construction of a Lean Business System Reference Model just before the 2008 meltdown to help clients (and ourselves) through a new paradigm of Lean driven by accelerated business and economic requirements, emerging technology, and a heightened focus on management infrastructure and behavioral and cultural development needs. Over time we have built out the reference model by integrating new thinking, client implementation experiences, benchmarking, enabling technology, and proven best practice information strictly for internal use in our current client engagements. Because it is a reference model, it is a continuous work in progress and is never complete. However, the reference model approach has evolved into a very useful framework and guide for implementing a culturally grounded Lean Business System in any country or operating environment.
Because there is so much confusion about designing, architecting, and implementing a for-real, enterprisewide Lean Business System, we decided to share new knowledge through this book and provide guidance by making the Lean Business System Reference Model™ available to a much larger audience. A major objective of the reference model and this book is to guide organizations away from the superficial mimicking and success-limiting scope of Lean manufacturing principles and tools from other successful organizations and to think, innovate, expand boundaries, develop the right improvement Kata culture, and become the next global Toyota organization in their own way.
Global KATA: Success Through the Lean Business System Reference Model™ is our playbook for evolving Lean to a holistic, enterprisewide Lean Business System. This book sheds new light on the future of Lean and the next generation of adaptive systematic improvement. The reference model is not a replacement for the Toyota Production System (TPS); in fact it is an endorsement of its greatness. Toyota is without a doubt, the industry benchmark poster child of enterprisewide adaptive systematic improvement.
What is the difference between Toyota Kata and global Kata? Toyota Kata is discussed with reference to the Toyota Production System (TPS) and is focused on meticulous coaching and nurturing patterns of behaviors and thinking (kata) in production. In this setting, processes are typically more defined, standardized, and visible (via our senses) by specifications, routings, operator and equipment work instructions, maintenance schedules, production boards, and so on. Global Kata is a broader interpretation of Kata based on the visible and invisible aspects of how organizations define, create, nurture, and reinforce patterns of behavior and attribute codes in their enterprisewide culture. Visible includes the principles, methodologies, and best practices; invisible includes patterns of behavior and cultural attributes plus other untried, unknown, and undiscovered opportunities (which are also invisible). There is an unlimited amount of unknown and undiscovered improvement opportunities in the broader and more complex interconnected network of professional knowledge-based transactional processes. These opportunities too are invisible and cannot be harvested with a narrow production tools and principles focus. Here is the big differentiator: the visible and invisible complexity of improvement increases with the level of globalization and the human professional and technology content of processes, but so does the incremental value contribution of improvement. The challenge is that organizations cannot uncover and harvest these opportunities with a limited Lean manufacturing tools mindset and a single production model for patterns of behavior and cultural attributes. Global Kata nurtures and reinforces the desired patterns of behavior or Kata across the global enterprise but also recognizes and adjusts to local cultural norms and customs. Kata is different in every organization and in every geography. The objectives of improvement may be uniform, but how it is achieved and sustained around the world is influenced by idiosyncrasies between cultures.
For the 80 percent + of organizations that wish they could accelerate their Lean program, are exhausted from mimicking the Toyota Production System (TPS), are confused about how to apply Lean to nonmanufacturing areas, have hit the wall with their Lean program, are thinking about initiating a Lean program, think that Lean is not applicable to their different and unique environments, have their Lean program on hold because of more pressing business issues, or have been sitting passively while asking “What’s next after Lean?,” this book is the new evolution and higher-order benchmark of Lean success. The elements of our Lean Business System Reference Model are closely aligned to Toyota’s companywide business philosophy but go even further by integrating improvement plus emerging technology. Additionally, the dynamics of global competition and emerging technology have mandated all organizations to rethink Lean and improve how they improve. The Lean Business System Reference Model also incorporates design guidelines and best practices for architecting a more laser-targeted, accelerated deployment, and rapid results model of improvement while building the right patterns of behavior (Kata) and cultural standards of excellence.
Let’s step back and take a candid look at the current state of Lean in most organizations:
The Toyota Production System (TPS) is solid, but its interpretation and deployment by most organizations have been too narrow and superficial. Continuous improvement looks simple, but it is not easy. For decades, this has been the story with continuous improvement: a tools focus and imitation-like approaches. It has not worked, yet organizations remain on the same improvement treadmill. Organizations will never become the next Toyota by mimicking or copying and pasting (a misinterpretation of) the tools side of TPS into their own organizations. There is so much more to Toyota’s DNA than visible manufacturing principles and tools. Toyota has been operating in an enterprisewide “Toyota Business System” environment for decades. Throughout the book we may make references to the limitations of TPS, but we are referring to these superficial interpretations and deployments of TPS in other organizations with a tools focus, imitation approaches, and a downplaying of cultural development.
Toyota Kata is so much more than a production worker and a coach and a target value in a Toyota factory. At Toyota, Kata is not limited to the production system; Kata is an enterprisewide pattern of behaviors and a cultural standard of excellence and perfection in everything that Toyota does as a global corporation. In other organizations all global leaders, executives, and managers mentor and coach their organizations and create patterns of behavior: good Kata and bad Kata—relative to Lean and relative to all other business activities. Kata is always an enterprisewide work in progress and never a steady-state practice. In the case of Toyota’s long-term success, this fact is not recognized to the extent that it deserves when one limits the discussion of Kata to the narrow interpretations of the Toyota Production System or Lean manufacturing, backed up by production tools and examples.
Today, too many organizations are struggling with the conflicts between economic uncertainty, short-term financial performance, and keeping their Lean and continuous improvement activities alive. Many have failed at Lean because of their hasty TPS mimicking approaches and a fanatical focus on tools. Others have abandoned structured and disciplined improvement altogether. The economic uncertainties over the past several years have shifted executive priorities and put a damper on Lean. It is time for a new Lean paradigm that harvests the full potential of opportunities in our challenging global economy. Organizations can certainly benefit from a more holistic and higher-impact framework for strategic and sustainable improvement and a guide for the journey.
No organization outside of Toyota has been able to leverage improvement as a competitive weapon as systematically, as timely, as effectively, as continuously, and as autonomously as Toyota. Why is this so? The main reason is that organizations globally have been attempting to mimic Toyota’s success based on what they see and interpret while overlooking the deep values, spirit, behaviors, and cultural foundation that make adaptive systematic improvement at Toyota successful. Many organizations are perplexed by mimicking Toyota and other successful organizations while achieving questionable results. They have hit the wall without real improvement because they are still in a mode of copy and imitate rather than leading, adapting, and architecting their own culturally grounded systematic process of improvement. Many organizations are weary of the long parade of fad improvement programs over the past three decades and risk severe unintended consequences by choosing to remain in their improvement-impaired state. There is a simple lesson in all of this: As long as organizations continue to cosmetically photocopy the best practices of others, they will always be followers. The goal of global Kata is to help organizations turn this situation around. Photocopying the best practices of Toyota and other great organizations is easy; but it is not Lean thinking and it is not adaptive, systematic, continuous, and autonomous improvement. Global Kata is about going beyond seeing and observing things from a different perspective; it’s about organizations giving deeper thought into Lean and the tremendous untapped opportunities of adaptive systematic improvement across the entire global enterprise.
What else is happening? Developments in the global industrialized world combined with a rapid evolution in emerging technology has occurred at a faster rate than most organizations can adapt their Lean and continuous improvement strategies. Technology is also morphing the concept of process away from physical content and more toward human, knowledge, and technology content. Look at the physical content (e.g., production, equipment) versus the professional, knowledge-based content in most organizations. Now ask where the root causes of many manufacturing problems originate. The majority of sources include the complex network of transactional processes: sales, order entry, configuration management, sales and operations planning (S&OP) and the global supply chain, new product development, customer service, quality, regulatory and compliance, warranty and repair, engineering, human resources, outsourcing decisions, product management, R&D, purchasing and supplier selection, IT, poor customer and supplier planning systems, finance, leadership, and many interactive combinations of all of the above. There are so many unknown and untapped opportunities for improvement in the professional, knowledge-based, transactional process space. Porting over a narrow set of production principles and tools to the office is not the way to harvest these grand-scale opportunities.
Throughout the book you will read about the principle of structured means and deliberate actions. This is a critical design criterion for a holistic Lean Business System. Accordingly, the book is organized using the same principle to create a logical understanding of the Lean Business System Reference Model, and achieve the “global Kata” status of Toyota and a few other great organizations.
Chapter 1 provides a historical perspective of Lean and continuous improvement. This chapter underscores that many of the basic fundamentals and core principles of a for-real Lean Business System have been around for many, many decades. Executives, practitioners, and their organizations can gain valuable insights about the future of Lean by paying close attention to the lessons learned through history.
Chapter 2 provides an overview of the Lean Business System Reference Model and its architecture guidelines, subprocesses, and principles. These architecture subprocesses include:
Operating strategy, vision, leadership, governance, and interventions
Living improvement strategy
Deployment planning, prioritization, alignment, and control
Change awareness, communication, management, and reinforcement
Infrastructure and talent development via center of excellence
Execution, ownership, and sustainability
Performance reporting and measurement
The purpose of the Lean Business System Reference Model is to provide a working framework for thinking deeper about both the visible and the invisible (Kata) sides of Lean and adaptive systematic improvement. The reference model is a pragmatic and useful guide that is always in a work-in-progress state and continuously under development. Implementing a Lean Business System in a particular organization requires an adaptive design and integration of all critical success factors. Keep in mind that it is a GPS that leads to a truer and much more potent true north, but executives and their organizations must do all the driving to get there.
Chapters 3 through 8 provide a detailed description of each of the subprocesses of the Lean Business System Reference Model, including design and implementation guidance, frameworks, templates, systematic architecture, examples, performance criteria, and proven best practices. These chapters provide extensive guidance for a higher-order, enterprisewide process of adaptive systematic improvement by introducing new Lean principles about leadership, evolving technology, innovation, transactional processes, and behavioral alignment and cultural development. The reference model guides the reader through the right structured means and deliberate actions to create the right improvement Kata thinking throughout any organization and in any country. Collectively, the architecture and best practices provide a new journey to a higher level of enterprise excellence and superior performance, enabling all organizations to evolve to a higher-order XYZ business system in their own way.
Chapter 9 provides guidance on how to adapt the Lean Business System Reference Model to organization-centric business requirements and cultural development needs of a particular organization. Throughout the book we talk about adaptive systematic improvement, and the words adaptive and systematic are hands-down requirements for success. We have also provided detailed guidance on integrating local cultural values, creative improvement methodologies, core business process opportunities, and technology into a Lean Business System.
Chapter 10 provides final guidance for designing, architecting, and implementing an enterprisewide Lean Business System. A few topics discussed include finding the Kata in the self, going beyond learning to see to learning to observe, hitozukuri and Kata Harada, agile holacracy organizations, and chronic disruption as the new healthy norm.
The appendix provides several examples and experiences about improving the complex interconnected network of core transactional processes. The Lean Business System Reference Model also incorporates four extensive assessments that have been created from these higher-complexity and higher-value experiences, benchmarking and best practices data, and the entire content of this book. They include:
1. Adaptive Leadership Assessment
2. Architecture and Operating Practices Assessment
3. Organizational Design and Dynamics Assessment
4. Improvement Kata Assessment
These detailed assessments serve as immediate design and architecture guidelines for an XYZ Business System, or to evaluate the performance and effectiveness of an existing XYZ Business System relative to gaps between current performance, desired performance, and best-in-class performance.
Most of the recent Lean books that precede Global KATA: Success Through the Lean Business System Reference Model™ have been written in a reporter documentary style about the Toyota Production System with a focus on manufacturing and tools. The primary intent of this book is to elevate Lean to a higher-order adaptive systematic process of improvement and to provide detailed guidance for organizations in the design, architecture, implementation, and growth momentum for their own organization-centric, enterprisewide, and culturally grounded Lean Business System. This is certainly not the cure all and end all for an organization’s total competitive challenges. However, the spillover from the improvement Kata side of a Lean Business System has a tremendous impact on the entire scope of enterprise strategy, execution, and superior market performance.
Come on, world. We can do much better than this with improvement! Have an objective look around your organization. There is a high presence of Lean skulduggery in many organizations. Everyone claims to be doing Lean, Six Sigma, TPS, or their own improvement business system. It is visible through the mimicking of tools and principles, the symbolic storyboards, or the beautification rituals, but it is disconnected and questionable in terms of real incremental value, profitability, growth, cultural development, and sustainable success. Some of this is definitely due to poor deployment planning and execution, and an underestimation and oversimplification of what it takes to achieve sustainable Lean or XYZ Business System success—and that is the past. The largest Lean game changers are due to innovation in global industry and enterprise structures, evolving technology, and the urgent need to increase human capital development. Remaining on the same traditional Lean manufacturing path while these new global challenges are evolving at warp speed is the equivalent of insanity: doing the same things and expecting different results. Think about stopping the budgeting and monthly financials process: All hell would break loose, right? Now think about stopping the Lean initiative: It might go totally unnoticed in many organizations. Recognizing this fact is tough, but it is necessary to get on the path of a higher paradigm of Lean and superior, best-in-class industry performance.
Toyota is a great organization, but it does not hold a monopoly on the next generation of Lean. Even Toyota knows this; they are on an aggressive pursuit to rediscover a new, higher-order business model as we speak, which will incorporate several features discussed in the content of this book. The Toyota Way is a great benchmark, but does not provide all the answers to every organization’s evolving business requirements and cultural development needs. The right stuff is a choice that resides within the souls and resolve of all organizations. It’s time to dial strategic improvement into the future with a higher-order and higher-yielding evolution of a true holistic Lean Business System in your own way. All organizations are in an economic war of global competitiveness—a war of improve or fail that has more far-reaching risks and consequences and upside potential than in any other time in the history of improvement. The behaviors, choices, and actions that leaders and organizations exhibit today and over the next decade will have a significant impact on the freedoms and quality of life of future generations.
Organizations must learn how to design and build this new core competency of adaptive systematic improvement into their organizations because the future is all about keeping up with the speed of change. Architecting a systematic process takes knowledge and experience, patience, and time—and it is never completed. Executives and their organizations may view this as a simple effort, but there is a high degree of leadership, technical details, and cultural development that goes into designing and implementing this overarching systematic process, subprocesses, code of conduct, and permanent competency development. This next evolution of improvement includes more permanence and significant value contribution opportunities for organizations. However, it requires much more than memorizing and regurgitating improvement terminology, renaming your existing Lean manufacturing program, or superficial imitations of Lean production systems, Lean management or business systems (in name only) from other organizations. Global KATA: Success Through the Lean Business System Reference Model™ provides the guidance to the next generation of Lean as a true, enterprisewide and culturally grounded Lean Business System.
Terence T. Burton
President and Chief Executive Officer
The Center for Excellence in Operations, Inc. (CEO)
Bedford, New Hampshire