TABLE OF CONTENTS Lesson 9: In measuring progress toward the vision, metrics must be few, simple, meaningful, and directly linked to visual targets in the workplace.
Before you start down the road to lean, world-class production, you need to have high expectations because you get what you aim for. Art Byrne, former CEO of Wiremold, has said that if you're not setting and achieving the following targets, you simply don't understand how to run a world-class business:
Free up 50 percent of floor space.
Double inventory turns in two years and quadruple them in four years.
Improve productivity 15 to 25 percent per year.
Cut lead times from weeks to days, or from days to minutes.
Achieve major quality improvements (magnitudes of 10).
Believe in the possibility of perfection. Chapter 2 discussed the importance of zero waste and zero defects. The first step to achieving those zeros is to understand your own attitudes about perfection. In many industries, the concept of reaching perfection, of a zero defect rate, is almost laughable. Yet in others, near-perfection is routine because any other performance level is unacceptable.
Motorola developed the concept of "six sigma" as a way to assess the level of product quality. Six sigma is 3.4 defects per million products, and the concept was a breakthrough in thinking about quality. Many industries have adopted the notion that six sigma is a worthy goal, and organizations other than Motorola now achieve it. The domestic airlines industry flight fatality rate is less than...
