Posts from the ‘Supply Chain Management’ Category

Jul 14

Brand new(?) Lean Principles

In the closing keynote of the EurOMA2011 conference last week, Prof. David Upton from Oxford University presented six lean principles from his research on lean applications and implementation of an Indian Company. In this longitudinal study, Prof. Upton has investigated how this firm adapted classic lean principles and made their own version.

Here are what I have noted from his presentation.

The Six Principles

Eliminate waste in all its form:
Not only Ohno 7 wastes but apply for any unnecessary activities and efforts.
Specify our work
Understand the nature of the works in all aspects e.g., process, inputs, outputs
Structure Communications
Details about what, when, how and where to communicate e.g., Cc to stakeholders.
Address problems quickly & directly
e.g., No to do list, No bug directories and use scientific methods
Directly means do it whenever, wherever, by whoever (Who found the problem fix it! even the CEO can fix the shop-floor problems)
Plan for an incremental journey
– No need to have a big bang improvement
– Start from small target/goals
– Codify the results
– Keep looking for the new way to work
Engage Managers
– Mid-level leaders must train people (not lean consultants)
– Senior leaders must be long-term, visible, believable champions
– Avoid improvementitis and Airport book-of-the-month

Jul 13

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My EurOMA 2011 Presentation

Just before I forgot the event, I’d like to share my experience in one of the most distinguish Operations Management in the world.

This year, the conference has set a new bar with highest number of abstract submitted, papers orally presented, PhD students in the doctoral seminar and conference delegates.

There are 20 parallell sessions through out the two very intensive days.

My presentation was in the session called “Performance Management in Inter-firm Relationships” which I also chaired. There are three presentation, mine was the last one.

In the beginning of the session, there were only session presenters and few friends in the room. However, just minutes before my turn, more and more audiences was joining the session. Most of them were those of senior academics. Moreover, most of them asked me a questions or two or more. However, they were positively constructive.

I believe that I responded them well due to their feedbacks. The questions were about the measurement and the discussion on the unexpected results.

You may find the slides in this link.
Just note that this was the second time I use LaTeX to create the slides.