Lean Manufacturing Optimizes Everything

Lean manufacturing is just like my PC.

It's fine when it's working, but if it crashes???????????????

In my experience, it's a Dilbert world. When Lean crashes it's almost always due to Management tampering with the system. Typical mistakes:

1) Insisting that a production line be run at maximum capacity, not maximum efficiency.

2) Insisting that inventory buffers are "too big" and cost "too much" even though historical data shows that smaller buffers cause shut-downs which are costlier.

3) Insisting that, since an optimized system is running without problems, there must be something that can be removed or changed to make it a little cheaper to run. (Usually via a request to increase capacity or to skip a scheduled maintenance or have one operator do the work of two)

4) Insisting that, after a crash, it's more important to just get the system running again than it is to find out the cause of the crash.

Absolutely!