About the Author

Starting his working life in engineering and

fabrication, followed by a short span with the British
Army Mark embarked on a career with Toyota that
spanned nearly 18 years. During this period of time
Mark developed skills in Lean (TPS) and business
improvement that would take him to improvement
projects and Lean implementations that cover many
industry sectors globally.
Mark with his passion for everything Lean began
writing in late 2013 in order to share his knowledge
and experience. Lean is not something that just
happens it has to be developed in an organisation,
applied and nurtured in order to flourish. This is
Marks second book on the subject of Lean.
Mark currently lives on an English narrow boat with
his partner from where they both write and run their
consultancy business. At the time of writing the boat
is moored in a sleepy village in rural Oxfordshire,
England.

Dedication

Nathan and Joshua.

Never forgotten, not a single day goes by without
thinking about you.

Copyright Mark Roberts (2015)

The right of Mark Roberts to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the
publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British
Library.

ISBN 978 178455 917 5

www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2015)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LB

Printed and bound in Great Britain

10

Acknowledgments

A sincere thank you to all the people that encouraged

me on this venture. The people who believed in my
undertaking and those that could see what I saw. A
sincere thank you to my publisher Austin Macauley
for picking what was no more than an idea at one
point, opting to run with it and making it real.
Thank you to Janine my partner who has in reality
suffered all of my headaches that come with putting
words to paper. Her words of encouragement have
been inspirational and her tolerance boundless.
Thank you.
A special thanks for all the inspirational people I
have both worked for and worked with. I have said
these words before, without a doubt it was you who
made this all possible. Again thank you.

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14

Co nte nts

Introduction

18

1.

29

Creating the Want

Leaders Verses Managers

46

Creating the Team

74

Belbin

76

Setting Up A Cross Functional Team

89

2.

Creating The Change

107

Work Place Organisation (5S)

112

Versatility, Training and Flexibility (ABBA)

147

Creating Training Activities and Simulations (S/W)

167

3.

226

Managing Change

RACI

227

Project Charter

232

Master Schedules and Detailed Plans

239

Hoshin Kanri

250

Creating the Story and Tracing the Journey

263

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Introduction

Lean is very much a state of mind, or at least in the

ideal world it should be. Lean practitioners and
people who have seen good will no doubt baulk at
dysfunctional and ineffective businesses, often
wondering how they actually stay alive in this
extremely competitive world. The fact is, in this dog
eat dog consumer world, people actually want Lean;
they are actually crying out for it not crying out for
the methodologies and philosophies that come hand
in hand with this extremely unique and powerful
series of systems. In reality few consumers care
about the nuts and bolts that make the Lean machine
work. Why would they care? As the paying
customer, do most really care about the whys and
wherefores of how something ended up on the
supermarket shelf or in the supermarket trolley? I
would challenge whether there is any serious
consideration of this point whatsoever. What the
consumer world is demanding, however, is most
definitely Lean, but not through its background
technicalities and systems they care little of these
it is the end result they yearn for. It is now a fact of
life, some may say a sad fact of life, that we are
impatient; probably impatient is too tolerant a word.
We are now, as a body of consumers, excessively
demanding in our wants and needs. We now demand

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our mail delivered the following day. We will

criticise the postal service if our birthday cards and
letters do not arrive on time, often cross country: the
distance and location will in actuality often be
irrelevant to us. The ins and outs of how the posted
article actually got there are no matter to us, we
probably dont even think about it. We just want it
there, delivered intact the following day. That is now
our expectation in the modern world. The postal
service is only the beginning; we insist on
supermarket shelves being full of the everyday items
that make our modern lives possible. Whats more,
we want them at the right price and manufactured to
the right quality specification. Should these items not
be available or not possible, we now have no
hesitation in taking our hard-earned money
elsewhere to spend where delivery, choice, quality
and price suits us. That is where the general
consumer is demanding Lean: in the areas of
delivery, choice, quality and cost. It certainly wont
be called Lean; it is highly unlikely to even have a
name in the mind of the average everyday consumer.
But in order for the supplier or manufacturer of a
product or service to provide this level of service to
the customer and to do it effectively, processes must
be efficient, cost effective and extremely
competitive. This efficiency and operational
effectiveness needs to transcend throughout the
organisation down to the shop floor to the point of
manufacture, waste is to be seriously reduced or
ideally stripped from their own systems to enable this
level of service to happen. The whole process needs
19

to be run efficiently and without the waste that does

nothing but drag an organisation down. This Lean
thinking needs to run throughout the whole company,
driven within the organisation, perhaps even with
new out of the box style of thinking it will need
to be encouraged or put in place. Manufacturing
systems and methods should be effective, allowing
Lead times to be reduced and optimisation activities
to take place. Inventory should be constantly
monitored and excess inventory removed. Focus
should be put on the whole value stream, value being
the key word. Time is now not only money; time can
be the factor that loses a customer. A competitor that
can provide a similar product or service at a similar
price and quality but far quicker is far more likely to
both take and retain customers. Providing the same
product or service but slower will always put a
business on the back foot. Time can be the
differential on whether or not you have a profitable
business. There is rarely a place for second best in
this consumer world. This is the reality now, and is it
going to get any easier for the manufacturer or
service provider in the years to come? The answer is
obviously a resolute no, it isnt, it is neither going to
get any better nor easier. It will no doubt just get
more demanding and more competitive.
So how can a business step out of the crowd and
effectively become top dog in this dog eat dog world?
The answer is most definitely to take a long and hard
look at implementing and embedding an effective
and proven improvement system into the
organisation, in order to give the consumer the Lean
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