Roots of Lean Run Red, White & Blue
-- The Origin of Kaizen

It is always good business practice for a manufacturer to do all in its power to increase its workers’ abilities to produce maximum quantities of quality work using a minimum of time and materials. During the outbreak of World War II, it became a prime importance for the U.S. government to help industry produce even more materials than had ever been thought possible at a constantly accelerating speed to help win the war. The magnitude of this job was made clear by Sidney Hillman, Commissioner of Employment who said: “As we love freedom, we cannot fail to hurl the last ounce of our productive powers against freedom’s greatest enemy. We must build two planes for Hitler’s one, two tanks for his one, two ships for his one, two guns for his one.”

he credit for responding to this challenge belongs to industry and the TWI Program, one of the first emergency services to be organized after the fall of France on June 22, 1940. Volunteers from industry were brought together to collect, standardize, streamline, and develop techniques for industry to use to improve performance. The TWI Service quickly learned that neither giving advice nor solving problems for plants produced the results generated by delivering learn-by-doing training to people for handling their own company’s problems.

TWI consists of three standardized programs covering three essential skills needed by all people responsible for the work of others, regardless of their industry: Skill in Instruction, Skill in Improving Methods, and Skill in Leading. Each of these programs follows a 4-step process of Preparation, Presentation, Application and Testing. Supervisors are given the opportunity to learn and practice the process in a confidential, low-stress, and highly supportive environment. Each program is simple, straight-forward and easy to implement. Class materials enable people to put what they learn right to use in the workplace to generate immediate improvements and a return on investment. Each person is given a pocket card for daily use to keep the improvements coming after the program has been completed. The results speak for themselves.

To measure the broader impact of its programs, TWI monitored 600 client companies throughout the war. The following percentages of companies reported at least a 25% improvement in the associated areas:

Why then, was TWI “lost” after the war ended? One factor is that the big and strong industrial base developed under high volume war production was expected to return to normal at war’s end. After losing the “need” to continuously improve production, management’s resistance to change also returned to “normal” (Mass Production) and TWI principles were abandoned by industry. On the other side of the ocean, Japan had no “normal” to which they could return, creating an environment ripe for the teachings of Henry Ford and W. Edward Deming. The US occupational government turned to TWI, introducing its common sense training practices. These practices evolved into the Toyota Production System (TPS) that eventually migrated back to the US in the 1980’s. TWI provided the foundation for Kaizen, or Continuous Improvement, a central element of TPS.

James Womack, Daniel Jones and Daniel Roos studied the Toyota System and published their findings in their book, The Machine that Changed the World, explaining how companies can dramatically improve performance by using the “lean production” approach pioneered by Toyota. Womack and Jones collaborated on their next book Lean Thinking published in 1996 to deliver a message to companies that lost site of value for the customer. This book outlines the “lean principles” for how companies can eliminate the waste of non-value adding activities inherent in mass production system that customers are no longer willing to pay for. Toyota is credited (and rightly so) for developing these systems. Their common sense methods are well-organized, most of which we now know originated in the US going back around a hundred years.

Whether you talk about Henry Ford’s Highland Park, Toyota or the Lean Production Systems it is becoming increasing apparent that future manufacturing success in the United States depends on relearning what we did right in the past.

This is also true of Training Within Industry. Like the principles of Lean Manufacturing, TWI was kept alive in Japan in almost its original state and has now traveled full circle back to the US. Thanks to a grant from New York State Empire State Development, TDO introduced the TWI programs to ten CNY companies in 2001. “It (TWI) makes you break down steps in the manufacturing process. If you don’t, you’d be amazed at how much you miss,” said Douglas Crumb, Vice President of DHD Healthcare, who participated in these pilot projects. Gray-Syracuse, Inc. implemented the TWI Program in 2002 and was followed by Schneider Packaging Equipment Co. in 2003. According to Barry Weary, Operations Manager for Gray-Syracuse, “In our wax area, where “JI” has been used for about 10 months, we have already reduced the need for rework and repair of wax related defects by over 60%.”

TWI has since spread to other NYSTAR Regional Technology Development Centers in NYS and the program is now delivered from Batavia to Albany and from the St. Lawrence region to Binghamton. Availability of the TWI program will soon be expanded through a collaborative partnership between TDO and MACNY, and this is just the beginning. The success of our local companies set the example for manufacturers served by sister Manufacturing Extension Partnership organizations located in North Dakota, Maryland, Massachusetts and Texas. TWI is now being integrated into the NIST MEP Lean Manufacturing Program and will soon help industry increase productivity, improve morale and reduce training time on a national scale to better compete in the global market. Visit www.trainingwithinindustry.com or call Bob Wrona at 425-5144 to learn more about this program.