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Interview with Norman Bodek
By SaferPak
Norman Bodek president of PCS Press, a publishing, training, and consulting
company discovered and published in English the works of Dr. Shigeo Shingo
and Taiichi Ohno and other great manufacturing geniuses bringing to the
west: Lean, JIT, Kanban, 5S, SMED, TPM, QFD, Hoshin, CEDAC, Kaizen Blitz
and other powerful improvement tools and techniques. In 1988 he initiated
the Shingo Prize for Manufacturing Excellence with Professor Vern Buehler
at Utah State University.
SaferPak caught up with Norman recently to discuss his early trips to
Japan and his exciting new book:
Kaikaku: The Power and Magic of Lean
SaferPak: Is it true you’ve been to Japan more
than 50 times?
Bodek: Yes, I have been to Japan 59 times searching these past twenty
years for the best and most important management information to keep American
industry competitive.
SaferPak: Which of the Japanese quality gurus has made the greatest
impact in the West?
Bodek: Actually there were two, Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa and Dr. Shigeo Shingo.
Ishikawa worked with Dr. Deming, created quality control circles involving
all employees in quality improvement and led Japan’s total quality
control efforts. The American Society of Quality has an Ishikawa prize
to be awarded this year to Don Dewar president of QCI International. Dr.
Shigeo Shingo co-creator of Lean manufacturing and inventor of Poka-yoke,
a system that encourages every worker to build devices that absolutely
prevent defects from occurring. They both led the quality efforts in Japan
and also throughout the world.
SaferPak: At the time did you realize the importance of the works
you were translating?
Bodek: Actually when I selected a book to translate I had to totally trust
my intuition for I could not read or understand Japanese. Luckily, four
out of every five books selected had great value for manufacturing and
management in the west. I am grateful and appreciative to go with those
odds.
SaferPak: Which individual translation are you most proud of?
Bodek: Probably Dr. Shingo’s White book, A Revolution in Manufacturing
– The SMED System. Fully trusting Dr. Shingo I paid for two translations,
the first was not good at all, and I ended up spending $100,000 to bring
out the book, much more than I ever expected. But, this one book has done
more to help industry in the West than any other. It describes how to
reduce set-up times. Set-up reduction was the key for successfully applying
Lean. I gambled but the payoff was enormous. We sold over 100,000 copies
at a list price of over $60.00 each, conducted hundreds of workshops at
over $10,000 each, brought Dr. Shingo many times to the West and probably
saved industry billions of dollars.
SaferPak: In general, how successfully have western businesses implemented
the Japanese improvement tools?
Bodek: It has been slow going for many companies but we have made great
starts. Lean, SMED, 5S, Value Stream Mapping, Quick and Easy Kaizen, Kaizen
Blitz, TPM, QFD, Hoshin are all words now common to our language. It is
not easy to change old habits, unfortunately we do resist change and the
“not-made here syndrome,” has gotten in the way of acceptance.
But, Lean has taken a firm hold and will continue. I hope my new book
Kaikaku The Power and Magic of Lean will give managers, engineers, and
all employees a new thrust forward.
SaferPak: So Norman your new book, what exactly does Kaikaku mean?
Bodek: Kaikaku is a Japanese work meaning “radical change,”
like doing a Kaizen Blitz. At times we need to really shake things up
to rid our complacency to be more competitive. Of course, every time we
do shake things up we tend to make some mistakes. But, remember please
that making mistakes is the only way we really learn. So Kaikaku can raise
the dust, give us much to do to straighten things up, but through involving
all employees in continuous improvement, allowing them to be creatively
involved in problem solving, the end result will be a much stronger and
successful company. What is the alternative? To sit on our laurels and
let the Chinese and Indians, “eat our lunch.”
SaferPak: What makes Kaikaku different?
Bodek: Kaikaku gets people together in teams looking for ways to improve
the process. There is an old saying that “an individual will not
cross against the green but a team will.” An individual can read
a book, find it interesting and then do nothing with the new information.
But, put people in teams and challenge them to take that same information
and make things better – try it, it works.
SaferPak: Give us one good reason why we should all rush out and buy a
copy of Kaikaku today?
Bodek: Firstly, one good reason is to help you stay ahead of your competition
before they read the book. Secondly, the book is filled with all of the
things I learned from the great masters, Deming, Ishikawa, Shingo, Ohno,
Crosby, Monden, Fukuda, Swartz, Kobayashi, Convis, Hirano, Akao, Mizuno,
Nakamura, Juran, Kano and others (and it is filled with wonderful stories
about them). Thirdly, read the book in teams, a few chapters at a time,
asking the question, “How can we apply the information here in our
company.” Lastly, It should be fun to read and I know it will work
for you, but if it doesn’t I guarantee it and will gladly refund
your money.
Thank you for such great questions.
SaferPak: Well Norman that's plenty enough reason for us. Thank you very
much that was great.
The interview was conducted by Simon Timperley, Director Saferpak Ltd.
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Lean is an all out war against waste of both manufacturing
inefficiencies and underutilization of people. The Power and Magic
of Lean is to discover those hidden treasures within your company:
to find and eliminate all of the non-value adding wastes and to bring
out the infinite creative capacity from every single worker. Kaikaku
is about the discovery of Lean, who I met, how I met them, and the
colorful stories about the great manufacturing geniuses of our time.
Read this book in study groups to strengthen your Lean efforts. Kaikaku
can be purchased:
www.amazon.com
www.ameritech.co.uk
www.pcspress.com
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Norman Bodek |
Norman Bodek, President of PCS Press in Vancouver,
WA, was the founder and CEO of Productivity Inc. - Productivity Press
and discovered and published the works of the truly great Japanese
manufacturing geniuses: Dr. Shigeo Shingo and Taiichi Ohno, the inventors
of the Toyota Production System now called JIT and Lean manufacturing;
Yoji Akao, creator of Quality Function Deployment (QFD); and Hoshin
Kanri and Seiichi Nakajima, originators of Total Productive Maintenance
(TPM) and many others.
Through newsletters, books and 50 industrial study missions to
Japan Bodek discovered, brought over, translated and popularized
many of the Japanese quality tools, techniques, and technologies
that transformed American industry in the mid 1980's and 1990's. |
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