Thursday, May 3, 2007

Consortium Value and Presentations

I recently missed another consortium meeting, and am kicking myself for wasting company money and being a stereotypical non-committing male.

In our Newfoundland Consortium - Fluent- there are approximately 10 companies that meet on a monthly basis and share everything Lean.

Typically we spend time on presenting a status report of each company, from a Lean perspective, and spend time on a trouble-shooting exercise at the location of the meeting. This can involve a process evaluation, a 5S problem, a Takt time problem, or simply applying outside eyes to a new implementation to pick apart potential problems. This trouble shooting exercise may also be replaced with an informative tour.

Recently, our Consortium has welcomed a new member; a mining company.

By not attending, I have lost focus on Lean, I have not shared some of our minor successes so far, and I have not received any "outside eyes" on our strategy. I also had no idea we had an exciting new member!

The Consortium, any Consortium, possesses great potential for value and insight, networking, varied and extensive expertise, and by missing the meetings, I have thrown away any value that could have been gotten from the past two meetings.

Shame on me.

Note to self...make the committment, make attendance mandatory for myself and ideally another person from Genoa, and apply 110% like I should.

This reminds me of one of the biggest difficulties with Lean application - Sustain.

If there is any Lesson I should have learned by now, it is this. Committ. Sustain.

There...my confession is public.

Next time you see me, slap me. At the same time slap yourself. Remember that any efforts, gains and successes in Lean can be lost in a heartbeat if there is no committment to sustain.

Just like this blog. If I do not committ, and do not sustain, what will happen?

Need I say more?

Leonard

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