Tutorial -> Case Study: The Lear Corporation in Southfield, Michigan.
"Case Study" is a bit of an overstatement here. These are outside observations of what appears to be a company that skipped "The PFEP Process" described on the previous page. I have never worked for the Lear Corporation and have a great deal of respect for them. I do not have any inside information to confirm or refute these observations.
A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a link to this Senior Logistics Engineer job. They went on to ask “Isn’t that exactly what you’ve been doing for the past six years?” The answer was “sort of”. Lear is clearly looking for someone with a background in Logistics, Lean Manufacturing and the Continuous Improvement process as well as an expert in Microsoft Office. Yes, I do have all of that covered.
What jumped out at me from the job listing were the technical skills being asked for: “Advanced Level skills in MS Excel such as working with formulas, data tables, pivot Charts, queries, custom functions, data management and analysis” as well as “Advanced level skills in Microsoft Word such as keyboard short cuts, creating macros, merge, merge queries, templates, table techniques, and working with images and text”. Also mentioned is VBA (which is Visual Basic for Applications), SQL (which is Structured Query Language) and “intermediate level Microsoft Access”.
Apparently, at the same time that Lear is implementing Lean (reducing waste) and Six Sigma (reducing variation, defects and mistakes) in their factories and warehouses, they are adding all sorts of potential Lean and Six Sigma problems at the Senior Logistics Engineer level. Knowledge is always a good thing, but requiring that sort of a software background in this sort of job tells me that a key piece of unifying software is missing.
What's even more surprising is what I have learned in the past month as I have been reading up on Lear and Ryder, their logistics provider. I assumed that Lear was just starting a conversion to Lean Manufacturing. I was wrong. Apparently they have been doing it for a few years now. Robert Simonis, Lear's Director of Global Lean Manufacturing, is very active in the Lean Manufacturing community - He regularly posts really meaningful comments and reviews at Lean.org, LinkedIn.com and Amazon.com. Tom Jones, Ryder's senior VP and GM of of U.S. Supply Chain Solutions, is very proud of his company's "Logistics Plan for Every Part", which seems to be focused on shipments between locations.
Even knowing all of this, the job listing reads like Lear is still trying to do many things by hand that should all be handled by a good PFEP database. The classic getting started book, “Making Materials Flow” from the Lean Enterprise Institute, describe the basic concepts in terms of spreadsheets. In reality, most operational systems are implemented with a database product. The job listing makes it sound like the people at Lear have outgrown their spreadsheets and are experimenting with Microsoft Access, but lack the technical expertise to really design a system to do everything right from end-to-end even though, to their great credit, they are using the correct tools for the job.
If anyone from Lear is reading this and is offended - I apologize. These are my observations based on over thirty years of software development and six years of Lean Manufacturing experience based on an advertisement that their logistics partner is currently running. As a Southfield resident myself, I am extremely proud of the investment that a company as large and well-respected as Lear has made in this city and it's new headquarters. What we put in print says a lot about us. This website says that I'm not a great writer and because I usually use Weebly (which I love) on IE, rather than Chrome, it also says that I'm not the best speller in the world either. I don’t know exactly what Lear needs, but I am confident that I could help them. If you are from Lear, I would love to just come in and have a conversation about what you are doing and how I might be able to help you with it. If you're interested, we can also take a ride down the street to MTU Detroit Diesel and you can see what we did there.
At MTU Detroit Diesel, I spent two years as part of the Continuous Improvement team. Of course, I built them an incredibly good PFEP system, but I also worked on all aspects of the Material Flow Strategy including Warehouse Design, WorkCenter Design, Material Delivery Routes, Part Substitution Procedures, etc. I also helped lead a large number Kaizen workshops, applying the principles of Lean, Six Sigma, The Theory of Constraints, etc. to all aspects of MTU Detroit Diesel’s business. On the other hand, at Diebold, I created a custom PFEP system for them in seven weeks. I would love to see what I could do for Lear!
A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a link to this Senior Logistics Engineer job. They went on to ask “Isn’t that exactly what you’ve been doing for the past six years?” The answer was “sort of”. Lear is clearly looking for someone with a background in Logistics, Lean Manufacturing and the Continuous Improvement process as well as an expert in Microsoft Office. Yes, I do have all of that covered.
What jumped out at me from the job listing were the technical skills being asked for: “Advanced Level skills in MS Excel such as working with formulas, data tables, pivot Charts, queries, custom functions, data management and analysis” as well as “Advanced level skills in Microsoft Word such as keyboard short cuts, creating macros, merge, merge queries, templates, table techniques, and working with images and text”. Also mentioned is VBA (which is Visual Basic for Applications), SQL (which is Structured Query Language) and “intermediate level Microsoft Access”.
Apparently, at the same time that Lear is implementing Lean (reducing waste) and Six Sigma (reducing variation, defects and mistakes) in their factories and warehouses, they are adding all sorts of potential Lean and Six Sigma problems at the Senior Logistics Engineer level. Knowledge is always a good thing, but requiring that sort of a software background in this sort of job tells me that a key piece of unifying software is missing.
What's even more surprising is what I have learned in the past month as I have been reading up on Lear and Ryder, their logistics provider. I assumed that Lear was just starting a conversion to Lean Manufacturing. I was wrong. Apparently they have been doing it for a few years now. Robert Simonis, Lear's Director of Global Lean Manufacturing, is very active in the Lean Manufacturing community - He regularly posts really meaningful comments and reviews at Lean.org, LinkedIn.com and Amazon.com. Tom Jones, Ryder's senior VP and GM of of U.S. Supply Chain Solutions, is very proud of his company's "Logistics Plan for Every Part", which seems to be focused on shipments between locations.
Even knowing all of this, the job listing reads like Lear is still trying to do many things by hand that should all be handled by a good PFEP database. The classic getting started book, “Making Materials Flow” from the Lean Enterprise Institute, describe the basic concepts in terms of spreadsheets. In reality, most operational systems are implemented with a database product. The job listing makes it sound like the people at Lear have outgrown their spreadsheets and are experimenting with Microsoft Access, but lack the technical expertise to really design a system to do everything right from end-to-end even though, to their great credit, they are using the correct tools for the job.
If anyone from Lear is reading this and is offended - I apologize. These are my observations based on over thirty years of software development and six years of Lean Manufacturing experience based on an advertisement that their logistics partner is currently running. As a Southfield resident myself, I am extremely proud of the investment that a company as large and well-respected as Lear has made in this city and it's new headquarters. What we put in print says a lot about us. This website says that I'm not a great writer and because I usually use Weebly (which I love) on IE, rather than Chrome, it also says that I'm not the best speller in the world either. I don’t know exactly what Lear needs, but I am confident that I could help them. If you are from Lear, I would love to just come in and have a conversation about what you are doing and how I might be able to help you with it. If you're interested, we can also take a ride down the street to MTU Detroit Diesel and you can see what we did there.
At MTU Detroit Diesel, I spent two years as part of the Continuous Improvement team. Of course, I built them an incredibly good PFEP system, but I also worked on all aspects of the Material Flow Strategy including Warehouse Design, WorkCenter Design, Material Delivery Routes, Part Substitution Procedures, etc. I also helped lead a large number Kaizen workshops, applying the principles of Lean, Six Sigma, The Theory of Constraints, etc. to all aspects of MTU Detroit Diesel’s business. On the other hand, at Diebold, I created a custom PFEP system for them in seven weeks. I would love to see what I could do for Lear!
