Big Red Button – Empowering Lean Thinking from Top to Bottom.

Since the study of the Toyota Production System launched the Lean Manufacturing revolution, “Lean” has become perhaps one of the most overused corporate buzzwords of our time – and for good reason. At the core of it, Lean’s goal is to reduce waste – or muda, as the Japanese call it. Some of the core ideas of lean manufacturing accomplish this quite well: Raw materials ordered on a pull system, Kanban cards directing inventory replenishment, and standardized processes for work station setup and upkeep. All these, among others, contribute to keeping costs low and quality high.

But what about lean in the non-manufacturing environment? Can the ideas of Lean Manufacturing translate to the office? Does it apply as much to the cubicle as to the shop floor? I propose that they can – and instead of drilling into each and every principle of Lean Manufacturing and trying to map them to the white collar workplace (have to save some content for other articles, after all), I’d like the focus on one: the Big Red Button.

Something that made Toyota so unique from other car makers was the ability for any employee involved in the manufacture of cars to stop production immediately. They each had the power to halt the entire manufacturing process. Why allow this? Other manufacturers shuddered at the idea – stopping production meant that quotas for the day were likely to be missed, tense meetings were to be had, and more importantly, money wasn’t being made. Toyota had a different approach. Every employee was empowered with the ability to stop the production line. This is because every employee had a responsibility for the quality of the finished product. If something came down the conveyor with misaligned screw holes, then an upstream operation was out of spec. Stopping the line and resolving the issue saved costly rework and customer complaints. Whereas some other manufacturers may have let inferior products pass through for fear of missing numbers, Toyota decided that the investment in quality and producing an in-spec finished good the first time around was more important. They empowered each person to stop production if that quality ever slipped. In essence, Toyota provided each employee with a Big Red Button with which they could use to stop the production line.

So, we now know that one small way (out of many) that Toyota fostered a culture of excellence is by allowing any employee to shut down production in the interest of quality. How does this translate outside of the shop floor?

By enabling the same way of thinking in your employees. Who are the owners of quality in your organization? If the answer is anything other than everyone, then there’s some work to be done. Every member of the organization has a responsibility to the quality of the company’s product or service. Unfortunately, saying that is the case, sending out a company email with that messaging, is not enough. For a company to successfully embrace this part of Lean, each employee must feel comfortable raising their concerns no matter where they may stand in the hierarchy of the organization. And conversely, management must take action when an employee feels the need to press their Big Red Button. After all, what’s the point in having a button to press if it doesn’t do anything?

Enable your organization to take ownership of quality, and encourage their action to call out and work to resolve areas where that quality is lacking. Your Big Red Buttons may not be big, or red, or buttons at all, but your colleagues should feel that when quality begins to slip, they are empowered to press it.