Cadena De Valor

lean leadership from the shop floor supervisor
the importance of the supervisor in the implementation
& execution of lean flow
Preston J. McCreary

I

f there is a key person in the
execution of Lean Flow it has to
be the shop floor supervisor. The
CEO runs the business, makes key
financial decisions, meets, with the
board of directors, stock holders
and customers. These are allimportant functions, all critical to
the success of the business, all
requiring a great deal of
knowledge, vision, insight and
experience. But the CEO does not
reach down ever y day for 8-12
hours and touch the product, the
people making the product, the
customer, the suppliers, and every
aspect of the processes to build the
product. Not even a plant manager
can influence the outcome ofthe
daily operations as often and as
much as the supervisor.
Yet the supervisor is probably one
of the lower paid positions with
less organizational power than
many
positions
on
the
organizational chart. Any plant
manager or business site manager
will tell you an excellent supervisor

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is worth their weight in gold.
That is why sometimes really good
supervisors have a difficulttime
moving up in the organization,
because they are so critical to
making the daily operation of the
business perform. The site
manager can’t let them move out
of their jobs.
If you want to change the
business using Lean Flow you had
better have the shop f loor
supervisor committed to the Lean
Flow process, the changes that
need to be made and willing and
able to break down thebarriers
to success. And there will be
barriers. From the people he
supervises, to the needs/wishes of
the customers, to suppliers, to the
management team above him, to
the processes he must deal with.
A supervisor going through a Lean
Flow implementation often feels
like he is being resisted and taking
grief from every direction. And
he/she is. For the supervisor to
be successful it willrequire a lot

of support, training, support,
communication,
support,
resources,
yes
and
more…..support. We need to arm
the super visor with the
knowledge of how the Lean Flow
processes should work direction
on how to make it work, then
enough support to ensure it will
work. The supervisor everyday
will make countless small
decisions whether or not to
implement Lean Flow as it wasdesigned.
The supervisor can ensure that
the manufacturing processes
now aligned in a flow will either
be run as designed or allow
products to batch and queue.
The supervisor will coach the
workforce to move to the work
when the Lean Flow signals tell
them to, or allow them to stay
in one place and build work-in
process.

T he supervisor makes sure
that the material kanban thatsignal for replenishment from
the suppliers are properly
triggered or will allow the
workforce
to
ignore,
mishandle, or delay the signals
risking material shortages.
The supervisor works with
the workforce to identify
potential improvements, and
implements those ideas, or
ignores input, or does not
encourage input, or reacts
negatively to input, therefore
killing
the
continuousimprovement initiative.
The supervisor will answer
Lean Flow questions correctly
and confidently when the
workforce asks, or with no
training will either not answer
or answer incorrectly causing
doubt and concern over Lean
Flow changes.
All of these and many more
are the issues that a supervisor
could encounter as part of a
Lean Flow implementation. To
ensure the super visor issuccessful, and therefore the
Lean Flow implementation,
there are few steps that can be
taken.
Involve the supervisor from
the beginning in the Lean Flow
implementation. Choose on or
more supervisors to be part of
the Lean Flow implementation
team. If the supervisor is not
part of the factory design

process, it is a mistake. There will
be no ownership in the Lean Flow
design or execution...