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Always headlines when this happens, but shutting down production like this is what Toyota believes is part of their magic sauce. They lose productivity when a p

Always headlines when this happens, but shutting down production like this is what Toyota believes is part of their magic sauce. They lose productivity when a problem shuts them down, but most of the time when things are working they gain due to lack of waste. But despite being a common part of curriculum around the world, it isn't that common to see, I think because intuitively it seems wrong somehow.

sethammons 3y ago
The Andon Cord: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andon_(manufacturing) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andon_(manufacturing) My best CEO borrowed that idea for our company and anyone could stop anything (or at least get serious consideration) by "pulling the andon cord" - if something was broken or being mismanaged, employees were empowered and encouraged and congratulated to fix it. Best engineering org I've been in.
- bluepod4 3y ago
  Was there a mechanism in place to prevent people from abusing this process? (I’m assuming this is what you’re referring to when you said “at least serious consideration”) I ask because based on personal experience and from reading comments on HN, most engineering orgs tend to be ego-heavy.
  - dist-epoch 3y ago
    > Was there a mechanism in place to prevent people from abusing this process? Yes, it's called firing.
    - dtjohnnymonkey 3y ago
      No one would pull the Andon cord if they thought they might get fired for it.
  - sethammons 3y ago
    Were there times someone called something an Andon Cord situation and it turned out not to be? Of course! And that is fine. Were there "serial false andon cord pullers"? Not that I'm aware of - and if there were, the solution would have been to have an adult conversation with a focus on getting alignment. Pulling an Andon Cord was not for things you merely disagreed with, for that we relied on "disagree and commit" whereby you could bring data up later show it was a bad decision, but for now, work on making it work until you have that data.
rusk 3y ago
I think the flip side of this is that the workers are diverted from their typically assigned tasks and all work together to resolve the problem and they collectively take responsibility for enacting any lessons learned … it’s an approach that’s quite at odds with the traditional Taylorism approach of everybody just doing their own job. It might also be perceived as slightly Marxist by some while ironically being viewed with suspicion by unions … it also recognises that management don’t have all the answers. You would need an organisation with a lot of trust to enact something like this I think. Trust is in short supply in global business so you have to weigh the cost benefits of a global workforce vs cost benefits of organisational cohesion.

sethammons 3y ago

The Andon Cord: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andon_(manufacturing) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andon_(manufacturing) My best CEO borrowed that idea for our company and anyone could stop anything (or at least get serious consideration) by "pulling the andon cord" - if something was broken or being mismanaged, employees were empowered and encouraged and congratulated to fix it. Best engineering org I've been in.

bluepod4 3y ago
Was there a mechanism in place to prevent people from abusing this process? (I’m assuming this is what you’re referring to when you said “at least serious consideration”) I ask because based on personal experience and from reading comments on HN, most engineering orgs tend to be ego-heavy.
- dist-epoch 3y ago
  > Was there a mechanism in place to prevent people from abusing this process? Yes, it's called firing.
  - dtjohnnymonkey 3y ago
    No one would pull the Andon cord if they thought they might get fired for it.
- sethammons 3y ago
  Were there times someone called something an Andon Cord situation and it turned out not to be? Of course! And that is fine. Were there "serial false andon cord pullers"? Not that I'm aware of - and if there were, the solution would have been to have an adult conversation with a focus on getting alignment. Pulling an Andon Cord was not for things you merely disagreed with, for that we relied on "disagree and commit" whereby you could bring data up later show it was a bad decision, but for now, work on making it work until you have that data.

rusk 3y ago

I think the flip side of this is that the workers are diverted from their typically assigned tasks and all work together to resolve the problem and they collectively take responsibility for enacting any lessons learned … it’s an approach that’s quite at odds with the traditional Taylorism approach of everybody just doing their own job. It might also be perceived as slightly Marxist by some while ironically being viewed with suspicion by unions … it also recognises that management don’t have all the answers. You would need an organisation with a lot of trust to enact something like this I think. Trust is in short supply in global business so you have to weigh the cost benefits of a global workforce vs cost benefits of organisational cohesion.