Lean Manufacturing Photo by Numerical Precision Inc.
Can internal production teams involved in continuous improvement and lean manufacturing help us discover new marketing ideas? If so, can lean manufacturing provide hidden benefits beyond the shop floor.
As always, by simply looking for new ideas one can often find them.
On 16 November 2011, I attended a Lean Manufacturing breakfast held by the Shah Center in McHenry, Illinois. The Shah Center has been doing these meetings for a few years, thereby providing a place for regional manufacturers to make “lean” presentations on what they’ve been doing to eliminate waste and inefficiency while following up on shared themes such as:
- Value Stream Mapping
- or reviewing the Toyota Production System
- or gaining a greater understanding of the Seven Wastes
As a creative marketing professional I always find the slide shows intriguing and fascinating to behold. Though not so much for the design values or creative impact of the presentation — they often seem much too long, convoluted and amateurish. Yet at times while listening, I’ve said to myself:
Does their marketing department know what they’re up to on the shop floor? With so many innovative ideas and processes the energy level must be high. The ideas flowing. Is there a unique proposition based on the actualities of a particular lean manufacturing practice that be might be moving prospective customers to place new orders? And, if that’s the case, where is the marketing department or creative agency in all of this?
Mr. John Huber, Continuous Improvement Manager for Watlow, a world leader in heaters, sensors and controllers, was the main presenter on this particular morning. He commented on how customers often appreciate lean manufacturing. In particular he referred to reducing those aspects of the procurement cycle where the customer felt the most ‘pain.’ By implication, I assumed he was referring to delivery, quality and/or engineering issues. Additionally when he spoke of value streams, he made my ears ring.
Whenever you have breakthroughs in manufacturing that concern a potential shift in perceived customer benefits, the marketing department should be there actively watching. However, in following up on “lean” benefits the marketer shouldn’t be trying to lead it, or mess with it. Just be there to listen, learn and look for new themes and ideas for Internet marketing, social media, public relations, etc.
In fact, today the Internet is driving something I’ll call “Lean Marketing.” It is a very pervasive world-wide trend incorporating content marketing (or inbound marketing if you will), social media, SEO, online advertising, intelligent calls to action (CTA’s) and landing pages using specialized information transactions.
Okay, so here’s my hypothesis. It’s a simple one:
Lean Manufacturing can help drive Lean Marketing.
It may be too early to be carried away with this idea; it’s just a hypothesis. In my view Lean Marketing is driven mostly by the Internet. But the lean manufacturing movement seems to me as if it’s moving in a parallel universe.
Anyone care to add a few points to this?
Thanks Mr. Johnson for following through with your blog. I was refering to Quality, Delivery and Cost. It is all about providing the customer with what they want “quality and quantity, when they want it, we currently speak in days but timing is critical if you want to flow the transformation of raw materials into something someone is willing to pay for. and Cost, if it is too expensive and there is no value in the eyes of the customer, they will go to a competitor. I was also refering to understanding the customer pain. I will use ear buds, they work good for not disturbing anyone else while listening to music and the music comes across nice and clear. We as consumers expect that out of ear buds. The pain is solving it so the buggers don’t fall out when you are exercising. What marketing can do is understand the customer pain and through Lean Product Development (LPD) tools, Understand and capture the customer pain through processes like Environment of the Customer (EOC) / and Voice of the Customer (VOC) process. and share that pain in a visible tool like a KANO diagram for the LPD. This allows LPD to focus their efforts around the value the customer defines or if done right the value the customer does not even know they want until they get it.
Thanks for your comments. It’s very intriguing for me to dive a little deeper into the linkages between lean manufacturing and marketing. I particularly respond to the idea of focusing LPD efforts around customer value. Especially through creative, organic processes that… “if done right… the customer does not even know they want until they get it.” To me this speaks to the more celebrated product development case histories such as the original Macintosh computer, the ipod, etc.