Rethinking the Productivity Revolution Throughout the History of Industrial Engineering and Lean

In order to promote the application of Lean Six Sigma concepts in Chinese local enterprises, the Lean Six Sigma Initiative (LSSI), in conjunction with Lean Enterprise China (LEC), is organizing a series of online public lectures through online lectures by a wide range of Lean Six Sigma experts and scholars for the vast majority of lean practitioners in the manufacturing, service and education industries, to systematically explain the principles of Lean tools and methods of implementation.

Master of Industrial Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University

Master of Business Administration (MBA), Fudan University

Registered Operations Manager, The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (ILT)

Registered Six Sigma Black Belt

Worked as IE Engineer and Lean Manager in Taiwanese, Japanese, and U.S. companies to promote IE and Six Sigma projects

Worked as a Senior Consultant, Japan Matrix Association Consulting (JMAC)

This seminar focuses on the development of industrial engineering and lean management and the rethinking of the productivity revolution. With his profound professional background and cross-cultural practical experience, Mr. Chen Maojun led the audience to review the historical roots and practical evolution of Lean Management, and put forward a deep reflection on “what is the real productivity improvement”.

1. Industrial Engineering and Lean: From Taylor to Toyota

Mr. Chen firstly systematically sorted out the industrial engineering from the Taylor system in the era of “scientific management”, to the standardization system of American factories after World War II, and then to the birth and evolution of the Toyota Production System. He pointed out that the core of lean management is not purely the pursuit of efficiency, but “people-oriented” systematic improvement, and the evolution of its methodology has always been closely linked to the “scene, reality, the present thing” three principles.

2. the misinterpretation of productivity gains: labor intensity ≠ efficiency

Around the Ford II quote “to improve productivity is not simply to improve labor intensity, but should consider how to make full use of wisdom, creativity and resources”, Chen Maojun stressed:

True Lean improvement should start from “process waste identification” and “system bottleneck breakthrough ”;

Enterprises often make the mistake of “speeding up the beat” mistaken for “improving efficiency”, ignoring the staff load and process synergy.

3. Management Challenges of Current Enterprises

Combining his practical experience in IE and Lean consulting for Chinese and foreign enterprises in recent years, Mr. Chen listed several pain points that SMEs often encounter when promoting Lean:

Lean implementation lacks a “systematic starting point” and easily falls into a “list of tools”;

The position of IE position in the enterprise is vague, and it is difficult to promote cross-departmental process improvement;

The participation of frontline staff in improvement is not high, and there is a lack of data support and management closure.

4. To the “future productivity” transformation: not only save people, but also “use people properly”.

He proposed that the essence of future productivity is to build an organizational system of “human-machine collaboration, flexible flow, intelligent decision-making”. This requires the integration of IE and lean concepts, both know technology, also know management, to build the enterprise internal “system architect”.