Lean Management System LMS:2012

138  ◾  Lean Management System LMS:2012

Management and Workforce Commitment: Workforce Flexibility

Restrictive work rules that say for example that only a press operator may

touch a press and only a lathe operator can touch a lathe are totally incon-

sistent with a Lean management system (LMS). Ford and Crowther (1922, 94)

describes the culture that must prevail in a Lean organization as follows: “The

health of any organization depends on every member—whatever his place—

feeling that everything that happens to come to his notice relating to the

welfare of the business is his own job.”

Workers who are temporarily idle for lack of work in their own job must

be willing and able (i.e., cross-trained) to work at something else, as was the

practice a ...