International Lean Master Leads the Path of Product Innovation and Value Creation

On June 04, 2018, the 86th SOIL forum of CLGO was successfully held at Xuhui campus. The forum has invited Dr. Boaz Tamir, president of the Lean Enterprise Institute of Israel, as the keynote speaker to share his research in Lean Product and Process Development (LPPD) and value creation (VCA). Dr. Zhao Keqiang, President of Lean Enterprise China (LEC), Mr. Kimio Inagaki, the Japanese LPD expert and Hong Yuxiu, professor of Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University, have participated in the forum's exchange and sharing.

Dr. Boaz Tamir went to the United States to study for a doctorate at MIT after completing his college education in Israel in his early years. He was fortunate enough to attend the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP), a research project led by the lean founder Dr. James Womack. The later released final report The Machine That Changed the World, is the first time to unveil the Toyota Motor Corporation's management system, which shocked manufacturers around the world. This book is the start of lean thinking, and Boaz can claim to be one of the founders of Lean thinking. After returning to Israel, Boaz has been involved in business operations for decades. He has worked as a manager and CEO and has also started a business. Although the retirement age has been retired, he didn't retire, instead, he continued the LPPD study and helped Israeli companies to innovate and transform. He is diligent in writing and publishes blogs every week to explain the concepts and practices of LPPD. He thinks:

1. Products are the lifeblood of an enterprise, so the top leaders of the company must personally participate in product development.

2. “Innovation” and “standard": the former is the soft technology, the latter is the hardware. The two parts complement each other and improve continuously. The soft technology makes the successful hardware. Seek change in invariance, change in invariance.

3. The “collective innovation’s chances of success are much higher than that of “individual genius”, because genius like Steve Jobs is not always available. Therefore, the importance of emphasizing the cultivation of talents for lean product development and cultivate the value creation officer (VCO) of the company.

Dr. Boaz Tamir, beginning with his dream of being young, was counting his own story about lean. He mentioned: “The development of the product should be guided by the goal, to understand the value of our products, and to ask why, how, and what to do. The goal of lean product and process development is to learn how to solve the right problems while avoiding impractical and non-economic solutions. ” This coincides with Lean's idea of eliminating of waste (muda). Dr. Boaz Tamir shared his insights on how to close the gap between the vision and the status quo with vivid examples.

Dr. Boaz Tamir focused on his understanding of the LPPD and shared the model he studied. He believes that it should take more time to research and explore before companies begin to develop (production), thus leading to higher risk and avoiding more losses in development and production, which is a bigger waste.

After Dr. Boaz Tamir finished his share, the CLGO students discussed further with the experts. During the period, Mr. Kimio Inagaki and Dr. Tamir communicated and shared in-depth discussions on product development processes, risks and waste.

CLGO is focusing on developing a special type of leader for China – one who can apply both managerial and engineering expertise to global manufacturing and operations for sustained profitability and success. Companies that join CLGO can use the program not only to recruit these high-potential leaders, but also to learn best practices that lead to sustainable talent development over the long-term.

The SOIL (Sharing, Openness, Innovation, Leadership) forum, organized by the CLGO program of Antai College of Ecnomics & Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, covers three major topics: Industry Best Practices, Leadership, Career Development; It collects domain experts, first-line practitioners and researchers in each sector. The aim is to present the best practice, the advanced experience and the best method to the audience in the form of stories, so that everyone has a deeper understanding of each industry.