ThoughtWorks QTB session at Perth

Since I am currently working in Perth on a client project, I got an opportunity to attend the latest ThoughtWorks Quarterly Technology Briefing (QTB) held on Tuesday at the Hilton, Perth. The joint presentation was done by my colleague Jason Yip and Paul Heaton and was titled 'Lean Times Require Lean Thinking'. I personally felt that the presentation was pretty appropriate for the current time with the bleak economic situation and everyone looking for lean solutions.


The presentation was mainly based around the famous Toyota Production System (TPS) and how the Lean concepts (which is the mainstay of the TPS philosophy) can also be implemented within other industries and not just within manufacturing. Jason Yip discussed how the lean concepts derived from the Toyota Production System was more relevant to our current economic situation since TPS was derived in Japan when it was in the midst of a deep financial and economic crisis and when Toyota especially was in deep financial trouble with very little cash at their disposal. Thus, it was resilient enough to be implemented not just during good conditions, but also during tough economic conditions.


After a brief introduction about how TPS evolved, the presentation then moved on to discuss some popular Lean concepts such as ‘Just-in-time’, different types of waste, how to reduce waste, importance of reducing waster etc. The main objective being how Lean thinking is particularly relevant during the current economic condition, with most companies facing a cash crunch problem due to the global financial crisis.


Some of the lean concepts discussed within the presentation were as follows:

- Just in time production

- Different types of waste and how to minimize them

- Importance of engaging everyone to solve problems (Jason gave few classic examples of how senior managers at Toyota manufacturing plants do not hesitate to get their hands dirty to fix any production line issues, thus not affecting the productivity)

- Set based concurrent engineering and how it is more efficient than point based approach

- Focus on collective responsibility over authoritative responsibility – collective responsibility brings a sense of ownership amongst all workers and thus helps to eliminate any blame games (culture of passing the buck around) when an issue has been identified.

- Build what the customer actually needs and not building what you think the customer needs


It was indeed a very informative presentation and I was also quite impressed by the attendance (there were about 40+ people attending the morning session). The reviews we got were generally very positive.