Lean Thinking – The Way Ahead
Lean thinking is not all about someone who is on a diet, its the real buzz slogan of the 21st Century. It is a relatively new theory on how to run a successful business. It is centred on process flow and looks to expose those activities that are non value adding to a business. It has been developed by many organisations to look at improving productivity, boost efficiency and increase the quality of services or products being offered by an organisation.
Think “Lean”….
Lean thinking has often been linked with the theories and practices of Six Sigma. When you look at successful “Lean” organisations they have excellent process flow and flowcharting of their operations. Lean thinking tends to use visualisation to create success. The final outcome is for an organisation to have taken out, as much as possible, all the defects and “slowing down” of a process in order to make it slick, competitive and more efficient than its rivals. It can tkae out costs such as inventory but it can also affect other cash flow issues within a company i.e. Account receivables. A company that can do this successfully can often speed up their go to market strategy whilst at the same time reduce costs and boost productivity. Its not an easy thing to do but with determination and the right application of resources and support it can be implemented.
One of the fundamental founders of lean thinking was Toyota. They promote the theory and have experts in their organisation that act as mentors. It is said that lean thinking organisations have produced some astonishing business results. If you are thinking of creating a lean thinking process then it would be first advisable to train a number of your staff as experts in the theory and get them to promote the concepts to your staff.
Management
Management should embrace the lean thinking methodology. If a new method is suggested to a business process and the teams have proved that it can be successful then it should at least be put on a trial and not put on the back shelf just because the current process is being proved as working and has done so for many years. Lean thinking should encourage business operations progress.
Improvement
In Japan the idea is to reduce “muda” or what we in the English speaking world would call “waste”. This is a fundamental practice. Once the process has been “value streamed” then the Six Sigma experts look to eliminate waste and mistakes as much as possible. In my experience there is always room for improvement, however, to achieve Six Sigma (3.4 defects per million) is a remarkable feat wherever you come from.
Conclusion
So if you are looking to introduce these techniques into your business then look at this theory in more detail. You may find the rewards could be fantastic!
Nigel Penhearow was a Business Operations Director for a major blue chip company
based in the UK. He now holds the position as Category Sales Director. He is a member
of various Institutional bodies and has given various speeches in the UK and the
USA on business analytics, key performance measurement and best business practice.
More information can be found on his web site www.operations-