Lean process improvement
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 9:11 am
Also read: The Key to Successful Leadership: Become a Data-Driven Decision Maker
Lean as an improvement system and process
Lean 1.0 is a systems approach to deliver the right products at the right price through a stable, excellent operational organization. This is how Toyota originally intended it in the 70s and 80s, the Toyota Production System (TPS). Key points of this are:
Optimizing processes
Eliminating waste
Continuously improving
Striving for perfection
The most important principles here are Just in Time and First Time Right . You improve the flow of work , shorten lead times by eliminating non-value-adding activities and at the same time strive for the best quality. With lean, it is important to standardize processes and work as much as possible, the so-called standard operating procedures . This is where lean implementation in companies often goes wrong and where lean is also at odds with agile working. With an agile method, you can experiment very easily and with a low threshold. With lean, this is done more carefully and therefore also more time-consuming.
Lean process improvement, how do you do that?
First, make sure the process is stable and standardized. After all, improving an unstable process is a waste of time, capacity and money
Take stock of the objectives: what is the customer canada whatsapp number value and through which value stream do we realize it?
Find the reason for waste. For example, look at the seven zeros , the seven ways of waste ( muda in Japanese)
Find out the real cause, the root cause . And this is very important! To eliminate a problem, you have to know what is causing it and you have to work on that cause
Then eliminate the waste, improve the process
And standardize that process again
Lean as an improvement culture
For agile organizations and in general for organizations with less stability in the processes, this standardization is not always possible or desirable. They can do something with the second aspect of lean: continuous improvement. The well-known Japanese term for this is k aizen . However, it is not that simple. In order to continuously improve, you will have to involve and motivate your employees to proactively evaluate and improve their own work processes. In this way, you ensure that the organization has a greater learning capacity, learns faster than competing companies and can adapt more quickly to changing circumstances. This requires leadership, dedication and involvement. After all, you want the organization to implement lean out of necessity.
Do we implement lean bottom-up or top-down?
Is lean something that should be asked bottom-up from intrinsic motivation and need ? Or is it simply implemented top-down ? An interesting question, one that also causes organizations to rack their brains with agile implementations, for example. The answer is: from both sides.
Lean as an improvement system and process
Lean 1.0 is a systems approach to deliver the right products at the right price through a stable, excellent operational organization. This is how Toyota originally intended it in the 70s and 80s, the Toyota Production System (TPS). Key points of this are:
Optimizing processes
Eliminating waste
Continuously improving
Striving for perfection
The most important principles here are Just in Time and First Time Right . You improve the flow of work , shorten lead times by eliminating non-value-adding activities and at the same time strive for the best quality. With lean, it is important to standardize processes and work as much as possible, the so-called standard operating procedures . This is where lean implementation in companies often goes wrong and where lean is also at odds with agile working. With an agile method, you can experiment very easily and with a low threshold. With lean, this is done more carefully and therefore also more time-consuming.
Lean process improvement, how do you do that?
First, make sure the process is stable and standardized. After all, improving an unstable process is a waste of time, capacity and money
Take stock of the objectives: what is the customer canada whatsapp number value and through which value stream do we realize it?
Find the reason for waste. For example, look at the seven zeros , the seven ways of waste ( muda in Japanese)
Find out the real cause, the root cause . And this is very important! To eliminate a problem, you have to know what is causing it and you have to work on that cause
Then eliminate the waste, improve the process
And standardize that process again
Lean as an improvement culture
For agile organizations and in general for organizations with less stability in the processes, this standardization is not always possible or desirable. They can do something with the second aspect of lean: continuous improvement. The well-known Japanese term for this is k aizen . However, it is not that simple. In order to continuously improve, you will have to involve and motivate your employees to proactively evaluate and improve their own work processes. In this way, you ensure that the organization has a greater learning capacity, learns faster than competing companies and can adapt more quickly to changing circumstances. This requires leadership, dedication and involvement. After all, you want the organization to implement lean out of necessity.
Do we implement lean bottom-up or top-down?
Is lean something that should be asked bottom-up from intrinsic motivation and need ? Or is it simply implemented top-down ? An interesting question, one that also causes organizations to rack their brains with agile implementations, for example. The answer is: from both sides.