LEAN Implementation – your path to sustained business improvement.

A widespread misconception is that Lean business improvement principles are only suited to manufacturing processes and large diversified companies. This could not be further from the truth. Lean is applicable across every business discipline regardless of their size and processes. Lean involves creating more value for customers with fewer resources in an environment where all staff are fully productive, motivated and customer focused.

Lean is not a quick fix rationalisation tactic nor a traditional cost reduction program, but a positive way of thinking and the constructive way of acting to implement a business transformation that will profitably grow your entire organisation and its people. Your essential Lean Thinking skills and mastery of the Lean tools necessary to affect your Lean Implementation are readily acquired during your Lean Australia training.

Following your participation in Lean Australia’s training programs, simulations, workshops and your initial pilots your Lean Australia consultant will have also established a practical appreciation of your current operations, an understanding of your broader business objectives and many of the issues you will need to overcome. With this privileged insight, and in strictest confidence, your experienced Lean consultant is uniquely equipped to provide short or long term management, plus interim assistance with your Lean Implementation projects.

To leverage Lean Australia’s broad affiliations and gain access to experienced and qualified consultants, request additional information or enquire about Lean Implementation call 61 (02) 9683 6200 or email admin@performancedrivers.com.au or complete the enquiry form today.

When compared with traditional business systems that develop their strengths at the strategic business unit or cost centre level, Lean identifies, prioritises and eliminates the 7 wastes along entire value streams. Lean creates processes that require less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time to make better products and deliver your services at far less cost and with fewer defects. As a result, the whole enterprise and everyone involved benefits as opposed to simply shifting inefficiencies, bottlenecks or responsibility to another isolated point in your process.

By deploying a Lean Implementation Plan you will be far better prepared for the way your company will need to conduct its business in this ever more competitive global market. The expression ‘Lean Transformation’ is frequently used to characterise any company moving from their old ways of operating to Lean processes and programs. This transformation requires a long term perspective and perseverance at every level along your organisation’s value streams, whilst continuous incremental improvement to your business remains your collective goal.

Initially developed within the Japanese automotive industry during the 1970’s, Lean implementation embodies a proven logical system and universal principles formulated to guide your actions when customising and applying lean techniques and tools. With the assistance of an accomplished Lean Australia facilitator you can begin your transformation into a totally waste free operation, focused on capitalising your commercial endeavour’s full customer value.

The Lean processes, tools and principles, acknowledged as responsible for the Japanese car manufacturing industry’s rapid growth and current global dominance, have been refined and adapted to other industry sectors over the ensuing 40 years. Lean consultants and facilitators have achieved impressive results beyond the manufacturing sector, developing business transformation solutions for Lean Administration, Healthcare Services and Government Agencies. Success within Lean Warehousing and Distribution has inspired the adoption of Lean across the construction industry and the development of Lean Project Management, Lean Office procedures and the growing popularity of Lean to Green Sustainability programs.

All these disciplines represent Lean Australia’s areas of established expertise. Talk to a Lean Australia consultant about your aspirations or frustrations to receive practical advice, plus access to appropriate Lean Training programs and local case studies that will illustrate how your organisation can implement Lean for productive change.

Getting your own house in order – Clarity, People, Management & Money

Your Lean implementation’s success is (like the accomplishment of all plans), predicated on four essential components:

  • Firstly, clarity, it is critical that all involved (at every level of your organisation), understand the lean philosophy, have had exposure to Lean Tools and the results they are employed to provide.
  • Secondly, your people can not participate or contribute if they are not directly linked to or measured by your lean implementation’s outcomes.
  • Thirdly it is essential that your management team are focused on building a sound platform for your enterprise’s improvement as opposed to aspiring to quick isolated productivity wins within their own direct sphere of influence.
  • Finally, money, your Lean Implementation process must be fully funded, remembering that it is an ongoing procedure that will establish itself as a core management monitoring and administration function in the long term

As soon as your operations implement Lean you will become more capable of enabling increased capacity by freeing up underutilised office and plant space. Your people will be capable of reducing wasteful outsourcing, increasing production flexibility to add product lines and additional services, or economically and faultlessly delivering more of what you already provide, without acquiring new facilities or higher overheads.

Lean Implementation will make you able to respond to changing customer demand with high variety, high quality, low cost, and much improved throughput. In addition, information management becomes much simpler, more accurate and of even greater value to your ongoing business transformation.

Lean Implementation defines and improves your Value Stream

Your value stream comprises everything required to design, order, and provide any specific product or service. It includes all of the activities, materials, people, and information that must flow and come together to provide your customer the value they want, when and how they want it.

Lean Implementation relies on ‘value stream mapping’, and that you and your employees become competent at mapping your own processes’ value stream. Your value stream is monitored, reviewed, modelled and retested applying a variety of appropriate Lean Tools and following the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle of Lean, a 4 stage working structure that enables your continuous incremental improvement.

You can apply and manage the PDCA cycle as soon as you have identified specifically what needs to change and the steps needed to affect your predicted result. An examination of a small scale and controlled pilot then verifies whether you have improved the process as planned. Verified improvements can then be implemented across the subject operating procedure, whilst activities that fell short of expectations are modified for repeat pilot testing.

For your Lean Implementation to be effective continuous testing and evaluation is required to determine how well the process is working and where subsequent modification measures will reap the highest rewards.

Eliminating the debilitating waste in your Value Stream

Lean identifies what creates value and therefore by default what also has no value. It may surprise you that statistically, only 5% of production activities actually add customer value in the vast majority of traditionally designed and managed operations. 35% are necessary, but remain non-value adding activities, and an alarming 60% fail to add any value at all!

Your Lean Implementation plan will enable all involved to identify, categorise and quantify everything within your value stream that neither has value nor an essential role to play. The remaining non contributory actions, systems and activities are essentially waste. Waste that can be then classified as one of seven varieties (the 7 wastes):

1. Transporation
2. Waiting
3. Overproduction
4. Defects
5. Inventory
6. Movement
7. Extra Processing

To improve your company’s performance and increase customer value, each of the 7 wastes must be systematically reduced and eliminated from your value stream.

To make sure you and your colleagues acquire all the essential skills to improve your business processes plus the knowledge to confidently implement effective Lean principles, Lean Australia delivers an unparalleled range of public, group and individualised training options.

Knowing what you know now, isn’t it time you found out a little more about how a Lean Implementation will liberate your enterprise from costly waste? For answers, contact Lean Australia on 61 (02) 9683 6200 or email admin@performancedrivers.com.au or complete the enquiry form straight away.

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