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Lean. How to implement it?
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Lean. How to implement it?

This ques­tion is posed by entre­pre­neurs in the indus­tri­al sec­tor, pro­duc­ing mate­r­i­al goods. How­ev­er, the answer to this ques­tion will be ben­e­fi­cial for the ser­vice sec­tor, IT, and social projects.

Lean Man­age­ment (also referred to as the ​“lean pro­duc­tion method­ol­o­gy”), along with the Kaizen phi­los­o­phy and oth­er man­age­ment tools, can be imple­ment­ed in any busi­ness and process. After all, every­thing can be opti­mized. It is a way of think­ing and pro­duc­tive work, not just a tac­tic com­posed of sev­er­al algorithms.

Lean pro­duc­tion is

There are many syn­onyms: lean pro­duc­tion, lean man­age­ment, lean think­ing… even lean trans­for­ma­tion. Think­ing and trans­for­ma­tion (in Eng­lish, the term ​“trans­for­ma­tion” can ade­quate­ly define the lean method­ol­o­gy) serve as both phi­los­o­phy and the­o­ry of busi­ness man­age­ment, while pro­duc­tion and man­age­ment act as the practice.

The words reflect the idea, just like pro­duc­tion ​“just in time,” imple­ment­ed at Toy­ota as the first exam­ple in his­to­ry of lean method­ol­o­gy and con­tin­u­ous improve­ment of car assem­bly. Tai­ichi Ohno was the engi­neer who devel­oped the prin­ci­ples of lean man­u­fac­tur­ing after World War II.

His prin­ci­ples:

  • elim­i­na­tion of waste;
  • empow­er­ment of employees;
  • reduc­tion of inven­to­ry levels;
  • increased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.
While Hen­ry Ford retained resources ​“in antic­i­pa­tion of demand” on his pro­duc­tion line, Toy­ota built part­ner­ships with sup­pli­ers and effec­tive­ly pro­duced vehi­cles on demand.
Many indus­tri­al star­tups begin imme­di­ate­ly with trans­for­ma­tion, using meth­ods and tools from the start of pro­duc­tion to the final stage of cus­tomer ser­vice. A busi­ness that has been run­ning for years can also piv­ot from an old ​“mode” to new think­ing, although this requires per­se­ver­ance and patience from man­age­ment. Such a path is more ben­e­fi­cial in the long term.

It is remark­able how the lean pro­duc­tion sys­tem changes the hier­ar­chy with­in the com­pa­ny struc­ture. Rather than man­agers and per­son­nel, it forms a com­mu­ni­ty of mul­ti­func­tion­al employ­ees. All resources of the com­pa­ny, includ­ing human resources, are uti­lized to their max­i­mum; every­one can pro­pose improve­ments, every­one has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to test their idea in prac­tice, and every­one is respon­si­ble for the final result. This flex­i­bil­i­ty allows for imme­di­ate adjust­ments, thus respond­ing to con­sumer requests, unpre­dictable com­peti­tor actions, and mar­ket fluctuations.

What is Lean management

In a sim­plis­tic inter­pre­ta­tion, Lean or lean pro­duc­tion is a method­ol­o­gy for man­ag­ing projects with­in a com­pa­ny, that elim­i­nates all obsta­cles to pro­duc­tion. Wast­ed time and resources spoil the out­come. If a process can be made faster, bet­ter, and cheap­er – it should be done right now.

Revis­ing work algo­rithms occurs in two stages:

  1. Analy­sis. To under­stand how well the cur­rent frame­work of the com­pa­ny works, ana­lyze all process­es and cre­ate a dia­gram. Call cen­ter scripts, appli­ca­tion accep­tance algo­rithms, logis­tics, han­dling returns in an online store; tech­ni­cal sup­port scripts, pro­cess­ing requests in a bug track­er, releas­ing updates in a prod­uct IT com­pa­ny. Doc­u­ment the entire order of actions, iden­ti­fy weak points either inde­pen­dent­ly or using soft­ware (any soft­ware for visu­al­iz­ing algo­rithms, bot­tle­necks, resources, and time).
  2. Imple­ment changes. After iden­ti­fy­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties: issues with work coor­di­na­tion, lack of resources, or out­dat­ed bureau­crat­ic process­es – pro­pose alter­nates. The alter­na­tive does not have to be some­thing inno­v­a­tive, a rad­i­cal change, or a per­fect solu­tion. It is sim­ply a way to improve. Options can be select­ed from those pro­posed by the team. Just not in one’s head, but in prac­tice. No one knows in advance what will be ben­e­fi­cial in your project. The ben­e­fits and costs of each alter­na­tive are checked through prac­ti­cal results. The best option is final­ly implemented.
And these two stages are con­stant­ly repeat­ed. Lean pro­duc­tion is nev­er com­plet­ed. It is infi­nite improve­ment in details.With Lean, there are no grand inno­va­tions, only con­tin­u­ous improve­ment in small steps.

For the director

The pri­ma­ry task of man­age­ment is the com­pa­ny’s prof­itabil­i­ty. One way to achieve it is through solv­ing prob­lems and reduc­ing pro­duc­tion costs, while anoth­er is focus­ing on cre­at­ing ​“val­ue” for the client in the prod­uct or ser­vice. The most inter­est­ing point is that by accu­rate­ly defin­ing val­ue for the cus­tomer, one can direct the team’s ener­gy and mate­r­i­al resources only to what is impor­tant and reduce expens­es on less impor­tant things.
Thus, Lean helps to save with­out sac­ri­fic­ing qual­i­ty and elim­i­nate unnec­es­sary process­es from the com­pa­ny’s work algorithm.

For exam­ple: the client needs wood pro­cess­ing machines

  • What is tru­ly impor­tant for the buy­er? Price, func­tion­al­i­ty, and deliv­ery mat­ter to every­one. Yet there are clients who focus on price (bud­get machine mod­els at low­er costs) and those who focus on qual­i­ty (machines that allow for com­plex and exclu­sive carv­ing projects). All of them want to receive a machine in the work­shop quick­ly and neatly.
  • What can be opti­mized or improved? Raise qual­i­ty to jus­ti­fy a high­er price. Choose licensed goods with cer­ti­fi­ca­tion clear to the con­sumer’s lan­guage, and instruc­tion­al ses­sions can also be pro­vid­ed. Deliv­er using a reli­able logis­tics agency with estab­lished ben­e­fi­cial coop­er­a­tion terms.
  • What to elim­i­nate? All actions that hin­der work should be removed. There is a rail­road repair fac­to­ry with geo­graph­i­cal­ly dis­trib­uted work­shops. Every day, its man­agers gath­er in the main build­ing for a meet­ing to coor­di­nate a list of tasks. Imple­ment­ing a uni­fied man­age­ment sys­tem can elim­i­nate the dai­ly loss of time dur­ing meet­ings, which equates to 7 hours each work­shop man­ag­er per week.
  • What actions to take and in what sequence to achieve loy­al cus­tomers? In the eyes of the client, the pur­chas­ing algo­rithm appears like this: first, accu­rate­ly deter­mine the mod­el of the machine, then the method and address of deliv­ery. Ask­ing the client to log in and pro­vide an address while select­ing a prod­uct may be incon­ve­nient for the client. How­ev­er, if the address is entered after the online con­sul­tant in a pop-up win­dow helps select the mod­el, con­fig­u­ra­tion, and oth­er nuances – the client already feels trust and sat­is­fac­tion. Val­ue for the con­sumer is main­tained, tasks are com­plet­ed on time. From the com­pa­ny’s side, there is also an algo­rithm – orders can­not be sent until pay­ment is made. This is fair and avoids prob­lems with false expec­ta­tions on both sides.
The direc­tor’s goal in the Lean method­ol­o­gy: to bring the process of pro­duc­tion, sale, and deliv­ery of goods to the cus­tomer to ide­al per­fec­tion. In doing so, the focus is on cus­tomer ben­e­fit rather than on the company’s advan­tage. The company’s gain becomes an accom­pa­ny­ing suc­cess, thanks to the effi­cien­cy gains in time and resources dur­ing pro­duc­tion and rev­enue growth.

For the staff

What does lean pro­duc­tion mean for the work­ers at a fac­to­ry or an IT company’s sup­port cen­ter? Prop­er­ly applied method­ol­o­gy saves spent resources, improves work­ing con­di­tions, and helps work­ers earn more.

Lean in the enter­prise also needs to be imple­ment­ed cor­rect­ly. If the method is applied thought­less­ly, the man­age­ment may:
  1. hop­ing to save – pur­chase low-qual­i­ty parts;
  2. move equip­ment in the work­shop to short­en dis­tances between con­vey­ors but for­get about the length of pow­er cables;
  3. write a cal­en­dar for exper­i­ments and pro­hib­it unplanned creativity;
  4. impose fines for faulty work­ing tools but not check their qual­i­ty and condition;
  5. add your own options.
The Lean method­ol­o­gy encour­ages con­stant idea exchange among employees.
If the method­ol­o­gy is accept­ed in the col­lec­tive, any fac­to­ry work­er can pro­pose their idea for improv­ing the work process to the direc­tor. Because a work­er who direct­ly car­ries out the work process has a much clear­er view of where and what can be improved in that process. With the con­stant imple­men­ta­tion of such pro­pos­als, the fac­to­ry cer­tain­ly increas­es its efficiency.

And a work­er will be reward­ed if the idea proves use­ful. They will have a carte blanche to imple­ment and prac­ti­cal­ly test their idea. Only through tri­al and error can the right path be found, and lean pro­duc­tion rec­om­mends con­tin­u­al­ly attempt­ing and improving.

For exam­ple, a con­ve­nient mobile orga­niz­er will reduce the num­ber of missed dead­lines and increase the speed of work in the mar­ket­ing and design depart­ments. Its imple­men­ta­tion in the com­pa­ny will save time, thus being a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of lean production.

For com­pa­nies

Both the head of the com­pa­ny and an ordi­nary project execu­tor cre­ate val­ue in the prod­uct for the client through their actions. All efforts are direct­ed at this.

The ben­e­fit for the client does not arise in ran­dom moments – at the point of select­ing a prod­uct, accept­ing an order, inven­to­ry com­ple­tion at the ware­house, or deliv­ery date.

Val­ue is cre­at­ed through a flow of process­es direct­ed at results:

  • the online con­sul­tant helps choose size, mod­el, and color;
  • while plac­ing an order, one can choose a pay­ment method by cred­it card or cash to the courier;
  • with the order, a war­ran­ty is includ­ed, a coupon for exchange or return, gift cards or invi­ta­tions to themed events;
  • you can spec­i­fy the date and time of deliv­ery, call the couri­er, or choose a spe­cif­ic store in the chain for pickup.
Thanks to the non-lin­ear­i­ty of the com­pa­ny’s oper­a­tions, it is pos­si­ble to sim­pli­fy direc­tions, adjust their algo­rithms to achieve sav­ings, increase val­ue at the same costs, or sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the per­cent­age of defects and returns.

In addi­tion to total val­ue and the absence of defec­tive items, the client also val­ues cus­tomiza­tion of the prod­uct, espe­cial­ly in con­sumer seg­ments. If a com­pa­ny can adjust its con­vey­or with­out sig­nif­i­cant loss­es to pro­duce var­i­ous or new mod­els of goods – it will cer­tain­ly out­per­form its com­peti­tors. For exam­ple, cre­at­ing com­plex cus­tom sets from basic com­po­nents or offer­ing exclu­sive sets on demand already pro­vides a mar­ket advantage.

Muda, mura, muri – these are

In the Lean method­ol­o­gy, waste or costs are referred to as muda, mura, muri. Every­thing unnec­es­sary that should be elim­i­nat­ed. Every­thing that does not increase val­ue for the client. Muda, mura, muri are words from Japan­ese that have firm­ly estab­lished them­selves in Eng­lish busi­ness slang.

Muda – waste, unnec­es­sary costs. Con­se­quences of man­age­ment errors.

MudaIn indus­tryIn IT
1. Trans­portLogis­tics cal­cu­la­tion, unnec­es­sary move­ment of mate­ri­als, goods, doc­u­ments, or data.
Unnec­es­sary trans­mis­sion of infor­ma­tion between data­bas­es and departments.

Unneed­ed tools or con­stant switch­ing of documents.
2. Inven­to­ryExcess inven­to­ry of raw mate­ri­als, inter­me­di­ates, and fin­ished products.
Projects stuck ​“in the devel­op­ment phase.”

The bug track­er filled with out­dat­ed requests.

Unful­filled orders pil­ing up.
3. MotionUnnec­es­sary move­ment of peo­ple across the fac­to­ry floor, between offices, and between the ware­house and the direc­tor’s office.
Frag­ment­ed data­bas­es, poor search nav­i­ga­tion. Phys­i­cal­ly remote local stor­age devices.

The need to trav­el con­stant­ly to meetings.

Numer­ous tabs in browsers, mes­sen­gers, or oth­er means of decen­tral­iz­ing data and communication.
4. Wait­ing

Down­time for peo­ple and equip­ment. Wait­ing for instruc­tions, ver­i­fi­ca­tion, access to information.


Lack of tools and equip­ment for staff to work smoothly.

Lack of all nec­es­sary equip­ment for work, espe­cial­ly for soft­ware testers.


Issues access­ing the data­base, inter­net, elec­tric­i­ty out­ages, and oth­er rea­sons for pro­gram­mer downtime.

5. Over-pro­cess­ingUnnec­es­sary process­es dur­ing pro­cess­ing, overuse of raw mate­ri­als dur­ing production.After a request for ​“drafts, pre­lim­i­nary data, approx­i­mate indi­ca­tors,” mak­ing final code, deep analy­sis, or devel­op­ment plan­ning in accor­dance with rising/​falling indi­ca­tors would be a mistake.
6. Over­pro­duc­tion
Unjus­ti­fied pro­duc­tion of a prod­uct before order­ing or in large batches.


Goods los­ing rel­e­vance before sale.

In a fin­ished project, unnec­es­sary self-action is present, and incor­rect ref­er­ences to past sit­u­a­tions or tech­nolo­gies exist.
7. Defects, shortcomingsNon-com­pli­ance of prod­ucts with stan­dards, orders, or com­pa­ny regulations.
Non-com­pli­ance with the specifications.

Addi­tion­al iter­a­tions of cor­rec­tions required.

8. Tal­ent*
Ignor­ing the poten­tial and skills of colleagues.


Unfair exploita­tion of labor, bans on employ­ees’ initiatives.

Lack of career growth.


Indif­fer­ence to pro­pos­als for opti­miz­ing work processes.

9. Resources*.

Uneco­nom­i­cal operation.


Equip­ment, light­ing, and oth­er tech­ni­cal resources should be turned off when work stops (at night, after pro­duc­tion completes).

Log out, turn off the PC before leaving.


Con­trol the oper­a­tion of air con­di­tion­ing, heat­ing, print­ers, ket­tles, and microwaves (at the very least).

10. Excess products*

Along­side the final prod­uct, addi­tion­al prod­ucts may be cre­at­ed that accom­pa­ny the cre­ation process.


Extra com­po­nents from met­al scraps at the pipe fac­to­ry, repair ser­vices at the old car sales station.

*muda that is added in some classifications.

Mura – the caus­es of muda. Uneven­ness and incon­sis­ten­cy of load, overloads.

MuraIn indus­try
In IT

Over­load
Lack of resources dur­ing peak demand, inac­tiv­i­ty dur­ing downturns.

Sea­son­al sales require hir­ing tem­po­rary addi­tion­al workers.

Addi­tion­al trains run dur­ing rush hour in the subway.

Upon win­ning a ten­der, fin­ish pri­or projects before­hand so capac­i­ties suf­fice to ful­fill orders on time.

We sit with­out work for a month, and then need to hur­ry to com­plete every­thing in a week. This is inef­fi­cient stress, plus a dis­crep­an­cy between work­ing con­di­tions and tasks set.

Add a social media event announce­ment a week before the event – fail­ure. A mar­ket­ing cam­paign last­ing 3 – 4 months with reg­u­lar post­ings – success.


The sea­son­al, reg­u­lar, mar­ket­ing-dri­ven demand from con­sumers has its rhythm, its tem­po (week­ly, month­ly, quar­ter­ly). We ana­lyze fluc­tu­a­tions in demand, pop­u­lar and unprof­itable goods from the mod­el range. We make fore­casts, dis­trib­ute load, and set tasks.

Muri – inef­fi­cien­cy. Unjus­ti­fied com­plex­i­ties in work.

Muri
In indus­try

In IT
Non-core work

Putting a sales man­ag­er on the fac­to­ry pro­duc­tion line.


Appoint­ing the fac­to­ry direc­tor as a gift to the third wife.

Per­form­ing tasks unre­lat­ed to the posi­tion and avail­able skills.


Send­ing the lay­out design­er to the call center.

Poor­ly equipped workplaceOne set of tools for 4 assemblers.
The trainee has a lap­top, but it lacks antivirus and nec­es­sary spe­cial­ized pro­grams for work.


The design­er has out­dat­ed ​“pirat­ed” Photoshop.

Unclear instruc­tions

Abstract require­ments for an order, mea­sure­ments by eye.“Make the lay­out more cheer­ful, and the but­tons should be wow!”
Lack of tools and equipmentOne print­er in the director’s office, the account­ing depart­ment con­stant­ly runs to print.A pro­gram­mer is hired with his own lap­top and is required to take it to the office because it may not be pos­si­ble to buy and equip a desk­top com­put­er for him.
Lack of prop­er tech­ni­cal ser­vice / unre­li­able equipmentOut­dat­ed con­vey­or belt, with tech­ni­cal main­te­nance over­due by half a year to a year.The sys­tem admin­is­tra­tor does not sys­tem­atize and label cables in the serv­er rack. Time to locate mal­func­tions increas­es sev­er­al times.
Unre­li­able processesUntest­ed raw mate­r­i­al pro­cess­ing tech­nolo­gies, abstract account­ing meth­ods, and dubi­ous pro­duc­tion ideas.Mon­key test­ing as the only valid way of test­ing pro­grams for bugs (errors).
Poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion and connection

Unsat­is­fac­to­ry sound qual­i­ty on walkie-talkies in fac­to­ry areas.

Strug­gling with the direc­tor’s sec­re­tary when it’s urgent to report an emergency.

Bureau­cra­cy.

2 mobile num­bers, 8 mes­sen­gers, 3 emails, and 5 social net­works to obtain con­sent to exe­cute a task.
The essence of lean trans­for­ma­tion is to elim­i­nate all muda, muri, and mura. Under­stand­ing their cause-and-effect rela­tion­ships allows one to focus on the source of prob­lems so that not every lit­tle thing has to be addressed.

Advan­tages of the Lean methodology

A skep­tic might ask why lean trans­for­ma­tion is nec­es­sary, if it’s pos­si­ble to sim­ply apply a cou­ple of stan­dard instruc­tions to com­bat defects from GOST or to cut paper costs on bureau­cra­cy in a com­pa­ny? The meth­ods of lean pro­duc­tion as tools are strong, but with­out under­stand­ing the phi­los­o­phy and struc­ture, it will not be fea­si­ble to imple­ment them fully.

It’s like the prin­ci­ple of com­pos­ing exams at uni­ver­si­ty: ​“knew-passed-for­got.” After the exam, all that will remain is a breath of relief, but noth­ing to apply in prac­tice. Like­wise with instruc­tion. Imple­ment­ing a few algo­rithms to reduce expens­es or dead­lines does not cre­ate lean pro­duc­tion. Lean is about con­stant change. Even upgrad­ing once a year does not mean actu­al­ly imple­ment­ing the methodology.

The whole essence is in the expe­ri­ence, run­ning it on prac­tice. Only after per­son­al expe­ri­ence, the­o­ry test­ing and data col­lec­tion can one ana­lyze and devel­op new stages of exper­i­ments. Estab­lish such a cycle as a norm for imple­ment­ing cor­rec­tions, bat­tling against muda, mura, and muri.

To kick off a project under the lean method­ol­o­gy, one needs to:

  1. gath­er all infor­ma­tion about the future task;
  2. seg­ment it into sub­tasks, devel­op and test them separately;
  3. cal­cu­late all dead­lines and bud­gets based on the col­lect­ed expe­ri­ence of com­peti­tors or own past projects (rely­ing only on real data instead of abstract theories).

Prin­ci­ples of lean production

Based on all muda, mura, and muri, there are exact­ly 10 prin­ci­ples of lean production:

  1. Elim­i­nate waste
  2. Min­i­mize inventory
  3. Max­i­mize flow
  4. Pro­duc­tion depends on con­sumer demand
  5. Know cus­tomer requirements
  6. Get it right the first time
  7. Enhance employ­ee capabilities
  8. Build a sys­tem with eas­i­ly replace­able parts
  9. Estab­lish part­ner­ships with suppliers
  10. Cre­ate a cul­ture of con­tin­u­ous improvement

There are also three basic busi­ness tasks. They direct the trans­for­ma­tion of the entire company:

  • Goal. What prob­lems does the com­pa­ny solve for the cus­tomer, and what is the ulti­mate val­ue for the consumer?
  • Process. What are the cri­te­ria for eval­u­at­ing each val­ue cre­ation stream? Ver­i­fy algo­rithms and links in the chain, com­bat waste, inef­fi­cien­cies, and over­loads. Each step is valu­able, real, acces­si­ble, ade­quate, and flex­i­ble, while streams and influ­ences are uniform.
  • Peo­ple. How to dis­trib­ute respon­si­bil­i­ty for each process and pro­duc­tion stream? Assign a per­son not by posi­tion, but by the process entrust­ed entire­ly? The task cura­tor forms val­ue cre­ation from the per­spec­tive of busi­ness objec­tives and active­ly imple­ments lean transformation.

For indi­vid­ual career devel­op­ment, these same basic three tasks look as follows:

  • What is my work goal?
  • What is the process for gen­er­at­ing the best out­comes in the most effi­cient manner?
  • Who are the peo­ple for whom I cre­ate value?
Answer­ing these ques­tions is assist­ed by the con­cept of ​“kaizen.”

Prin­ci­ples of the Kaizen phi­los­o­phy – con­tin­u­ous improvement

The term kaizen con­sists of two Japan­ese char­ac­ters カイゼン: kai – change and zen – good. Changes for the bet­ter, relent­less improve­ments, trans­form­ing to good… It is hard to say whether this is a the­o­ret­i­cal teach­ing of philoso­phers or a prac­ti­cal man­age­ment method. Kaizen is a sym­bio­sis of both con­cepts, enabling sub­or­di­nates to pro­pose and swift­ly test their ideas for improv­ing enter­prise oper­a­tions. Lean trans­for­ma­tion stems from the prac­ti­cal part of kaizen and is ground­ed in its philosophy.

Kaizen rests on five pillars:

  1. Equal inter­ac­tions across all lev­els (lead­er­ship, man­agers, work­ers) and direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion among them
  2. Indi­vid­ual dis­ci­pline
  3. Healthy moral state of the team and of each person
  4. Cir­cle of qual­i­ty
  5. Pro­pos­als for improve­ments every­where: from work­places and pro­duc­tion lines to how to assess com­pa­ny performance.
Read more about kaizen in the next article.

Algo­rithm for imple­ment­ing lean production

Accord­ing to James Wom­ack, founder of the Lean Enter­prise Insti­tute and author of sev­er­al books on transformation:

  • Choose a leader – a respon­si­ble guide for changes
  • Acquire knowl­edge of lean and kaizen from a reli­able source
  • Find or cre­ate a cri­sis – a prob­lem requir­ing imme­di­ate resolution
  • Exper­i­ment, prac­tice, ana­lyze results imme­di­ate­ly – do not get caught up in strat­e­gy devel­op­ment (as proven by the Wright brothers)
  • Build actu­al and desired maps of val­ue cre­ation flows. They must differ
  • Ensure trans­paren­cy of results for all staff
  • Short­en the pro­duc­tion cycle time (accel­er­ate flow)
  • Imple­ment kaizen and con­tin­u­ous­ly devel­op the com­pa­ny (val­ue cre­ation on pro­duc­tion floors tran­si­tions to admin­is­tra­tive changes)

Here’s where to begin imple­ment­ing lean pro­duc­tion. Pos­si­ble tools:

  1. Val­ue Stream Mapping
  2. Pull pro­duc­tion
  3. Kaizen
  4. 5S
  5. SMED
  6. Poka Yoke
  7. Total Pro­duc­tive Main­te­nance (TPM)
  8. Just-In-Time (JIT)
  9. Visu­al­iza­tion
  10. U‑shaped cells

Exam­ples of imple­ment­ing lean production

A company’s com­pet­i­tive­ness often depends on spe­cif­ic cri­te­ria. Rapid deliv­ery of tasty piz­za will beat just a fla­vor­ful piz­za. Cus­tomiz­ing a car at an offi­cial deal­er­ship is more appeal­ing than a stan­dard basic con­fig­u­ra­tion. Detailed results from pri­vate med­ical analy­ses are always bet­ter than scant sum­maries from a local clinic.

Pro­vid­ing supe­ri­or­i­ty over com­peti­tors (speed, cus­tomiza­tion, qual­i­ty of research) can be achieved by con­tin­u­ous­ly improv­ing the project man­age­ment sys­tem, as many com­pa­nies do around the world.

Suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed lean:

  • in the USA: Toy­ota, Alcoa, Boe­ing, Pel­la, Emer­son Elec­tric, Jacobs Equip­ment Com­pa­ny (Dana­her);
  • in Europe: Motoman Robot­ec, Unior, Iskra Asing, Vol­vo, Met­so, Nuon;
  • in Chi­na: Leno­vo, Suntory;
  • gov­ern­men­tal and munic­i­pal bod­ies in many countries.

Appli­ca­tions and tools relat­ed to Lean

Imple­ment­ing trans­for­ma­tion in a mod­ern com­pa­ny is eas­i­er than it was 30 years ago. For Android and iOS, there are many sim­i­lar appli­ca­tions that help main­tain a lean and qual­i­ty-ori­ent­ed business.

Tools for lean pro­duc­tion are used to moti­vate staff, build rela­tion­ships and con­nec­tions between the work­shop and man­age­ment, ana­lyze the results of new idea imple­men­ta­tions, and iden­ti­fy loss­es in the func­tion­ing of the enter­prise. Test­ing and exper­i­ments, devel­op­ing con­vey­or sys­tems or a bug track­er for pro­gram­mers – all of this is soft­ware for the Lean methodology.

Work­sec­tion


Work­sec­tion is a SaaS ser­vice that includes com­plete func­tion­al­i­ty for project man­age­ment, Gantt charts, and sev­er­al types of reports.

The Gantt chart allows track­ing rela­tion­ships, time­lines, and account­abil­i­ty for tasks. The reports high­light over­due tasks and exceed­ed budgets.

In the ​“peo­ple” task sec­tion, the man­ag­er can see work­loads for each indi­vid­ual and who is under­loaded. This makes it easy to iden­ti­fy uneven dis­tri­b­u­tion of human resources.

Because of this, the fight against muda, mura, and muri becomes vis­i­ble and straightforward.

One can cre­ate a sep­a­rate project called ​“team sug­ges­tions,” where ideas for imple­men­ta­tion can be added in the form of sep­a­rate tasks.

Set a dead­line for two weeks or a month to test the idea, dis­cuss the process in com­ments, and then ana­lyze the out­come.
If the idea is good – imple­ment it permanently.

Ora­cle

Oracle for Lean

More often than not, com­pa­ny own­ers uti­lize soft­ware like Ora­cle or vir­tu­al ser­vices for project management.

LeanApp

LeanApp for iOS

The most famous appli­ca­tion – LeanApp for iOS allows you to sys­tem­atize and con­trol all process­es in the company.

Con­clu­sion

Com­pa­nies world­wide imple­ment lean pro­duc­tion, but not all suc­ceed with this approach. Many do not know how, do not under­stand the phi­los­o­phy, or incor­rect­ly apply the learned instruc­tions in practice.

The essence of the methodology

  1. elim­i­na­tion of waste;
  2. empow­er­ment of employees;
  3. reduc­tion of inventory;
  4. increased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.
The method is always indi­vid­ual and depends on many fac­tors – indus­try and mar­ket seg­ment, tar­get audi­ence, prod­uct or ser­vice, pri­or­i­ties, and the company’s com­pet­i­tive advantage.

Begin the fight against waste in the most ​“nar­row” places of the work­flow – where the error is critical.

Find­ing and resolv­ing a cri­sis is much more effec­tive than thought­less­ly imple­ment­ing the Lean algorithm.

Read also: Bot­tle­neck – how not to hit rock bot­tom in business?
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