A Lean Company Just
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Any activity that adds zero value to the process of getting your product out the door and into your customer’s hands should be zapped. The waiting around for parts to be available, redundancies, restocking unused inventory, late deliveries, fixing defects…..ok, you get the idea. A lean enterprise eliminates any activity that wastes time, money and energy.
Finding waste is easy. It is neatly categorized in seven categories: Overproduction, waiting, processing, correcting errors, excess inventory, motion and transportation
Just to clear, this strategy is not about speeding up the manufacturing process. It exists to remove inefficiencies. If a certain routine takes an hour, then so be it. Just make sure it doesn't take two hours one day, an hour and a half antother day and so on. Variance means something is wrong.
After a customer concludes a transaction with you they should be thinking, “Wow, that was good.”
You don’t need an MBA from Harvard to discern the benefits. But you might need one to understand why you would undertake such a strategy. It’s not because you want to pump more products out the door. It is because today’s customer is more demanding and I’ll say it…..spoiled. If you can deliver their product when they want it and how they'd like it…...you’ll get more business.
Be The Customer : To close a deal today, a salesperson must ask questions: What is the prospect using now? How long have you used it? What do you want it to do that it isn’t? Are there any problems? What costs have you incurred because of those problems? What color do you need it in? Get inside your customer’s head.
When you take a guess on what your customer needs you’ll most likely be wrong or almost get it right. And “almost” only counts in horseshoes and grenades.
Things that are important to customers are their time, their money and the quality of a product or service. Understand how your offering fulfills those demands. It’s the first step to being lean.
A Value Stream Runs Through It : A value stream is the complete journey your product will take. Staring at the drawing board....purchasing raw materials…..moving through the production line…….to the time it is sold.
Hundreds of actions will take place before the product ends up in your customers hands. You must analyze each step and decide which ones are absolutely essential. Do parts need to be stored in Warehouse A before assembly in Warehouse B? Or can the parts reside in Warehouse B, saving time.
There must be open communication between you and partner companies. If you order materials and are told they’ll arrive in a couple weeks…….”couple weeks” better be defined. Your lean manufacturing process can’t operate if materials will arrive sometime over the next 14 days. If that's the case, it's time to get lean on some partners.
Map the time each step takes. Even delivery to your customer. Bottlenecks will become apparent, and you’ll be able to eliminate it. Observe. Measure. Streamline.
Hustle & Flow : This next step will change life in your company as you know it. It’s about creating flow.
When a product is developed most companies work one phase at a time. The bicycle parts are received, unpacked and sent to another group to paint. After that, the parts are assembled and the finished bicycle is sent to another department to be wrapped….inventoried…and shipped.
Flow is the holistic approach to manufacturing. A flow production team works continuously on the bicycle from start to finish. After the bike is finished, work on the next one begins. The entire goal of the production team is to get the product to the customer; not the next step.
The team now enjoys the process of bringing a project to completion. And because everyone is connected to the finished product they are aware of how they contributed. And more importantly, it’s easier to see what can be done better.
Pull : When employees are comfortable adapting to flow in the manufacturing process you’ll find products are being produced faster than ever. It’s not because everyone is working double-time, it’s because waste is minimized.
Pull means the customer is involved in the process. If you’re producing one product at a time, it becomes easier to customize. If a customer wants that wooden chest with a linseed finish instead of shellac, all you have to do is adjust the process. Flow techniques incorporate customization.
Production is based on what is sold; not what is forecasted.
Student Becomes the Teacher : Competition? Forget about it. You are now competing with yourself. How lean can this process be? How quickly can we handle a customized order? Last month it took 125 minutes to make this product. What can we do to make it in a 100?
The journey becomes the reward.
How do you get started? Like any big project, you need a champion and a CEO stamp of approval. The person leading the project obviously must have an understanding of lean philosophy and the changes you are trying to implement.
For a change this important bring in consultants. Leanness must be a battle cry. Jobs will change and jobs will be cut. The long term effect will be positive for everyone.
Six Sigma (which I discuss elsewhere in this site) focuses on quality. Any characteristic that doesn’t meet a customer’s expectation is considered a defect. If a customer expected delivery on Wednesday but received it Friday….that’s a defect. Six Sigma looks to remove imperfections from the customer’s point of view. The statistical goal is to be error-free 99.9997% of the time.
Lean Six Sigma is a perfect blend. It improves quality and accelerates production and turnaround time. Quality is defined as whatever makes your customer happy. It’s a bit like marriage. Make your spouse happy…..and you’ll be happy.
Six Sigma believes variations from the process create errors. When you minimize the wait time between processes, you minimize the chance of variations. Work-in-process materials are balanced to customer demand and the workflow moves more smoothly.
Lean Six Sigma offers ways to satisfy customers of the internet generation. Customers want:
• To get their order delivered to the place they want it to be.
• Their order to arrive when they were told it would arrive.
• Choices. Customers know what they want it to look like. Let them make it look like that.
If this were easy, everyone would be doing it. That’s your advantage. Most companies aren’t.
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