Robert Pemberton - The Lean Office: Transform Your Culture with Lean Management

Dedicated to Andrew Forest - for your timeless and boundless wisdom.

Introduction

T HIS BOOK WILL ENABLE you to transform your culture and enhance your bottom line by implementing Lean Management concepts. Its applicable to all types of offices, large and small. From Fortune 500 companies, thru to Government agencies and to small businesses, by implementing the key principles described in this book, you will improve your triple bottom line of lowering costs, improved production and improved safety.

What is Lean?

A LEAN CULTURE EMPOWERS your employees, removes unnecessary waste, and focuses on the customer. Lean is a way of delivering what your customer needs or wants at the lowest cost and in a timely and efficient manner. Lean is not something that sits apart on a shelf, away from your other business processes and is only used when needed. In contrast, it is your organizations way of life. It should be embedded across all of your processes. Its a way of looking at your business processes through an improvement lens and eliminating waste to ensure the customer is getting the most value. This ensures the customer gets what they ask for, when they need it, at the lowest cost. Lean is focused on delivering customer expectations.

Lean can be applied to virtually every known process whether it be manufacturing, safety, health care or even personal development and personal relationships.

Lean has a proud history and was used by Henry Ford, who is often described as the Father of Lean, when creating the first mass production lines for manufacturing automobiles in the early 20th century. It was greatly enhanced by Japanese automobile manufacturers in the 1960s and is the basis for the hugely successful Toyota Production System. Many successful organizations and government departments throughout the world are now embracing the Lean Management philosophy.

Why Lean?

W HILE LEAN IS MAINLY about adding value for the customer, employees and the organization also benefit from Lean. This is accomplished by reduced operating and capital costs, better quality, reduced errors, improved customer demand and market share, better employee empowerment and engagement. This leads to improved productivity, and higher employee morale. This in turn reduces absenteeism, injuries and workers compensation.

In other words, Lean organizations benefit by an improved triple bottom line consisting of lower costs, better production and improved safety performance.

Customers

W HO ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS ? They are the people paying for or receiving the goods or services you are creating. They are the reason your organization exists. By keeping customers happy, you generate income and stay in business. Happy customers mean a thriving business. Unhappy customers could mean a shrinking business.

A customer is typically the end-user or purchaser of the product or service, at the end of your supply chain. A customer doesnt mean the next person in the supply chain who youre handing something off to. The reason for this is that each step in the supply chain should be focused on what the end customer wants. Doing this ensures alignment of each step with the customers expectations.

Value

W HAT IS VALUE? VALUE is determined from the Point of View of the customer. A step in the process adds value only to the extent it adds value for the customer. Value is an activity that by doing it, it moves one step closer to creating the product or service that the customer needs. If a process step can be removed and the customer does not notice any change then the step is non-value adding.

How do we determine if a step in the processes adds value? Lean has three criteria for determining if a step adds value:

1. The customer must care about it or be affected by it.
2. It must change the product of service (fit, form or function).
3. It must be done right the first time (no rework).

So, for each step in the process, test it against the above criteria. If a step meets all three criteria then it adds value. If it doesnt meet all three criteria then its considered to be waste.

There may be steps in your process which need to remain even if they dont add direct value. An example would be checks and reporting for statutory or regulatory compliance which may be necessary to maintain your license to operate. Another example would be an approval or sign-off from a manager.

After youve been through every step in the process, youll have categorized each step into one of three categories: