Business Performance Strategy at the Beginner Stage
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Developing a Strategy at the Beginner Stage
Firms at the Beginner stage understand the need for improvement is understood and have already invested time and resources to implement a strategy.
At this stage the firm typically partners with an expert consultant to develop the problem solving abilities of their employee group to be able to solve problems on the shop floor to root cause and collaborate on implementing corrective actions. My strategy advice can be condensed to relating to Process and People.
Process
Beware the temptation to fall in love with a continuous improvement strategy that is many years of maturity beyond your firms development. A 6 Sigma implementation or the trendy ‘agile’ approach to improvement are not what I would recommend. The latest and greatest is often just an overhyped complex system that is difficult to implement, harder to maintain, and potentially impossible to realize return on investment.
My advice, as with the Awakening firms, is the full implementation of a 5S discipline to move your culture toward learning and disciplined systemic approaches.
5S done well will transform your business ability to deliver customer value.
If you already have a successful 5S and Standard work process in place, focus on the implementation of a sound total productive maintenance system. These three foundational pillars of Lean are so powerful that you will see dramatic improvements in employee engagement, productivity, and quality before you even begin to implement Lean production. No other continuous improvement strategy ties these elements together better than does Lean.
People
When Standard work and 5S are in place employees can move from one position to the next wherever demand requires them to be. A key recommendation is to cross train employees within their departments while also involving them in workstation improvement projects leveraging the Kaizen approach.
Leaders must continue to improve their skills and it is strongly recommended they work with a leadership coach who is a skilled Lean practitioner. In this way leaders will learn how to reinforce a learning culture that is embracing the Lean approach.
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Subsequent Years
Process
The strategy remains largely the same, complete the implementation of foundational Lean elements and begin to look at the requirements of Lean production. Learning the process of designing the future state value stream map is a crucial progress milestone. When you can clearly see the significant gap between the 'as is' and 'future state' map, you will have your next strategic plan input.
Recognize that as with Lean foundations, Lean production itself has many levels of sophistication. In early years the pursuit of perfection and elimination of waste will be sufficient to fuel your continuous improvement strategy. This will soon evolve to pursuing level flow, SMED (single minute exchange of dies) and cellular work design. More mature facilities will also pursue Kanban systems as well as moving toward an enterprise view of Lean.
People
In subsequent years your continuous improvement strategy should move from relying on external experts to growing your own expertise. If your Lean manager is able to successfully facilitate Kaizen events and is actively teaching others in the organization how to live Lean, you are well on your way.
A word of caution, Lean is a culture of respect for persons. This is not only the typical respect we demonstrate toward others in the west, it also contains a clear expectation that we challenge other to grow and demonstrate their knowledge. If respect isn’t at the core of your lean initiative, it will struggle to realize its true revolutionary benefit to your firm.??
A related recommendation is the implementation of standard work on all repetitive processes. Standard work unlike standard operating procedures, require a more in depth measurement of tasks and processes allowing a more thorough understanding of your performance and opportunities for employees to make further gains. 5S and Standard Work (along with Total Productive Maintenance) are foundational elements that allow Lean production to succeed in the first place.
Many organizations in their obsession with Lean Kaizen blow past 5S, Standard Work, and TPM and cannot figure out why their implementation failed so completely.
If you've built a?continuous improvement strategy, and?you're not seeing the results you want, we're here to help.?
Schedule your complementary?STRATEGY SESSION?and together we will design a plan that fits your unique business.??