Synergies - Zero Harm and Lean

Fundamentally the approaches used for zero harm and lean are striving to achieve the same goal - elimination!

This post explains how the concepts and approaches of zero harm and lean management share very similar principles and implementation approaches.

All on the same page

Zero Harm is referring to a concept used to drive workplace health and safety performance ie. the goal that tasks can be completed without harm to people. 

Lean Management is a systematic method for the elimination of waste within a manufacturing or other process orientated business. Waste traditionally is split into a variety of categories and many of these categories identify potential parts of a process (hazards) that can impact the success of the business.

Hazards & Waste - are the same!

Think about eliminating a hazard from the workplace .... is it fair to say that the elimination of a hazard has the potential to improve business efficiency by eliminating an object, thing or process that has the potential to cause harm. Elimination of the potential harm means that a person will not by injured and therefore will be available 100% of the time to contribute to production. If your language was more attuned to lean management then you would refer to the hazard as a waste that is being eliminated from a process.

Alternatively think about the lean process referred to as 5S or 3S. The goal of this lean management tool is to create ordered workplaces to improve access to items, workflows, consistency etc. This approach also results in an awesome level of high quality housekeeping which strongly contributes to eliminating hazards that are often identified as the cause or contributing factors to injuries in the workplace.

 Continuous Improvement

It is no coincidence that underlying the approaches to zero harm and lean management and very similar continuous improvement models.

Using the most recognised continuous improvement cycle it is possible to demonstrate how the model is the same for zero harm and lean management. Sure we can fit any process to a continuous improvement model, but I will clearly explain how each approach uses these exact stages of continuous improvement - refer to the table below.

Next time you are controlling a hazard in the workplace you might also be contributing to process effectiveness.

When you are eliminating waste you could well be eliminating a hazard from the workplace - great job!

What an outstanding capability this knowledge and understanding unlocks for businesses - imagine having a "ONE" approach integrating the zero harm and lean management - that's POWERFUL - that's business changing culture!

THAT'S SUCCESS SUPERPOWERS :)