Lean thinking
Lean thinking is a progression towards eliminating waste in a process. Many processes can have lean applied; manufacturing, six sigma, development, design, etc. Really though it is broken down into five steps and it is iterative meaning that it will be repeated.
The five-step thought process for guiding the implementation of lean techniques is easy to remember, but not always easy to achieve:
- Specify value from the standpoint of the end customer by product family.
- Identify all the steps in the value stream for each product family, eliminating whenever possible those steps that do not create value.
- Make the value-creating steps occur in tight sequence so the product will flow smoothly toward the customer.
- As flow is introduced, let customers pull value from the next upstream activity.
- As value is specified, value streams are identified, wasted steps are removed, and flow and pull are introduced, begin the process again and continue it until a state of perfection is reached in which perfect value is created with no waste.
The actual Value Stream mapping process can be quick or long depending on the complexity of the process. Having participated in a number of these to lean out processes for Six Sigma, I can certainly tell you it can be a dramatic gathering of minds. If you go into the process with the thought of improvement, you will do well. If you go with the thought of placing blame on executors of the process you will experience the longest days of your life. No one comes out of this without learning something about the process though and where it needs improvement. Once you accomplish that and everyone is on the same page things will improve. Everyone must leave with the understanding of the same idea.
Additional pain points in the process may be found, but the issues that seemed so huge will become smaller or go away all together.
Welcome to the road to continuous improvement.
