Do you know what a Lean Enterprise is?
In the first place, it is a company where the entire organization is the the
mood of the continuous improvement.
So,
what is lean enterprise management should be clear.
It is a management that promotes the culture of the Lean Enterprise.
In other words,
it is correct to start from manufacturing but the concept
has to be spread to all the organization.
For example,
Commercial department has to ask itself:
“How can we give the correct answer to the customer quicker and good first time?”
or
Purchasing department has to ask itself:
“How can we buy the right goods to the production faster and good first time?”
Manufacturing is the core, but his speed is strictly related to the rate of all the other functions.
How to start to create a Lean Enterprise?
There is one video I like where the concept
of Lean Enterprise is in my opinion very well explained and
there is their point of view on what is lean.
Hence,
do not miss to see it now.
Now I think we are on the same page.
You will not a Lean Company if all the departements are involved in the Lean Journey
Human Resources in the Lean Journey ???
Finance in the Lean Journey ???
Yes!
But not as a viewer or give us people and money for Lean.
Not at all!
If you read our page on the Lean Management,
you will understand that they should have their board, their goal, their metrics.
Then,
their metrics has to be relevant for the customer, not only for the company.
So,
coming back the question: “How to start to create a Lean Enterprise?”
My answer is:
start to place a board and a goal in the department you usually do not think.
You will see strange things.
Just follow the 5 steps for the Lean Management, and you will learn by doing it.
The difficulties of the flow of information.
One the reason why they start in Manufacturing is
because you can see what are you speaking about and you have an immediate value.
The things start to be more difficult when you have to deal with the intangible information that goes by:
- Phone
- Call
- Chats
- Documents
- Fax
- Etc.
In this case is much much difficult because of the intangible, the speed and the multichannel.
So,
How to deal with this?
My suggestion is:
Firstly, create a Standard for the information flow.
Secondly, draw the map of the process of all the people involved.
Thirdly, ask the members:”do we need this information?”
Start at least with this,
go into details of every field you have to fill in the form.
Ask the team: Who is the consumer of this information?
Create the standard means to set who is the supplier of the information and who is the customer
and what the customer need and want.
Based in this, one tool (among the others Lean Tools) named SIPOC could be useful.
SIPOC to standardize the information flow.
Here we will try to explain how to build SIPOC.
It’s a seven-step approach, and it starts from the PROCESS!
#Step 1:
Identify the process you want to map and define its scope and boundary points.
Using action verbs, describe what the process is supposed to do and in how much time. Define its starting and ending points.
#Step 2:
Catalog the outputs.
What are the products and the services that the process produces?
#Step 3:
Define the recipients (the customers) of the outputs by name, title, system, or organizational entity.
#Step 4:
Determine the customer requirements.
#Step 5:
What do the customers expect and what do they demand? What are they entitled to in their fair exchange of value?
#Step 6:
Define the inputs to the process.
Identify the human, capital, information, materials, and natural resources the process requires to produce the designated outputs.
#Step 7: Identify the sources (suppliers) of the inputs.
Conclusions
Firstly, to be Lean you have to build not only a Lean Manufacturing or a Lean Production environment but a Lean Enterprise.
Then,
you have to think broader and starting changing the point of view of the other departments by putting a board with a metric in their office.
Surely, I know it sounds strange, and they will push back.
Go on!
Finally, when you have to start to map the flow of information use the SIPOC as the main tool.
As a conclusion, I would like to ask you to comment this page with your opinion on what is a Lean Enterprise and how to build it.
Comment now!
