What is Lean Thinking – Explained by 3 experts.

We are proud to have 3 experts that will answer the simplest and toughest question: What is Lean Thinking?

The first expert is Fabrizio Cireddu, the founder of the 3° largest group on Linkedin: Lean Manufacturing & Kaizen

We created together a fantastic video on What is Lean Thinking.

See the video below.

Now,

Let me leave the word to Fabrizio Cireddu.

What is Lean….

Lean is a way to achieve Continuos Improvement and performance Up in daily basis in your organization
To do that, a business must reduce wastes in all processes and areas…

Wastes are:

1. Defects
2. Overproduction
3. Transportation
4. Waiting
5. Inventory
6. Movimentation
7. Over-Processing.

In all businesses and all processes, we can find wastes, and it is demonstrated that are minimum 90% of the activities…

How can we understand which are wastes in our daily Job?

For each activity raise a simple question:

Will Customers pay that activity?

Think about when you took a flight…

1. How much time, from when you book the ticket to when you arrive at the destination, it is traveling…and how much time is poorly waste?
2. How many times did you spend in ID controls, in the queue, in waiting?

Now you will raise a question:

Yes ..ok I understood… but how I can implement lean….??

I can’t answer to you in this article but what I can do is to indicate main
Success Factors to implement lean in your company:

1. Culture :
90% is Culture change … to achieve that You Have to Inspire > Interact >Innovate

Create a Vision, show a business example creating a pilot model in your area to test principles. .. focus on inspire your team, listen what they think and what they need to drive the change.

2. Leaders:
their behaviors and actions will influence all processes:

You have to achieve from them commitment on:

Lean transformation > commitment on self-development > Lead by example > Have Gemba Approach > Drive vision and goals in real life

Leaders are who will drive team; they must be motivated to the change starting from their self.

They must be example of enhancement

3. People :
The team will identify and reduce wastes … to have all people on board you have to:
Engage > Enable > Enhance > Empower

Focus on your team needs, motivation, engagement, and skill up

Many thanks to Fabrizio and I suggest reading this post on Lean Management to better understand how to create what Fabrizio suggested.

Now,

it is time to listen to the opinion of Daniela Gamberini on What is Lean Thinking!

Daniela Gamberini has more than 20 years experience in Lean and Coaching.

Hello!

Let’s start with this “simple,” but powerful question:

What is Lean (What is Lean Thinking I would say) for me?

Well, it’s … simply the most important philosophy I met in my working life, the one that truly changed my life because I choose to quit an International Pharmaceutical Company to become a Lean Consultant!

And after 10 years from that decision, I’m still very happy about it.

What is powerful about Lean is that it is quite simple to understand, but not easy to implement because it requires buy-in and involvement at ALL, and I mean ALL, levels of the Organization.

You can not improve a process without involving the ones who run that process every day, and at the same time, you need to keep support processes involved and have top management willing to change.

When I met Lean, I “recognized” something I was looking for since years.

The Cost and Quality Dilemma

I was working in Quality, and struggling with the “efficiency or quality” dilemma:

if you want quality, you can’t improve processes and decrease cost, and the reverse, so forget quality if you are looking for cost reduction.

Then Lean came up, and guess?

The first Principle is VALUE!

But they told me that Lean was a cost reduction method, so you CAN’T worry about VALUE since it is quality,

isn’t it??

But the reality is that QUALITY PROCESSES, without wastes (or, better, constantly in control to continuously reveal and remove waste), produce QUALITY OUTPUT (products or services) while REDUCING COSTS.

Moreover, they can only be achieved involving and respecting people, so also morale and Team working improve!

After nearly 20 years of studying, practicing and consulting in Lean, I can say that it’s all about the people, even if Lean tools are important.

But the right tool can change in time,

I mean a can need today a kanban and tomorrow a just in time supply because something changed, but I need every day, every hour, every minute people involved in looking at their processes, and trying to improve them, starting from the smallest detail.

And looking at the remaining principles after the first, “understand customer value”:

1. Map and understand the flow that produces the above-mentioned value
2. Look for waste and attack it to streamline the process and reduce lead time
3. Pull
4. Perfection

It’s easy to understand that introducing Lean involves massive culture change:

Processes must be visible and shared.

Problems are treasures because they help us improve the process.

We need to be very flexible to be able to produce only what is needed, when and where is needed.

It never ends: you can always improve a little more.

Everything needs to be “disclosed,” in the process, to enable everyone to see, and understand, the whole, without blame or “tricks” to look better.

This all is far from simple, on the contrary, is very, very, very difficult, but it’s important, is the right thing to do and … We can do it!!

What can I say here!

This is a masterpiece of wisdom about Lean Thinking.

Now,

Last but not least … let me leave the word to a great American Lean Consultant.

Charles Intrieri

What is Lean Thinking: A dinner with a friend.

“Hello Tom, it’s great seeing you again, how are things going for you?

Yes, Chuck, they are very interested in Lean Manufacturing currently.

It sure is, Tom. How can I help you and Arias Manufacturing?

I’d like to go to my Leadership first and talk to them, Chuck. What should I  say?

Let’s define What is Lean Thinking, Tom. Lean is the elimination of all waste, increasing throughput, improving quality and bringing value to the customer beyond their expectations.

First Tom, let Leadership know that they have to focus the company’s Lean mission and carry the Lean torch.

Lean will not be a success for Arias unless leadership is deeply involved in Lean. This means taking classes with their shop floor associates and solving problems and improving processes on the shop floor.

When do we get to the actual Lean tools, Chuck?

Good point, Tom. First, the Arias Manufacturing culture must change. Why, Tom? Lean is a new way of doing business. Leadership and the Arias Manufacturing people must change their habits and ways of working to Lean Thinking.

When the culture is in place, Tom, you can use Lean the tools: 6S (with safety), Daily Continuous Improvement (Kaizen), Kanban pull systems and Lean Six Sigma quality.

Finally, Lean must be sustained. No one can fall back to the old, informal way of doing business.

‘Great. Thank you, Chuck. Now, let’s eat!”

Conclusions.

I would like to thanks, these 3 experts for their masterpiece on What is Lean Thinking and I hope you have a different point of view to reflect on.

Finally, I recommend you to read our post on What is Lean!