December 2015/January 2016

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THE BIG ISSUES Questions, answers and discussion on the important matters affecting the world of lean right now.

Organisations and interviews in this issue include representatives from: Industry Forum, Suiko, Cranfield University, Colombia University and the University of Strathclyde.

IN THIS ISSUE: How Communication Cells can Change an Organisation: how a daily chat can make massive changes.

Visual Management/Visual Workplace- What’s the difference?: the difference between the two and what they do.

Three Ingredients to Transform your Business Operation: how to change your business for the better with these three simple tricks.

EDITOR’S LETTER

Dear reader, Welcome to the December/January issue of the Lean Management Journal. It is hard to believe that 2015 is about to be consigned to the history books, the year has flown by.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our readers and subscribers and say thank you for your continuing support of the LMJ. Our annual conference was a massive success and we have received some wonderful feedback from attendees. On a personal note the welcome I have received has been lovely, from the editorial board and readers alike so my thanks for that as well.

Now to the matter at hand and that is the content in this month’s issue, which focuses on the big questions in the world of lean. Our contributors this month have written about the issues that are the biggest, or crop up the most often in the world of lean.

EDITORIAL

Commissioning editor Fred Tongue f.tongue@hennikgroup.com

Gwendolyn Galsworth has written a piece about visual management vs. the visual workplace, what the difference is and why it is so important to differentiate between the two.

Managing editor Victoria Fitzgerald

v.fitzgeral@hennikgroup.com

We have a chapter of Andy Marsh, Dr Bob Lillis and Professor Marek Szwejczewski, of Suiko and Cranfield University respectively, all about how to approach change process while keeping pace and remaining sustainable.

Editorial director Callum Bentley

Industry Forum’s, Malcolm Jones dissects Japanese manufacturing strategy and the mind frame and approaches necessary to make strides in lean production.

c.bentley@hennikgroup.com

DESIGN

Art editor Martin Mitchell

m.mitchell@hennikgroup.com

Designers Alex Cole

design@hennikgroup.com In order to receive your copy of the Lean Management Journal kindly email lmj@hennikgroup.com or telephone 0207 401 6033.

Neither the Lean Management Journal nor Hennik Group can accept responsibilty for omissions or errors.

Terms and Conditions Please note that points of view expressed in articles by contributing writers and in advertisements included in this journal do not necessarily represent those of the publishers. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in the journal, no legal responsibility will be accepted by the publishers for loss arising from use of information published. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent of the publishers.

Jonathan Hogg, of the University of Strathclyde, has written an article about the rewards of a daily communication cell, the impact and results and improvements it has had at the university.

The LMJ has a chat with Joanne Molesky and Barry O’Reilly, authors of Lean Enterpirse: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale about start ups and the dangers relying too heavily on technology can have on an organisation.

Andy Sheppard has written a piece about the three ingredients that every organisation needs in order to transform, drawing on his fifteen plus years of lean expertise and experience.

Lean is an ever changing and evolving thing, as technologies, consumer patterns and supply chains change, so do the issues facing lean. That was the main reason behind this issue, because the big issues are constantly changing.

I.T alone is a lean landscape that has changed almost every six months due to new technology, software updates and different needs from the end user. In the world of consumer goods lean is now more important than ever. Amazon can now offer delivery within an hour, which takes an incredibly lean system to be in place, this subsequently changes consumer expectations and soon more and more organisations will have to adapt and embrace change in order to keep pace.

Who knows what the big issues facing lean will be next year, but as we wrap up this one I hope you enjoy the articles in this issue.

Happy reading,

Fred Tongue, Commissioning Editor.

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CONTENTS DEC/JAN 2015/16

C O N T E N T S

04 Introducing the editors 05 Lean News PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE 07 Japanese Perspectives on Manufacturing Strategies

Malcolm Jones outlines the strategies that Japanese manufacturers adopt in order to get and stay ahead.

11 How Communcation Cells can change an Organisation

John Hogg recalls how useful a daily communication cell has been at the University of Strathclyde and how it can help any organisation.

14 Q+A with the authors of Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale

The LMJ asks Joanne Molesky and Barry O’Reilly Some tough questions about pressing lean in light of their most recent book release.

16 Service management, agile and lean in the I.T world

Fresh from speaking at the European Lean I.T Summit, Daniel Breston writes about DevOps in I.T services.

18 How to Approach the Change Process yet Maintain the Necessary Pace and Ensure Sustainability

We have an extract from a white paper recently published by Suiko and Cranfield University. Andy Marsh, Marek Szwejczewski and Bob Lillis examine how to begin a transformation and maintain results.

23 Three ingredients to Transform your Operation Andy Sheppard discusses the three most important ingredients that are required to transform an organisation.

25 Top 10 Lean Tips

Mara Roberts publishes daily lean tips on Linkedin to much acclaim, here she lists her top 10 lean tips.

27 Lesson in Lean TransformationWhat’s our starting Measure?

Mark Gregory details the way to start a lean transformation, talking tools and ways of thinking.

29 OUT OF THE BLUE

Bill Bellows, returns with his monthly musings on lean. This month he talks Bond and vision therapy.

32 BOOK REVIEW The Lean Supply Chain: Managing the Challenge at Tesco

This month John Bicheno gives his thoughts on “The Lean Supply Chain: Managing the Challenge at Tesco” and why the book is about more than just a supermarket.

33 LEAN ONLINE

Some of the best content from the web

34 LEAN EVENTS

The low down on upcoming events that you need to make room in your calendar for.

20 Visual management/visual workplace- What’s the difference?

Gwendolyn Galsworth examines the difference between the two and why you need to be able to tell the difference.

Elizabeth House, Block 2, Part 5th Floor, 39 York Road, London, SE1 7NQ T +44 (0)207 401 6033 F 0844 854 1010 www.hennikgroup.com.

Lean management journal: ISSN 2040-493X. Copyright © Hennik Group 2015.

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INTRODUCING YOUR EDITORS Our experienced editorial board members contribute to the journal providing comment against articles and guiding the coverage of subject matter.

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JOHN BICHENO

TORBJØRN NETLAND

University of Buckingham, United Kingdom

Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway

RENÉ AAGAARD

BRENTON HARDER

JOSEPH PARIS

Novo Nordisk, Denmark

Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Australia

Operational Excellence Society

JACOB AUSTAD

MALCOLM JONES

NICK RICH

LeanTeam, Denmark

Industry Forum, United Kingdom

Swansea University, United Kingdom

BILL BELLOWS

SARAH LETHBRIDGE

STEVE YORKSTONE

President, In2:InThinking Network

Cardiff Business School, United Kingdom

Edinburgh Napier University, United Kingdom

DAVID BEN-TOVIM

JEFFREY K. LIKER

Flinders Medical Centre, Australia

University of Michigan, USA

More information on our editorial board, their experience, and views on lean is available on the LMJ website: www.leanmj.com

LMJ

NEW LEAN MEASURES HELPS HOSPITAL ACHIEVE RECORD PERFORMANCE A recent report by RAND, an objective analysis organisation, has suggested that hospitals can become more efficient by using data driven management.

The case study looked at Health First, a Florida based group that provide health plans and own hospitals. Health First brought in lean process improvement specialists from a third party auditor to review the processes the organisation used and the ways it could improve those processes.

The auditors recommended that Health First embrace lean management technologies and the use of data and more integrated IT systems.

The audit revealed that shift changes caused bottlenecks and clinicians had to manually locate and assign beds. These issues led to inefficiencies and a lot of waste in the organisation. Since the audit Health First has set up a central patient logistics centre and an operations platform integrated with the health system’s electronic health record system.

Health First also implemented centralised registration, centralised utilisation reviews, an electronic intensive care unit and transfer access nurses.

Three years after the changes had been made, Health First has experienced a 300% increase in adult transfers and a 33% decrease in the time it takes to move patients from the emergency department to a hospital bed.

LEAN CONSTRUCTION HELPS SPEED UP JAIL CONSTRUCTION A jail in Georgia, USA, was completed a whole two months ahead of schedule thanks to the implementation of lean projects in the construction. Due to the success of the first phase, Rives E. Worrel Company were rewarded with renovation the sheriff’s office too.

The firm used techniques such as pull planning and daily standup meetings. The 76,000sq ft project was finished under budget and ahead of schedule so due to the savings Rives E. Worrel were rewarded by being giving the contract to renovate over 18,000sq ft sheriff’s office. This includes a detective’s workspace, evidence storage, an exercise room and more.

BALFOUR BEATTY CONSTRUCTION ATTENDS LEAN CONSTRUCTION CONGRESS Balfour Beatty Construction joined other lean design and construction peers at the 17th Annual Lean Construction Institute (LCI) Congress 2015 in Boston. The company expanded their presence at this year’s congress and has increased commitment to their own lean journey.

Speakers at the event included former U.S Secretary of the Treasury, Alcoa CEO and worker safety advocate Paul O’Neil. The forum brings together experts in the design and construction community to discuss how to deliver better project outcomes, quicker and with lower costs. Beatty Balfour speakers addressed the audience and led education sessions focused on scaling lean in the enterprise, safety and integrated project delivery (IPD) in collaborative environments.

“Our commitment to Zero Waste, innovation and continuous learning is driving our Lean journey and desire to more effectively deliver value for our clients and colleagues,” said Mark Konchar, chief of innovation at Balfour Beatty Construction. “Together as an industry, it’s imperative that we continue working together to share experiences and lessons learned so that we continuously deliver increasing value. We once again left LCI Congress energised to bring new ideas and best practices to our project teams and clients.”

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LMJ

WWF PRAISES PAPER AND PULP MANUFACTURER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE UPM, a Finnish pulp, paper and timber manufacturer, has improved environmental performance according to the Environmental Paper Company Index (EPCI) published by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

CATALYST CONSULTING LAUNCHES MARKET LEADING LEAN AND LEAN SIX SIGMA TRAINING IN BIRMINGHAM From January 2016 Catalyst Consulting will be running lean and six sigma training courses in Birmingham.

The certification will be provided by the British Quality Foundation (BQF) and the courses will range from green belt foundation courses all the way up to black belt level training.

Catalyst, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, already provides courses in the UK based out of London and Edinburgh with delegates able to mix and match when and where they can attend.

John Morgan, Director of Catalyst and co-author of, ‘Lean Six Sigma for Dummies’ comments: “Birmingham is clearly becoming even more of a hot-spot for business activity and running our courses close to New Street Station enables a wider community of interest across the private and public sector in the surrounding area to benefit. We look forward to welcoming delegates on these courses.”

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The EPCI is published biannually and promotes transparency and continuous improvement of environmental performance. Some of the ways that the company has improved is by using more recycled paper and FSC certified wood in fibre sourcing and reduced waste to landfill in graphic paper production.

“In global business, all players should be evaluated against fair and balanced criteria,” said Päivi Rissanen, Director, Environment and Responsibility.

“We participate in the WWF’s EPCI every time, which is a good example of our transparency, and we are glad that our way of operating has received positive recognition. The index is a good addition to our already wide range of transparent reporting processes. We disclose mill-specific environmental information in the EMAS statements for our pulp and paper mills in Europe, China and Uruguay. On top of that, we give specific information about our products in our Paper and Pulp Profiles, available on UPM Certificate Finder,” Rissanen continued.

PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE

Japanese Perspectives on Manufacturing Strategy Malcolm Jones, principle engineer at Industry Forum, has over 20 years experience in lean.

O

ne of the less well known groups I studied with while undertaking my education in Japanese manufacturing practices was the TP Management Group at the Japan Management Association. TP Management, Total Productivity Management (not to be confused with TPM, Total Productive Maintenance), is an overarching policy deployment practice which incorporates Lean, TQM, TPM et al as required. In TP Management terms, these processes are means to actualise business strategy, not the strategy itself.

Like the Deming Prize for Quality and the JIPM TPM Prize, there is a TP Prize, but with far less prescriptive criteria.

TP Management is based on a foundation of principles and in awarding the TP Prize the assessors are looking for innovative examples of the application of those principles. The winners of the TP Prize, inaugurated in 1985, include plants from Toshiba, NEC, Canon, Toyota Auto Body, Matsushita Electrical, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Nissan Motor and Sekisui Chemical. In my own visits to TP prize-winning plants I saw examples of implementation at Matsushita Refrigeration, NEC Satellite Communications, Sony, Snow Brand Dairy products and Shiseido cosmetics.

greatly influenced my thinking about manufacturing strategy. As TP is a nonprescriptive approach, the researchers were interested in how companies chose to actualise the policy deployment process in their operations, and came up with 11 approaches, split into 2 categories. The two basic categories were ‘programmes for actualising the business strategy’ and ‘programmes for strengthening the internal environment’.

This mirrors Western thinking about strategy which distinguishes between market based approaches and competency based approaches.

In TP terms, Total Productivity is a function of both Product Power (the attractiveness of the product to the market – product innovation) and Resource Utilisation (the effectiveness of the processes to deliver the product – process innovation). Both are necessary and neither is sufficient, although the company’s position in the supply chain may have an influence on where a company focuses its resources.

The competency (resource utilisation) based strategies identified were:

Programmes for Strengthening the Internal Environment: 1. Use TPM as the Base 2. Develop through JIT 3. Move from DC (Direct Costs) and FC (Factory Costs) to TC (Total Costs) 4. Build Integrated Partnerships with Customers and Supplier 5. Restructure to maximise the use of systems and human resources 6. Practise True Policy Management The first three of these have a focus on the trilogy of Quality, Delivery and Cost.

TPM is seen as the application of TQC type process to automated manufacturing based on equipment efficiency. In their interpretation TPM expands a TQM approach focused initially on improving quality by reducing variation to a focus on reducing costs and leadtime based on eliminating equipment losses (zero targeting). In its final TP led development, policy deployment is used to expand the focus to include customer, employee and social satisfaction indicators, improving product competitiveness through early management processes, expanding employee autonomy and incorporating environmental concerns though the Safety,

Figure 1: Upgrading through TPM

One research paper, presented at a TP Prize conference in the 1990’s has

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JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES ON MANUFACTURING STRATEGY MALCOLM JONES

Figure 2: JIT Construction System

Health and Environmental Pillar activity.

In Western industry we see this approach being used most prominently in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) and process industries. Used by consumer giants such as Unilever and Proctor and Gamble this approach has been combined with the supply chain approach, numbered 4 above, with Supply Chain being added as an explicit TPM Pillar activity.

Again, if we think in Western strategy terms of those factors which are merely Figure 3: Supply Chain Optimisation

a reliable low cost manufacturing base.

The TPM concept of ‘vertical startup’, the problem free introduction of new products and equipment and rapid ramp up to production rate is also key in these industries where product innovation is also a key driver of competitive advantage and growth.

qualifiers, rather than differentiators which give competitive advantage, then this makes sense in industries under intense cost pressure from retailers and consumers and required to produce at low cost with 100% effective availability. As the ability to produce the right quality at the right time is a mere qualifier in FMCG, quality and leadtime focused approaches in the factory have never gained too much traction in industries which are inherently lean in their flow production processes.

The way the extended supply chain is managed does give competitive advantage in consumer industries, together with

Although we can point to Western precursors, the JIT approach was developed in Japan, beginning at Toyota in the 1930s. Lean is best thought of as a Western description of this approach and the term ‘lean’ itself has struggled to gain currency in Japan itself. Those companies in Japan taking a JIT approach to leadtime reduction tend to focus on flexibility as the competitive feature of their Lean systems. One example is in Japanese modular house building. It is common for a Japanese family to move in with relatives while an existing house is demolished and a new one put up on the same site. This has led to demand for modular housebuilding where major structures are pre-fabricated in the factory and then assembled on site, reducing the time the family is without their own home. Although design is modular, each house is unique and the demand for short leadtimes has led to the development of Lean systems which reduce the total leadtime from sales to construction.

Lean is ubiquitous in Western engineering industries, particularly in automotive and aerospace, but here it is a qualifier, not a differentiator. This has led to the development of alternative forms of lean – Agile Manufacturing and Quick Response Manufacturing for example, but these are fundamentally lean approaches with the emphasis on flexibility which we see in the Japanese development of JIT. One area where Lean has proved to provide competitive advantage is in the US healthcare industry and this is being mirrored in the socialised healthcare systems of Europe.

As a result of the lack of intrinsic differentiation to be derived from Lean production systems, suppliers to OEMs tend towards a value adding strategy where modules rather than components or materials are supplied and the ability to add value to a module is used to differentiate. This focus on the product

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PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE

Bubble

Performance

Figure 4: TP Portflio TP Prize

Activity/constitution Doldrums

Japanese management accounting in advanced manufacturing companies has tended to focus on driving the behaviour required by the company’s chosen strategy

Engine racing

power, not just resource effectiveness, is used to secure ongoing business, as this form of differentiation also increases the barriers to entry for lower cost suppliers.

Although Lean and TPM can both be seen as cost reduction strategies, Lean in the elimination of waste and TPM in the reduction of losses, the cost reduction approach identified by the JMA researchers is based on reviewing management accounting processes. Japanese management accounting in advanced manufacturing companies has tended to focus on driving the behaviour required by the company’s chosen strategy. One example I have seen is the allocation of indirect costs to products based on set-up times in a company where the strategy is based on small batch flexibility.

The cost reduction strategy identified here however is based on what Western accountants have called Value Stream Costing, a switch from trying to optimise costs in specific areas to optimising overall cost, even if that means sub-optimal costs in some area – insufficient recovery of some equipment asset costs for example.

This is an example of the link between Lean and Systems Thinking as developed

by Jay Forrester and his colleagues at MIT. The fundamental principle of systems thinking is that you cannot optimise a system by individually optimising its parts. It is probably fair to say that the accounting principles derived from the mass production management strategy of GM in the 1950s have hung on longer than the mass production system principles themselves and accounting is in some sense playing catch up with operations. Value Stream Costing and other activity based accounting approaches which aim to directly apportion costs and reduce misleading allocations are central to these efforts.

After considering these three approaches to Quality, Delivery and Cost Improvement the researchers went on to identify three further extensions of these, the first of which is extended supply chain management. The approach here is an extension of the overall optimisation approach to include the upstream and downstream supply chain, forming a true partnership from supplier to customer.

Using the logic of systems thinking described above, where optimising individual operations leads to a suboptimal system, this requires the sharing of data between all parties, following a gain sharing philosophy. This necessitates an unusual level of transparency between the various parties in the supply chain, but this has the added benefit of reducing demand amplification, the phenomenon whereby variations in the actual end customer demand are amplified by the supply chain transactions, creating far greater variability in the final production schedule.

Figure 5: TP Deployment

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JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES ON MANUFACTURING STRATEGY MALCOLM JONES

The fifth approach is termed restructuring, but this is deceptive in Western terms. The approach outlined here is based on aligning company systems with business objectives and emphasising the development of human resources. The closest parallel in Western business literature might be the concept of the Learning Organisation and indeed one compelling characterisation of the development of Toyota in the 20th century was its ability to function as a learning organisation.

The development of the learning organisation, and in particular formal lessons learned systems, is only one part of this approach, the other being the alignment piece which is based on monitoring the links between the attainment of business objectives and the development of the company’s constitution. The most sophisticated versions of this system see companies tracking both their constitutional strengths through assessments such as The 20 Keys or even ISO 9001, 18001, 55001 etc, actual performance in meeting their business targets and the constitution building activities. The TP Portfolio is a diagram which links activity and performance and illustrates if a company is in a performance ‘bubble’ where the results are not the result of activity controlled by the organisation, but rather by external factors out of their control, or indeed in the ‘engine racing’ zone where there is intense activity but poor results due to misalignment with the strategy.

The final competency based strategy is based on a full blown Policy Deployment system using TP Management concepts and the ‘catchball’ process of agreeing objectives at various levels in the organisation.

This is most often seen in Western manufacturers in the form of the X-Type Policy Deployment matrix, originally developed by Ryuji Fukuda. These however tend to be based solely on performance objectives and omit the alignment with constitutional objectives which is characteristic of TP Management.

These are six generic manufacturing strategy approaches and each company needs to modify and Figure 6: Supply and Demand Trends

combine as required by the overall business objectives of the company. One way of looking at how to develop your own strategy is to compare your own situation with the general development of manufacturing over the last 60 years.

The graph below illustrates how in aggregate terms the world has changed from one in which there was more demand than supply and where Quality and Delivery could be seen as differentiators to one where supply exceeds demand and Cost and Innovation are now seen as differentiators and Quality and Delivery merely qualifiers.

In markets where quality is still a differentiator, an approach such as Six Sigma, improving quality through reducing variation may be appropriate. This is not considered in our Japanese examples except as a precursor to TPM as the companies surveyed were no longer active in markets where Quality is an important differentiator. If delivery performance, particularly in terms of the extended supply chain is a differentiator in your marketplace then an extended Lean/Supply Chain approach could be valuable.

In markets where price is still a differentiator, then a well developed TPM approach can give significant benefits, especially when including Supply Chain development in an FMCG environment.

Advanced TPM approaches can also be beneficial when product and process innovation are key differentiators in over supplied markets. Where overall costs are an important consideration, new accounting approaches aimed at optimising total costs are especially useful.

Mature Lean organisations may also wish to reflect on the opportunity for developing advanced policy deployment system to ensure that their systems are aligned with changes in the market place The strategy development process is based on first deciding what markets to be in and then what capabilities are required to deliver value to that market.

This is sometimes described as ‘where to play and how to win’. The approaches outlined above are ‘ways to win’ and which combination is developed will depend on where you decide to play.

I have not detailed any of the market led approaches based on product innovation, but one alternative is to recognise your current capabilities (how you win) and then investigate new markets where these winning characteristics enable you to join the game. This can be as one of three types of innovation led companies – need seekers, who actively engage with the customer; market readers, who closely watch markets and competitors; and technology drivers, who launch innovative products in new markets based on their strength in R&D.

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PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE

How communication cells can change an organisation John Hogg is the Senior Business Improvement Manager at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

John is also currently the Convener of the Scottish Higher Education Improvement Network (SHEIN) and a member of the Lean HE Hub Steering Group. He was also recently included in the Lean Management Journal inaugural “Lean Top 25�.

BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF S T R A T H C LY D E

The application of lean in the UK Higher Education sector is a relatively new phenomenon, when compared to other sectors such as manufacturing and healthcare. Since 2006, however, there has been an increase in universities implementing lean and/

or continuous improvement through a number of approaches.

The University of Strathclyde adopted a holistic approach to lean through the establishment of a central Business Improvement Team in 2013. The team is focussed on facilitating the streamlining of business processes, improving the student and staff experience, and maximising efficiency gains. This is

achieved, in part, by creating and embedding a culture of continuous improvement across the university.

We view continuous improvement as an iterative practice. One that is often incremental and always cyclical, where each process can be reviewed again and again.

EMBEDDING CULTURAL CHANGE

To successfully establish a culture of continuous improvement, the work of the Business Improvement Team (BIT) is based on respect for people and is aligned with our organisational values (People-Oriented, Ambitious, Bold, Collaborative and Innovative). To facilitate culture change, it is important to understand what we mean by culture in a university environment. Our perspective is that the culture of the organisation is made up of the habitual behaviours and

Figure 1. A Communication Cell at the University of Strathclyde

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COMMUNICATION CELLS JOHN HOGG

Figure 2. Continuous Improvement Activity with all Members of a Team

The greatest impact resulting from Communication Cells is the number of improvements made by staff within their own business area

practices of its people that have become embedded over a period of time. Therefore, in order to establish a culture of continuous improvement, we need to modify the behaviours and practices accordingly and sustain these in the long term. As part of our approach, we work with teams to put an infrastructure and routine in place that helps facilitate behavioural and practice change, as well as create new habits.

D A I LY C O M M U N I C A T I O N CELLS AS A CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT TOOL

One of the most significant infrastructure changes introduced at the University of Strathclyde is the Daily Communication Cell (Figure 1). Supported by a visual management board, the Communication Cell is a place where teams meet to plan activities, review performance and agree actions on how to deliver improvements. This is not the Team Leader’s meeting, it is the Team’s meeting. Every member of the Team is encouraged to make a contribution, to assess team performance directly related to strategic priorities, constructively challenge others to identify opportunities for improvement, and share successes on a daily basis.

These meetings also help to keep team members informed of important information and allow for sharing of collective knowledge.

The greatest impact resulting from Communication Cells is the number of improvements made by staff within their own business area. Since the introduction of the first Communication Cell at the University of Strathclyde, over 2100 improvements have been implemented

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which have directly resulted in staff capacity and efficiency savings for the university, with a further 650 improvements in progress.

The feedback that we have received from the teams that we have worked with highlights the impact that the introduction of a daily Communication Cell can have on both individuals and a team, and demonstrates the tangible benefits that can be gained from continuous improvement activity: “Our daily communication cell meetings give me an understanding of what colleagues are working on and what we all hope to achieve that day. I can put forward ideas at the meetings and realise that they can be achieved. One good idea can inspire others to improve it and this has led to savings in time and resources, and more efficient processes within the team.”

D A I LY C O M M U N I C A T I O N C E L L S AND MARGINAL GAINS At the University of Strathclyde we believe that in a culture of continuous improvement (Figure 2), the little things, the marginal gains, can add up to significant improvements. We have certainly found our daily Communication Cells are a catalyst for bigger improvement opportunities. In one example, the Student Lifecycle Services Team raised a number of improvement ideas linked to the student registration process. They could have addressed these individually however, they wanted to tackle them in a joined up way to fully realise the impact of their improvements. This led to the Business Improvement Team facilitating a project aimed

PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE

Figure 3. The Approach to Implementing a Communication Cell at the University of Strathclyde 1. Project start up

This results in targeted progress towards achieving the strategic goals of the university and an understanding amongst all staff of their own contribution.

2. Design

Go & see Gather info & agree timetable for introduction

Comm cell request recieved

5. Continuous improvement and sustainment

4. Post implementation

Sustain new way of working

at improving registration at the start of the academic year for all new students.

The primary aim was to reduce the waiting time for international students by 50%.

The secondary aims were to introduce an early card collect system for home students, and create opportunities for a range of University services to engage with students at registration.

Support from BI team

3. Implementation

Timetable delivered & comm cell starts

W H Y H A V E D A I LY COMMUNICATION CELLS WORKED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF S T R A T H C LY D E ?

Average waiting time for International Students reduced by 83% (original target was 50%) 1,800 students participating in the early card collect scheme (160% more than expected) Confirmation from students of the delivery of an outstanding experience: “Effective and efficient, very, very helpful” Cost savings of £5,000

A Communication Cell is face–to-face communication, still the most effective and compelling form of communication that we have. When we look someone in the eye we know we have their attention and we can judge whether they understand the discussion and what opinion they hold. It provides an extremely effective way of empowering and engaging staff through encouraging the Team to take ownership and responsibility for tasks and for making improvements. Importantly, it also provides a forum to record the outcomes of improvements and celebrate the successes. It helps move away from a ‘command and control’ type of leadership, to one which is more innovative in style and creates an environment that establishes trust, values ideas, encourages thinking out loud and creativity.

As a result of regular communication through their daily Communication Cell, the team recognised the interconnected improvement ideas and were able to demonstrate that cumulative small improvements can lead to larger impacts.

Crucially, the Daily Communication Cell aligns the work of the Team to the strategic priorities of the department and organisation as a whole and facilitates transparency and an awareness of how the team is performing against its objectives.

The enhancements delivered by the Student Lifecycle Services Team far exceeded expectations and resulted in:

SUPPORTING THE INTRODUCTION O F D A I LY COMMUNICATION CELLS

When we introduce a Daily Communication Cell, there are several project stages that are followed (Figure 3). This approach has been iteratively developed and improved over time based on our previous experiences of implementing Communication Cells. We have learned it is essential to offer training prior to starting the Communication Cell in order to ensure that staff understand the objectives of this style of meeting and realise there will be a change to their way of working. It can take weeks, often months, for the Communication Cell to operate effectively. We have learned it is important to fully support the teams during this time and work with them to adapt the approach to suit their needs to ensure the practice is sustained.

THE FUTURE OF CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF S T R A T H C LY D E

At the University of Strathclyde we believe continuous improvement is never ending. The introduction of Daily Communication Cells in the University of Strathclyde has had a significant impact on changing behaviours, habits and practices, and has helped us develop a mind-set of continuous improvement.

This approach needs to develop further and be part of our organisational DNA; one which we are always seeking to improve. We want to continue to be an organisation where our people want to make today better than yesterday and make tomorrow better than today.

This approach will enable us, as a leading international technological university, to continuously improve our outstanding student experience, our internationally-leading research, our world-leading innovation and impact, and our global engagement.

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Authors of Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale The Lean Management Journal caught up with Joanne Molesky and Barry O’Reilly the authors of Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale. We picked their brains about how lean applies to start ups and the possible problems of over reliance on technology.

What do you think the most important aspects of a lean startup are?

Joanne: Most ideas are not great ideas.

In fact very few startups actually succeed.

The key question for lean startups to ask themselves is not “can we build it, but should we build it?”

Teams that embrace lean startup principles foster a culture of experimentation and learning that is supported by collecting data from real customers by continuously testing their proposition using minimal viable products (MVP) to find out what works, and what doesn’t. Eric Ries describes a MVP as “that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.” That means not necessarily creating software products to test your ideas. A test can be a simple as talking to your customers and getting their feedback and insight.

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It is critical for lean startups to identify a business model hypothesis then create a test using a MVP to gain knowledge by validating ideas through experimentation, improving value to customers. Without this foundation for learning, success is more likely to be achieved through luck than investment in hard work.

What tips would you give to innovators and entrepreneurs interested in improvement?

Barry: The first step is to create meaning for the people in your organisation. Everyone must understand the overall mission and goals we want to achieve (or whatever you prefer to call them). From there, listen to the people working with you. Give them the autonomy to make decisions which help them achieve these goals.

To make this work, you need to create an environment

PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE

where everyone feels safe to bring everything they are to work, empowering them to make decisions AND take responsibility for the outcomes; you need a strong sense of compassion and empathy for both your employees and customers.

As organisations grow, it is sometimes hard to maintain the culture that fosters further innovation. They often lose their sense of purpose and customer value in favor of rigid processes and structure designed to deliver shareholder value. Don’t fall into that trap, as it is a short term play and actively discourages your people from being creative and responsible.

When you rely heavily on technology, it is easy to forget that it is people driving the need and use of technology

Once you are on a path to success, get and keep your technology straightened out so you can collect more data on which to make decisions on what is a good, or not so good, idea. The ability to adapt quickly is reliant on technical capabilities - E.g.

DevOps, continuous delivery, simplification and reducing technical debt.

Lastly, manage your portfolio wisely.

Don’t be satisfied with the status quo, even if you are making buckets of money from it. Always look for the next thing to replace your current products and learn when to stop adding features and disrupt your own business with new innovative ideas and products.

Are there any challenges you see coming to the future of innovators?

Joanne: Privacy, security and regulatory compliance will become increasingly demanding on how products are built and information is collected and processed. For example some States in the USA are considering passing laws that make consumer buying habits private information. This will affect the way information can be collected, stored and utilised by retailers and marketers.

Existing laws and regulations may also interfere with the use of products in certain locations. Uber is currently facing backlash and has been banned from different political domains due to existing regulations that control public transportation options. AirBnB also faced similar challenges in New York City. However it can be viewed that their

success was driven by their willingness to test the boundaries of those laws and regulations in themselves.

As established organisations with political connections increasingly feel threatened by innovative products and services, they bring out laws and regulations as a way of preventing market penetration by new innovative alternatives.

Do you see any problems emerging from possible over reliance of technology and niche startups?

Barry: When you rely heavily on technology, it is easy to forget that it is people driving the need and use of technology. As technology advances, the possibilities of using it seem to grow exponentially. It is easy to get bedazzled by technology and build new products just because we can. It is important to always consider why we are building it and what outcomes do we expect to achieve?

Another problem in over reliance on technology is in using it to eliminate work without creating meaningful alternatives for people. As we follow this path, the world becomes increasingly polarised in wealth and values between the haves and have nots. The resulting conflicts may be our undoing. It would be more beneficial to see more use of technology to make lives better, such as providing affordable medical care, creating selfsustaining micro-economies and safer, affordable places for people to live. Be My Eyes provides blind people with greater mobility, Uber provides jobs for drivers, KIVA provides loans so people can run businesses to provide work for themselves and their families.

What are you hoping people learn from the book?

Joanne: If nothing else, we hope the readers will start to think differently about the way we manage the use of technology within organisations and realise that learning to adapt is key to success in business and indeed life itself. We can’t plan away uncertainty. We need to stop trying to control all aspects of the way people work and allow them to make decisions and take responsibility for the outcomes of their work.

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Service management, agile and lean in the I.T world ITSM TO LEAN JOURNEY BEGINNINGS

I have over 30 years of IT management experience, 11 data centres, over 20 Service Desks, ITIL@ Expert, exITIL examiner and trainer, COBIT and much more. But I still found it challenging to create, support and improve services based on technology (people, suppliers, processes and the fun stuff).

A few years ago I was introduced to lean and had the predictable reaction of what is lean and isn’t it only for manufacturing? Surely lean cannot apply to financial institutions or other service-based organisations. Well year six of my journey has proved me wrong.

The frameworks of ITIL allows you to ask questions but we in IT rarely ask them from the right perspective: the customer or end user. Lean asks you to change your perspective and challenges you to ask WHY you are doing something. Lean also has a focus on the worker and the user which many will argue, so do the main IT frameworks, but I would suggest not to the same extent.

But with all of lean now at my fingertips in terms of books, I found it difficult to find a sensei to show me, an independent consultant, how to lean. Trying by yourself though is a wonderful experience and it showed how lean can help but also how frustrating lean can be to apply or get others enthused.

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Daniel Breston is an Agile Service Management consultant, trainer and coach across the UK and EU.

ADOPT AND ADAPT

So I cheated! The two main words in ITIL@ are Adopt and Adapt. By this we mean read the books, accept the premise but then make them your own. I did the same by looking at two spin-off children of lean in IT: Agile and DevOps. Both steer individuals towards creating things better, faster and in a manner that allows for improvement by the floor of IT. A great quote by Taiichi Ohno describes Just-in-time as “customer delight is directly transmitted to those who are making the product.” Lean uses a concept called catch-ball from their strategy process Hoshin Kanri, to help derive how and why someone does something for a customer. Further catch-ball lets the people creating, supporting or improving their service make their own KPI that matches the goals of the organisation.

This is what Agile and DevOps strive to achieve: let the people work with the customer/user to create something, get feedback quickly so that service can be improved. PDCA if you will in very small and fast cycles. Agile and DevOps takes lean and adapts visual management into IT Kanban boards. Another adopt and adapt is Value Stream Mapping (VSM). In IT we provision technology environments by combining traditional processes of change-release-deploy and then via VSM, we apply automation to improve what happens but also combine monitoring to ensure we know when things go wrong. If it does we can remove the change as the focus

PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE

LEAN

AGILE SERVICE MANAGEMENT

Respectful mgt, customer focus, continuous improvement

ITIL Good practice processes and techniques

Lean asks you to change your perspective and challenges you to ask WHY you are doing something

is on small alterations in Agile/DevOps instead of large ones.

AGILE SERVICE MANAGEMENT

We now have a new framework emerging: Agile Service Management.

This intersection of Agile+Lean+ITSM will enable organisations to create the climate, interactions, processes and use of technology in a manner that benefits their customers and stakeholders. Agile Service Management will help IT individuals, CIO down and out to suppliers, to answer these two very difficult questions: Is our technology helping us achieve a goal or remove an obstacle on a daily basis?

Can we show someone not in IT that we are having a good day from their point of view?

AGILE A way of creating in iterative

Imagine the impact of a Service Level Agreement that has meaning everyday instead of just a monthly report that is often ignored. If all have a say then the services of IT can truly be Agile (quick to create), Lean (managed with respect) and DevOps (supportable across all of IT).

We have seen the benefits of Agile Service Management: Create collaboration amongst teams Increase the capability of creating and releasing new products more effectively and safely Decrease the number of service incidents Reduce the cost of IT as an outcome of doing things differently

FURTHER READING: For more read the blogs at http://itrevolution.com/; the Phoenix Project (Kim, Behr, Spafford); Run, Grow Transform (Bell); lead with Respect (Michael & Freddy Balle); and look for the new book by Mike Orzen: The Lean IT Field Guide: A Roadmap for Your Transformation.

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How to maintain pace and sustainability in the change process This is an extract from a whitepaper published by Suiko and Cranfield University, to view the whole thing please visit: http://www.suiko.co.uk/whitepapers/

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ultiple studies have shown that around 70 percent of large change programmes fail to deliver the target outcome.

Suiko considers ‘How’ to approach the change process and achieve sustainable success by answering 3 questions:

up programme that will result in a sustainable and common journey towards the vision. Let us consider each question in turn.

1. WHY WILL IT BE ANY DIFFERENT THIS TIME?

1. Why will it be any different this time?

2. What is the level of commitment required?

3. How do you ensure success along the Operational Excellence journey?

The Suiko Approach™ brings the WHY – WHAT – HOW cycle together. The How encompasses the enablers and consists of 4 key elements that must be brought to bear to ensure sustainable and accelerated change. See diagram 1.

Our experience reaffirms that successful implementation of change programmes depends on the organisation’s ability to develop a holistic approach, incorporating the right process with employee engagement. The output should lead to an integrated, joined

The programme must be a strategic priority, have a clear strategic framework that is aligned to the business vision and set out the roadmap for the journey. The framework will help to direct focus and should provide guidance on what needs to be done.

Suiko How

Making it happen

TM

Framework

Toolbox

Behaviours

Diagram 1: The Suiko Approach™

People need to have the right tools to deliver the expected results: the Tools & Techniques, when used appropriately, will help them see more clearly, measure, focus, problem solve, collaborate and as a result be more effective. Ultimately, this can develop into the group operating system.

Suiko believes that to embed exceptional practices, it is more about changing mindset than tools (80:20), developing a culture which encourages enabling Behaviours. Self discipline and ownership are key attributes for everyone, for it is this that maintains the processes’ sustainability.

The programme must be driven; management, especially the leadership team, need to apply energy and attention to the critical activities to Make It Happen. This requires robust programme management and should include activities such as governance, tracking and strong change management.

To mobilise the organisation and ensure that Operational Excellence is embedded in its widest sense requires a balanced approach to implementation, with each element of the approach running in parallel.

2. WHAT IS THE LEVEL OF COMMITMENT REQUIRED?

The organisation’s leaders need to demonstrate commitment to the journey.

Instilling a culture where deviation from the vision and process is not an option.

A prerequisite for success is to have clarity around the commitment that people are expected to make, after all, it is about embedding a ‘way of working’ that involves everyone throughout the organisation. Everyone is required to play a part in making the change happen: throughout the organisation (Diagram 2 illustrates the point).

3. HOW DO YOU ENSURE SUCCESS ALONG THE OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE JOURNEY?

In most instances, successful organisations develop a strategic vision

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PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE

Diagram 2: Role Expectations

Carry out improvement activity Work to standard Be part of a team Spot opportunities

Teams

Lead and coach the operational change Set priorities Set standards Reinforce the method

Line management

Senior management

Provide vision and set strategy Visible cmmitment Provide resources (£, people,time) Reinforce the vision

CEO

that maps out the journey to turn uncertainty into opportunity. The Suiko Approach™ will help to develop the journey.

Diagram 3 highlights the critical success factors (the How) that will make the programme great, but will only work with the necessary management commitment and the active involvement of all levels within the organisation. The specific tools you use when seeking to address the critical success factors may vary, but to fail on one or more of the elements of the approach will lead to a sub-optimal programme.

A key output of the ‘Why?’ stage should be a roadmap outlining the journey plan and route to the compelling vision of Operational Excellence and its benefits. The delivery of this ‘strategic framework’ will be most effective when there is strong strategic alignment, in simple terms, through the adoption of a one team, one plan approach that is endorsed by the board.

All of the above is best reinforced by the leaders in the business exhibiting the right ‘enabling’ behaviours.

Other fundamentals should include recognising success and communicating progress. Unless already normal practice it is best done in a structured way by integrating it into the change activity.

Keeping it simple and relevant to the audience is good advice.

Suiko’s view is that programme management does not have to be complicated, although it does require an investment in people and time resources to work best. Building the right infrastructure from the beginning will pay dividends later when trying to keep the programme on track. Like any investment, thorough up front planning will reduce the level of rework later and ultimately accelerate the pace of change.

Programme governance [the process and tools what will be deployed to keep

Diagram 3: Critical Success Factors to Deliver the Suiko How ™ Strategic framework

Group operating system

Enabling behaviours

Programme management

Compelling vision

Common language

Leadership at all levels

Programme Infrastructure

Strategic alignment

Lean application

Living the values

Governance

Operational Excellence roadmap

Learning & sharing

Maximise engagement

Sustainable change

the programme on track] is another aspect of making it happen that doesn’t always get the focus it merits, until things go wrong! If done well, it will give the structure from which all other change activities can hang and it does encourage the right behaviours, discipline and challenge.

Regular steering groups should take place to review progress to plan, address blockages, champion the programme and confirm the next steps. In parallel, all results (savings and benefits), audit and assessment scores should be tracked, reported and communicated against targets to make progress transparent.

In short, a truly Lean business will strive to understand and deliver value from the customer’s point of view, with the optimum level of resource (e.g. people, capital, knowledge, research, design, overheads).

It will continue to challenge not only the primary processes but all of the secondary processes needed to deliver the product or service (e.g. finance, HR, IT, legal).

A Lean business pushes the boundaries of conventional business process and is expert at identifying non-value-added activities and eliminating them.

Read on to learn how Suiko’s Operational Excellence approach to Lean thinking delivered an award-winning business transformation programme at LINPAC Packaging Ltd.

www.leanmj.com | December / January 2015/16

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Visual management vs. visual workplace – what’s the difference?

Gwendolyn Galsworth, PhD, works directly with many companies on visual conversions, visual leadership, and the visual-lean® office. She is founder/president of Visual Thinking Inc. and The Visual-Lean® Institute and author of many books on workplace visuality and strategic improvement, including two that are recipients of The Shingo-Prize, Visual Workplace/ Visual Thinking and Operator-Led Visuality/Work That Makes Sense.

For more, kindly visit: www.visualworkplace.com

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ho doesn’t recognise the tremendous power of the visual workplace in operations—color coding, visual standards, kanban, borders, addresses, production controls boards, visual guarantees/poka-yoke systems? These tools are so easy to use and so effective—in large part because they are visual. The same with the management part of visuality: KPIs, LCD monitors, dashboards, and other visible tracking systems.

We think we understand what visual management is—and by inference the visual workplace. Yet the ways in which we don’t understand them keep us from utilising the very powerful improvement paradigm of visuality fully and well. This is not just a mistake in thinking; it is the loss of a huge improvement opportunity for companies and the people who work in them.

I have been implementing workplace visuality since the early 1980s, spending much of the time since defining and

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power of making companies visual: The visual workplace is a self-ordering, self-explaining, self-regulating, and self-improving workplace—where what is supposed to happen does happen on time, every time, day or night, because of visual devices.

This definition turns the visual workplace into a compelling operational imperative, central to your war on waste, and crucial to meeting daily performance goals, vastly reduced lead times, and an accelerated flow you can control at will. Visuality becomes the language of your current operational system made visible through specific visual devices and systems of devices. At its most comprehensive—and most effective—the visual workplace includes imbedding the details of your operational system into the physical landscape of work—whether that landscape is in a hospital, office, government agency, factory or an openpit mine. This is the visual performance function of the visual workplace.

The above definition has stood the test of time and proven itself able to encompass the full spectrum of visual functions, including visual management.

codifying it into a coherent framework of thinking and application. Of late, a great deal of attention has been focused on the visual management aspect of the visual workplace, as a function of visual information sharing. That is of course good news—except that many thought leaders and coaches are treating visual management as though it is tantamount to a fully-functioning visual workplace when, in fact, it is not.

In this article, I want to correct that misunderstanding—first by defining a fully-functioning visual workplace and then by describing the portion legitimately reserved for visual management. For some readers, this will be a revolutionary mindset change as you discover that workplace visuality can contribute more to the bottom line than visual management alone.

DEFINING TERMS

My favorite definition of a visual workplace is one I constructed in the 1980s as I began to discover the

Visual management, on the other hand, is the aspect of a visual workplace that make visibly accessible vital information about the company’s vision, values, goals, and results—on a strategic and tactical level. When a company adopts visual management as a practice, we see a wide array of KPIs and measurement data in visible 2-D formats—charts, displays, graphs, grids, images, and so on. These are flat figures but packed with vital evidence about what the enterprise does and how well (or not so well) it does that. The purpose of visual management is twofold: first to share the company’s direction and intent; and second to frame critical results data within that context so their meaning is clearly understood—and adjustments can be made.

What part of this is not important?

My response is the same as yours: It’s all important. In their sum, visual management formats can connect the organisation and align the efforts and activities of the many functions

PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE

Figure 1. The Spectrum of Visual Function.

This progression shows a close representation of the eight categories of visual function in their usual order of adoption and the approximate impact of each on the stability, transparency, and growth of the enterprise. Visual management is one such category. A study of this chart reveals why I say that visual management is most effective when part of a larger, enterprise-wide visual workplace initiative.

Many thought leaders and coaches are treating visual management as though it is tantamount to a fullyfunctioning visual workplace when, in fact, it is not

that support a company’s operational and growth outcomes. This isn’t just because visual management information is vital to the health and well-being of any enterprise. It is also because the format is visual. Science has already well established that we humans are creatures of our senses. We also know that 50% of the brain’s resources are dedicated to finding and interpreting visual data, deepening our appreciation of the power of visual formats to convey, connect, and illuminate. Humans are masters of spatial interpretation, which surpasses by a hundredfold our ability to retain and understand non-visual/ abstract events. Seeing is not only believing. Seeing makes it so.

Look at Figure 1, which shows the eight categories of visual functions that are active in a highly-integrated visual workplace. Notice that visual management is located as the fourth function on the progression, with a contribution to a fully-functional visual workplace at about 10%. You may consider that paltry, but look at the 15% level of contribution each for visual order (5S on steroids) and then for hoshin kanri (policy deployment). The message is clear: the power of visuality is not in any single segment but in their collective sum.

Said another way, visual management can have substantial impact—but only when it is aligned with its other visual partners.

When we deploy visual performance with visual management, a formerly mute workplace is transformed into one that speaks—clearly and precisely—about two outcomes: 1) What to do and when and how to perform error-free work safely, smoothly, completely, reliably, and ontime; and 2) How to use the impact of that performance to drive the enterprise into sustainable prosperity. The first outcome is visual performance, the second is visual management. You need both if you are to achieve a workplace that speaks.

Yet many of us work in companies nearly bereft of visual information sharing.

Instead, we are forced to rely on talking/ listening, questions/answers, and meetings/meetings/meetings for some context, meaning, and understanding. No wonder visual management finds a hearty welcome in the world of work.

Yes, visual management is mission-critical and should be pursued by every company interested in stability, accountability, and growth—as long as we understand that visual management is only one in a progression of core visual functions that comprise the visual workplace (interchangeably workplace visuality).

Figure 1 shows that progression against the background of the visible light spectrum. The continuum starts with a company that is struggling in a pre-5S/pre-

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V I S U A L M A N A G E M E M T G W E N D O LY N G A L S W O R T H

Figure 2. Examples of the Five Levels of Visual Management Formats

visual work environment. It then crosses eight categories of visual functionality, culminating in a high-performing enterprise that drives—and is capable of driving—higher and higher levels of operational excellence. In such an enterprise, visuality is fully-implemented. Walk in and you will see a company that is a visual showcase on every level, demonstrating the power, precision, and repeatable competency of a fully-functioning visual workplace (even in low-volume/high complexity settings).

ERRORS OF CONCEPT

Certain errors of concept prevent us from using visual management to its fullest and for the purposes for which it was designed. Here are three of the main ones.

Error in Definition: Powerful though it is, visual management is only one element of fully-invested visuality at work. Because it has a specific scope and purpose, visual management is most effective when deployed within those defined boundaries.

Error in Scope: While an effective visual management deployment can create a very positive impact on the business, that impact will not be long-lasting if it is not combined with other categories of visual function. Visual management is a mechanism for discerning, calibrating, and framing performance results—but it is not the performance itself.

Error in Perception: The third error is closely connected to the first. Because some companies do not recognise visual management as part of a larger construct, they wrongly assume it can achieve outcomes reserved for other categories of visual function. As a result, visual management will disappoint though it is innocent of claiming beyond its scope.

These errors will continue to curtail our progress toward operational excellence—but only if we leave them uncorrected. Knowledge and logic are the natural antidote.

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VISUAL MANAGEMENT FORMATS, LEVEL

BY LEVEL In keeping with that, let’s take a short walk through a representative array of visual management formats, level by level. In my lexicon, visual management has five distinct step-down goals:

1) To make the corporate intent visible 2) To make business results visible on the site-level 3) To make visible process results on the department-level 4) To make visible process results on the value-add level 5) To align KPIs through dashboards The range of choices in this array of visual information-sharing layouts and progressions can be quite easily tailored to the specifics of your company. See Figure 2 for an example on each level. Because of its cascading effect, visual management serves as an early form of hoshin kanri/policy deployment, the discussion of which we reserve for another time.

LET THE WORKPLACE SPEAK

Visual management is an important part of the visual workplace methodology, but only a part. Remember to utilise all the dimensions of the visual workplace continuum—a robust array of categories of visual function—as you let your workplace speak!

We also know that 50% of the brain’s resources are dedicated to finding and interpreting visual data, deepening our appreciation of the power of visual formats to convey, connect, and illuminate

PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE

Three Ingredients to Transform Your Business Operation M

Andy Sheppard is a specialist in transforming manufacturing operations. This article has been developed from content within his recent book: The Incredible Transformation of Gregory Todd: a Novel about Leadership and Managing Change.

y lean journey started properly fifteen years ago.

I thought I already knew a thing or two about lean: I had studied it at university and I had worked for companies that practised it. Then I was assigned to a transformation that was in the hands of an expert from Toyota’s Supplier Support Centre. My expectations were blown out of the water: waste collapsed and an organisation burst to life within six months. Since then I have continued to learn while specialising in pursuing similar transformations in diverse industries. On reflection, I would now say that three ingredients must be blended to achieve this level of transformation: lean insight, good leadership and practical change-management.

Lean insight is more than knowledge: it means discerning a key that can collapse the residual waste for a specific operation

Lean insight is more than knowledge: it means discerning a key that can collapse the residual waste for a specific operation. Typically this concerns end-to-end flow (although flow changes must also be supported by other lean priorities, such as stabilising processes and developing Figure 1: Schematic Example of Distribution Plot of Production Lead Time

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THREE INGREDIENTS TO TRANSFORM YOUR BUSINESS OPERATION ANDY SHEPPARD

standard work, performance-management and problem-solving capability). Lean has long been well-documented for low-variation, high-volume products (e.g. automotive components) but for make-toorder products I have found that a key can often be revealed through a distribution plot of production lead time. This can be computed from a representative sample of random orders and a schematic example is sketched in Figure 1. It shows that although a few orders may be bullied through the operation in a week or so, the mode is around five weeks. The long tail causes the problem, and results from orders which are delayed in successive processes (e.g. because they are rare variants). The orders in the shaded tail end up being shipped later than the standard lead time, which is eight weeks in this example. Orders might be released into production even earlier (e.g. ten weeks in advance in this case) to try and ensure better OTIF, but this will lock in approx. ten weeks of inventory. The key question to ask is what if the plot could be narrowed in the future as sketched in the thicker marker (i.e. by end-to-end flow design, featuring value streams, FIFO or Everypart-every intervals)? Even if the tail can be reduced to five weeks, inventory can be halved and all associated wastes collapsed.

Figure 2: 5Cs for How Operations Can Impact Business Performance CUSTOMER SERVICE CULTURE CAPACITY COST CAPITAL business impact. These are not just Cost, but Customer Service, Culture, Capacity and Capital.

I recommend a simple structure with four phases: Diagnose, Design, Implement and Refine

Good leadership is essential because your leaders must own the vision. This is necessary not just to give you the mandate you need to transform end-to-end flow, but for the commitment to surface and solve broader organisation challenges that will be necessary to achieve it. Good leaders should listen and engage with any business plan that makes sense, but if you are a lean director or manager, a significant part of your challenge will be to develop this business case (particularly if your leaders are not well versed in operations management). This is likely to draw on all of your influencing skills, and in putting together business cases I have found it helpful to outline what I call the 5 Cs: five ways in which operations can deliver

If you have gained lean insight and are blessed with good leaders, together you need to develop a practical changemanagement approach. This is essential in order to engage the rest of the organisation and to implement sustainable change. I have become a firm advocate of a narrow-and-deep approach that was first modelled to me. This is because sustainable transformation does require deep engagement and coaching of people throughout the end-to-end flow, to change established thinking and behaviours. The most manageable way of achieving this is by transforming one narrow slice of the organisation at a time (where each slice is a smaller part that ideally still represents an end-to-end flow). A practical change-management process then creates focus for managers and operators alike. I recommend a simple structure with four phases: Diagnose, Design, Implement and Refine. This communicates and enables an approach that engages people in developing the right solutions for their own areas, as part of the end-to-end solution. In fact, although lean insight and good leadership are essential prerequisites, it tends to be a practical changemanagement approach that both models and triggers the cultural transformation.

And this, beyond the results, is surely the most rewarding and most valuable part of any authentic transformation.

Figure 3: Four Phased Approach to Managing Change

Diagnose

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Design

Implement

Refine

PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE

In Pursuit of Process Improvement: Top Ten Lean Lessons Learned Mara Roberts has a decade of experience in higher education, first working as an international credentialer, and currently as Special Assistant to the Provost at Columbia College. Her work in Academic Affairs includes championing the LEAN initiative, leading major projects and new academic program implementations, workflow and organisational analysis and collaboration, and contributing to the Academic Affairs Office vision of becoming a model for effectiveness, efficiency, and innovation.

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rocess improvement is a process like any other, with lessons learned and iterations made along the way. The key to any lean process improvement project is to learn the valuable lessons and continue to improve; effectively, to walk the walk and talk the talk of what makes process improvement.

In keeping with the spirit of iteration, listed below are the top lean lessons my organisation learned during its lean implementation. These lessons are intended to serve as a resource and map to guide decision-making for lean programs, but aren’t reflective of hard-and-fast rules to make any lean program successful. A rewarding lean program is customised to the needs of the

organisation it benefits and adapts to the organisation transformations around it:

1

Trust the process improvement tool utilised.

We all get into zones of control where we believe we know better than the tool, or that we are advanced enough we can move beyond the steps of the process

improvement tool. But these steps are in place for a reason, trust them to do what they are intended to do!

2

3

4

5

Accept setbacks and failures as opportunities to learn and improve. Everything that happens is a lesson to be learned. Do not become frustrated in the setbacks so the value-add of those lessons is missed. Any process improvement program is also subject to improvement; allow the process to work.

Start small, and know the process/product will change over time. Admittedly, our original lean process was not very lean. Over time, we learned to not duplicate our own effort and are still improving our improvement process. It takes time to figure out what works; don’t be overzealous in the beginning. Start small, reevaluate often to see where the pain points rest, and improve continuously!

Make lean fit into the current organisational culture. Intentionally plan the lean implementation, ensure it fits into current structures and organisations, and work with the positive assets in the current organisation. Do not attempt to force a change; allow the organisation to adapt itself once the value of process improvement is established.

Know the problem before determining a solution.

This sounds easy in theory, but it is much harder in practice. The story is common: an organisation procures a software to fix a problem. No one can really define the problem, but they know there is a problem, and this software is made to fix it.

These scenarios usually end in mediocre software that doesn’t do what anyone really wanted it to, and the undefined problem still exists. Band-aids

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IN PURSUIT OF PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

h Use this as an opportunity to determine if you are measuring what you intend to measure, and if this is defined as success. For example, if your measure is to shorten wait time by 15%, and you shorten wait time by 25%, this would seem successful. But if you discover processing errors went up 40%, is the shortened wait time still considered successful?

to symptoms do not fix problems. Before doing anything to fix a problem, get the process experts together to determine the actual problem. Then use those same colleagues to develop solutions.

This is the power of lean.

As a second warning, avoid the tendency toward solutionitis: don’t go into a project with the solution already in mind; allow the process to discover actual pain points and the lean team to produce solutions from those pain points.

6

.

7

.

Make front line experts the solution. Very commonly, leadership believes itself to know best and moves forward with its assumptions on the optimal way to do things without taking into account those who know the process. This runs counter to the entire premise of lean. It is the power of the users, and it empowers employees to be the solution. Decisions are made by those who know the problems, and leadership trusts employees to make these decisions. The best leaders know when to delegate decision-making to the front line experts, and will reap the benefits of creating a dependable team and then getting out of its way to do what the organisation trusts it to do best.

Develop metrics and set a baseline in order to measure success. This is done through the following: a Determine the problem and what you are trying to improve. b Set metrics to measure improvement.

Examples: number of errors, number of days to process, number of steps, or wait time. c Define success. Examples: reduction in errors by 15%, elimination of processing wait time by 50%, or shorten length of time customer waits in line to be served by 5 minutes. d Measure your pre-improvement process (often called baseline). Record these results and use as a comparison to measure improvement later. e Implement actions. f Measure your post-improvement process, using the same criteria set for the baseline.

Set this on a set timeline. Examples: sixmonths-post, one-year post, after certain implementation benchmarks are achieved. g Analyse your measurements. Compare the preand post- and determine if actions resulted in successful changes.

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i Change your definition of success and your measurement metrics when necessary.

In many cases, establishing metrics is new to an organisation, and it will be a struggle to change culture so that the importance of metrics and data-driven decisions is understood. Take the time and use the patience to do this correctly.

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Lead by example to foster the desired culture. If you believe in process improvement, behave in a way that models process improvement. As a leader, it is important to send the message that leadership doesn’t have all the answers, it trusts others to determine solutions, accepts mistakes as opportunities to improve, and fosters a culture of continuous improvement that is open to innovation, risks, and new ideas.

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Lean is never finished. Process improvement continues for as long as processes need improvement. Lean is a mindset and a culture: it must be harvested, nurtured, and supported. Lean is never “done,” and projects are never completed.

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Never underestimate the power of relationships or people when effecting change. No culture can be forced. A culture becomes culture when it is the way of thinking in any organisation. This builds just as relationships and trust build, and takes time, commitment, and respect for others – and is reliant upon the individual behaviors that make up an organisation. Be ready to work these relationships with others in the organisation by being open and transparent, giving trust and respect, cultivating autonomy and innovation, and providing resources and support for success.

There is no deadline or completion to enacting a culture; process improvement as a culture and a system of efficiency is also a process to be improved; thus, it is subject to constant scrutiny and iteration. Process improvement ideologies must adapt to and fit within the context of the organisation in which they exist, and no two organisations will have identical lean programs. This being said, there are successful lessons to learn from other organisations; as a system commissions its lean initiative, it has the opportunity to take the best of multiple lean programs, such as the lessons identified above, and adapt those to meet its needs.

PRINCIPLES & PURPOSE

Lessons in Lean Transformation What’s our starting measure?

Mark Gregory is Founder and MD of Unleash & Engage Ltd, a Business Transformation consultancy specialising in Lean and Employee Engagement. www. unleashandengage.co.uk.

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ou get what you measure or do you? There is a lot spoken about the subject of lean transformation and the way in which one should approach it. From my experience I have concluded, even though I have a preferred core approach I would recommend to any organisation I am working with, such approaches have to be highly flexible, as there is no one way to achieve an embedded lean philosophy. There are too many variables at play across: different business; industry sectors; political economic environments, internal politics/divisions and regional cultural dynamics for it to

From my experience most organisations start their lean journey with the application of some tools somewhere in the organisation

be facilitated by one single solution. I have however over the years observed some key factors in the way we think about these steps that are essential and specifically the first step that most organisations take, the use of the tools.

Let’s start with the way we think about the use of the lean tools. From my experience most organisations start their lean journey with the application of some tools somewhere in the organisation.

There are a number of reasons to start here. It is fairly straight forward, easy, inexpensive etc. The benefit can be powerful, with opportunity for

improvements in safety, quality and delivery amongst others. This can then become a catalyst for further application.

Whilst at face value this seems great, often overtime the organisational energy for this activity runs out and a debate to the real benefits of such activity ensues as there is a pressure to show the real impact to the bottom line.

For me, in these early stages, it is not the activity that is wrong but the way we think about this activity and ultimately measure it. Often the reason is to show this approach works in changing the bottom line and this therefore becomes

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LESSONS IN LEAN TRANSFORMATION

the reason for success or failure. Time and time again I come across companies that have millions of pounds attributed to the success of the lean tools intervention programme. A programme that has required investment as they have administered it through Lean Learning Academies, Value Stream Mapping etc. Often the programme has initiated the establishment of an in house lean team initially supported by external consultants therefore placing

So why not use engagement levels as your prime indicator of success and use the productivity measures and your secondary measures in these early stages

it on to the accountants’ return on investment list, which always generates scrutiny at a level. However, the sad reality is that very often whilst there are often large financial savings attributed to these programmes the benefit is never actually realised. In my experience the failing of being able to realise the benefit often lies not in the failing of the programme, approach, lean tool set application or the team set up to lead it, but in the execution dynamic that exists within the organisation. The actuality of the organisations ability to execute change in anything not just lean implementation. If your organisation was not a great implementer of change or not great at execution prior to commencement of this lean activity, then it is highly unlikely to become great at execution as a result of the application of a lean tool intervention programme, even if you have now introduced the power of Deming Cycle: Plan-Do-Check-Act! So where does this leave us then. Well, my experience is there is always a productivity benefit that is implemented, either in quality, delivery or cost and therefore a real linkage to the bottom line can be created. Some linkage to financial

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The actuality of the organisations ability to execute change in anything not just lean implementation

savings is always positive, after all money matters often get a hearing at the boardroom table, especially when saving money. However, it is also my experience that in these early stages as it is still new this can also be difficult. However, one thing that I have found to be irrefutable in these stages of such a programme is what I call the “attention effect”. Put simply by using the lean tool set in some form of intervention you have given the employee a voice one that they have not had before in such a power and constructive way.

You have given them a vehicle to be heard and contribute in a different way than normal. In some cases you have also given them the accountability to change things for themselves, empowerment. If we then think of this in corporate terms we have likely change the employee engagement levels. If this is the case I have found that most senior leaders, even the most sceptical ones will accept this as a positive start and thus allow the journey to continue. So why not use engagement levels as your prime indicator of success and use the productivity measures and your secondary measures in these early stages. This then allows the business and everyone within it to have a little breathing space while you take on the challenge of implementing the financial benefit.

Whilst on a senior executive visit to Toyota Motor Manufacturing (UK) Ltd, I once listened to the then plant director describe how they used Quality Control Circles (QQC). A question from a senior director within the visiting group came, “what difference does all this work make to the bottom line?”, “Not sure.” Was the response. “So you do all this work and you don’t know what difference it makes.” Scoffed the interrogator. “Oh, yes we understand what difference it makes because we measure the associates capability to solve problems prior to entering the QQC and after. This way we and the associate understand how they have developed and thus contribute to our business and their work in a much more powerful way.”

My view is this is motivating and therefore engaging.

As the saying goes a “good workman never blames their tools!!” So what will you measure?

OUT OF THE BLUE

Out of the blue: Vision Therapy I

Bill Bellows is the President, of the In2:InThinking Network.

Based in the Greater Los Angeles Area he has a particular interest in the defence and space industry. Bill has over 30 years experience in engineering and has come from the practical side of manufacturing and engineering so understands how lean transformation work from the ground up.

an Fleming had a concise vision for James Bond, one he shared in a memo when Dr. No was being filmed. According to producer Cubby Broccoli’s autobiography, Fleming’s vision of Bond was of a “blunt instrument wielded by a Government Department. He is quiet, hard, ruthless, sardonic, fatalistic.”

Fifty years later, Spectre offers a reminder of Fleming’s vision of James Bond’s likes and dislikes, including a fondness for martinis, “shaken, not stirred.” With my own fondness for martinis, unable to discern a difference between shaken and stirred, film critics and fans can weigh in on the need for corrections to Fleming’s original image of Bond.

Long before Fleming’s vision of agent 007, eye glasses provided corrections to anyone who could afford vision treatment. While there are no records of an inventor, historians have traced the use of glasses as a form of vision therapy to 13th century Italy. With agreement on timing, others credit first use in India and China. Five centuries later, British optician Edward Scarlett added rigid sidepieces to allow glasses to rest upon one’s ears. Fellow British optician, James Ayscough, wasted no time in adding hinges to the sidepieces.

While glasses provide an external form of vision therapy, ophthalmologists have

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OUT OF THE BLUE BILL BELLOWS

been offering surgical solutions since 800 BC, noting Sushruta in India as the first cataract surgeon. As with optometrists in their steady advances to eye glasses, ophthalmologists have advanced their state of practice of vision therapy, from tools for earlier detection of glaucoma to corneal transplants.

Similar to developmental optometry, my proposal builds upon a reflection from author and educator, Myron Tribus, that “What you see depends on what you thought before you looked.” What if, suggests Tribus, our vision is always constrained by our current thinking?

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More recently, developmental optometry offers a new solution space for vision therapy. Sometimes referred to as behavioral optometry, practitioners treat their patients, including our son, with a wide variety of hand-eye coordination exercises. In so doing, developmental optometrists have expanded the size of the vision system used by optometrists and ophthalmologists, the eye itself, to include the optic nerve and brain.

improvement? Upon asking questions such as these, seminar students were unable to describe what it would look like in a facility tour. In parallel, I came upon a story that matches my vision of an organisation that manages resources with contextual excellence, marked by the ability to define quality in terms of relationships between parts and tasks, not parts and tasks taken separately, as is often the norm.

The story came from David Kearns, former CEO of Xerox, in his book, Prophets in the Dark. Kearns credited the account to Frank Pipp, a Xerox colleague who shared the experience of serving Ford as a plant manager. In his benchmarking practice, competitor’s cars were procured, disassembled, and re-assembled. If two parts could be joined without a rubber mallet, it was “snap fit.” The majority of parts required mallets. To their amazement, one of

With this introduction to advances in vision therapy, building upon Fleming’s version of Bond as an example of a vision, I hereby offer my own form of vision therapy to students and More recently, developmental optometry practitioners of lean.

Similar to developmental offers a new solution space for vision therapy. optometry, my proposal Sometimes referred to as behavioral optometry, builds upon a reflection practitioners treat their patients, including our from author and educator, son, with a wide variety of hand-eye Myron Tribus, that “What coordination exercises you see depends on what you thought before you looked.” What if, suggests Tribus, our vision is always constrained by the cars acquired in the late 1960s our current thinking? was entirely snap fit. Upon repeating this astonishing assembly of a Toyota My therapy was instigated by the pickup truck, they realised they were essential vision of lean, as explained not hallucinating. With this story as a

by Womack, Jones, and Roos, in their backdrop, my vision therapy terminology trend-setting book, The Machine That for an organisation such as Toyota is a Changed the World. As with Fleming, “Blue Pen Company.” In a simple dualthese authors articulated a vision; mode model, a “Red Pen Company” namely “A lean organisation understands represents the converse of a customer value and focuses its key “Blue Pen Company.” processes to continuously increase it. The ultimate goal is to provide perfect value Building upon Pipp’s contrast between to the customer through a perfect value Ford and Toyota, my vision therapy creation process that has zero waste.” begins by asking seminar attendees to imagine that they have just returned What can be said of an organisation from visiting two companies – the Blue with zero waste? How does it respond Pen Company and the Red Pen Company. to an ever-changing world? And, what My description follows; “The Blue Pen can be said of achieving perfection?

Company is where I go every week to Unlike Utopia, is there wiggle room for

OUT OF THE BLUE

buy one blue pen. They are the sole source of blue pens, their only product.

Likewise, the Red Pen Company is the sole source for red pens, their only product. Every week, I buy one. The pens are identical, other than in colour, comprised of two parts, a body, with ink and a writing tip, and a cap, to enclose the tip. Both cost $1.”

My therapy was instigated by the essential vision of lean, as explained

by Womack, Jones, and Roos, in their trend-setting book, The Machine That Changed the World

With this introduction, participants are instructed to take a sheet of A4 paper, draw a large rectangle and subdivide it into four cells, with a left and right column (labeled Blue and Red Pen Company, respectively) as well as a top and bottom row (labeled “physical” and “people,” respectively). Next, I explain that “trip report” observations about each company’s “physical” environment will be added, on my prompt, to the top two cells, with observations about “people” placed in the bottom cells.

Continuing with the exercise, I offer this explanation for the trip report, “Consider that you have recently toured both companies, each for two weeks. With laser-like focus, you made notes about the physical features of both companies during the first week in each, when the entire staff was on holiday. With laserfocus, you also made notes about the staff during the second week in each, when they returned from holiday.” Before the cells are filled, a bonus element of discernment is offered; “The cap and body of the blue pen are easy to separate, known as “snap fit.” The red pen cap and body can only be assembled with a hammer and separated with pliers. In next five minutes, record the highlights of your trip reports in the four cells.”

In conducting this vision therapy exercise for 18 years, across several continents, with wide varieties of audiences, the trip reports are amazingly similar. The physical characteristics of Blue Pen Companies often include “neat, clean, organised, open doors, and the use of round tables.” People are routinely described as “having fun, enthusiastic, friendly, inventive, engaged, and curious.” By contrast, the physical attributes of Red Pen Company typically include “chaotic, disorganised, dirty, dark, with rectangular tables and closed doors.” People characteristics will include

“fearful, disengaged, rigid, and quick to blame others.” When queried, seminar attendees consistently estimate that most organisations, in their experience, are Red, not Blue, kept in business by other Red Pen Companies.

With extensive experience in using this exercise, I have used it to imagine the operation of a Toyota plant, having never visited one. Upon comparing my own trip report with the accounts of colleagues with familiarity in touring Toyota’s facilities, my vision therapy descriptions of a Blue Pen Company are well aligned with their first-hand reports.

In conducting this vision therapy exercise for 18 years, across several continents, with wide varieties of audiences, the trip reports are amazingly similar

While the compiled visions of a Blue Pen Company are not far removed from the “trip reports” collected by Womack, Jones, and Roos, the explanations are vastly different. I am also reminded that what I see depends on what I thought before I looked. I think of Toyota as an organisation with a refined skill for managing resources, from parts to people to processes, suppliers, and customers; as a system. I am unsure of how a focus on perfection in parts and a zeal to eliminate waste, with a deep foundation in Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Scientific Management, can explain Toyota’s achievement of a 100 percent snap fit automobile in the late 1960s, let alone their status today. While the fastest way to transform a Red Pen Company to Blue is to use spray paint, I suggest a surer way, albeit a more challenging journey. Infuse awareness of contextual excellence in how all resources are managed and do so with a constancy of purpose. My collection of LMJ articles; past, present, and future; offer insights on this road less traveled. Far more vision therapy is provided in books and articles by authors including Russell Ackoff, Genichi Taguchi, Tom Johnson, Gipsie Ranney, and W. Edwards Deming.

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BOOK REVIEW John Bicheno looks at the The Supply Chain: Managing the Challenge at Tesco and gives his reasons why it is a good read for anyone involved in lean

T

his book is a superlative in-depth case study of how lean concepts, together with concepts from marketing, innovation, and strategy combined to give Tesco an edge in grocery retailing. Although centered on Tesco, the book is in fact the story of supply chain developments in the highly competitive UK food retail sector. In fact, the book is more than just about supply chain as it covers strategy, customer focus, continuous improvement, and international business.

In that respect in would be a pity if the title of the book limits readership to supply chain professionals.

Tesco has been in the news recently having suffered from accounting misinformation, unsuccessful overseas ventures, and tough competition at home. But these should in no way detract from the value of the book which traces the history and contribution of supply chain lean thinking at an organisation that grew from a very low base to become the largest supermarket group in the UK and, in 2014, the second biggest retailer the world. The parallels with the Toyota journey (and its problems) are striking. The book provides a classic longitudinal study showing the importance of sustained leadership and purpose.

Tesco became the role model for the food supply chain. As such, it deserves a place alongside classic lean manufacturing texts such as ‘The Machine that Changed the World’.

Early chapters trace the history of Tesco’s expanding ambitions and scope,

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together with the thinking on store types, product range including non-food, and services, including banking and personal finances. And finally onto international expansion. An interesting discussion follows on the question of whether Tesco over reached themselves. The discussion is carried through to the penultimate chapter about current challenges on pricing, rebuilding brands, and clarifying purpose. Surely several lessons are to be learned from the company experience and from the reflections of the authors.

The central supply chain chapter describes the attention to detail that Tesco has employed. Here, lessons from ‘Lean Thinking’ are clear: customer focus and clarification of value (for example basket fulfillment rate), waste reduction, demand amplification control, time compression, and collaboration.

The Supply Chain and Improvement chapters would be interesting and valuable to anyone in large-scale retailing or indeed large-scale business. In particular the sections contrasting conventional wisdom with Tesco’s counter-intuitive answers are illustrative of how effective lean thinking outside of manufacturing can be. For example, convention says efficiency wins;

no, effectiveness wins. Convention says to stand out from the crowd in business you should be the cheapest or the most innovative; no, you can compete on both innovation and price. Convention says how to be good at business is difficult to understand but easy to do; No, it is easy to explain but hard to do. On this point the authors make an interesting parallel with the lean implementation difficulties that many manufactures have experienced. Clarify purpose, adopt a systems view, and take the long term perspective.

Barry Evans was a senior manager in Tesco’s Supply Chain Development function. Robert Mason is a senior lecturer at Cardiff Business School. Together these authors have written a book that satisfies both supply chain professionals as well as academics and postgraduate students.

In conclusion: An important book. A good read. Numerous business lessons.

LEAN ONLINE OCTOBER 2015

LEAN ONLINE

LEAN NLINE

ROUNDING UP THE MONTH’S DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS ON LEAN

LMJ’s social media pages are a great place to go for lots of networking opportunities and information on all things lean from around the web.

EETS W T P O T

Find industry experts and exciting discussions on our LinkedIn page, and follow @LeanMJournal and @fredtonguejourn for news on upcoming events and ways to get involved with the LMJ.

Mahmoud Ahmad, of the Saudi Gazette, describes his recent visit to Japan and notes how their culture lends itself to the work ethic, contrasting it with the Saudi way of life. Find it at: http://bit.ly/1WVjc1R

It might be half a decade old, but in keeping with big issues, this amusing list that Mark Graban has put together of things lean practitioners shouldn’t say is still relevant. http://bit.ly/1RYBYPd

The official blog of the U.S Department of Education has written a piece all about how innovation and improvement can drive the sector forward. http://1.usa.gov/1PGyBP7

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E V E N T S There is currently an expanding pool of events available for the development of the lean community. They offer both general and sector specific opportunities to renew your enthusiasm and gain new perspectives through communicating with lean contemporaries.

UPCOMING LEAN EVENTS INCLUDE:

LEAN WORKSHOP BY JEFF GOTHELF AND TOMER SHARON

Paris, France 11th and 12th January 2016 Jeff Gothelf and Tomer Sharon are running a joint workshops on lean methods. Jeff is a designer, product strategist, team leader and author who has been creating software products for over 15 years.

Tomer is a Google UX researcher and author of Validating Ideas through Lean User Research, he also has 15 years of experience. The workshop will focus on how to create products for customers and businesses that work well for all parties involved.

If you would like to attend or know more, then visit: bit.ly/1iFmMu6

PROCESS EXCELLENCE WEEK 2016

Lake Buena Vista, Florida- 18th-22nd January 2016 A week of cross industry programmes and case studies in operational excellence, BPM and continuous improvement with companies and individuals involved in business transformation, BPM, lean, six sigma, operational excellence and change management.

To find out more visit: www.pexweek.com

Venue TBD (Canada), 22nd – 24th February 2016 Lean Government: Yellow Belt teaches public sector employees how to lead a simple process improvement project and/or become a valuable team member working on a more complex transformation. The course divided into segments following the steps of a typical process improvement project. After an in-depth discussion of the theory, tools and techniques used at each step, participants take part in a simulated government process improvement exercise to apply what they’ve learned and gain first-hand experience in lean. Examples of successful lean transformation in the Canadian public sector are provided throughout for additional context.

To find out more visit: bit.ly/1L7ZGTF

LEAN SIX SIGMA CONFERENCE

Venue TBD (U.S) 18th February, 2016 For public servants responsible for the development and execution of strategic plans for the organisation. The workshop gives an overview of the five shortcomings of traditional strategic planning and demonstrates how to overcome them using the Lean approach to strategic planning and deployment (Hoshin Kanri). After completing the course, participants will develop more focused, realistic, flexible strategic plans that are valued by all levels of the organisation and ultimately achieved.

Phoenix, Arizona- 29th Februaury-1st March 2016 This conference is for anyone who is involved in process improvement, organisational change and development dynamics related to a successful lean and six sigma culture. The conference will focus on lean six sigma fundamentals and how to implement them, new and unique applications of lean and six sigma and tips to sustain results. The conference will cover a wide range of industries including, but not limited to, finance, healthcare, government, IT, retail and education.

To find out more: bit.ly/1OBsLyt

To find out more visit: bit.ly/1Gxa4ZV

LEAN STRATEGIC PLANNING

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