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Lean Office
When you think of the word “Lean,” what comes to mind? Assembly lines, conveyor belts, Toyota, mass manufacturing? Although Lean was popularized and is heavily used by manufacturers, it can be used by any industry; including yours.
Or maybe you haven’t heard of Lean before. Read on to see how it can help you.
A Customer Focus
Lean is a philosophy of continuous improvement focused on providing value to customers.
When you look at your office, everything that you, your staff, vendors, and customers do is a process. Examples include scheduling an appointment, writing a report, or ordering supplies from vendors.
Each process has activities that either add value or don’t. Defining value-added activities can be a point of contention in the workplace as everyone wants to consider their work activities as providing value.
You and your team are valuable. Your skills and knowledge are essential for operating a successful business. While people provide value, some activities within a process may not.
Defining Value
Value simply is defined as what the customer needs.
Customers define” value” with the following three conditions:
- It must transform the product or service.
- The customer must be willing to “pay” for it.
- Not always monetary. Could include time spent.
- It must be done correctly the first time.
Lean exists to maximize customer value, improve process flow, and reduce wastes.
Benefits of Lean Office
By continuously improving, focusing on customer needs, and removing waste, the following benefits can be realized:
- Greater productivity
- When waste is removed, the saved time can be refocused on value-added activities.
- Smoother operations
- Process improvements result in performing only necessary activities in the most efficient order.
- Higher quality products and services
- Waste includes defects, rework, and waiting among other things. When that is removed, the quality is increased.
- Improved customer experience
- With a customer focus, the customer has an improved experience. This positive experience can also translate to additional customers.
- Time and cost savings
- Removing non-value added activities saves time and money.
- Work / life balance for staff
- When processes are streamlined, time is saved. Additionally, processes are better understood so people can be appropriately utilized.
- Improved employee satisfaction
- Often the non-value added tasks are the mundane, repetitive tasks that people don’t enjoy doing. By freeing up time for staff, their skills can be utilized in other needed areas that they enjoy.
In summary, Lean produces results.
What’s Next?
If you’re interested in Lean for your office, but not sure where to start, here are some steps:
1. Become an advocate for continuous improvement and make a commitment.
a) Without a commitment, you and your team will not succeed. Leadership and a goal of continuous improvement is imperative.
2. Start with a small project and set a goal to improve it.
a) Think about an area that could use improvement. Ask others and get ideas. Focus on one area to improve and make a small change.
b) Write down your goal and set a timeframe to complete it.
c) Involve those impacted by the change.
Learn more about Project Management.
3. Implement the improvement and refine as needed.
a) Compare your results with your goal. Did the change work as expected?
b) Remember, this process is continuous. Sometimes ideas will work, sometimes they need to be further refined.
4. Find another process to improve and keep going!
