What is a Lean Organization?
We all would like to be lean, we all remember what it was like when we were younger and we could eat anything we wanted too, and never put on a pound of weight, but our bodies change as we get older, and it gets more difficult to keep the weight off. The same thing is true for a company. When it starts out it is pretty small and agile, there isn’t a whole lot of structure and the company is capable of moving pretty fast. As the company grows it bulks up, it creates organization structure, people have titles, reporting relationships are established, and the informality is pushed aside. Inevitably as it grows it puts on weight, and finds it more difficult to move quickly.
Lean thinking is like putting the organization on a diet, cutting out a lot of things that just waste time, money and effort, and concentrating on the things that actually add value in the mind of the customer. It is just like being careful about what you eat, to make sure that you are getting the necessary nutrition, without the wasteful calories associated with most of the foods that taste really good! A company needs to think in the same way, being very careful about where and how it spends its money, effort and time.
It is probably easier for us to spot areas of waste in other peoples organizations than in our own areas, just like it is easier to give diet advice to others, but the key to lean thinking is to take the lessons personally. Here is an example of a value statement, that a company can use to assess all activities to ensure that we eliminate waste and help the company become as lean as possible: -
Every new idea must be justified in terms of at
least one of the following areas, ideas that are justified in more than one area
will have higher priority: -
Provide demonstrable added value to the customer
Yes No
Provide real cost savings to the company
Yes No
Enhance safety or regulatory compliance
Yes No
Be beneficial to all associates Yes No