The main objective behind the LEAN is Maximizing Customer Value while Minimizing the Waste. In other words create more customer value with lesser resources.
A LEAN Organization understands customer value and mainly focus on increasing the value by changing the existing key processes, ideally by reducing the wastage to zero or near zero, and making the processes to their optimal stage continuously.
How does an Organization become LEAN?
Changes towards the key Processes: By changing the traditional ways of doing things, it can make a difference. For an example,
Considering the Motivation factor in an organization, it would be better to rather than giving annual bonuses, give bonuses based on performance of people, and urging them on achieving bonuses.
Count Every Single Improvement: Should not neglect even small saving, even saving 10 seconds could help a big difference. For a simple example just imagine the value of couple of milliseconds at the Olympic.
S/W Innovation: Go for free and open source software, which could enhance the organization processes. For typical examples I would say Tweeter, Dropbox, Skype, Skydrive, Gmail, RSS feeds, etc.
Improving Job Satisfaction: Is a Key for a perfect business helping people to help the organization. The contract of employee and the employer is the trust which is strengthen by favor of them, Organization should help and emphasize it comparative to others in the competition, so their mindsets will be ready and bound to the company as a lifetime partner than just a company.
Simple Solutions: Should kill the Complexity, go for simplicity. For example we don’t need huge ERPs if we can manage something with EXCEL in a small company.
Improving the Communication: It’s always the matter that affects the growth, lack of communication leads to many failures, thus it’s better to initiate best mediums of communication by,
1. Automating messaging with freely available tools
2. Color codes
3. Audible signals with less cost, etc.
Reusable Resources: Always attempt to make things reusable, from the concept itself, everything an organization is better to calculate the return of investment for reusable resources comparing to what it owns currently and decide on change.
Process Orientation: Make everything process oriented than people oriented, so the quality of the delivery will stay at its top.
Make use of Natural Resources to Max: While using solar power, wind power as power sources up to certain extent Collected rain water can do cleaning like jobs saving paid purified water supplies for only human use.
LEAN is not a program or short term cost reduction program, but the way the company operates. The word transformation or lean transformation is often used to characterize a company moving from an old way of thinking to lean thinking. It requires a complete transformation on how a company conducts the business. It takes a long-term perspective.
LEAN is all about improving…and NOT cutting the Employee benefits…
