Internal Advocacy and Customer Focus in Managing Lean Change
Whether you apply Lean in manufacturing or in a service industry, the principles stay the same although the tools you select may be different.
Lean in Different Industries
Sometimes you hear people say at the beginning, 'Lean doesn't apply to us'. Lean is a way of thinking, a philosophy. It can apply to any industry. It's not a set of tools; it's not a Kaizen event. There are many tools that work well with Lean and some will fit your situation better than others. Lean planning helps you decide which to use, when and where.
No matter what your business is, you will want to add value for the customer, eliminate waste and reduce lead-time. Whether you apply Lean in manufacturing or in a service industry, the principles stay the same although the tools you select may be different.
Customer Focus is Essential
In Lean practice, the customer is your number one boss. You have to give them what they want or you lose business. If people at your company think customers don't know what they want, there's probably not enough communication going on. Your customers may not fully understand your operation's capabilities.
Ultimately it's the customer who defines what value they want from a product. Your responsibility is to deliver this value on time and at the lowest possible price. Lean helps you do that. It's a simple equation. Eliminate the activities that add no customer value and you will be more competitive on price. That means more business to you.
Getting people to focus on the customer takes persistence. Communication and training are key tools to get this going. Many organizations bring customers right into the plant. The employees begin to know who the customer is and what they want. When management keeps talking about the customer, employees think: "This must be important".
Many companies send out surveys to determine customer needs. Circulating the results or pinning them up on bulletin boards helps get the message out. This shows which features add value for the customer. That's what the customer will pay for.
The Value Stream Map (VSM) you develop in Lean starts with the customer and works back through the production process. Value Stream Mapping is all about identifying value added and non-value added steps and activities. Your Future State Map should plan production process around only those activities that lead to what the customer will pay for.
Change Management
Communication is key in managing the change process. You'll find a lot of fear in the plant. People will be worried about losing their jobs. It's like one of those 'urban myths'. They've heard of the one in a hundred company that used Lean as an excuse to downsize rather than the ninety-nine others who were successful and grew. Any company that takes that shortsighted approach and cuts jobs doesn't get it. Their benefits won't be sustained - they're not thinking about growth.
Most successful Lean organizations actually announce that people won't lose their jobs through continuous improvement - jobs may change but growth is the goal. If an organization feels that it has to lay off employees because customer demand has eroded or the company has failed to be competitive, it should do the layoff before starting Lean implementation. Use Lean to get the plant back into competitive shape afterwards.
The key is to dissociate Lean from any downsize activity. People have to be onside, working together to make improvements and move forward. Fear destroys that momentum.
People fear what they don't understand. Understanding comes through training and then seeing the results right away. The key is to learn by doing, whether it's Value Stream Mapping or Continuous Flow, for shop floor or office. Encourage them to roll up their sleeves and get into it.
The best tool for change management is involvement. You need people from all areas and from all levels of the organization working together to eliminate waste and identify true value-added activities. It means working more productively, not necessarily harder.
The Role of Lean Advocates within the Organization
Lean Advocates need to be energetic and optimistic. They're selling something new to the company even though Lean itself isn't new. It's been proven effective over and over in organizations across North America and worldwide. However it may be new to your company, and the advocate will be challenged by senior management to 'sell' the benefits of going Lean.
You've heard it many times, but it's important to remember that Lean requires a different mindset. The advocate for Lean has to be prepared for questions, be patient and willing to explain the concepts more than once to senior managers. They will want solid answers. The advocate has to be more than an enthusiast, he or she has to be extremely knowledgeable about the subject.
A Lean advocate also has to provide motivation. It's important to keep reminding senior management of the long-term benefits of Lean practice. Traditional manufacturing culture is most comfortable in fire fighting mode. When a big 'fire' breaks out, it can push other initiatives, even Lean, to the back burner. It's critical to keep people motivated and stay on track in order to achieve sustainable and permanent improvements.
Determination is a big part of the advocate's make up. You will always hit obstacles when you introduce something different. People will say things like: "That won't work here", "Our workforce is different", "Our labour requirements are different", or "That only works for the XYZ type of industry". You have to be determined and well prepared in answering these objections with the facts.
A Lean advocate could come from almost any department in an organization. Common choices are often operations, quality, engineering or finance. The advocate will recruit others to the team who complement his or her experience and skills. I've seen successful Lean advocates come from shop floor operations, maintenance, engineering, quality and finance. In fact you need to build Lean teams from all these areas. A broad range of expertise is critical for the Lean problem solving you do.
As I said earlier, Lean requires a different mindset. Your advocate needs to be a learning kind of person, open minded to possibilities and opportunities. He or she has to help people look at value from the customer's point of view. How often do you hear people in the plant say "We could do so much better if it weren't for the customer, if we didn't have to do 'x' or 'y"? Once the organization starts Lean implementation, people start asking questions like "Is this what the customer wants?" or "Will the customer think this has value? Will they pay for it?"
Training to Become Lean
Training leads to involvement and increases communication. It helps people understand 'why' and helps them acquire Lean skills. Most importantly, it's about learning on the job. You learn it and do it at the same time. That's crucial for success.
The important thing is to train only when you need to, when it's time for people to actually use the tools on the job. There should be no lag at all between learning and application.
At LEAD we teach you how to do the training yourself, in your plant. Our workshops lead to results. Our goal is to teach people how to get those results themselves. We're not consultants telling companies what to do.
Most people at the beginning aren't sure what tools to use or how to use them. That's what the workshops teach - how to make those decisions for yourselves.
After two LEAD Continuous Flow workshops at the Hermes plant, we went on to do ten of our own and it's still ongoing. You get top grade training for your people so they in turn can train others in your plant. Your only cost is time and you get home grown trainers who are an integral part of your organization.
On Joining Lean Advisors
What I liked so much about Lean Advisors is that they were totally focused on getting the knowledge out there. They don't hoard the information; they're interested in seeing companies succeed by their own efforts. Lean Advisors training makes sure they know how to do it right.
Lean Advisors are not trying to create dependencies. They're there if you need some advice or more training but their whole focus is to enable you to do it yourself.
The other thing that impressed me was their incredible knowledge of the field. These guys have been there and done it. I can't overemphasize how important that is.
Lean in Atlantic Canada
The interesting thing about Atlantic Canada is the high level of education in the workforce. There are a proportionately high number of post-graduates in Halifax compared with any other city in North America. This highly educated workforce is a tremendous advantage.
We also have excellent trade access to the United States and overseas. All of the ingredients are here for great business success. Yet people often think that Atlantic Canada is disadvantaged compared to the rest of Canada. It doesn't have to be that way.
However, one key issue is that many companies here don't have the right thinking for success. Manufacturing is still doing batch and queue processing rather than one-piece flow. The critical customer focus isn't in place. Lean can help change and improve the way we work, make us more competitive, more successful.
Partnerships for initiatives are part of our culture here in Atlantic Canada. Working together we can be more powerful, get more things done.
Saint Mary's University has just put together an exciting Lean partnership to introduce Lean to companies here. ACOA, APICS, Industry Canada and LEAD are all involved (read Connie Bean's interview on the project here on this web site). That's a great way to bring new ideas and training to a region.
Another wonderful advantage here in the east is that we have so many non-competing industries. That provides a real opportunity to work together and to share ideas. It will make Lean much more successful and in a shorter period of time.