Contacts:
Marc Valois
President and CEO
Intersol Group Ltd.
613-230-6424 ext.  241 | mvalois@intersol.ca

Larry Coté
President and CEO
Lean Advisors, Inc.
1-613-382-1583 | lcote@intersol.ca

Intersol Group Ltd. and Lean Advisors join forces to form a full service, integrated, top-tier management consultancy firm.

OTTAWA – May 20, 2014 – Intersol Group Ltd. and Lean Advisors Inc. today announced a joining of forces to combine Intersol’s strategic and cultural management expertise with Lean Advisors’ process transformation methodology.

With tremendous ongoing pressure in all sectors to do more with the resources they have, while streamlining business process and shaving costs, the focus has to be not only on process transformation, but also on strategic and leadership transformation.  The gap has been in how to integrate these elements with a view to creating ongoing sustainability.

Over the last couple of months serious discussion between these premiere consulting, training and coaching organizations has culminated in the two corporations jointly agreeing to provide a much needed solution.

“What we have just accomplished, by combining Intersol Group’s and Lean Advisors’ knowledge and expertise, gives organizations the complete knowledge, both of vision and action, that they require to effectively change their group or organization to meet the needs of their clients in the future,” said Larry Coté, President and CEO of Lean Advisers, Inc., “Our amalgamation is a union of expert talent that will give clients the complete solution to overcome and conquer the challenges facing them today and for decades to come.”

“We are delighted to welcome Lean Advisors into the Intersol Group of Companies,” said Marc Valois, CEO of Intersol Group Ltd. “Their Lean process expertise and methodologies, combined with Intersol Group’s expertise in Change Management, Employee Engagement, Leadership and cultural transformation provides a compelling way for organizations of all types and sizes to adapt to continual change while creating more value for the clients, members and stakeholders they serve.  The sustainability of the solutions we create with our clients will be a key differentiator for their organizations of the future.”

About Lean Advisors, Inc.
Lean Advisors is one of the most respected Lean consulting groups in North America.  Founded over 14 years ago and based in North America, it has built a team of senior consultants with hands-on experience in a variety of sectors.  In addition to their work with industry, the company has led the way to successful Lean practice in fields such as Healthcare, Education, Government and Manufacturing.

Their senior consultants are passionate about Lean transformation.  Their mastery of Lean and Kaizen methods combined with hands-on industry experience has prepared them for tough ‘real world’ issues such as resistance, outside perceptions, conflicting agendas, and the need for senior management support.  They help individuals become Lean leaders within their organizations as they overcome resistance to change and instill a Lean culture of continuous improvement. To learn more, please visit www.leanadvisors.com

About Intersol Group Ltd.
Intersol Group Ltd. is a bilingual team of experienced consulting, facilitation and learning professionals whose expertise lies in harnessing and building lasting organizational capacity for its clients.  Since 1989, the Intersol team has successfully delivered over 6,000 projects to hundreds of public sector, private sector and non-profit organizations across Canada.

Whether the focus is on shaping vision and strategy, on managing change, on stakeholder consultation, or on high performance teamwork, Intersol helps organizations leverage the knowledge, experience and expertise inherent in their own people.

Using processes, methods and tools that engage people to collaborate effectively and efficiently, we work with clients in the areas Stakeholder Engagement and Public Involvement; Direction Setting and Organizational Effectiveness; and Individual Effectiveness and Workplace Learning.  To learn more, please visit www.intersol.ca

By Larry Cote, President Lean Advisors Inc

In the past few years there have been rumblings from the North American manufacturing community about the desire to return some of their manufacturing to North America.

There have been many changes in the economics and the markets since the early 90s both here and in Asia (China specifically).  Some of those changes are that China’s economic environment has evolved and grown.  As it happens in every economy, growth and competition puts pressures on the cost of doing business, the infrastructure of transportation/logistics of shipping higher volumes and more products becomes stressed.

In the meantime while this evolution has been happening in China, North American productivity has improved, especially in the US through technology and advancements in process thinking.  All these factors (and many more) have caused CEOs of manufacturing companies to reassess the decisions that they made a decade or two ago to move production overseas.  They are realizing that it may be more profitable now to do some of their manufacturing here on this continent.

This opportunity should not be missed by Canada or the US.

Management teams must first recognize that they can be competitive in quality, cost and speed of supply.  Once this realization is made then they quickly must re-examine the importance of dramatically and quickly transforming their current methods and thinking – both culturally (value thinking) and processing.  We must not kid ourselves, this opportunity to take advantage of ‘repatriation’ or ‘re-shoring’ will not last long.   CEOs are constantly searching for the next place to invest, where they can drive profits and a better ROI.

The one solution that is being touted for attracting manufacturing back to North American soil is to adopt the latest technology as well as investing in innovation.  This is a simple solution that on the surface is an obvious statement to make.  The reality though, is that over the past decade, our margins have been squeezed so tight that survival has been the primary focus.  In this scenario, very little money can be freed up to buy new technology let alone spend time on research and innovation.  So, what do we do??

Our belief is that expensive technology should not be the first step in becoming attractive to foreign business.  Technology should be the second step in turning around your company.  “Leaning out” your existing processes is the first step and will give you the knowledge and understanding of what technology you really require and should invest in.

Initially, North American organizations should be focused on ensuring their current processes are ‘waste’ free.  Without this customer focus of ‘value’ as the major driver of the corporate strategy, we will miss the opportunity to attract the manufacturing industry we lost to foreign countries over the past few decades.  This “leaning out” will also give organizations the profits they need to move to the next phase, which is purchasing new technology.

I know this sounds like the same old preaching Lean has been teaching since the mid 90s, but ‘off-shoring’ of manufacturing began well before Lean could have an impact.  Now we’ve had the past 15 years to become experts – let’s call the last 15 years ‘practice time’ – and we are ready to actually demonstrate to the world that North America is the place to invest if you want the best quality, service and cost.

Manufacturing is the backbone of our economy.  Let’s not miss this small window of opportunity to bring back some of the manufacturing we lost and even to develop new opportunities for growth.  We have been given a second chance, let’s not miss out!!

Mike Boucher, VP of Client Services,  discussed the benefits of the management capacity program and how to free up management time by understanding executive priorities, analyzing management activities, and creating Standard Leadership Roles.

We hope you enjoy our recorded webinar and have the opportunity to benefit from the valuable content that was shared.

Click Here to View Recorded Webinar

To learn more about our management capacity program click here.

If you would like to be notified of future webinars, please join our E Newsletter: Talking Lean.

Watch Webinar Recording

Mobilizing Our Ingenuity Through Good Management.

In this video, Mike Rother shares valuable insights into the importance of ‘structured’ change methodology, called Kata.

At Lean Advisors, we believe Kata is the next major critical concept organizations need to grasp in order to create a sustainable transformation. Mike has uncovered, through his research with U of Michigan another important piece of the puzzle necessary for success and taking your team to the next level of competitiveness

Message from Larry Cote, President, Lean Advisors Inc.

I recently came across this video of Mike Rother who spoke at the Lean Summit in 2012. I had the privilege to work with Mike back when Lean was just gaining interest in the mid 90s.

At that time, much of Mike’s research and efforts were focused on Toyota and the primary transformational tool known as Value Stream Mapping (VSM).

We wanted to share this with our online community.

Lean Summit 2012 – Mike Rother – Toyota Kata

By identifying how health care organizations and other industries have both succeeded and failed at improving timely access across their organizations and examine how to improve timely access across your organization or the system in which it operates.

Click to learn more about the 2013 conference.

About Taming of the Queue

Since 2004, the annual Taming of the Queue (TQ) conference has brought together a community of interest from across Canada to discuss access and wait time issues. Representing a wide range of perspectives, conference participants assess progress being made on wait-time measurement and management. Sponsored by several national health stakeholders, these events have enhanced knowledge about the issue, while exchanging best practices and helping to shape the public policy agenda.

First, let’s alleviate the misconception, apprehension or anxiety that Lean doesn’t work.  It does work!

The caveat is that you must discover the ‘right’ or proper adaptation of the thinking and concept to  your unique situation!

Once you have acknowledged the above, you can then begin to search for the proper solution and resources to lead your Lean Transformation.

Chances are you will try to find the expert internally first and then if you feel you don’t have the internal expert, or need additional resources or guidance, you will go outside your organization to either hire someone or find a credible consultant.

The problem with trying to select the expert talent is that you may feel a little hesitant as you may not know what to look for (or not look for) in an individual in order to make this important decision.

This decision becomes even more stressful because you know that you get one chance to make the right decision and that if you select the wrong person(s), you alone are responsible for taking your organization down the wrong path and it is extremely difficult to start again.  We acknowledge that much of this confusion has been caused by consultants and trainers that have misguided their clients and/or students and given them the incorrect or incomplete knowledge which in turn the leadership unknowingly uses to select what and who they need to guide them.

So we thought it might be helpful in this post to at least highlight some of the red flags to be aware of when hiring a person(s) to lead the change in your organization and that you are willing to put your reputation on the line for.

Here is a list of some of those Red Flags to keep in mind when deciding on the expertise you are looking to engage:

1)      The transformation costs tons of dollars.

2)      The person doesn’t know the difference between Process and Value Stream Mapping and where both are critical.

3)      They speak about tools instead of cultural change.

4)      They have a solution prior to properly assessing the situation.

5)      They will do it for you – your staff won’t be that involved, the staff only have to utilize the changes once the consultant is done.

6)      They use the word ‘bottleneck’ or project to focus on one area.

7)      They call it Lean Sigma and it is really mostly Six Sigma (a tool).

8)      They use a matrix type chart to determine the priority of projects i.e. the one axis is normally large and little impact and then the other axis is little or most effort.

9)      They give you a long list of projects to assign to staff or themselves with no sequencing analysis.

10)   Their plan requires them to be on-site for, what seems like, an unreasonable length of time.

These are only some of the Red Flags you should keep in mind.  If you ‘see’ any of these types of ‘flags’, take notice and do some additional analysis and research into the credentials and approach.  Doing this analysis properly could save you years of regret, not to mention thousands of dollars, and in the end- frustration and disappointment not just for you but for your entire staff.

Lean does work when implemented properly!  The challenge for you is to choose the distinctive and effective adaptation of the theory that is right for your environment/situation that will not only transform your processes but also transform your culture into a sustainable continuous improvement organization.

For more information, contact us at corp@leanadvisors.com.

Thank you to all who attended the January 24  Webinar “Management Capacity: Creating Standard Leadership Roles for the Lean Supervisor” – if you missed it, click here to view the recording.

There were a number of great questions asked by attendees during the Webinar. Mike Boucher, VP of Client Services at Lean Advisors shared his insights and knowledge. Below are Mike’s responses to questions posed at the webinar:

Q.  What is the right time to apply the management capacity program?

A. We have found that management capacity can be applied throughout the 3 phases of our Lean Transformation program. In our Foundations phase, we set the strategic direction with the stakeholders and begin selecting value streams. Often, at this stage, we identify areas where managers or teams are overly stressed to try to support other activities.  The goal is to move change forward where it is critically needed but if our management team isn’t capable of providing the support and resources to make that change happen, then we would introduce the management capacity program to free up time in order to enable the necessary change in the identified areas.

In the second phase, (VSM phase), we assess our current state, develop our future state and create an implementation plan. Once we’ve reviewed the implementation plan and understand the resources required to support the kaizen events, we begin to identify that it might be too aggressive given the available resources. At this point, we would stop, reassess and create the opportunity for the managers to be able to support the implementation plan. Again, we would introduce the management capacity program as a stepping stone to leading our process change.

The third element involves the execution of the kaizens and implementation plan. Quite often, a great implementation plan begins to fade away on us as delays begin to creep in and we lose momentum. At this point, senior leadership needs to take a step back and acknowledge the resourcing issue and lack of management support for the value streams. In order to support those mangers, we would introduce the management capacity program to free up their time and place structure into scheduling the change elements that we’ve introduced in the implementation plan.

Q.  Should we introduce the program across the entire organization or should we introduce it one department at a time?

A. This is not always a straight forward answer. I often ask the organization to look at what their success rate has been in the past in terms of resourcing, programs and making change happen. Often, the answer is “we don’t have a very good success rate.” So, my recommendation typically is to focus on the area where they are trying to drive change first. They should focus on the critical areas, the crisis issues and where crisis is happening and then we figure out how we’re going to resource again and put in the necessary time as senior leaders to support the change.

Q.  Would these assessments be conducted with different levels of management separately or together?

A. In terms of the assessments, I would look at it from a value stream perspective. Who is the management team within the value stream? And within that value stream, I would want all managers, regardless of level, to participate in the program. One manager or supervisor may be creating the problems for someone else, so if they are working on it collaboratively and collectively and doing their reviews as a group, they begin to address issues from a team perspective – rather than individually.

Q.  Can you give an example of a value stream for an office manager?

A. In terms of an office or admin environment, I often see manager’s time tied up not really addressing what they are directly responsible for but actually focusing a lot of their attention in other areas. In particular, I’ve seen a lot of managers putting a large amount of time into a hiring process, perhaps an area that they don’t really excel at but end up being dragged down and spending a lot of their time supporting the hiring process and it’s taking them away from their actual day to day responsibilities and the things they are directly responsible for.  That is not to say the hiring process isn’t important but we need to understand what is the goal of these managers in the hiring process and what can they realistically do and what work should be moved to where it belongs. In many cases, this is because it can be done more effectively. In other cases, we are just duplicating effort.

First, let’s alleviate the misconception, apprehension or anxiety that Lean doesn’t work.  It does work!

The caveat is that you must discover the ‘right’ or proper adaptation of the thinking and concept to  your unique situation!

Next, there is no one cookie-cutter solution that can be used to solve every situation and needs of an organization.  It is obvious, that every organization and every division in every organization has their own culture, leadership, and human dynamics which are distinctive to them.

So, in order for Lean to be effective, these nuances must be dealt with by altering the approach that is used to effectively create sustainable ongoing positive impact for the business, their clients and their staff.

Thirdly, Lean is not a tool!

Most organizations go into Lean thinking that if they learn the theory and five phases, or tools like 5S, Mistake-Proofing, flow, Six sigma etc., they just have to get everyone doing that across all the departments.  We have seen places that pick one tool and focus on it for years on end and expect to reach their potential.  It won’t work!

Lean is a cultural change that requires those tools but more importantly, it requires the leadership and staff to change the way they analyze and question their business and how they perceive their client’s needs (value).

Fourth, change won’t happen overnight – this is not a magical potion that will automatically cure what the organization have currently created and evolved into over the past years or decades.  Lean is a long term continuous journey (most say this but most still expect overnight success and then move on to the next thing).

Fifth, reading the books and being knowledgeable about the theory, tools and basics is not going to prepare you for leading a Lean implementation.

There are many more but let’s start with those as it gives you an idea of the significant foundational concepts you need to be aware of.

Once you have acknowledged the above, you can then begin to search for the proper solution.  Chances are you will try to find the expert internally first and then if you feel you don’t have the internal expert you go outside to either hire someone or find a credible consultant.

In Part 3, we will begin to at least highlight some of the red flags to be aware of when hiring a person(s) to lead the change in your organization and that you are willing to put your reputation on the line for….

Lean is a strategy and way of thinking that creates more value for clients by eliminating activities that are considered waste. Any activity or process that consumes resources, adds cost or time without creating value becomes a target for elimination. Lean focuses on the client and what the client feels is ‘value’.

Our approach is to focus on end-to-end ‘system-level’ improvements (as opposed to ‘point improvements’). Improving the end-to-end system-level work will dramatically improve your results – cost, quality, speed of service and flexibility. In order for a process to reach its full potential, it is important to initially understand what is happening from a system perspective (end-to-end). We must transform the selected Value Stream(s) – from request of the product/service to the actual delivery of that service. Not focusing on the end-to-end process will result in only ‘point improvements’ and create what we call ‘Exciting Chaos’. This ‘Exciting Chaos’ will inhibit the process from reaching its potential and could ultimately undermine the success of the organization. With our innovative methodology, we eliminate the risk of obtaining only minimal results and ensure your success both culturally and technically.

Presenter: Steve Withers

Senior Consultant, Black Belt, Lean Advisors, Inc.
http://www.leanadvisors.com

Steve Withers has 30 years of process improvement experience using lean thinking, six sigma, process management, and change management skills.

Before joining Lean Advisors, Steve was the Director of the Lean Sigma Centre at Canada Post, where lean thinking has contributed in excess of $200 M in savings over the last few years, as well as improvements to on-time delivery, safety, and quality. At Canada Post, Steve was responsible for setting the lean strategy, leading and coaching major process improvements, and for deploying CPC’s intensive lean and six sigma training programs.

Steve received his hands-on training while working directly at the Lean Enterprise Institute for three years, and has helped them develop some of their existing educational products. While working at LEI, Steve gained hands-on experience in helping many different types of organization – some examples include, Gorton’s (food preparation), Northrup Grumman (aerospace and electronics), Lockheed Martin, Newmont Mines (gold mining), Trillium Healthcare, Tyco Healthcare, Xomed Medtronic, Kitchenaid, Whirlpool, EMS (NASA and space), Puerto Rico Electronics, Xantrex (electronics), Crane Valve, Hermes Electronics, California Microwave (aerospace), Forethought Insurance, Solectron (electronics), Hidden Hitch (automotive), Eaton Automotive, Fisher Controls, and Thomas & Betts (electronics).

Steve has a B.Sc. from the University of Toronto, and has attended the University of Tennessee’s Lean Systems Design program, Michigan State’s Logistics and Process Improvement programs, Design for Six Sigma training, and is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt. He is a certified Process Management instructor. He has been a guest lecturer on lean at St. Mary’s University, the University of Sao Paulo, Carleton University, Ottawa University, and at the Ministry of Transport in Tokyo.

Steve is known for his dynamic training style, and for his ability to motivate teams to make rapid and sustainable change in any type of organization.

PMI OVOC Saturday Seminar Series – September 15, 2012