All not Parts of your system can become leanConventional organizations lead to sub optimization. But lean manufacturing as a system hates this. What is the meaning of word sub optimization in lean manufacturing context? Let me explain to you. Conventional organizations are created around functional and departmentalized thinking. Similar functions are centralized and that entity is known as a department. Examples for departments are production, accounts and human resources. In a conventional management individual departments operate in their own. Each department has it’s own set of targets to achieve. Performance of that particular department is measured against these key performance indicators or KPIs. For an example production department will work to achieve it’s target in efficiency while human resource department will work on keeping to it’s KPI in achieving low labor turnovers. Let’s say every department achieved their own individual targets. Still will this organization e effective. In the general case it is not. One of the main problems any conventional organization face is their inability to focus on customer. The reason is simple. It is sub optimization. Your customer won’t mind how efficient your production facility is. Customers will only see your products. They want to get good quality products for lower prices and with shorter lead times. They might also consider about the environmental impacts and other social compliance standards when they buy products. How are you going to produce something valuable for your customer with a system which is fully focused on it’s own operations. Lean treats sub optimization as an enemy due to it’s incapability to stand up to the customers requirement. Organization is a single entity from the customer point of view. Then the total organization must be focused on delivering value to the customer. Parts of that organization called departments can not deliver this value to the customer. One of the biggest mistakes many organizations make in their lean efforts is thinking of making their individual departments lean. It is true that any efforts should have a starting point. Lean implementation is not an exception. But if your starting point itself is wrong then your system will be a failure for sure. Before thinking about implementing lean manufacturing in your organization get use to customer focused thinking. Start to think how you as an organization can deliver value to your customer. Lean efforts should start at least within your full organization not in parts of it. |
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Lean productivity Vs batch efficiency | All not Parts of your system can become lean | The lean profit formula |
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