Model For Change

Many people approach me and say that Lean works great in manufacturing but it won’t work in my industry. I simply reply do you want to serve your customer better and remove waste from your business while making your employees happier and more productive?

They usually answer yes but they don’t think Lean can help. Lean can help because it is not just a set of tools but a management style. I summarize by saying there are 4 points to lean:

1) Flow – add value and remove waste with respect to the customer
2) Remove Waste – reduce TIM WOOD (transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, over production, over processing, defects)
3) Respect for people (visual factory, standard work, bottom up problem solving, leadership styles, etc)
4) Continuous improvement (kaizen, strategic planning, etc)

In any business you can use these 4 principles to start lean.

Do you think there is an industry that this model won’t work? If so then why?