Lean Operating System
As the most efficient and effective structure for implementing Lean within a company, Lean Operating Sytems have generated major results of "breakthrough" performances improvements in Quality, Costs and Delays and major financial returns in many companies worldwide.
The objective of a Lean Operating System is to deliver Value to the customers while at the same time removing all sort of wastes and inefficiencies within the company. These wastes and inefficiencies are gathered into 7 types of wastes (muda, muri, mura) that are intrinsic to any company processes :
- Overproduction: Overproduction is to produce more than customer demand in time and quantity or to perform a task that do not relate to a demand or requirement. For example producing through economical batches instead of single piece flow at the customer demand (takt time) that will enable more flexibility and agility in regards to the market and ensure better adequation of production capacity to the market.
- Useless movements and transports: They are the movements of parts, raw material, products, informations, documents that do not add value added seen from the customer perspective. These movements consume resources and time and have a significant impact on the company production cycle times, lead times, and on data processing.
- Useless stocks or overstocks: They represent the elements that are not necessary to perform an operation at the right time. Often due to deficient planning or too long delays. Stocks and work-in-process usually impact singificantly the company financials.
- Useless movements: Physical movements due to deficient flow organization, bad ergonomics of workplaces, bad classification of material and informations, etc...
- Useless treatment: Everything that concerns useless tasks and operations within complex processes that do not bring value added to the customer. For example, multitude of approvals, non standardized operations, backwards flows within the processes, etc..
- Errors or non-quality: Defects of parts, material, physical products, informations, services that require retrofits or more controls. This non quality generates extra costs, requires extra resources and impacts on-time-deliveries.
- Waiting times: Products or employees that are waiting in between 2 tasks or 2 successive operations within a process. Too long series change over, bad operations levelling, etc...
Taking into consideration the customer requirements, a Lean Operating System is a loop system that identifies improvement priorities within the company processes or value streams (operational or support), that determines the performances objectives to be attained and enables achievements of these objectives.
Breakthrough improvements are rapidly obtained through mulitfunctional Kaizen workshops or Kaizen events and a project architecture involving process actors, specialists, process owner(s) and the management involved in the improvement of the value streams.
Regular follow-up reviews are taking place to support implementation, inclusive of all impacted employees to ensure they feel part of the change, resulting in a direct, positive impact on their satisfaction, motivation and morale.
A Lean Operating Sytem can be implemented to any medium or large company and to any activity sector ; industry, logistics, healthcare, IT, bank, services. The Lean Management consultants of ATEMI Consulting can adapt the underlying principles to your company in developping and implementing your own Lean Operating System.
ATEMI Consulting can also help your company implement digitalization (or transformation to industry 4.0) additional to Lean implementation in identifying the key points and data to be managed all along the value streams or company processes. Real time management of these data will increase the reactivity, will enable more rapidly operational efficiency, and will generate a significant competitive advantage.