Rubicon and Lean
We’ve been incorporating the fundamental principles of lean as part of process / continuous toolkits for longer than we care to remember. What we love about Lean is its simplicity - it just makes sense. Driving out waste and increasing the value for the customer really resonates – who hasn’t found themselves in a workplace that wasn’t ripe for 5S, or value added flow analysis!?
One of our Lean highlights this year was DeutschePost-DHL receiving the award for the Best Process Improvement Program at the 11th annual IQPC Process Excellence Summit in London. We have had the good fortune to support DHL’s First Choice (Lean and Six Sigma) Programme since 2008, through training delivery, coaching support and facilitation of their in-house Process Improvement Events, as part of our long standing associate relationship with Rath & Strong.
“It has been a pleasure to work with Andy over the last couple of years. I have valued both his calm, business like approach as well as sense of fun in his work. Andy's group facilitation skills are amongst the best I know and I look forward to the opportunity to work on client engagements with Andy in the future.”
Technically
Lean is defined as a philosophy, mindset and workplace culture that is focused on delivering increasing value for the customer through constantly challenging current working practices in the pursuit of waste reduction, defect elimination and improving flow. At the right time, first time - every time. |
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Although LEAN has always been synonymous with manufacturing, over the last decade or so, the LEAN philosophy and toolkit have been increasingly adopted across many different business sectors – since 1998, we have supported organisations in market sectors such as Financial Services, Global Logistics, Healthcare, Vehicle leasing and The Government in translating the philosophy of LEAN into practical ‘Business as usual’ tools, technique, behaviours and most importantly results. |
Another successful Lean Six Sigma
Yellow Belt programme |
Basically and practically
On a day-2-day basis Lean will enable you and your organisation to understand and:
Significantly reduce waste (7 wastes of LEAN)
- Transportation
Transporting documents, information or materials (physically or electronically) where the movement doesn’t enhance the process flow, or add value in the eyes of the customer
- Inventory
Maintaining levels of inventory (paper, parts or products) beyond the actual required volume – stacks of inventory can hide potential problems or poor working practices…not to mention taking up valuable space (Slips, trips and falls anyone!?)
- Motion
Unnecessary physical movement, due to poor workstation or workplace layout – When did you last stop and think about how much time/effort is expended each day in movement just to get the job done? (Why not do the calculation today?)
- Waiting
Waiting or the time people spend idle in a process is waste. (The Devil finds work for idle hands) The process flow is interrupted, potential for process bottlenecks increases and the customer ends up with a delayed product or service
- Over-production
Often referred to as the ‘mother of all waste’. Overproduction in simple terms is producing more than is required or earlier than needed, doing
things twice, ordering a few more just in case - which in turn creates another type of waste - excess inventory! (The overprinting of t-shirts and memorabilia for the 2010 UK Papal visit springs to mind!)
- Over processing
Excess or inappropriate processing, or as we like to describe it - using a hammer to crack a nut! Wasteful in so many ways
- Defects
Any time a product or service does not meet the requirements of the internal or external customer. A quote straight from the
University of the blindingly obvious we know, but it's not just the defect we have to consider, but the cost of detecting it and then
rectifying it. Find it early and the costs are minimised… let the customer find it and… well we’re back to the University! (Prevention Vs. detection anyone?)
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Enhance customer value and improve your processes by:
- Defining value from your customers perspective
- Understanding the flow of your work
- Identifying which steps within your process flow add value for the customer
- Reducing the number of non-value added steps in the flow
- Improving work flow, cycle time and throughput
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Organise and standardise the way you work by:
- Sorting all ‘equipment’ in the workplace to ensure it is being used Vs. not being used & therefore taking up valuable space ‘just in case’
- Setting in order ensuring there is a place for everything…and everything is in its place!
- Shining the workplace so that you can see waste, errors and opportunities for improvement quicker
- Standardising the new improved workplace and developing procedures to drive the required new behaviours
- Sustaining the new status quo and maintaining the gains
Here at Rubicon we passionately believe Lean has the capability and capacity to bring about transformational change in any business - So if you’re a start-up, SME looking for business improvement or an established global corporation looking for practical Process Improvement support, give us a call – we’d love to help!
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