Lean Consultant |
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The Mission of Graham Ross of Lean Kaizen Consulting is to train and assist you in the disciplines of Lean Transformation, thus adding to your Value Proposition.
When starting on a Lean Transformation journey, typically businesses have
a plethora of different requirements based on their starting point, size of organisation, cultural development level, process complexity and existing knowledge.
Lean Kaizen Consulting provide a flexible approach to meet these differing needs. Any programme and remote advice including:
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Hands on training on Lean Tools and Techniques |
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Coaching |
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Senior Management Guidance |
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Leading Teams |
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Training Internal Champions |
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Remote Expert Advice as and when Required |
The ultimate goal is to enable you to incorporate an integrated, self-funded Lean Culture into your organisation.
By transferring knowledge to your people through training and advice, you will have the skills in place to sustain significant improvements long into the future independently, with support being present only when you really need it. |
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In a world that is awash with improvement specialists and consultants, Lean kaizen has not only been easy to adopt and understand but has dramatically improved our lead-time on many processes.
One main process moved from a 28 day turnaround to only 5 days.
However the main benefit has been the motivation and empowerment the teams have been left with". |
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Gerard Newham ,
Business Change Manager | |
Methodology
What is a ‘Lean Transformation’ ?
Every Organisation knows that the opportunities for improvement exist, but not all know how to prioritise and
implement a programme of actions smoothly, and more importantly deal with the internal issues and
people challenges that any initiative throws up.
We all understand that the overall objective is very simple: reduce cost, time and waste.
Lean transformation focuses on eliminating waste from within a process.
These wastes are classified into ‘The Seven Wastes’ :
Through the use of a series of tools, Lean Transformation strives to eliminate all waste that exists within the
process and in addition puts in place a whole series of tools and techniques to prevent waste ‘creeping back’.
Often the main Lean Concepts are illustrated as a house. This depiction is simple to understand. It divides
processes into categories and explains in simple terms the inter relationship between them.
The illustration serves to explain that the roof will remain in place provided
that both pillars
(Just in Time and / Jidoka) are supporting it, and the
foundation (Production smoothing) is solid. Without solid foundations or
strong pillars, the Roof (in this case the process) will fail.
JIT – Just in time
It originally referred to the production of goods to meet customer demand exactly, in time, quality and
quantity, whether the `customer' is the final purchaser of the product or another process further along the
supply chain.
It has now come to mean producing/servicing with minimum waste. "Waste" is taken in its most general
sense and includes time and resources, as well as materials.
Jidoka
Jidoka is the second pillar of the system and is often misunderstood. Effectively it is the quality part of
the system and in its simplest context means not allowing defective work to go from one process to the
next.
Production Smoothing
The process of managing variations in volumes and mix within allowable constrains to meet customer
demand.
Physical and Cultural Transformation
Leankaizen Consulting uses Kaizen breakthrough methodology to ‘kick start’ the change process. This
is a well practiced and proven method of gaining employee buy-in and general acceptance that change
is both required and possible. Leankaizen Consulting normally leads a series of kaizen events, but only
until ‘internal change agents’ can be trained. At this point the level of Leankaizen Consulting involvement
will reduce allowing the physical change process to be self-running with regard to the more fundamental
change events.
At this point Leankaizen Consulting would normally still be working with the management team and the
“internal change agents”, but in a ‘SENSI’ (Trainer and mentor) role, providing advice and
guidance on a much less frequent basis.
The Change Process is Usually Undertaken in Three Phases
 Phase 1 - Initial Assessment Phase
As with any process change, it is vital that scope, timing and method are not only defined but understood.
It is equally vital that in any consulting partnership, both the Client and the Consultant take time to
understand their roles and responsibility in the project.
During the initial assessment phase, Leankaizen Consulting will undertake site visits and look at all
aspects of the value chain and will gather top level data, number of clients, nature and volumes of
business etc, together with quality and lead-time data. Therefore access to key personal at all levels will
be required and their openness needs to be encouraged.
This will enable the building of a ‘current state value stream map’, a tool to understand more critically the
amount of value added time within the process currently and will also allow bottleneck processes to be
understood.
Example of a current
state Value Stream Map
Also during this assessment phase I would generally ‘interview’ key personnel to further understand the
issues that affect the business, from their perspective.
This will allow a more balanced solution and pace to be defined It should be recognised that in most cases,
the methodologies employed are nearly always the same; however the actual tailoring of the programme is
key to its overall success.
It should be remembered, that the change process needs to be a success not just physically, but culturally
as well, since the final new processes need to be owned and run by the supervisors and managers close to
the process.
Therefore the cultural transformation element is a fundamental building block in sustaining gains.
 Phase 2 - New Process Visioning and Recommendation Phase
Because, as mentioned previously cultural transformation and ownership are both key to sustainment,
Leankaizen Consulting will proactively involve as many employees as possible at all points in the process.
The visioning process is the initial point where this type of approach is employed. Typically a team of
around eight people would be asked to attend a workshop for 3 days (this estimate maybe adjusted once I
have seen the process).
The team should be made up from ‘proactive people’ from across the business
and from all levels. This enables all aspects of the process to be considered. The team will undertake
some short initial training to enable them to grasp the fundamentals of Lean Thinking.
The workshop will quickly turn into an action bias style where the team will be asked to gather data from
the actual process (off system where possible) and build a live value stream map.
This tool is then used to allow the team to grasp the concept of value added vs. non value added processes.
The team (under guidance) will then build both the ‘future state map’ and a basic road map to the steps to
turning the vision into reality.
The team (not the consultant) will then present the teams findings to the management team in a 30 minute
presentation. This approach is again part of the ownership process.
Normally any physical transformation will commence 3 to 4 weeks following the Visioning event. This time
is required because of the preparation required for the next phase.
 Phase 3 - Physical Transformation Phase
Phase 3, although described as the physical transformation phase, should really be considered both physical
and cultural.
During this phase, building on the output from the visioning event, a series of kaizen breakthrough events
of one week duration are undertaken.
These events follow a pattern of initial 4 – 6 hour ‘classroom’ training, followed by a ‘bias of action’ orientated
3 days where the team will study the issues, devise and implement the solutions.
The target is to make step changes during the week, not just write reports. The team will again then report out
to the management team.
This approach allows people to understand that change is actually relativity easy, if approached correctly
and with data.
At this stage it is difficult to assess the actual number of event would be required to complete the process.
As a rule of thumb one event should be run every month. This will allow the changes to be embedded and
preparation for the next event to be undertaken.
This intensity is normally adjusted after three months based on the organisations ability to manage change.
Again a better idea of this will be given following the initial visit.
Following the initial event I would normally schedule a 1 day support visit to the site to ensure that the
team are not left on their own with any issues or with parts of the new process they do not understand fully.
My main drive
rs are to help you improve workflow, reduce turnaround times, improve quality,
eliminate wasted time and reduce costs, by making staff's jobs easier.
I have been providing Lean Consulting Services for high profile Public Sector and Private Organisations
since 2002 to increase efficiency and performance.
I have a solid track record of success that proves our approach works.
Guarantee
Leankaizen Consulting offers an unconditional guarantee on its work, so in the event of a problem,
Leankaizen Consulting will endeavour to resolve the issue free of charge or refund the consulting fee.
It is normal for the client to expect a minimum return on investment of 3 to 5 times, but again this is
dependent on many factors in the current climate.
Call me now O1698308309
Send me an enquiry
Best regards,
Graham Ross
Leankaizen
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