Survival of the Leanest
 Did you see what I did there?
I took the well known phrase “Survival of the fittest” and changed it
into the less well known phrase “Survival of the Leanest” for Lean
effect.
There has never been a more important time to take immediate action
to ensure your and your Organisations financial survival.
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"Chi Wen Tzu always thought three times before taking action. Twice would have been quite enough" |
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| Confucus (c550-c478bc) |
In this article I want to share with you some ideas to ensure that you and your Organisation
survive the current Economic downturn. By doing some of these things you should come out
the other side leaner and stronger than you were before.
Ok, hang on there a minute Mr Ross. Aren’t you being a bit overly melodramatic with your
talk of "survival"!
Toyota recently headed up a reduction in Japan’s domestic vehicle production of 56%, the
biggest drop since 1967.
When actions like these are being taken, you know it is time to sit up and listen.
So what is to be done ?
Here are Five Lean ideas that you could use straight away:
 Idea #1 Create a Sense of Urgency
Everyone is talking about the doom and gloom of the economic downturn. We all know
someone who has, or is about to lose their job.
Rather than bemoaning the state of the nation, this current backdrop should be used in a
positive way to create a sense of urgency, and a need for immediate action.
Lean is all about individuals and teams taking ownership for the things they can effect.
By helping people embrace this need for urgency along with the ideas of Lean Thinking there
is a great opportunity to combat inertia within your Organisation.
Grab that opportunity and don't become the victim who did nothing, and just waited to see
what happened.
Idea #2 Gear up for a Potential 20 - 30% Reduction in Budget
In the short to medium term things are going to be radically different.
As we head towards deflation for the first time that I can remember, purchasing decisions
are being deferred as people wait to see if prices fall before they buy.
The current state of the Public purse is also going to put a strain on local and central
government budgets and spending. We need to deal with this new reality and think about
how we can operate our business with less potential income.
The obvious and most predictable route for our captains of commerce to take is to slash
headcount. You could even hire in some "consultants" and tell the workforce that it was
them that suggested you do it.
Death by a thousand cuts is not a great environment to work in especially when it comes to
cut nine hundred and ninety nine, and your name appears next on the purple list. All of the
other colours will have been used by now.
The problem with this approach is that the same poor management systems will still be
operating but with less people to cover up the cracks and operate the hidden factories of
waste.
A far better way, in my opinion, is to eliminate waste, improve systems and re-design our
processes to meet true demand. Until your business is truly lean, there is huge potential
to save money without getting rid of people.
We need to re-design our business with this 20-30% reduction in mind. For instance, if we
redesigned our end to end process to create flow and pull, and in so doing reduced our
turnaround time from say 1 month to 1 day what would that do for space, storage costs,
movement, transport costs etc. ?
There are real savings to be made here .It just takes leadership, effort, guts, determination
and a Lean educated workforce.
Idea #3 Run some Kaizen Blitz Events to Get Some Quick Results
I've always believed that Lean Thinking should be used in a Strategic sense rather than just
a set of tools and methodologies that are used by "tool heads" at every opportunity.
That said, now, would be a great time to run some quick win
Rapid Improvement Events or Kaizen Blitz Events as they are often called. These could be
geared to off set your potential 20-30% reduction in revenue/ budget by creating bottom
line savings.
You could also include workplace organisation and bottleneck optimisation as part of your
efforts to help establish order and discipline during these chaotic times.
Running these events always creates a sense of buzz and moving forward, which is a great
antidote for people who are fearful about the future. Getting everyone involved helps
create that sense of collective urgency and team work.
Idea #4 Go after Chronic Waste in Each Work Stream
Here are some of the chronic wastes that you should identify in your work stream and then
eliminate immediately.
 Re-entry of Data
Are there places in your process where you enter the same data or duplicate it in some way?
Make sure that you stop these practises from taking place and free up resources to do
something else which will add value for your customer.
Printing Extra Copies
Do you waste a lot of time printing or photo copying information? Is it really necessary ? What
is the worst thing that could happen if you stopped doing this ? Do people really need to
print off their e-mails? Could information be passed more electronically ?
Non Essential Purchasing
Get a handle on your Company stationery and stop purchasing non essential items. Do you
really need as many varieties of envelopes? Do you need six months stock of ink jet printer
cartridges when you can get next day delivery? Reduce your inventory of stationery.
Think about creativity before spending capital.
Poor Response Times from Support Groups
Aim for the elimination of downtime.
Ensure that support groups are part of the solution to eliminating downtime on business
equipment.
Create a sense of urgency within the support functions. Help make them feel involved,
engaged and part of the team rather than a group that you involve only when there is
a problem.
Pareto the top causes of system/equipment downtime and attack them with all of your
force. Introduce some form of Total Productive Maintenance to chronic breakdown
problems.
-Eliminate excessive reporting
Review all of the "Management Information" that is currently produced on a daily , weekly
and monthly basis.
Who uses the information? Does anyone actually take any improvement actions as result
of this information. If not stop collecting it and assign the resource to customer value
adding activities.
-Authority levels
Question authority levels and sign offs. These often lead to unnecessary delays due to
hysterical roles, sorry I meant historical roles.
Idea #5 Focus on the customer
We often forget about the true customer and focus on optimising our internal processes.
People will become fussier about who they spend their hard earned cash with, as
deflation bites.
The resources you free up from eliminating waste should be ploughed back into improving
the customer experience. By doing a fantastic job for them with your new customer
focused lean operation, you will create raving fans, who will see you as first choice.
Summary
Now is the time for action. I firmly believe that a Lean approach will be the saviour for many
individuals and organisations during these difficult times. If you would like to find out more
feel free to contact me
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Graham Ross
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