LEAN Within Business Organisation

A LEAN environment defines how an organisation approaches the problems associated with remaining competitive in a global marketplace, furthermore, due to this competitiveness, LEAN provides benefits to business, customers, and employees.

LEAN strives on continuous improvement, being more effective, meaning constantly producing high-quality output and being more efficient, thus a faster throughput at a lower cost.

In order to increase customer satisfaction, we need our product and/or service to match their perception of value. Usually, customers raise value against three criteria which are: quality, cost, and delivery (QCD). Therefore, LEAN works by either minimising or eliminating the amount of non-value added activity and process, in other words, “Waste.”

In order to reduce or minimise waste, LEAN uses the following methods: standardising work, workplace organisation, visual management tools, root cause, and process flow analysis. 

In order to function in a LEAN way, you must adhere to five principles:

1. Specify value: Customer’s perspective which needs to be specified in relation to QCD, and define what the customer will pay for.
2. Identify the value stream: Does each process step add value.
3. Create flow: Eliminate/minimise all the obstacles and interruption.
4. Establish pull: Let the customer pull items through the value stream.
5. Seek perfection: Continually improve.

To achieve productivity from LEAN, analysis is required, this is referred to “Productivity needs analysis” PNA.

The improvement process of LEAN involves process maps, which is a visual breakdown of the process, this defines an operation in terms of its activities. This allows us to see how much activity is value-added activity (VAA), how much activity is non-value added activity (NVAA), and how long each activity takes to complete. 

Learning Objectives:
 •    Identify what makes a LEAN environment
 •    Asses the principles of LEAN
 •    Examine what must be done in a LEAN cycle to be productive and determine what’s best in an operation