LEAN MANAGEMENT FOR PRODUCTIVITY ENHANCEMENT

Lean was generally practiced with manufacturing industries but now it is being applied
with equal emphasis in service as well as administration processes. It was developed by
the J apanese automotive industry following the challenge to re-build the J apanese
economy after World War II. It is not a tactic or a cost reduction program, but a way of
thinking and acting for an entire organization.

Lean is all about customer focus. Value is defined by the customer and the entity
develops and maintains processes to provide this value. Processes are run by people. The
support, proper leadership and guidance drive people to continuously improve the
processes that add value to the customer. The system that helps to achieve this is a Lean
Management system. Lean Management system uses various tools to connect the purpose
(providing value to customer) to the process and people. Some of the lean management
tools which are commonly used are Leader standard work, visual control boards, 5S, and
daily accountability.

Lean management is characterized by its drive toward achieving profitability and
productivity through continuous improvement and resource waste elimination. It is an
organizational culture as well as specific practices with clear goals. Thousands of
organization worldwide have achieved tremendous productivity and return on
investments by implementing lean practices and techniques.

Lean Management System works on the following 5 principles:
1. Value - specify what creates value from the customers perspective.
2. The value stream identify all the steps along the process chain.
3. Flow - make the value process flow.
4. Pull - make only what is needed by the customer (short term response to the
customers rate of demand).
5. Perfection - strive for perfection by continually attempting to produce exactly
what the customer wants.

Lean Management System considers the following 7 types of manufacturing wastes
(muda):
1. Overproduction occurs when production should have stopped.
2. Waiting time periods of inactivity.
3. Transport unnecessary movement of materials.
4. Extra processing rework and reprocessing.
5. Inventory excess inventory not directly required for current orders.
6. Motion extra steps taken by employees due to inefficient layout
7. Defective goods dont conform to specifications or expectations.

And the following 7 types of service wastes (muda):
1. Delay customers waiting for service.
2. Duplication having to re-enter data, repeat details etc.
3. Unnecessary movement - poor ergonomics in the service encounter.
4. Unclear communication having to seek clarification, confusion over use of
product/service.
5. Incorrect inventory out of stock.
6. Opportunity lost to retain or win customers.
7. Errors in the transaction, lost/damaged goods.

The lean management leads to the following benefits at all levels.
1. Company It ensures less waste which means low expenditure and investment.
The reduction of waste will ensure improved product quality, profitability and
optimized production.
2. Customers It ensures improved customer care services and efficient supply of
goods and services to clients.
3. Employees It ensures motivated employees due to the safe working
environment that the method avails to them.

Lean Management is applicable to all government organizations as well. Around the
world, government organizations from local law enforcement to national benefits
administration have realized the benefits of Lean Management a new approach. They
have realized its benefits and started implementing within their organization to streamline
complex processes, offer better services to customers, shrinking wastes, and to realize
real improvements.

Lean Management helps public sector/organizations streamline processes by addressing
the causes of organizational inefficiency, building the management systems and
capabilities to sustain new ways of working, and engaging managers and staff to make
continuous improvement a part of everyones day-to-day job.

Thats one reason lean management succeeds where other approaches fail: while experts
and change agents can kick-start the lean process, it is only when people in line
organization feel fully accountable and have learned the right capabilities that
improvements are sustainable.

Lean management programs generally start with pilots to accelerate organizational
learning and quickly build a foundation for organization wide change. Teams diagnose
problems in a small area, and then design and implement solutions, refining them along
the way so they can be scaled up to the larger organization. Within 6 to 18 months, this
approach can deliver genuine transformations: typical improvements include better
employee engagement and development and 15 to 30 percent rises in personnel
productivity; 30 to 50 percent higher quality and service-level adherence; and
dramatically faster turnaround times and more customer satisfaction.

Lean management also offers substantial risk-management benefits. When managers
understand more about the real needs of stakeholders and customers and eliminate non-
value-added activities, organizations can deploy human and financial resources to the
areas where they can make more of difference. With rapid test-and-learn events,
managers understand the implications of changes before rolling them out across the
organization and can make course corrections early and often. Standardizing work
increases the predictability of outcomes and captures best practices. Creating a culture of
transparency and constructive problem solving encourages staff to identify and mitigate
risks and inefficiencies.

In spite of all the above benefits, lean management in India is still in infancy and the
Indian firms are far away from enjoying its complete benefits. The awareness level in
Indian context on lean manufacturing is very low. The concept is largely adopted only by
the big firms popularly known as Indian MNCs. One such example is Tata Motors which
has created a success story by launching Nano implementing lean manufacturing. Lean
philosophy helped to reduce the cost without compromising on size and comfort.
Recently many apparel firms have also opted for lean manufacturing owing to reduction
in order-to-delivery time from European importers.

The implementation of lean philosophy demands a motivated and trained work-force and
committed top management. The competition is very tough and lean principles can prove
very beneficial not only to the Indian manufacturing firms but, also the organizations in
service sector like hospitals, academics, Government and State establishments etc. to
compete globally. It will help them to improve upon product & service quality and reduce
the costs along with speeding up the delivery.

The organizations can make game-changing advances by improving a wide range of
processes, from hiring and procurement to customer services. Focusing on a single
process can yield incremental progress, but it often fails short of real and lasting
transformation as Lean Management is a continuous improvement process where it
focuses on incremental improvement of products, processes, or services over time, with
the goal of reducing waste to improve workplace functionally, customer service, or
product performance.