A deep sorrow for… the indifference to the Lean Principles

A deep sorrow for… the indifference to Lean Principles

“Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.” In this sense, the Lean Principles, though well-rehearsed and known across the world of continuous improvement. In many places, there are only mentioned during seminars, training classes or by interviewees looking to impress a recruiting manager searching for a CI magician that will solve all their problems in six months.

We tend to forget that they are the perfect road map for the cycles of improvement and the cycle of learning for any organisation serious to engage in transformation. In the next couple of post, we will dissect them via a mundane case study.

The lean Principles, what are they?

1. Define value in the eyes of the customer

2. Identify the value Stream

3. Let the value flow

4. Pull the value at the rate of the customer demand…

5. In pursuit of perfection.

6. Respect the people

To illustrate, let’s take the case of a hard-working family that needs to purchase their weekly grocery shopping on a Saturday.

1. Defining the value here is very simple: the customer generates a list of groceries items they need to prepare some delicious meal and keep the house clean. They then engage in a process that end with the fridge and the pantry filled with all the goodies they dreamt of.

2. Identifying the value stream would consist on tagging oneself to the family member in charge of the groceries and painstakingly record all the activities the person and the generated shopping list

go through until the pantry is full and the fridge is satisfied. This will include, checking the existing inventory in the house, generating the shopping list, collecting one’s bags for life, riding the car to the store, parking, filling trolley with all the wanted goodies, wondering around the store to find that one item you always struggle to locate (Star Anise, I am referring to you), standing in the queue, paying, packing, driving home and unpacking into the pantry. Each of these steps will be timed including the waiting time. Subsequently they will be characterised as value adding and non-value adding (i.e. waste). In Lean parlance, we talk about activity analysis. Activity analysis help us gain a profound knowledge of the process and facilitate the transition to the 3rd principle: let the value flow.

3. Letting the value flow implies that every second, every step of the process is getting more value to the customer or getting them closer to the value define earlier. Every single motion is getting the customer is getting closer to obtain all the groceries they bought. When they are sat in traffic on their way to the shopping centre, they are not getting any value. But you will say, they need to get to the shopping centre to obtain all the goodies, surely this is creating value? Because we can easily imagine a shopping centre across the road from where they live, driving does not add any value to the customer getting a full fridge full of goodies. So, the way to get value flowing is to eliminate all none vale adding steps from the process. Now, how do we define a value adding activity? We use the 3 C’s.

For a step or activity to be value adding:

- the customer should be willing to pay for it (they Care)

- The activity should Change the thing

- The activity is Correct first time (no mistake, no error, no rework needed)

All 3 conditions need to be met for the activity to be considered value adding.

Driving to the shopping centre; the customer may want to pay someone else to go to the shopping center (that is how much they care)but sitting in the car and wielding the steering wheel does not change the content of your fridge.

In the same way, they could pick the "wrong vegetable" in the store, the customer care because they need this for their weekly meal, it change something because the are one item closer to a omplete list but because they made an error picking the product, it cannot be considered value adding.

In part 2 , we will cover the next 3 principles.