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What is Lean Office?October 1, 2006 "Lean Office" is becoming a popular concept, but what does it really mean? Some think that organizing their desks using 5S principles is the place to start; however, there is much resistance to this approach by itself and with good reason. Before applying any of the lean tools to an office environment, it is important to understand the flow of work. Just as we map the value stream and focus on shortening lead time and eliminating waste in manufacturing, we must map administrative processes to better understand them and eliminate waste. It is at that point at which we can apply the tools. Processes like product development, order processing, planning, purchasing, and the like are full of wasteful steps that cause delays. Since one of the key principles in lean thinking is to minimize the time between the customer order and the fulfillment of that order, we must look at the entire lead time. This lead time includes many non-manufacturing processes- in fact, for the service organization it doesn’t include any manufacturing processes. In order to see the waste in these processes, we must map them. We must understand the relationship between steps in a process, and we must learn to see the waste in these processes. After we identify the waste and what needs to be worked on, then we can apply traditional lean tools such as continuous flow, pull systems, layout changes, 5S principles, visual controls, and error proofing. Below are three examples of processes to which we can apply lean office principles and examples of waste we might find:
Let’s consider the service department at an auto dealership not far from where I live. About two years ago, the process by which a customer would check his/her automobile in for service was:
This process took on the average about 30 – 40 minutes. After receiving poor feedback from their customers, this dealership decided to apply some lean thinking. The new process is as follows:
The new process takes less than 15 minutes from start to finish. This very simple example shows that delays can be eliminated by re-balancing work, eliminating steps, re-locating people and processes, and applying other lean concepts. If you would like to learn more, consider taking our next class on applying lean to administrative processes on October 12th. Click here to subscribe to our free e-newsletter Learning to Lean and receive three articles like this one each month. About the Author Darren Dolcemascolo is an internationally recognized lecturer, author, and consultant. As Sr. Partner and co-founder of EMS Consulting Group, he specializes in productivity and quality improvement through lean manufacturing. Mr. Dolcemascolo has written the book Improving the Extended Value Stream: Lean for the Entire Supply Chain, published by Productivity Press in 2006. He has also been published in several manufacturing publications and has spoken at such venues as the Lean Management Solutions Conference, Outsourcing World Summit, Biophex, APICS, and ASQ. He has a BS in Industrial Engineering from Columbia University and an MBA with Graduate Honors from San Diego State University. | |||||||||||||||||
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