Training and Mentoring

In-house workshops and training

Our workshops are best done in-house addressing a real problem so participants go through the experience of putting lean thinking into practice for themselves. This is because we have learnt that the only lean improvements that stick are those done by the organisation itself. This experience is critical in breaking old ways of thinking and working, in being able to sustain improvements to the flow of work and in creating examples for the rest of the organisation to learn from. We have a wide range of workshops and experts from around the world we can draw on to address different situations. Our main focus is not on training how to use lean tools but in how to create the conditions to begin using lean, how to design a lean value stream and how managers and leaders can prioritize lean actions and manage lean processes.

We began doing breakthrough workshops in sectors where managers and staff found it hard to see how lean could help their situations, for instance in industries making large numbers of products in big batches through common production equipment. Here the challenge is to show that as a few products account for most of the production volume it is quite possible to flow these products through the factory and produce them more frequently in line with demand rather than to inaccurate forecasts. The logic is explained in the workbook Breaking Through to Flow. The five day breakthrough workshops have been very successful in unblocking mental models and starting lean transformations in many different industries.

The focus of our value stream design workshops is to help employees create a pilot value stream in their organisation. In a five day workshop it is possible to:

• diagnose the business problem or gap to be closed
• define the work or products to focus on
• lean to see the current process by walking and then mapping the process
• learn and simulate the principles of value stream design
• learn how to create a future state for the value stream
• develop and A3 plan of action for the next several months
• start immediate improvements during the workshop

This is then followed up by 30 and 60 day reviews of progress and problems.

We have recently begun two other workshops for managers leading lean transformations – one on the principles and practices of lean management and lean leadership and another on A3 planning and problem solving. These vary in length and are tailored to both the level of management involved and the latter not only teaches how to make an A3 plan but also how to develop subordinates using the A3 problem solving process.