Lean Transformation: Practical Next Steps

The theme for our 2013 Lean Summit was Lean Transformation – Frontiers and Fundamentals. The idea behind the theme was to discuss the frontiers of Lean implementation and fundamental Lean practice. We shared examples of established Lean practices being applied to frontiers such as healthcare and government and to environments such as R&D, the supply chain, IT, repair and maintenance and drew upon some lessons from the world of sports coaching.

We went back to the source at Toyota, asking them to tell us about the fundamentals and how they deepen their own skills and help other companies acquire them and asked Art Byrne to talk about Lean leadership and what it takes to lead a Lean turnaround. 

Any successful Lean Transformation has both a good grasp of the fundamentals as well as frontier elements. To kick off the programme we asked our Chairman, Daniel T Jones to share his insights and research to discuss “What makes a Lean Transformation work?” We have published Dan’s talk on our YouTube channel. Over the next few months we will share more of the 2013 Lean Summit presentations.

As always, Dan’s comments are insightful. He discusses the narrative driving business decisions and the insight that businesses need to move from cost cutting to doing more with what they have – using Lean principles as the engine for growth. In his talk, Dan proposes that organisations need to focus on:

  • Developing and rethinking successful products and services.
  • Developing the end-to-end process.
  • Understanding the work that creates value for the customer in order to stabilise, standardise and practice improvement.
  • Learn to manage by seeing the whole, setting direction and focusing on the vital few business issues and develop people through coaching and mentoring.
  • Ask the right questions – to find out about what we don’t know.

You can watch the talk here

Customer feedback from the 2013 Lean summit was fantastic. But in the spirit of continuous improvement we carried out our own reflection (hansei) on the Summit and have built this into the programme for 2014. This year we are building upon the Frontiers and Fundamentals to provide Practical Next Steps for your Lean Transformation. We have incorporated 8 two-hour Lean learning sessions into the programme so that participants can think about how to incorporate the lessons learned into their own environments. 

In addition to our own Dan Jones, Jim Womack will be joining us as one of our keynote speakers. The 2014 Lean Summit will again significantly move the game on for any leader or Lean practitioner wanting to transform and or sustain the gains from their Lean efforts.