Watch the Teach Point Video on the Purpose of Lean Transformation Framework
Key Learning Points – Purpose
Rooted in Purpose, Process and respect for People, Lean is about providing the most value for the customer whilst minimising resources, time, energy and effort. The Lean Transformation Framework helps to determine the best lean journey for your situation. This is to help avoid some of the common failures often made by organisations when embarking upon a lean transformation.
The LTF helps anyone to apply lean thinking and practice to a situation. It gives us a better understanding of the factors required for a successful lean change. It is about the questions to ask and the answers depending upon the situation. So the LTF avoids a ‘one-size fits all’ approach to lean.
Transformation is about a marked change that orientates the organisation or an individual in a new direction and takes it to an entirely different level of effectiveness. That could be in terms of form, nature, character or appearance. In a business context transformation is about profound change.
The intent of the LTF is very different, instead of showing the tools & methods used or even the principles of lean, it focuses on communicating the five questions you need to think about when embarking on a Lean Transformation for your unique situation.
The five LTF questions are used to help you apply lean thinking to your unique situation. Using it avoids the trap of prescriptively giving solutions as is typical of “lean implementation approaches.”
It’s not about telling you what should be implemented, but guides you correctly by adressing the five questions.
The LTF is a dynamic approach to transformation, each organisation, team or individual creates its own unique approach around the problems they are trying to solve. It helps them achieve their unique value driven purpose.
The first of these is Lean is Customer First and Value Driven. Lean Thinkers define value precisely from the perspective of the end customer, in terms of a specific product/service with specific capabilities offered at a specific price and time.
As the late Taiichi Ohno, one of the creators of the legendary Toyota Production System, put it, all industrial thinking must begin by differentiating value for the customer from muda – the Japanese term for waste.
There are five Lean Thinking principles. The first is around value for the customer. For any product more complex than a tooth – pick and for any service more complicated than a haircut, value must flow across many companies and through many departments within each company.
By understanding the Customer needs and Value Driven Purpose we next need to think about what problems are we trying to solve. Again these can be problems at all levels in the organisation. But remember problems are good! Like golden nuggets waiting to be dug up and discovered.
Lean likes to view problems as gaps to close, something that is measurable. If you can’t measure it, then you can’t improve it!
Gaps should be made visible – this gives individuals and organisations a better chance of closing them. And that’s where the Lean transformation Framework comes in. It’s a framework for thinking about the transformation we are trying to do. By posing five questions across the LTF we are defining a process to expose gaps, so that plans can be made to make progress across the five dimensions.
Some transformations focus heavily on the process side of change. Mandating 5S, standardised work, value stream mapping etc. for example. However, this is rarely connected with the business problems people have and so they become disengaged and the activities are not sustained nor the results realised. Alternatively, some transformations focus on people development through training, certifications and creating experts. However, again, rarely are these people able to make an impact across the organisation.
Experience tells us that we need a balanced approach of both, and indeed all of the five dimensions of the LTF. Progress on one dimension over the others usually does not end up with a lasting transformation.
We need to avoid MURA (unevenness) and MURI (overburdern) when considering the five dimensions and ask all of the questions equally as indicated by the different colours of the scale.