Lean Production
Lean Implementation Tips
The following are some tips for successful Lean (also known as Toyota Production System or TPS) implementation:
Prepare and motivate people
- Widespread orientation to Continuous Improvement, quality, training and recruiting workers with appropriate skills
- Create common understanding of need to change to Lean
Employee involvement
- Push decision making and system development down to the “lowest levels”
- Trained and truly empowered people
- Share information and manage expectations
Identify and empower champions, particularly operations managers
- Remove roadblocks (i.e. people, layout, systems)
- Make it both directive yet empowering
Atmosphere of experimentation
- Tolerating mistakes, patience, etc.
- Willingness to take risks
Install “enlightened” realistic performance measures, evaluation, and reward systems
- Do away with rigid performance goals during implementation
- Measure results and not number activities/events
- Tie improvements, long term, to key macro level performance targets (i.e. inventory turns, quality, delivery, overall cost reductions)
Execute pilot projects prior to rolling culture out across the organisation
- After early wins in operations, extend across the Lean Enterprise
For more tips on Lean implementation, check out our in-house Lean Thinking training.
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