Experiences on Culture and Lean at Canada Post
A Mid-journey Report

Organizational Culture has been described as "the way we do things around here". Every organization has at least one, often many, manifestations of culture from resisting, to supportive. One thing that is certain about culture is that it will have a significant impact on the implementation of lean projects.

Canada Post's team of Value Stream specialists has compiled examples of the effects of culture on the implementation, and sustainability of our recent projects. Participants in this session will be able to share in the lessons learned in understanding, influencing, and leveraging the different faces of culture in organizations.

Canada Post receives, processes, and delivers over 37 million parcels and messages daily from 900,000 points of access to 14 million addresses in Canada. Our customers are served through a network of 7,000 retail outlets, 6,000 vehicles, 23 major sorting facilities, and many, many smaller ones, all powered by our 60,000 employees. We have been on the Lean journey for 10 years and have seen many improvements during that time. Many more are expected as we continue to learn and adapt.

Terry Higgins, Value Stream Specialist

Terry Higgins has been in a process improvement role at Canada Post for over 18 years. He has worked as an industrial engineer and quality improvement manager. He has been involved with Lean at Canada Post since its first introduction. More recently his responsibilities have been as advisor and subject matter expert to the local operation in the areas of business excellence, change management, 6 Sigma, and Lean. In his current role as Value Stream Specialist he will focus those tools tactically and specifically on one line of business in the Edmonton operation.