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After companies adopt lean manufacturing practices on the shop floor, many find that it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve and sustain these improvements. Lean practitioners find that after satisfactory initial success, the new production system seems to have become sluggish as continuous improvement roadblocks present themselves in increasing numbers. Quite often, this happens when non-production departments fail to fully support the changing requirements of a lean shop floor. Often the managers of these departments find themselves frustrated because they do not understand how to support the new lean enterprise. Their goals and objective are not aligned with a lean production environment.
The ability to accomplish a total enterprise alignment is often the difference between “doing” and “becoming” lean. The former limits success to the shop floor, while the latter includes waste elimination in every functional area of the company. Only with the integration of lean into all departments will a company achieve sustainable results.
This half-day workshop addresses the frequent challenges that many companies face after 1 -2 years of adopting a kaizen philosophy. The discussion will focus specifically on non-production functions, including:
Business Owners / Upper Management / Senior Managers: What are the new requirements and expectations of senior managers in a lean organization? How do leadership requirements change with the adoption of a lean philosophy?
- Supply Chain Management (including transportation, strategic sourcing and tactical planning): What are the requirements for purchasing as flow is pursued? How do pull systems affect tactical planning? How will transportation be affected by a level loaded schedule? What effects will a built-in-quality philosophy have on the receiving dock and the picking process in the warehouse?
- Human Resources Management: How do hiring practices, attendance policies and recruitment objective change within a lean environment? What is expected of human resources managers to support this change?
- The Quality Organization: ISO versus lean. Six Sigma versus lean. How can the quality department compliment a lean policy deployment? What are the changes expected of quality managers?
We will kick off the workshop by reviewing the principles of the Toyota Production System, clearly separating the tools from the philosophy. Our focus will then be directed towards applying these principles to the non-production areas listed above.
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