BUSINESS PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
Lean Enterprise and Six Sigma are NOT just for manufacturing organizations. Fantastic improvements in key operational metrics are readily achievable in all industries, and in virtually all organizational functions, including Financial Services, Professional Services, Service Organizations, Non-Profits, Governmental, and many others.
The four most important responsibilities of the operations functions of an organization are:
Safety, so that employees go home each day in as good a condition as when they arrived
Quality, so customers need to receive products and services that conform to their requirements
Productivity, because stakeholders deserve the best effort possible in performing their jobs efficiently
Delivery, so those same customers can count on the organization to meet its commitments
A Kaizen board is fundamental to Visual Management, one of the key pillars of a Continuous Improvement culture.
Improvements in each of these areas serves as a foundation for improvements in the ones below it. It all starts with Safety, then Quality, etc.
The Operations Group can help orchestrate a transformation of the company culture to one which embraces continuous improvement and greater engagement by employees. It starts with management commitment to support employee participation in identifying and solving issues that prevent the attainment of operational objectives. Training can be provided to employees with traditional job functions, as well as more in-depth training for those whose full-time jobs involve continuous improvement.
Where necessary, The Operations Group can stay on to lead or participate in process improvement projects using the approaches and methods of Lean Six Sigma which serve as the basis of employee training in continuous improvement.
Employees collaborate on defining the current state of an unnecessarily complicated process.