Is there a relationship between business life cycle and lean implementation road map?
Just in case if you are new to Lean Lean principles simplified will be useful.
It will help if you can read my previous article: ” One reason – Why companies fail to carry out Lean implementation successfully?” This article provides further understanding on the same.
Are you ready to implement lean? Yes / No / can’t say are probable answers, but they will still remain hypothetical. I find it difficult to dash company’s hopes to do Lean readily. Therefore, I prefer to choose a moderated path in Lean engagements with a little consideration to where they belong on their life cycle and what is already in place to support Lean deployment.
At the seed or start-up stage, onus should be on making the product or service ‘click’ in the market. At this stage standard working procedures are unavailable. Use ‘trial and error’, plan experiments, note on-the-job and discover the work standards. However you can also use some of the ‘Lean start up’ techniques, enough material is available on net on this subject today.
During the growth stage, it is crucial to get a stronghold on workplace discipline, quality, and use basic statistical techniques such as seven QC tools and Statistical Process Control techniques to review performance. Use Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) to maximize machine efficiency. Total Quality Management and visual factory practices, will help significantly in this stage.
Set up ‘Lean best practices’ organization wide to catalyze growth and further business expansion. Lean will help you become more competitive in the marketplace while just in time (called JIT) practices will help boost profits and customer satisfaction levels. Begin to consider Lean as ‘the way we work’ and integrate it with company’s long-term vision. It may take years sometimes (depending on the size of the company) to integrate ‘Lean’ into everything a company does.
When company is in maturity stage, Lean can work wonders and play a vital role to achieve long-term kept benefits both for business results and customer satisfaction.
After, years of perseverance, either the company may choose to exit the marketplace or renew the life cycle by innovating and launching new product or services in the market. The cycle to ‘standardize’ begins again. Since the company has a ‘Lean culture’ already in place, probability of a successful renewal is very high.