What is Lean? You’ve no doubt heard the word, but what does it mean for your business and how can it help?

Lean is considered the philosophy of continuous improvement, and can help you eliminate waste, reduce inefficiencies, have a more productive and engaged team through a strong culture, all in all resulting in a better result for your customers.

We spoke to Chamber Member Rob Bull from Plexus Consulting to break down Lean for us and to provide some insights for businesses thinking of implementing Lean in their business.

Lean is about engaging the whole team to solve problems in a business. Lean provides a way to help people think and see waste (not rubbish!), to find better ways of doing things to become more efficient.

Building on a platform of continuous improvement, Lean helps teams to come up with better ideas, innovation – ultimately creating a better, stronger and more profitable business. When successfully embedded into a company Lean helps drive the culture and mindset of everyone involved.

There are several other improvement ideologies – Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints and so on. These all have great concepts and approaches, but personally I take the approach of simplicity. Take the best ideas from all of these strategies and apply what works for you. Nirvana is creating a culture and environment where everyone is trying to improve their job every day. Don’t over complicate things and start small.

My advice for owners and business leaders who want to implement Lean practices is to just start. There is never a perfect time, there is always a reason, an excuse not to start. When you are ready to begin, make sure your leadership is 100% committed to the journey.  Beginning a Lean journey is not a project that you can tick off. If implemented successfully, Lean becomes a part of the company’s DNA; the way people act and think.

Common mistakes companies make with Lean are mainly being focused on how a business starts the implementation process. Often someone has seen the success of Lean elsewhere and wants Lean in their workplace, so they just start telling people to organise and clean up their work space. Tools are introduced, such as problem solving or 5S, without explanation. Lean becomes the pet project of 1-2 people and when they are away or leave the business, things just revert to the ‘way we have always done it’. Adequate time isn’t dedicated to get the buy in and support of the wider team. Lean becomes something that is done to people. The business leaders don’t spend enough time talking to the team and establishing ‘the why’. 

More often than not, introducing Lean starts too complicated, resulting in people getting confused and cynical when things don’t work. I would recommend owners and managers to spend time making sure everyone in the business understands what the goal is and what is expected of them. Then let the teams figure out the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. They are the experts in their job, so respect that they will have the most appropriate ideas. Let your people identify and fix the processes or areas of the business that bugs them.

Keep it simple and empower the team to build the momentum. You don’t need a consultant to start or implement Lean, however you do need a leadership team that is committed to making it work by understanding their roles in supporting the team to start improving their jobs.

I have supported teams to improve production by more than 200%, by relentless focus on improving the efficiency of every step in the production process. It has taken more than two years to achieve, but the workshop is clean, organised and most importantly calm. 

Elsewhere, I have seen teams reduce errors to under 5%, improved delivery times to within 95% on time and reviewed processes so they have been able to upskill and get the right people doing the right jobs. The latter enabled the leadership to exit out of daily processes and give them more time to do their job.

Anything is possible when teams have the same mindset and daily focus on becoming a better business.

Rob is a registered provider through the Regional Business Partner (RBP) programme, which is facilitated locally by the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce. Read more about his courses and how to gain co-funding here.

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