According to lean expert Chad Vincent, who led a recent Better MRO webinar, most people don’t understand that lean’s greatest value “is the integration and the understanding of how principles, systems and tools promote specific behaviors and create sustainable cultural change.”
Principles are guiding beliefs. Systems are the processes employed to maintain the principles. Tools are the devices that carry out a process.
Too often, businesses rely on tools without understanding the principles behind them. When tools are aligned with systems and principles, ideal behaviors follow, explains Vincent. Tools can be visual management (such as a Kanban system), and things such as takt time, which is the rate of customer demand.
“‘Standard work’ is a tool to standardize a process through documentation,” says Vincent. “A tool is nothing more than a point solution or a specific means to an end. Sometimes we tend to concentrate too much on the tool as the solution and the system.”
If the tool isn’t improving a process, find a different means to help improve toward that end.
Do you find new methods and tools for continuous improvement? If not, why not? How lean is your organization?
Miss the webinar? Check it out here:
Recap: https://bit.ly/2CWI4jh
Replay: https://bit.ly/2SeCWRi