It is no longer possible to imagine factory halls without it, yet other corporate areas are frequently still working without Lean Management. Only one in every five industrial operations such as research and development, for instance, or the classic administration departments, are already working in accordance with lean management methods. Slowly, however, there is a paradigm shift, and companies are increasingly focusing on establishing the Lean culture in all departments. This is shown by the results of the study on “25 years of Lean Management“, conducted by the management consultant company Staufen. In cooperation with the Technical University of Darmstadt, about 1,350 managers from German industrial companies were questioned in this regard.
“In the so-called indirect areas such as, e.g. sales and distribution, procurement, controlling, development / construction or also HR, performance can still be increased significantly by focusing on the essentials,” says Wilhelm Goschy, Executive Board Member of Staufen AG. “A targeted analysis allows rapid recognition of which components are waste and which significantly contribute to value creation.” The value stream oriented organization of areas that are not closely related to production reduces interfaces, improves communication and creates significantly shorter lead times, while improving quality at the same time. In addition to this, more sensible workplace organization as well as increased standardization and transparency simplify cooperation. “Fewer interfaces and clearly regulated competences within the team not only make individual departments more powerful in themselves,” Staufen Executive Board Member Goschy continues. “Also in direct exchange and in cooperation with other business divisions, enormous potential can be promoted and friction losses minimized.” How important an internal, and, at the same time, cross-divisional Lean culture is, becomes evident with the topic of research and development. Because here, the range extends from basic research, which is not closely related to the product, right up to hand-in-hand cooperation with the production when starting a new serial production cycle. “The only way to consistently avoid dangerous misunderstandings and unnecessary waiting times is with defined interfaces and clearly formulated requirements as to who must deliver which input when and where,” says the Lean expert Goschy. “The greater the number of production-distant divisions to internalize this awareness, the higher the likelihood of a company becoming a Lean Enterprise.“ About the study of “25 Years of Lean Management” Scientific support for the study was provided by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joachim Metternich of the TU Darmstadt Institute of Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW). The starting point of the investigation was the book “The Machine that Changed the World”, which, 25 years ago, had originally prompted the international breakthrough of Lean Management. “There had been numerous attempts long before the 1990s to make industrial work more efficient and more effective. However, only the seminal publication by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones and Daniel Roos gave rise to a management culture that is justified in its claim to have caused a lasting change in the patterns of thinking in factory halls,” Staufen Executive Board Member Goschy explains. “For that reason, I am particularly delighted to be able to welcome Daniel T. Jones, one of its authors, as one of the speakers at our “BestPractice Day 2016” Lean congress in July.”