The 7 Essential Principles of Lean Management Explained
The 7 Principles of Lean Management
Lean management focuses on optimising management processes and reducing waste to increase efficiency and customer satisfaction. What are the fundamental principles of lean management? How can you implement these managerial practices within a company?
Introduction to Lean Management
Lean management is a management approach aimed at maximising customer value while minimising resource waste. Inspired by the Toyota Production System, it emphasises continuous process improvement, reducing delivery times, and fostering a culture of efficiency within companies.
Evolution of Lean Management
Since its inception in Toyota factories in the 1950s, lean management has undergone several changes. New branches have emerged over the years, such as Lean Six Sigma, which identifies problems and finds optimal solutions, and Lean Startup, which validates ideas by testing them in the market. Over time, there has also been a greater focus on employee engagement and promoting a culture of continuous improvement. Today, lean management continues to evolve to meet the changing challenges of businesses and the global economy.
Objectives of Lean Management
Lean management has multiple objectives:
- Avoiding Waste: One of the main goals of lean management is to avoid waste. Key types of waste include overstocking, long waiting times, unnecessary employee movements, excessive transportation, production defects, overproduction, and underutilisation of employee capabilities.
- Quality from Design: Known as "design for quality," this approach integrates quality into the product or service development process from the initial design phase. This helps prevent defects rather than detecting and correcting them later, which is usually more costly. This requires close collaboration between design, production, and quality control teams to ensure products meet customer expectations from launch.
- Knowledge Creation: Creating knowledge contributes to continuous improvement in production processes and employee performance. It involves collecting, creating, sharing, and using knowledge effectively within the company. By fostering a learning environment, companies can quickly adapt to changes and maintain a competitive edge.
- Delayed Commitment: This principle encourages teams to fully embrace their responsibilities by remaining open to different possibilities and continuously collecting information, rather than making decisions without adequate data.
- Delivery Speed: In lean management, waste occurs when goods are not delivered on time or tasks remain pending. This can happen when goods are waiting for delivery, equipment is awaiting repair, or documents are waiting for approval from managers.
- Respect for People: At Toyota, respect for individuals means recognising their responsibility and competence to solve problems, propose impactful training solutions, and contribute to their team's collective performance. This does not exclude traditional aspects of respect, such as treating each employee as a unique individual.
- Optimisation of the Whole: Customer demands and production processes are constantly evolving. In this context, talent management becomes crucial. Identifying and eliminating new waste and ensuring employee engagement are essential. Effective talent management is beneficial for both the company and its teams.
Implementing Lean Management
Adopting lean management involves several key steps:
- Awareness and Engagement: Raise awareness and gain commitment from all company teams.
- Process Evaluation: Assess current processes to identify waste and improvement opportunities.
- Employee Training: Train employees on lean management principles to ensure their engagement.
- Training Follow-Up: Implement follow-up to ensure training objectives are well understood.
- Continuous Improvement Culture: Embed continuous improvement into the company's values for successful lean management.
By following these steps, companies can effectively implement lean management and reap its benefits.
