Lean Trends: Navigating Business Requirement Challenges

1. How do emerging lean manufacturing trends potentially impact addressing challenges in satisfying business requirements?

To answer this question, we need to start with the fundamental concept of Lean. Lean focuses on an organization’s ability to identify waste and non-value-added activities in the business, enterprise, manufacturing, and supply chain processes, from order to cash, that impact their ability to maximize the potential for the organization to grow their business, margins, and optimize their use of working capital. Companies with amazing people-first cultures, clearly defined value statements, and solid educational programs create the foundation needed for lean enterprise implementation and accelerated execution for customers and investors.

The concept of “lean” is more than just manufacturing. It has to be part of your enterprise business model.

With that in mind, there are many emerging trends—one we’re seeing a lot in today’s world is artificial intelligence (AI). There’s a lot to be explored here, but one of the critical tools of Lean is understanding your actual state and establishing a future state of how you want to operate your business or process. During the development of the future state, identifying potential waste and non-value-added activities is objective and is where AI comes into the game. An example of this is an order entry with 0 errors, where AI can help you identify customer requirements in different forms, drastically reducing the lead time at the front end of the process.

2. Can you share your experiences from one of the projects you were recently involved in?

One recent project we have worked on is creating a clear path to gain speed in our execution through a well-connected management system.

We’ve translated our business strategies into critical capabilities that need to be in place to achieve our strategic objectives, using the Hoshin Kanri (HK) methodology as the tool to create full alignment across the organization in the use of our resources with a clear purpose: customer satisfaction, business growth, margin expansion, and optimization of our working capital. Simultaneously, we’ve strengthened our daily management initiatives and gained transparency in day-to-day performance at all levels of the organization; the global response to this has been outstanding. We now have strong analytics that help us see variances in performance, and we can act more quickly than ever before and create the foundation for continuous improvement, Kaizen, and Lean Enterprise implementation. In support of these efforts, we’ve also developed an internal operational excellence academy; this program is arming champions across the globe with a clear understanding of the ‘why’ and ‘how’ related to strategy deployment and execution, daily management, and problem-solving. Our management system, from strategy deployment and execution to day-to-day performance, is serving as the foundation for more technical and advanced tools that we are putting in place to accelerate our competitive position in the market for our customers and shareholders.

3. What suggestions would you give to professionals in other manufacturing organizations based on your personal experiences and observations?

Make sure your fundamental processes are solid. Focus on culture, communication, health and safety, management systems, problem-solving, and a strong governance model that helps you sustain your growth. Focusing on the basics will create a strong foundation, enabling you to translate complex issues into simple concepts your organization can easily understand, connect with, and adopt. Throughout all of this, clear and consistent communication and education are critical. Share your thoughts and progress often, and always make sure your own initiatives are connected to your company’s business strategy. If you can’t do this, then you need to change your approach. It’s important that your employee base can clearly understand how the initiatives they are working on are impacting your company's future state and their own lives. Implementing advanced tools like AI, Automation, and Industry 4.0 requires a solid foundation to deliver the expected results.

4. Which particular development within lean manufacturing technology sparks your excitement the most, and what aspects of it do you believe hold the most promise?

Again, focusing on the basics is key. I’m passionate about lean enterprise and have seen the success it can bring to an organization, but you have to follow the steps and walk before you can run. You need to make sure your process is LEAN. Once you’ve perfected this, you can apply manufacturing technology, automation, and Industry 4.0 in the areas where it makes the most sense. Taking the necessary steps is critical; if you try to apply these concepts to a broken process, your situation will only get worse.