LEAN Management

LEAN management is often confused with 5S and KAIZEN initiatives or the use of KANBAN cards. Not surprisingly there have been many LEAN  implementations which did not last. Toyota never hesitated or feared to share their knowledge of LEAN, knowing that most organizations will struggle to go for the heart of the Toyota Production System (=TPS): “respect for  people” and “continuous improvement” (see the “house of LEAN”).

Our approach to implement LEAN management is through the creation of a team based organization (=TBO) on the shop floor, in administration and in the support organizations. The TBO will implement Visual Workplaces in their areas which are the foundation for:

  • daily (15 minutes) flash meetings
  • daily quality (red bin) reviews
  • daily reviews of the suggestion system and the continuous improvement processes.

The TBO then forms the backbone of implementing Visual Management and  Shopfloor Management Routines - a prerequisite to close the PDCA loop.

Eventually these teams will start to work “autonomously” in the direction of eliminating waste throughout the  organization - applying the LEAN tools mentioned above.

The role of management changes to one of  supervising, guiding and supporting their teams in this (daily) quest to eliminate waste in everything they do.

In order to be sustainable this requires several years (5 and more!) of the LEAN journey.

The LEAN journey itself is broken down in 2 steps: “foundation” and “optimization” with 4 implementation phases in each step.
LEAN house of LEAN
STABER team based organization
STABER scientific approach
STABER LEAN Roadmap 1 STABER LEAN Roadmap 2