For the Lean approach of your company to be successful and installed in the long term, you need to structure your project and to make the Lean diagnosis is the essential tool.
Indeed, establishing a Lean diagnosis will allow you to realize and share the initial state of your performance, identify potential improvements to be made, and target your objectives.
Why carry out a diagnosis?
Imagine yourself in the context of a medical consultation, the doctor is trying to understand your condition, so his research will be based on auscultation and listening to the patient and then supplemented by targeted analysis, without following this process your doctor will be unable to know what disease is gnawing at you. Performing a diagnosis within your organization to initiate your Lean approach follows the same logic as the example mentioned above.
The reasons for carrying out a diagnosis can be multiple. Here is a non-exhaustive list:
- The client’s need is not satisfied
- Your sector of activity pushes you to evolve and adapt quickly
- Your performance is low
- Growth and/or acquisitions cause malfunctions
- Deterioration of communication between and among clients
- Observation of back-pedalling on the actions put in place
- No guidelines for managing your priorities
- No involvement
- …
Principle of the approach
The Lean diagnosis is a prerequisite to your Lean approach, it is an initial inventory based on figures, interviews and observations. It provides a basis for work and for deciding on priority actions and then proposing a roadmap over several months.
The results will then be shared with management, middle management and the field teams concerned.
Its realization is based on collaborative work.
The steps of the diagnosis, in 4 key stages
Preparation of the Lean diagnosis: Understanding of the context and objectives, definition of the scope, segmentation, people to be audited, calendar, appointment scheduling.
Conducting the diagnosis:This phase takes place in the field with operational managers and process pilots, through interviews and visits to Lean sites completed or in progress. Data is being collected.
Elaboration of the diagnosis:Elaborate a synthesis which indicates the situation of the company on each axis of analysis. This synthesis is established on each predefined sector of the company.
Roadmap presentation: Awareness of Lean methods, work streams and planning. Definition of priority projects, management methods, resources, etc.
The TEEPTRAK solution, a diagnostic tool?
The TEEPTRAK solution enters perfectly in the step of conducting the diagnosis, it will be a great ally in your data collection and analysis, indeed Lean sites on machines are frequent thanks to TEEPTRAK this step of the diagnosis is simplified and the impact of improvement actions on your machine is visible automatically via the KPIs that it is possible to collect with the TEEPTRAK solution.