3 New Year’s Resolutions for Lean Companies

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Looking for a short list of things you can do to improve your business this year? We’ve got you covered.

1. Value Stream Map – No really, unroll the butcher paper

Remember that detailed Value Stream Map your team created when you went through Green Belt training? You know… the giant role of butcher paper in the corner of someone’s office that they refuse to throw away because that would be sacrilegious.

Imagine the power of solving problems based on data, the joy of working on the top Pareto items instead of doing whatever project pops into your VP’s head! Firefighting sucks resources that you need to tackle waste from your VSM and move your business forward.

Which brings us to our next resolution.

2. Create a Stop Doing List – No Bench Seats

One of the best tools for a Lean company is the Stop Doing List. Use your Value Stream Map to identify non value added work that you do today and just stop doing it!

A Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and friend of mine at Consumer Reports created a Stop Doing list last year. Her team found they were gathering a bunch of data on cars that never got published.  “No one asks if cars have bucket seats anymore!” Her team eliminated this non value added work and saved the company thousands.

Speaking of cars…

3. Give Your Employees a Ferrari

Want your employees to continually improve their processes? Then you’d better give them a serious, high horsepower, fully loaded system to get it done. That system needs to include Leadership Standard Work, Standard Processes for CI projects, Clear Metrics and a simple tool to:

  1. Captures their ideasorange KPI Fire Ferrari
  2. Enables them to select the best ideas to work on
  3. Provides templates custom built to meet their needs
  4. Tracks their performance as they cross the finish line

Without a system in place to DO continuous improvement TRAINING, ENCOURAGING and even INCENTING employees won’t work.

Stick with these 3 resolutions and 2015 is going to be amazing!

Happy New Year from KPI Fire, your Bright Orange Continuous Improvement Software Ferrari!