Amidst the barrage of Japanese terminology and the many tools and techniques that occupy the lean world, it is sometimes easy to forget that lean is fundamentally about the power of simplicity. It sounds trite, but when you consider the increasingly complex world that organisations face, it is not surprising that their response is invariably more customisation, more tailoring and more sophistication. Individually these responses are likely to be completely rational decisions but collectively they can generate tremendous organisational complexity, which may begin then to negatively impact overall business performance.
At S A Partners our preferred approach to cutting across organisational complexity, is to address purpose, process and people, in that order (the vertical axis of our Lean Business Model®). This approach enables us to address the common causes of organisation complexity which are typically:
- Proliferation of products/services
- Inconsistent and overlapping processes
- Misaligned incentives
- Inappropriate organisational structures
To hear more about the S A Partners approach, join Professor Peter Hines at Aimia Foods. Aimia Foods won the Best Factory Award in 2012. They are an explemplar lean facility and generous in sharing insights into their improvement journey so far.
