Optimizing Flow in Office and Service Processes (1 Day Class)
Description:
These days more and more organizations strive to become a Lean Enterprise – to apply the common-sense business practices embodied by Lean Thinking to all areas of a business. There are many well-documented successes in manufacturing applications. However when it comes to identifying value, waste, and flow in service organizations or administrative processes within manufacturing companies, many organizations struggle with applying lean principles and tools to their non-production order-to-cash processes.
An often-quoted reason for this difficulty is that the nature of work performed in the “information management” value streams is “different” – it is highly variable, and more “creative”. Many companies use it as an excuse to discard lean concepts as not applicable in non-manufacturing settings. This, however, is a critical mistake. What it does mean is that a deeper understanding of lean is required by those who seek to implement the concepts within such organizations. The challenge is being creative enough to figure out how to best use them in non-production areas of the company in order to realize meaningful benefits. Only with a deep understanding of the underlying principles can they be successfully implemented with confidence.
If you have attended our workshop on Value-Stream Mapping for Office and Service, you know that it demonstrates the application of a fundamental lean tool—value-stream mapping—in business processes such as administrative, professional, and transactional activities. Now we want to take the next step and present other lean tools that can be used to level business processes, and create flow and customer pull in the office and service environment.
Benefits:
This workshop will demonstrate the application of the key lean concepts of standard work, visual management, flow, and pull to information-intensive processes most often found in service and administrative environments.
Through a simulation, participants will gain first-hand experience in an office kaizen event. Participants will identify changes, implement them, and measure the impact of their efforts. In this way the workshop will closely relate to an actual office kaizen event.
Course Outline:
This workshop will provide an overview of lean concepts, and their application to office and administrative processes. The concepts covered are:
- Waste Reduction
- Standard Work
- Workplace Organization
- Batch Reduction
- Flow
- Pull
- Leveling
- Management Timeframe or “Pitch”
After a “baseline” round, the participants will have the opportunity to apply most of the lean concepts covered to the simulated office during two subsequent rounds.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of this workshop you should be able to:
- Better identify waste in an office and service environment
- Recognize opportunities to apply lean concepts in an office and service environment
- Understand the measurable impact of the application of various lean concepts
- Re-organize your own business processes to create flow and customer pull
Who Should Attend:
Anybody who works in in a service organization or the administrative area of a manufacturing companycan benefit from this workshop, including managers.
To maximize your learning experience we recommend that prior to attending this program you take following workshop or have a good understanding of the concepts presented within it.
Price: $800.00 ($700.00 if the participant is taking 2 or more workshops at one location)
Price includes all participant materials, breakfast, lunch and snacks each day.