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The Lean Post / Articles / Making Jobs Better

5s organized warehoue

Operations

Making Jobs Better

By John Cotter, Lory Moniz and Matthew Savas

June 20, 2022

A case study in improving an operator's work

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What is your company’s approach to continuous improvement? 

Too many companies assign the responsibility to specialized operational excellence teams, which strips responsibility from the frontline team members doing the work. Worse, having specialists improve work processes ensures team members never learn how to improve their work, limiting their engagement and potential. 

Coaching the skills and challenging team members to improve their work processes gives them opportunities to thrive — and contribute to improved business performance. Moreover, when managers and supervisors enable team members to improve their work processes, they demonstrate their respect and commitment to team members’ development.

Abcam, a biotech company, recently took this approach to improvement at one of its facilities. A continuous improvement coordinator teamed up with a material handler to dramatically transform the site’s logistics. 

Read the interactive case study to learn what they did and the dramatic results.

Read the interactive story
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Written by:

John Cotter
|
Lory Moniz
|
Matthew Savas

About Matthew Savas

Matt serves as content director at the Lean Enterprise Institute responsible for the institute’s content strategy in all mediums. He also serves as Director of the Lean Global Network, where he supports the network’s 30+ institutes and partners to spread lean thinking around the globe.  Matt has a BA in East…

Read more about Matthew Savas

About Lory Moniz

Lory Moniz is a relative newcomer to Lean despite her remarkable ability to think and communicate visually, which she’s noticed has propelled her career. In 2012, Lory joined LEI as a graphic designer and project manager, quickly improving lean.org and LEI’s visuals. Prior to joining LEI, Lory worked in graphic…

Read more about Lory Moniz

About John Cotter

John Cotter is a podcaster, journalist, and storyteller. A 2020 graduate of DePaul University, John has completed interviews and press runs with the likes of Warner Brothers, Disney, Paramount, and more. He works as a multimedia journalist for LEI and pursues further creative endeavors on the side.

Read more about John Cotter
Comments (1)
thomas essigsays:
September 28, 2022 at 3:55 pm

I agree. Working with other team members is a huge responsibility and knowing how to improve on work processes is an even bigger one. What happens when one team member doesn’t improve on their work process when the other team members have?

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