What Lean Management is
Lean Management is a systematic and long-term approach to the organization of a company, which aims to create “value” for the customer, by maximizing the capacity and use of all the internal resources: men, equipment, facilities, etc.
Lean Management is well founded on the concept of continuous improvement of all processes through the constant search for perfection and elimination of any waste, whether it’s time, energy or money.
Lean Management is not only a system of cost reduction, but a strategy of growth and business development that focuses on the customer and his needs.
Lean Management is a way of thinking and doing that enhances staff potential, by stimulating everyone’s participation in the process of improving corporate performance.
- Lean Management: more value, less waste
A Lean transformation process must always start from the awareness of the customer’s needs.
The identification of the products and service elements and features considered as a “value” by current and potential customers is the first step in recognizing “waste” in internal processes. Waste is comprised of all tasks not directly connected to satisfying customer needs.
The process of improvement and application of Lean management must be steered Top Down and implemented Bottom Up, because the company’s development strategies must be congruent with process improvement.
- Lean Transformation: standardized and stable processes
A Lean Transformation project cannot ignore the preliminary standardization activity of the examined processes.
Standardizing does not mean reducing flexibility. On the contrary, it means creating the conditions to increase the company’s ability to satisfy customer requests.
There are many techniques and tools that aim at system reconfiguration, but none of these can leave aside the stability of the processes as a starting point.
There can be no improvement without stable results.
Lean Management goes beyond simple production management
It is reasonable to think that the Lean philosophy can be applied only to the production sector and only for mass production processes. However, this assumption is not right!
Lean Management is a management system that finds applications in any field and in any type of company:
- Non-repetitive or custom-made production
- High-tech companies
- Design companies or companies operating in the luxury market
- Process industries
- Non-manufacturing or service companies
- Public administration
- Healthcare