Lean Initiatives in the Office

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, 5S for the Office (190-slide PowerPoint presentation). The office, by any name, is a paperwork factory. To become a Lean enterprise, office activities must fully support shop-floor manufacturing operations to eliminate waste. The adoption of 5S throughout all office functions is the first step to increase efficiency. 5S principles are dedicated to [read more]

Also, if you are interested in becoming an expert on Process Improvement, take a look at Flevy's Process Improvement Frameworks offering here. This is a curated collection of best practice frameworks based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. By learning and applying these concepts, you can you stay ahead of the curve. Full details here.

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Why implement Lean in the Office?

If you think Lean only applies to industry and manufacturing processes, you are wrong! Here’s why:

• The operational efficiency of a company should not be simply restricted to the “production” side of the activity. The rapid delivery and manufacture of products is never enough if your clients are waiting for business proposals, estimates and so on. On the same level, if there is a backlog of invoicing anomalies, the receipt of clients’ money is delayed.

• A good service offer using a minimum of resources with a short lead time is not only the responsibility of the manufacturing department. The research and development department, procurement, production control and logistics, human resources and information technology departments are all “support” services. For “production” to be efficient, all these internal suppliers need to contribute as appropriate.

In conclusion, everyone within a manufacturing firm, or any other type of firm, is concerned by the notion of Lean “Office.”

The potential for progress is enormous.

According to Northcote Parkinson’s theorem (1909-1993): over and above a certain size, an “Office” style organization can generate enough work to busy itself with!  Or, in other words “Offices end up giving each other work to do.”

There is no denying that the driving forces behind Parkinson’s Law are linked to human nature and there is absolutely no reason why they should not apply to commercial or industrial set-ups. In such contexts, even if the implications are weaker than those described by Parkinson in administrative situations, to neglect them would be like depriving oneself of an important source of progress.

To conclude: An “Office” organization when complying with an external need can shift from the customer focus to a point whereby it functions independently. A bit like when the formulas on a page of your spreadsheet are interconnected by circular references. The difference being that your spreadsheet automatically tells you of the problem and asks you to solve it.

Have you set up an alarm system or organized preventive measures to counter the effects of Parkinson’s Law in your company?

Sources of progress can be organized into three groups.

1. The clarification of the roles and responsibilities and the objectives for each department in relation to the other internal clients.
2. The communication between members of a given department and departments.
3. The organization of information flows.

Below is a list of some of these sources of progress to give you an initial overview.

• The clarification of the roles and responsibilities and the objectives for each department in relation to the other internal clients.
  • Knowing the internal clients and their needs without losing sight of the external clients’ needs.
  • Respect for the principle of Auto-Quality.
  • How delegation is organized.

• The communication between members of a given department and departments.
  • The waste at the interface between departments caused by the existence of organizational silos.
  • A lack of understanding of the information flows between the different internal clients.
  • Everyday communication between members of a same department and between departments.

• The organization of information flows.
  • Information systems tend not to converge.
  • The inelasticity of the IT systems which, over time, no longer correspond to organizational evolution.
  • The absence of an “owner-user” who is responsible for information flows other than those in the IT department.

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Process Improvement involves analyzing and improving existing business processes in the pursuit of optimized performance. The goals are typically to continuously reduce costs, minimize errors, eliminate waste, improve productivity, and streamline activities.

As we continue to deal with COVID-19 and its economic aftermath, most organizations will prioritize Business Process Improvement initiatives. This is true for a few reasons. First, Process Improvement is one of the most common and effective ways of reducing costs. As the global economy slows down, Cost Management will jump to the forefront of most corporate agendas.

Secondly, a downturn typically unveils ineffective and broken business processes. Organizations that once seemed agile and focused during periods of growth may become sluggish and inefficient when demand drops off.

Lastly, COVID-19 has expedited Digital Transformation for most organizations. One of the quickest and most impactful forms of Digital Transformation is Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Thus, we have included numerous RPA frameworks within this Stream.

Learn about our Process Improvement Best Practice Frameworks here.