LEAN LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT TOWARDS THE OPTIMIZATION OF WORK DESIGN

 

What is Lean Leadership?

Lean Leadership Management is a philosophy which focus on continuous improvements, waste reduction, and increased organizational efficiency.

It involves building a culture of problem-solving, collaboration, and empowerment, where employees are encouraged to identify and encourage to eliminate waste, improve processes, and take ownership of their work.

Lean leaders also prioritize the development of their employees, providing training and support to help them develop and build in their roles or career pathways. Lean leadership enhances the value of respect for people, teamwork, and a relentless pursuit of excellence.

Why do we need Lean Leadership for work design?

Lean is focused on providing maximum value to the customer in the most efficient way possible. Therefore, any leadership who is determined to achieve this needs to put a heavy emphasis on continuous improvement. The leadership who follows Lean Leadership always try to do continuous improvements for work design in order to reach their organizational goals in most efficient way.

The problem with continuous improvement is that it is difficult to sustain traditional leadership tactics that rely heavily on centralized decision-making and micro-management. Therefore, the managers who are with Lean mindset can solve the problems through improvements by pitching their employees to get maximum from them.

Lean Management Principles 

Figure 01- Five Lean Principles (Planettogether,2021)

1. Define Value

In lean approach it is important to define and distinguish between the value adding and non value adding activities that helps lay the foundation for lean culture It is better to realize the Organization's value and construct a reference point that defines the end product of your processes and the value offered to customers for this product and aim to improve the organization's overall value instead of providing direct value to an end customer (Planettogether,2021).

As identified in lean management, waste can either be pure, which poses immense threat to the flow of process, or necessary as they help provide the needed support for the value-adding processes. There are many techniques such as interviews, surveys, and demographic information that can be used to discover what exactly customers find valuable.

2.Mapping the Value Stream

As the second principles it is important to identify and map the process of the value stream. In this step, the aim is to utilize the customer’s value as a reference point and locate areas that correlate with their values. In this principle it is consider the any activities and processes that do not add value to the end customer as “wastes”. The waste can be divided into two categories: non-value added but necessary and non-value & unnecessary. Waste and should be eliminated while the former should be reduced as much as possible. It is useful to map out every step of operational process to create a visual view of team's value stream.

Figure 02 - Value Stream Mapping (Goleansixsigma,n.d)

3. Creating Flow 

After eliminating the waste from the value stream, this principle is encouraging to ensure that the flow of the remaining steps will run smoothly without disruption or delays. Re-configuring production steps, leveling out the workload, or creating cross-functional departments are the examples for strategies that are used to ensure the smoothness of value adding activities.

4. Establish Pull

According to lean, Inventory is one of the biggest wastes within a production facility. AS the third principle, pull-based system aims to limit inventory, eliminate unnecessary inventory and work in process (WIP) items while ensuring that the requisite materials and information are available for a smooth workflow. A pull-based system allows for Just-In-Time delivery and manufacturing where products are produced at a given period of time they are needed and, in the quantities, needed. Through following the value stream and working backward through the production system, it is helpful to ensure that the products produced will be able to satisfy the customer demands and requirements (Belyh,2022) 

Cycle times and throughputs are two Key Performance Indicators on which need to focus each of the tasks as it helps to achieve the goal of delivering value to end customers. The cycle time of the task is when team is active in trying to complete tasks, while throughput is the number of assignments completed in a predetermined time frame. As a lean management driven leader need to aim for shorter cycle times with the highest achievable throughput in order to reduce and control WIP (Work in progress)

                                          Figure 03 - Cycle Time Vs Throughput Time (Rakesh,2020)

5. Pursue Perfection 

Waste is eliminated through the achievement of the first four principles. The fifth step, encouraging continuous process improvement a part of the organizational culture for perfection of the processes. All employees should give their effort to drive toward perfection while delivering products based on the customer’s requirements and demands.

References

Belyh,A.(2022) The Five Principles of Lean & How To Implement Them. FOUNDERJAR. [Online].Available at: https://www.founderjar.com/5-principles-of-lean/ (Accessed:30 November 2023)

Goleansixsigma,(n.d) value-stream-mapping. goleansixsigma.[Online].Available at: https://goleansixsigma.com/value-stream-mapping/(Accessed:30 November 2023)

Planettogether. (2021) Five Principles of Lean Manufacturing, Planettogether. . [Online].Available at: https://www.planettogether.com/blog/five-principles-of-lean-manufacturing (Accessed:30 November 2023)

Rakesh.(2020) TAKT Time, Cycle time, Lead Time, Throughput time. Errakeshmaurya [Online].Available at:https://errakeshmaurya.wordpress.com/2020/05/02/takt-time-cycle-time-lead-time-throughput-time/(Accessed:30 November 2023)