Lean Thinking in the Office Environment

Catalyst's John Morgan ran this well attended workshop focusing on the application of Lean Thinking in service organisations and the back offices of manufacturers.  A good mix of delegates from the UK, Denmark, Hungary and The Netherlands, represented a number of industries from banking to aircraft engines and included Fortis Bank, BAE Systems, GSK and Diageo amongst others.

Briefly introducing the key principles of Lean Thinking, the participants were quickly involved in a simulation exercise, demonstrating a number of techniques and concepts including pull not push, single piece flow, Kanban, and cell manufacturing.  Successive rounds of the simulation demonstrated the practical advantages of these techniques over the often used and abused batch processing, so often seen in office environments.

The workshop introduced the Toyota production system looking at key elements and their application outside manufacturing.  Particular focus was given to the traditionally identified Seven Wastes, though around the table discussion increased the number to 15!  The last being wasting time thinking about different categories of waste. 

In running through the various concepts, John was able to link Lean Thinking with Six Sigma and the importance of understanding variation in our processes.  Another simulation exercise demonstrated the effects and dangers of using averages in determining production capability.  This led to a brief discussion around the importance of SPC, something that is covered in detail in the book written by John and his colleague Mal Owen, 'SPC in the Office'.

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