Info Sheet: Lean Office

Lean_Office

Lean Six Sigma has inspired manufacturers around the world to systematically identify and eliminate waste while improving the product, service or value they deliver to their customer. The application of lean tools and methodologies proves equally effective in the operational, administrative, and transactional process functions of a business. Every activity in an organization can be aligned to eliminate waste and create value.

The Purpose:

Lean Office is a work improvement methodology that focuses on eliminating waste, non-value add activities, reducing cost and improving efficiency while providing a better product, service or value to the (internal or external) customer.

  • Targeting the physical environment by creating a clean, safe and orderly, high performance work environment that exposes waste and makes abnormalities immediately visible.
  • Targeting business processes and systems by assuring that the proper actions are taken in the correct sequence at the right time to create value for the customer.

The Process:

Lean Office uses specific, prescribed tools and methods to implement incremental improvements with emphasis on standardization and sustainability. Engaging everyone touching the value stream as well as observers external to the value stream in order to garner a wide breadth of inputs, all invested in streamlining operation and continuing incremental improvement.

The Payoff:

Organizations experience reduced waste, promotion of strong, engaged, cross functional teams, employees with enhanced skills to contribute to a variety of work and with a better sense of ownership and job satisfaction. All this proves to boost employee productivity and help achieve organizational goals.

For the Lean office, customer satisfaction, which is key to business viability and growth is cultivated in the form of a higher quality result at less cost equating to a positive impact on the bottom line. Organizations implementing Lean office report gains such as:

  • Order processing time reductions of 85-95%
  • Inventory management improvement gains of 80%.
  • The elimination of off-site storage space equating to an annual savings of 120,000.
  • Shift change-over time reductions of 50%.
“A huge byproduct of this was the team building - people appreciate one another and
the value everyone brings to the organization”.

"They see the opportunity Lean Office provides in helping to find a different way, a better way, for work to flow”.

“By the time we get through the mapping workshop, they realize Lean is a simple but powerful method for improvement”.

“There's tremendous engagement  and initiative to deploy Lean because the process owners
create the new process, rather than a manager, consultant or removed third party"