Operational Excellence

Building Operational Excellence by utilising the Lean QCD toolbox

The Lean toolbox refers to a number of techniques and tools which will aid your journey to a continuous improvement culture. It is more than just a Lean Toolbox, we add the when and how to give you the means to build performance excellence.

These include:

• Cascaded Problem Solving – Lean QCD take practical problem solving (PPS) and expand the lessons and technique to your whole business
• Quality Management – key to customer satisfaction – protect your customer, raise problems to the surface, solve problems permanently and standardise and systemise.
• Project Management – balance the project elements people = Cost + Content + Time
• Value Stream Mapping (VSM) – visualise the current state and the future required state
• Constraint management – helping you to prioritise your activities
• 5S – removing the cloudiness
• Standardisation – embedding your improvements and providing a solid base for further improvements

Just implementing the tools is not enough – to create a cycle of continuous improvement and deliver performance excellence you need to practice PDCA and Leadership – Lean QCD will not just give you the tools, we will teach you when to use them, how to use them and how to put everything together!

LeanQCD can support your lean implementation and help you achieve operational excellence. We will not only give you the tools, but will show you how to use them and help you to develop a culture of continuous improvement.

Please contact us to enquire about our support services

Lean Toolbox Package

Whether you are trying to implement Lean, Six sigma, TOC or a combination, just having access and knowledge of the tools is not enough.

Imagine if there is a problem with your car over-heating. You take the car to a garage who tell you that it is the water pump. You decide to save money and fix the problem yourself.

You buy yourself a new water pump and then go to the back of your workshop and find your shiny socket and spanners set. Surely you have everything you need to replace the water pump and fix the problem ?

Well, probably not. You need a set of instructions. But even with a set of instructions, these may be difficult to follow or require a certain amount of skill. So you need someone to go to for advice and possibly to check the work. So you buy a workshop manual for your vehicle model and you get your mechanic friend to help you replace the water pump.

- Think of your shiny socket and spanners set as your companies Lean Toolbox.

- Think of the workshop manual as Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA).

- Think of your mechanic friend as Leadership.

Lean Toolbox + Plan-Do-Check-Act + Leadership = Operational Excellence

Lean Toolbox

There are a large number of very good tools out there, but you cannot use them piecemeal. You may be able to tighten a bolt with a spanner, but you will probably not be able to fix the car.

To implement lean is to implement a culture of continuous improvement. To do this successfully you need to use the tools at the right time, in the right place and consistently.

Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)

PDCA is your set of instructions.

You Plan what you need to do, using some of the tools.

Improvement projects often fail because of lack of deployment – this is the “Do” part.

Checking is making sure that you are doing the right things, either following the instructions or maybe the instructions did not achieve the required results.

Act is following up, putting in place effective counter-measures to ensure that you get the required results.

PDCA can be used throughout your lean implementation, but should always be used for the whole project to make sure you get the right results.

Leadership

Leadership is somebody to encourage, to challenge, to congratulate, to go to for advice and to check and act.

Effective leaders should do all of these things, avoid getting into the detail and be able to take a wide business view to make sure that the whole organisation is heading in the right direction to achieve the business goals.

Of course leadership is a whole lot more – LeanQCD have years of leadership experience and training and can support your lean leadership journey through our training courses.

LeanQCD will support you to implement the whole package. Contact us to enquire by telephone, e-mail or completing the online form.