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Policy Deployment - The Most Powerful Lean Activity Your Organization Will Ever Accomplish! |
Without making Lean the system by which we run our organization and achieve our company's goals, we will never fully utilize the power of Lean to make us a World Class organization.
by Vince Fayad & Larry Rubrich
Policy Deployment (Toyota calls their version Hoshin Kanri) is a process by which organizations deploy specific Lean activities/Kaizen Events throughout the organization so that the company goals for the upcoming calendar or fiscal year can be achieved. In these organizations, there are no other Lean activities taking place other than those that are specified in Policy Deployment.
Our 10 step Policy Deployment process is:
1. Establish a Mission and Guiding Principles/Behavioral Expectations
2. Reiterate/Develop Business Goals (Safety, Operating Income, Cash Flow, Revenue, ROIC, etc.)
3. Team Brainstorm for Opportunities to Achieve Business Goals
4. Define Parameters to Value Opportunities
5. Establish Weighting Requirements, Rate Opportunities, and Prioritize
6. Conduct a Reality Check
7. Develop Lean Implementation Plan
8. Develop Bowling Chart
9. Countermeasures
10. Conducting Monthly Business Reviews
(Note that Steps #4 and #5 are methods to objectively evaluate the brainstormed ideas. Step #6 determines that if the selected brainstormed ideas are implemented, will the Step #2 goals be achieved? Step #8 measures the results of Step #7 and their impact on the Step #2 goals. Step #10 reviews that all activities are on-track.) |
As noted, most organizations underutilize the power of Lean because they are not using Lean as the "System" that their organization operates with or runs by. Lean is an appendage, an add-on. While these organization make improvements using Lean and achieve a level of success (usually just in operations), not using Lean as a System prevents them from accessing the full power of Lean to achieve their organization's goals and improve the entire organization. The "three levels" of Lean Implementation in an organization are shown below.
While top management in most organizations wants to believe that they are at level 2 (25-35%) because it reflects poorly on them to believe otherwise, objectively, they are at level 1. As an accurate gage of what level your organization is at, determine the number of people involved/using/participating in using Lean on a daily basis, and divide it by the total number of people in the organization and compare that number as a percentage to column #3.
Being stuck at level 1 often occurs because organizations do not recognize that there are four components or elements of a Lean Implementation as shown in the chart below. In the correct order of implementation they are: Lean Planning, Lean Concepts, Lean Tools, and Lean Culture. Policy Deployment is part of the Lean Planning activity.
It is important to note that this order of component implementation may seem incorrect to current Lean Practitioners. This results from our tendency to jump to the Lean Tools first. While this can result in "some progress," the roadmap to using Lean as a System and becoming World Class starts with the end in mind - Lean Planning. Lean Planning ensures that we are not using Lean as an appendage in our organization, but as a system to accomplish the organization's goals.
All four of these components must be implemented to their fullest extent throughout the organization, in a timely manner, to be successful. Most organizations like to pick and choose what elements of Lean they would like to implement. This is primarily because they do not understand that Lean is a total system and represents a complete and comprehensive culture change in their organization. Lean represents a completely new way of managing the organization.
To be successful, a company must be in balance. It must achieve the correct balance when it comes to Lean Planning, understanding Lean Concepts, using the correct Lean Tools, and empowering its workforce by creating a Lean Culture. But you must have all four components before you can announce that you are truly a Lean Organization and have the makings of a World Class Enterprise.
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Free On-Site Policy Deployment Seminar
We will come to your location to present a 2-hour Introduction to Policy Deployment to your Leadership Team and selected team members.
For questions or scheduling, call Kelly at (260) 637-8064 or e-mail kelly@wcmfg.com
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Certified Lean Facilitator Training (Administrative/Service)
Mechanicsburg, PA |
This standard Certified Lean Facilitator training session will be hosted by CenterPoint Engineering Inc. Centerpoint is a Construction Engineering firm.
You can attend just one class or start the journey to becoming a Certified Lean Facilitator by attending all 3 weeks.
Session dates are:
Week 1 = March 22, 2010
Week 2 = April 19, 2010
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Certified Lean Facilitator Training - (Manufacturing)
Milwaukee, WI |
This standard Certified Lean Facilitator training session will be hosted by Snap-on Tools in Milwaukee, WI.
You can attend just one class or start the journey to becoming a Certified Lean Facilitator by attending all 3 weeks.
Session dates are:
Week 1 = January 11, 2010
Week 2 = February 15, 2010
Week 3 = March 15, 2010
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The Lean Leader Coach Series -
The Empowerment Challenge Part I |
This series is intended to provide tools, tips, ideas, and coaching for leaders whose organizations are implementing Lean as their operating system.
by Mattie Watson |
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If you are familiar with WCM Associates' approach to Lean Implementation, you know how strongly we stress the importance of an empowered workforce for the implementation to be successful. It is so important that all of our training and implementation activities and materials build empowerment into the process. The subject of empowerment is clearly of interest to the business community. A search for this topic in the business books category on a popular website yielded 23,609 titles!
Unfortunately, there are some major misconceptions about what empowerment actually is. Our experience has been that leaders new to the concept of empowerment will feel compelled to tell the workforce they are empowered and then follow behind to make sure folks make the "right" decisions. This is NOT empowerment! In fact, if a leader tells people they are empowered, the leader is really saying that they do not have any power at all. The leader is still in complete control.
Empowerment is also NOT about letting folks do whatever they want to do. In their book, A Company of Leaders, Gretchen Spreitzer and Robert Quinn state that, "highly empowered people report that they work in units with clear goals, clear lines of authority, and clear task responsibilities. Though they have autonomy, they are aware of the boundaries of their decision-making discretion." I have seen actual shock register on the faces of both leaders and followers when making this point.
In this series of articles, we will explore the topic of empowerment and, more specifically, how to create an environment where people are free to be "dynamically engaged in the business by mentoring, encouraging, and empowering the workforce" (as stated in the article titled Expectations of the Leader). This environment can be a reality but it does require some behavioral changes on the part of the leader. Another popular business book titled "The Flight of the Buffalo" by Jim Belasco and Ralph Stayeris is subtitled "Soaring to Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead." The subtitle implies that empowering employees is something that leaders must learn to do. Letting employees lead goes against nearly the entire history of American business. It makes sense that we would have to learn this process. For most leaders, this will be the hardest work they will ever have to do.
One thing to be aware of as we work through this topic is that leaders cannot create an empowered environment if they do not, themselves, feel empowered! This is where we will start in the empowerment process in the next article.
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