Creating a lean culture in the factory

Benjamin Brockmann from Operations1 invited me to talk about some basic topics regarding lean management and about what is important for a lean culture in the company.

While we focus on internal process optimization, we often overlook the fact that people are the soul of the company and that the customer's view can also be different. So please involve both parties. You can use the best methods in the world, but without people's acceptance, you will achieve almost nothing.

Furthermore: Good processes and good IT systems will create free capacities in the teams. Clever companies use this free capacity to take care of problems that have not yet been solved. And there are a lot of unsolved problems.

Before start working intensive with methods, it is recommended to teach your teams how to define problems, name causes and find possible solutions. Only a few organizations have this important ability.

By the way, have you ever tried to explain what "lean" means to a 6-year-old?

Not easy… ;)