lean champions

Posted by David Poulton on November 27, 2016 at 7:04pm in Learning Design

My Company is looking at employing lean champions into the business, does anyone have knowledge and experience on establishing a plan for a lean department

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Replies

Simon Phipps December 5, 2016 at 9:12am

Hi David

An important factor that you may want to consider is the affect that initiatives like lean have on creativity and innovation (as described in these two articles)

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/gary-klein

http://switchandshift.com/six-sigma-is-draining-employees-creativity

Kind regards

Simon
- David Poulton > Simon Phipps December 5, 2016 at 11:22am
  
  thanks for the links Simon.
Liisa Lehtio December 2, 2016 at 9:27am

Hi David

I previously worked in a company where we had a Lean department and I was there from the beginning to formulate the Lean journey. I delivered the Lean training and was also one of the departmental champions.

There are a few questions first before a well-thought-of reply:

- is there already a Lean department in your company?
- is there a 'Head of Lean' or somebody who has the necessary prestige to drive this and interact with the higher level managers/directors?
- is there a general 'awareness' of Lean within the business?

I'm thinking about ten years back now, but it was a slow and long process from starting Lean to embedding it, and you absolutely need somebody with the power to get the board's/directors' buy-in, as otherwise the great input from the employees will not materialise.

If you could explain a little bit about where you are now, it would help in thinking what your logical next steps would be?

Best regards
Liisa
Mike Collins November 28, 2016 at 11:56am

Hi David,

I've not been a lean champion or involved directly in lean deployment or six sigma initiatives put I've worked in organisations/departments whilst these things have taken place. This article is quite thorough and provides some great insights - in particular around champions

Champions have a much larger role in deploying Six Sigma or any other initiative than just removing roadblocks. The job requires more than just this single task. Champions must be integrated into the business, select projects accurately, adjust the speed of the deployment as necessary, and take responsibility for implementation.

Here is the full article. We'll include this post in the weekly update and see if anyone else can bring some experience to the table

https://www.isixsigma.com/new-to-six-sigma/roles-responsibilities/c...

I think a key question is what are you looking to achieve by employing lean champions, what are the business goals of going through this process?

Mike
- David Poulton > Mike Collins December 2, 2016 at 8:07am
  
  Hi Mike
  
  Thanks for your comments, any further replies from anyone else, would be most welcome.
  
  To answer your question on what we are looking to achieve by employing lean champions the main reasons are listed below:
  
  The ethos of the Lean Champions is to:
  
  Create a lean philosophy for the business based on its needs ( automotive /Logistics.)
  
  Identify the core competencies & tools requirement.
  
  Produce a training program for all levels of leadership.
  
  Deliver Evidence based Training programs.
  
  Design Coach assessment which challenges leaders delivery with self-assessment.
  
  Sign off the core competencies and produce a skill \Matrix.
  
  Measure the success of training via QM auditing system
  
  Create Internal qualification.
  
  Dave