Lean requires change, it also requires resources

Lean is demanding whether it is used in manufacturing context or in an office or in a service industry. Lean involves change and challenging the norms and continuously finding the ways of doing things more effectively and efficiently. But most of the times organizations forget about the resources required in these operations.

Lean manufacturing requires lots of resources. Among them main resource is the human resources. Lean will mean nothing without this important resource. Lean also requires time, lots of thinking, authority to do changes and monitor them. Having good people with lean thinking will mean only little when they are not empowered to act accordingly. This means giving people the required level of authority to carryout the changes and improvements, giving people the required tools to assist their actions and so on.

Most of the organizations do the mistake of not identifying the requirement of resources and they appoint set of people most of the times who are very good and enthusiastic about the lean. And they formed into teams and they identify the changes required for the lean transformations. In the implementation stages these bright set of people fail. They are not supported by their top management. They do not have the required authority to carryout the changes or the improvements they think which will be critical in lean transformation. The end result would be people getting frustrated and leaving the organization.

Lean manufacturing is about questioning, challenging and changing the traditional ways of working. But all these steps require resources. If you are an organization looking to be lean make sure you equip your lean efforts with correct tools and people and authority. Dedicate some of your time to lean and reserve some part of your brain to think about lean. This will make your lean efforts successful in long run.