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| Customer Service through Lean Management at Toyota |
April 9th 2007 |
This article appeared on pp.54-55 in the March 22-28 edition of the Business Review Weekly (BRW). It struck me for the clarity with which it articulates the lean concepts especially focussing on the customer - which is a key tenet of the methods I have been deploying for some time. The developer of Lean Thinking, James Womack, admits that the process and quality disciplines that reap the rewards of lean thinking are not easy to achieve. James emphasises the long-term nature of undertaking cultural changes the likes of which lean demands. "The euphemism 'lean', which in rough outline means knowing how to serve real customer needs in a manner that is organisationally efficient, and with the least possible waste, is mostly a description of how Toyota, soon to be the world's biggest industrial enterprise, conducts its activities." It is "...about getting all workers to think about the process by which customer value is delivered." Other key messages from the article that resonate with my approach to sustaining process improvements and cultural change are:- Responsibility (I prefer to call it accountability) and persuasion as being key leadership attributes - not authority.
- Continuously examining processes and adapting them to deliver what the customer wants without waste.
- It is not about having the best products; rather it is about having the best processes for delivering customer value.
- Process and organisational design must enable you to get it right the first time.
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