Article 121. Enterprise Lean a Universal Tool and the Daily Plan

Enterprise Lean a Universal Tool and the Daily Plan

Lawrence Rosier Consulting
12143 Cedar Grove Rd. Rolla, Missouri 65401
573 426 2997

My two Part Reform  can bring significant improvement in nearly all working environments: Industry, Health Care, Research Labs, State and Federal Governments.   This Article concentrates on Enterprise Lean as the First Part of the reform.  The second part of the reform the development of the Daily Plan follows.

Enterprise Lean implements Lean Teams (developed by Toyota) to make continuous improvements to work processes and can be implemented almost entirely by existing  personnel. The Second Part develops a highly efficient Daily Plan for each repeating process using the Lean Team and a consultant.  

Part 1. Implementation of Enterprise Lean

The Concept of Enterprise Lean is a universal cure for what ever ails an organization.  The difference is in the rules set for the organization of the teams as you will see in the following examples:
1. Industry uses the Teams mostly on assembly lines for products.  The Teams solve production problems related to their work. Lean Teams can also work in the office.

2. Government Bureaucracies such as the massive Veterans Administration can be brought under Top Management control using Lean Teams.  The US Veterans Administration is known to be a highly toxic bureaucratic organization that the government has not been able to control. 

The implementation of Lean Teams by Office of  Inspector General (OIG)  Analysts provides a direct connection of the Lean Team to the Top Management OIG personnel.  This provides a back door connection to the VA management for solving problems at the work place (such as bullying and theft).  Lean Teams organized in this manner virtually eliminates many of the problems related to bureaucracies. This approach requires that the Teams select their leaders through secret ballot.  See Articles 92, 106 and 119.

3. Health Care can be greatly improved using Lean Teams because of the complicated environment of Patients and Procedures the teams can develop unique methods of solving problems.  The organization of the lean teams can be more flexible such as senior team members may be selected as the team leader.   See Articles 42 and 120.

4. Lean teams also work with professionals such as Research labs and other Scientific organizations.  Here again the Team organization is more flexible in the selection of the Team Leader.

Part 2. The Development of the Daily Plan

Most state government organizations: Washington State, Minnesota and Iowa only implement the Enterprise Lean portion of my Two Part Reform and as such overlook $millions in savings from the reorganization of repeating operations into Daily Plans.  ALL repeating operations can be reorganized into Daily Plans.

Lean Teams  provide the means for continuous improvement in all operations and are the best way to for them to be involved in the design of the Daily Plan for repeating operations.

The basic concept is to separate an entity's workforce into two main areas: Repeating operations and non-repeating operations.  Repeating operations are reorganized to get maximum efficiency which I call the Daily Plan. Non-Repeating operations hold the expertise for solving routine and non-routine operation problems.  They also provide backup services for the Repeating operations making sure that nothing interferes with their daily operations.

The best way to do this is to provide Consulting assistance to the Lean Teams of the Repeating operations.  The Lean Team provides the knowledge of how the current process works and working with the consultant the most efficient method can be made into the Daily Plan.  The expertise of the consultant is in being able to balance the work loads of the Team members so that no team Member waits on another to do his job. The Consultant breaks down the jobs and reapportions the jobs to each employee making them equal in time getting the highest efficiency possible.  The average savings is estimated to be a significant 60% of the existing unplanned work.  See Articles 110, 119 and 120.