Managing your Management System

Today's post is from our sponsor, The Lean Office, on effectively managing your management system.

In my experience, the typical Lean goes something like this: a company takes a stab at “doing this whole Lean thing” and gets started with a tool like 5S or value stream mapping. Pretty soon, kaizen events are scheduled, and the Lean initiative starts to demonstrate some impressive (albeit short-term) results. Then, the company’s Lean journey enters the dreaded “Valley of Despair” phase, when progress on Lean initiatives stalls, or maybe even goes in reverse. Processes start to push back against all this change, and entropy rears its ugly head. The companies that make it out of this valley and into the promised land tend to have one thing in common – some form of a management system to help sustain the results already achieved, while keeping momentum on improvement activities.

These management systems come in various names – Lean Management System, Lean Daily Management System, Management System, etc. While they may be called different names and have different approaches, most have a few things in common: engage and interact with your employees on a regular basis, use a disciplined approach to ensure your improvements are sustained, be proactive with identifying issues, and make the work visual whenever possible.

No one can argue with the effectiveness of a well-orchestrated management system. If you’ve ever had the good fortune to work for a company with one in place, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But, you also understand the effort that goes into managing the management system. Several times a day, supervisors are walking the floor, taking notes, updating metrics, and working to keep the system in order. That’s just the problem The Lean Office is designed to address.

Our software allows supervisors to spend less time on the paperwork side of the management system, and more time on the people and problem-solving sides of Lean. Plus, instead of notes and metrics being stored in hard copy, everything in The Lean Office is available for immediate, real-time access from a computer, tablet, or smart phone. We’ve got modules like Leader Standard Work, 5S Audits, Gemba Walks, and others designed to be customized to your specific management system, and visual tools to help you see your management system in action.

If you are ready to spend less time on managing your management system, click here to learn more and schedule a demo today!

About Author: Randy Siever is the founder of The Lean Office, Lean Management software that saves time and improves results. He helpa companies identify problems in their current management system, and determine if The Lean Office is the right solution for them.