The Role of Lean Daily Management in Sustaining a Lean Culture

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Many companies that experience great success with Lean hold kaizen workshops to rapidly implement Lean tools. It’s no secret, however, that many of these companies find that the improved system quickly reverts back to its non-Lean state. The problem is that Lean is a people-dependent system.  All the Lean tools, such as posting standard work, require people to use them daily and if they do not understand them, or care about them, the tools will quickly decay. We need to develop people so that they want to use the tools for daily improvement. There is no single tool that develops people, but there is a methodology that can aid in their development often referred to as Lean Daily Management.

Lean Daily Management is a systematic strategy for building Lean habits and managing continuous improvement and daily operations in the workplace. It involves multiple aspects, such as Leader Standard Work and Lean management routines, visual management boards, daily accountability, and problem-solving where the work happens (Gemba).

Lean organizations make use of Lean Daily Management systems, a structured process to focus employee’s actions to continuously improve their day-to-day work. Lean Daily Management empowers employees to identify potential process concerns, recommend potential solutions, and learn by implementing process changes. Lean Daily Management, if done right, can be a critical tool in any organization’s toolbox to engage frontline staff in problem-solving and to deliver customer value.

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Read more from my article published by Quality Magazine: The Role of Lean Daily Management in Sustaining a Lean Culture

With Lean day-to-day management, employees are empowered as they play an active role in detecting and resolving problems.