Using Lean is Hard. We Help Make It Easier.

Using Lean can be a big challenge. We try to make it easier by providing specific tools and information for many of the different groups of people who participate in a Lean organization.

As a general rule, there are six different categories of people using Lean methods on a regular basis.

1. The Frontline Employee. You are the heart and soul of a company because you are doing the work that customers are paying for. You enter orders, build products, provide service, and repair what’s broken. You are the office staff and the production workers. Your day is structured and is filled with repetitive tasks that you do in order to meet your customers’ needs. Some of you have specific training (i.e. welders and machine operators), but most of you learned your skills on the job. Using Lean changes your life more than it does any other group.
2. The Frontline Leader. You are a working leader down in the trenches. You are using Lean to make sure products get out the door on time, with high quality, and at a low cost. In addition to your leadership role, in many cases, you have some production responsibilities as well. You probably used to be a frontline employee and most likely rose up through the ranks to be a lead or a supervisor of a small team. You are one of the busiest people in the company.
3. The Frontline Professional. You acquired a skill, most commonly through technical school or college. Your work is customer facing-engineering, accounting, marketing-but you don’t have the degree of repetition that the frontline employees do. Much of your work is project or account based. You commonly lead project teams and have responsibility for processes. You juggle a lot of balls at one time.
4. The Manager. You are in charge of teams. You have deadlines, targets to meet, and goals to achieve. Using Lean helps you meet those goals. You also have control of the purse strings. While money and staff are never plentiful-the thing that you are in really short supply of is time. Your “to do” list is endless and it is difficult to get to the important projects that you want to work on.
5. The Consultant. Your reputation is everything. As an expert you have to deliver measurable results for your customers. You need a wide range of high quality training material at your disposal to get your clients using Lean and to drive the results you need to satisfy them.
6. The Small Business Owners. Your livelihood depends on your ability to turn a profit and stay ahead of the competition. You wear many hats and through it all you must know how to reduce costs, increase revenue, maintain high quality, and provide excellent customer service. You are susceptible to economic pressures and you know that you have to constantly improve the way that you do business to keep your dream alive. Using Lean helps you manage the heavy burden a small business owner bears.