Lean Thinking gives us five principles in which to reduce order to delivery times. With this process, businesses strive to have products made to order and reduce storage. These five principles are value, the value stream, flow, pull, and perfection. This book tries to guide the reader in their change process from a batch and queue mode to made to order mode. Using these five principles, I can see how a business can reduce their waste and streamline their business.
Womack and Jones write that value can only be defined by the ultimate customer (Womack & Jones, 2003 p. 16). Value is a specific product that meets the customer’s needs at a specified price and at a specified time (Womack & Jones, 2003 p. 16). Questions must be asked of the customer to find that value. This can be done with questionnaires and surveys on the current product. It will also include what the dislikes, likes and future desires of the customer. Only by talking to the customer can you get an idea of what the value of the product or service is.
The value steam is defined as the set of all specific actions required to bring a specific product through the three critical management tasks of any business: problem solving, information management, and transformation (Womack & Jones, 2003 p. 19). This value stream is how the product is moved from the raw materials to the final outcome. We have not currently written down how this works in our company. We have different departments that have their way of doing things. Each takes the output of the previous department, does what it needs to do and passes it on to the next. This process could be streamlined by getting the departments together to talk about how they do their work.
After the value and value stream is completed, flow takes over. Flow is the process in which the product does not stagnate waiting to be completed. This is one item I am not sure of at Homes.com. The time it takes from one department to another, needs to be looked at. It is conceivable to assume that from the time the customer is sold the product to the time it is actually online and read is three to four days. Actual work time is about a day at most. Actual times needs to be calculated.
The pull of the customer is what should drive a company. The customer should be able to pull the product they need from the company. Usually the company pushes a product out, expecting it to be bought. When the product is not bought, the company reduces prices, creates bargains and discounts their products to move them. If there is a pull from the customer and the previous principles are stable, there would be no need for this. The customer would be getting the product they want, at the price and time they want it.
The last principle is perfection. During this process, the product is streamlined and the process seems perfect. As time goes on, we can always see ways of adjusting the process to make it better. Perfection becomes an on going process to achieve. Once people stop thinking in a batch and queue mode, ideas of how to better the flow are investigated. So far I have enjoyed the book. The different look at how a business can setup their processing is interesting. The book encourages you to look at your own business to see where waste is and try to get a good flow that will allow the customer to pull the product.
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Raymond Keckler
References
Womack, James P., & Jones, Daniel T. (2003). Lean Thinking. New York, Free Press.
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