Rather than accumulating discrete cases of waste reduction,
do you instead seek to create a deeper capability for
leveling flow from end to end across the enterprise? Have
you identified clear objectives and metrics that readily tie
to bottom-line results, driving workers and managers to
emphasize this focus in their day-to-day duties? If so, your
business might have reached the level of steady-state lean,
realizing such broader benefits as freeing capacity to be
applied toward other areas needing transformation.
+ Would you consider your business improvement methods
to be focused on enhancing processes or on value as defined
by the customers, even if they keep changing their
minds? This is a critical distinction that points to a focus on
dynamic lean. Emphasizing process redesign can cause
leaders to become fixated on how to achieve an existing
target, instead of exploring what that target should be.
Seeking instead to understand the dynamics of value and
focus on optimizing its incremental buildup can redirect attention
to opportunities for transformation at each step
along the way.
+ Do maximizing innovation and seeking new opportunities
factor heavily into your approach to lean? Are product families
optimized with this in mind; are design personnel, top
executives, and other parts of the organization showing
great interest and involvement in your progress and contributing
as team members for identifying and rolling out
new phases in your progression? If this is the case, you may
be approaching or at the level of strategic lean.
+ Does your organization break from the tradition of fixating
on attaining market share, instead focusing on ways to sustainably
advance in creating customer and corporate
value? Is your value curve flat? You may have attained the
elite rank of sustainable lean, a level that only a limited
number of organizations have reached. If this is the case,