Service organisations are now pursuing lean thinking and actively deploying
lean principles. Lanner Group has worked with a number of organisations
across the Public Sector, including Central Government, Healthcare, Criminal
Justice and Police Forces (covering processes as diverse as incident
response, custody, forensic science and traffic management areas). Recently
the First Lean Service Summit was held in Amsterdam, with participants from
many service sectors in attendance.
Service organisations adopting lean have to be wary, as there are many
training providers and consultants out there keen to sell the idea of ‘quick-fix
lean’. This creates the misconception that lean can be adopted by sending a
few employees to attend a short lean training course. Worse still, many
companies may spend large amounts on expensive specialist consultants
who then create great mystique around the topic in order to create longer
term dependence on them. Rather than creating such an expensive crutch, it
is important for organisations to do sufficient initial research and then make
a decision as a management team on how the principles of lean can be best
adopted within their existing management framework