Description
The 20 Keys to World-Class Operations
Lean Factory Audit
Lean Office Audit
Operations Diagnostics in 4 Hours
To improve competitiveness and prepare for the future, business leaders must base their decisions on more than traditional reports, which typically provide a snapshot in time, i.e. a view of the past that is not an effective indicator of future performance or how well a business is configured to meet future challenges. As such, a significant void exists in the information map available to business leaders. The Lean Audit fills this void by providing a simple and effective method to diagnose operational health and maturity in manufacturing and service companies—all in less than four hours!
For Whom this Book is Written
The Lean Audit is written for senior executives, line managers, business analysts, scientists, and investors. It allows managers to determine the baseline before introducing changes; it helps engineers design better systems; it allows con- sultants to quickly identify improvement potentials; and it provides insights that owners need to make optimal investment decisions. For best results, readers should have some awareness of the concepts that comprise the 20 assessment parameters (“keys”), several years of managerial experience, and the determination to complete the audit and commit to an improvement plan.
What it IS and what NOT
The Lean Audit is generic enough to fit almost any manufacturing and service operation, yet specific enough to pinpoint areas of excellence and opportunities for improvement. It offers a clear view on how well a business operates relative to world-class benchmarks, and the visibility on areas that need an intervention. The Lean Audit is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to business transformation; rather, it is a practical user manual you can use to quickly uncover blind spots and value-creation opportunities. In just four hours, the Lean Audit delivers insights that lead to actions – actions that in turn lead to an increase in health and maturity that will ultimately give the factory or office a real competitive advantage.
Why to Read this Book
If you currently rely on traditional reports to manage your business, your view is limited because that information is static, outdated and ineffective. You need more powerful tools for the extra insights required to stay competitive in the changing global marketplace. This book gives you a simple but highly effective method to diagnose operational health and maturity in your manufacturing and/or service organizations. You will gain the following benefits:
- a clear, documented reference point indicating where you are now,
- an understanding of what “better” looks like, and
- the fact base to develop effective improvement plans
How To Read this Book
Lean Audit Reviews
"If you want to see the real level of lean in your company i strongly recommend this book. It helps to open the managers’ eyes, to see what the level of lean is in their department. Very simple and clear message for everybody."
"This book gives me a lot of awareness and guidelines to bring my factory to the next level, especially for what management have to do. In my factory, we started lean activity 3 years ago. We focused on 5S, Waste Elimination, Visualization, Standardization, One piece flow and so on. Most of our activities were limited at Gemba level only. After I finished several low-hanging fruit projects, I need to proceed to bring my factory to the next level. In order to do so, I need to introduce lean concept to whole organization, not only Gemba level. I got a lot of awareness and guidlines from this book to embed the lean culture to entire functions and job level. Each audit questionnaire tells "where I am now" and I understand which area is strength and which is not. And also tells "what to do next". After I performed this audit, I realized that we have a lot of things to do at management level. The change in management is not easy but it is essential. This book is very good for the person who want to know the lean maturity level of your factory and how to bring it to the next level."
"This book is a holistic guideline to understand and implement improvements in the operations of a company (factory and service) throw all the supply chain with a hard focus in the customer and in the business, making each area and process a highly performer giving you the opportunity to become a benchmark in your industry developing world class practices. I used it to guide my operations team to have a rich discussion of current processes, methods and business politics with the focus of improve our daily operations to impact the business goals, strategy and customer satisfaction. Also the audit gives you the current status and gives you the key requirements to become a world class company. We have been working since 2013 in my site (global company) with high positive impacts and benefits in company primacies: Cost (Finance), Quality, People, Systems, etc. It helped us to creating a culture of ownership, engagement and long term vision for each member team with tangible and real sustainability savings."
"Great book that easily measures the Lean maturity of your company and shows you where the improvement areas are. It will surely help your company to get to the next level and improve in all areas."
"Parfait et complet. L'audit Lean démystifié, ce livre est complet et surtout pratique. Facilement utilisable pour tous les praticiens du Lean dans l'industrie ou les services."
"Für Manager, die neu in einem Unternehmen sind, Unternehmensberater und Interim-Manager stellt dieses Buch eine große Hilfe dar. Oftmals können Unternehmen nicht genau definieren, wo die eigentlichen Ursachen für auftretende Schwierigkeiten liegen, um dann gezielte Verbesserungen herbeizuführen. Das Buch "Lean Audit" erläutert deshalb zunächst für Produktion und Verwaltung die wichtigsten Bewertungskriterien (Keys), so dass ein gemeinsames Verständnis geschaffen wird, bevor zum Audit geht. Das Audit selbst ist ähnlich eines Multiple Choice aufgebaut. Das Bewertungsschema ist einfach und leicht verständlich und liefert ein klares Stärken/Schwächen-Profil inkl. Risiko-Einschätzung, so dass sofort Prioritäten gesetzt werden können, um auch mit begrenzten Ressourcen Verbesserungen/Veränderungen starten zu können. Das (Lean) Audit endet jedoch nicht mit der Analyse, sondern geht darüber hinaus, denn die Aufnahme des IST-Zustandes stellt nur die halbe Miete dar. Es muss zusätzlich dringend geklärt werden, in wie weit die Organisation überhaupt bereit ist, Veränderungen mitzutragen (Agility Factor). Auch hier stellt das Buch ein Hilfsmittel zur Messung bereit, in Form eines Fragenkatalogs mit 10 Fragen. Der Agility Factor und das Auditergebnis in Summe ermöglicht nun eine recht zuverlässige Prognose, wie schnell das Unternehmen ein gestecktes (Verbesserungs-) Ziel erreichen kann. Berater und Manager erhalten mit dem Buch eine grosse Unterstützung bei der Prognose gegenüber ihren Auftraggebern, welchen Zeitraum Veränderungsprozesse benötigen werden und das schon direkt nach der Analyse. Die Erwartungshaltungen aller Beteiligter bauen nun auf einen gemeinsamen Verständnis auf, Missverständnisse werden vermieden. Je nach Zielsetzung können nun Ressourcen und Budgets entsprechend realistisch veranschlagt und überwacht werden. Ich halte das Buch für ein sehr geeignetes Tool, gerade (aber nicht nur) für Unternehmen aus dem Mittelstand. Einziger Wermutstropfen: Es liegt noch nicht in deutscher Sprache vor."
"This is a powerful tool to learn and get the best practices from a long list of companies who everyday are looking for continous improvement. In a simple language you can understand (and apply) the keys to get for a World-Class company. Enyoy!"
本书对我目前所在公司正在开展精益推广，利用精益的一些常用的工具改进生产活动、优化流程有很大的指导作用。我们公司计划通过未来2-3年的改进，同时与行业同类型的公司进行横向的对比，看看我们自己所处的水平，而申请通过精益审核是评估自己所处水平的最好的方式。是检验自己，同时也是发现改善机会。这本书在审核这一快，也介绍的挺详细。
