What is Lean Office ?

Lean Office is the application of Lean or Six Sigma methodologies into an office or service environment.

Many un-educated people have said in the past "This is not a car plant, you can't use Lean Manufacturing tools here", when speaking about an office or service environment.

How wrong they were !

Lean in an Office or Lean Service is spectactularly successful, often moreso than when applied in a manufacturing environment. The tools and methodology is the same but the application is tailored to the specific sector and business, preferably guided by experienced practitioners and not left to internal people who have read the latest 'Lean' book.

Some results that have been attained recently by projects within office and service environments:

Sales Conversion increase of 81% within media Telesales business.

Right first time quality increase of 120% within media Telesales.

Productivity increase of 161% within UK bank divisions.

FTE reductions of 20-40% in all recent Lean Service implementations.

Lean Approach In An Office Environment

Some of the tools to use:

Standardised Work

Process Mapping

User Guides

Capacity Planning

5S

Line Balancing

Heijunka

Visual Management

Work Organisation

But most of all, Basic Management. Many companies aren't very good at the real management basics and the most worrying part of this is that they don't even know they aren't very good.

A solid training plan for the management team at all levels will bring about startling results, once they begin to apply what they have learned. A good way to get this application going is to get them signed up to a Lean Six Sigma Certification course, where application is part of the certification process. Lean Office Lean Six Sigma Certification courses offer online training for green belt and black belt certification.