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Management Services Winter 2012
Lean then uses a particular approach and a whole ‘toolbox’ of techniques and tools. When we carried out our initial assessment, we became concerned that applying ‘lean’ might be a lengthy and expensive business. Many of the fi rms we were likely to be involved with were ‘unsophisticated’... and a very long way from being lean.
As a result we thought ‘lean manufacturing’ might be a step too far at this stage. We therefore ‘applied lean thinking to lean manufacturing’ and proposed to UNIDO that we adopt a ‘lesser’ form of lean which we termed ‘Lean Lite’. We felt that (applying the Pareto principle) we could get most of the benefi ts (and certainly a number of ‘quick wins’ by using a sub-set of lean techniques, though still based on the same principles. The project we were involved with was going to last for three years overall but obviously we wanted to create some momentum and internal capacity so that improvement could – and would – continue after the project had fi nished and we had left. We thus decided to work with the National Productivity Centre (NPC) of Pakistan (which we had helped establish a couple of years earlier) and ensure that we built their ability to apply the principles of lean manufacturing on an ongoing basis.
The process
I will now take you through the process we followed in one particular sector – the manufacture of electric fans. Fan manufacturing is concentrated in Gujrat and this concentration makes it relatively easy to visit a number of fi rms in a relatively short time.
Phase one of the project was to measure the current (baseline) position – partly so we ourselves understood the nature of the ‘problem’ we faced... and partly so we could subsequently demonstrate to the funders of this project (the European Union) the improvements we had made. The Institute worked with a ‘national expert’ and with members of the NPC to measure the performance of the sector (against its major international competitors) and to measure the performance of individual fi rms in the sector (so we could identify different levels of performance and so they could see how they compared to the sector average and to the ‘best in class’ within Pakistan. We measured a whole range of performance factors but concentrated on an overall measure of OEE as a kind of ‘summary measure’ which has the added advantage of being relatively widely understood and widely used. (This exercise also allowed us to identify those company owners/ managers who we felt were most receptive to change.) We also carried out a ‘stakeholder analysis’ to identify those individuals and groups who were affected by the project and who could infl uence its success. For example, there are a number of government agencies responsible for different aspects of support for industry (training, SME support, etc). To leave any of these out of our discussions and plans would be at the very least extremely rude but perhaps damaging to the project.
Delivering the curriculum Phase two of the project was to identify a group of individuals representing the key stakeholders (and especially the NPC) who would be trained in ‘Lean Lite’ and
When we carried out our initial assessment, we became concerned that applying ‘lean’ might be a lengthy and expensive business.
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