~ LEAN CULTURE ~

A Lean transformation initiative is more than just a technical project.  A full lean implementation is also a dramatic cultural transformation of the institution.  But how is the lean transformation connected to the culture of a company?  Is a culture change required for a successfull lean initiative?  What kind of cultural changes are caused by the lean initiative?

Today, Lean has been fashionable in industry for more than a decade. All too often, the cultural aspects of Lean are ignored, even as a company implements lean training and lean tools in a point kaizen approach. What is missing? In most cases, while Lean is practiced on the plant floor, the management and back office admin have not changed at all, and are still "old school."

Culture Change Drives Lean
Most articles published in the last 10 years see senior management commitment as a crucial component of a successful lean transformation initiative. Why is this so important? Managers set the expectations. Traditional measures of performance are often "anti-lean". If management expectations are still traditional, then the Lean initiative is highly likely to fail, because the expectations are counter to lean practices. The A3 Sheet is a powerful tool for transforming management behavior from "old school" to Lean.

Lean Drives Culture Change
Once implemented, Lean actually promotes the emergence of a different kind of culture. The Visual Factory promotes an environment where workers and management take action to fix broken processes, rather than blaming each other. Workers have a higher awareness of customers and their needs. There is a sense of urgency. Reductions in set-up time and increase in flow velocity now have value. Workers take pride in a clean work place. The Lean Enterprise becomes a self-policing workplace, where all workers and managers value continuous improvement. A3 Sheets and Lean Office methods constantly reinforce lean thinking in all operations of the organization.