Operational excellence (Lean Leadership)

Motto: The European approach beats the eager application of Japanese methods of tidiness and order

Some trainers apply eagerly and thoughtlessly Japanese methods of tidiness, discipline, order during courses of so called lean manufacturing. The aim of our project is to relate to the historical traditions in Bohemia and to develop innovative educational tools which will be able to compete with traditionally famous American business schools and the Japanese approach which is based on accuracy, immense commitment and discipline. Lean Leadership® supports in an innovative way the development of skills for creative thinking, innovation and improvement, pro-active approach regarding work and at the same time it combines world proven Lean tools with the practice in Czech and European companies. The five pillars of the new concept were already implemented in approx. 30 companies with savings of around 1 million EUR and rise in income of several hundred course participants.

Project focus:

Change in thinking and approach of employees in order to strengthen the position of Czech employers on world markets.

Project aims:

Creation of an innovative educational programme for companies which have to deal with fast changes on the market (deep economic recession) with the aim to foster their competitiveness and to attain a leadership position on European and global markets.

Target groups:

Lower and middle management, foremen/supervisors in production sites, managers of administrative processes

Methods:

The cornerstone of the new innovative 3-dimensional competence model is the combination of traditional Lean tools for the management of efficiency and soft skills for people management. The competence model uses European management training methods, creative skills for innovation and so called hard tools of Lean, like for instance 5S, SMED, Conwip, Kaizen and others.

• 1st dimension: soft management skills, coaching and change management, situational leadership, motivation;;
• 2nd dimension: Lean tools for lean processes (5S, VSM, Heijunka, TPM, SMED and many more);
• 3rd dimension: innovation, research and development, brainstorming, marketing systems of timely warning.

The whole programme is cross-sectional, based on an intensive communication across several management levels in the firm (management pull system – communication from the bottom, “pull“ from the workers to the top management).

The programme was developed in cooperation with Danish experts and tested in a pilot training at Toyota sites in Scotland, Velux in the Czech Republic and in further 5 European countries and other companies.

The whole project has also a distant support in the form of an e-learning application and online tests, which are based on the LMS server of the Technical University of Ostrava.

The whole educational programme was accredited by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports under the title “Management (with the focus on lean production)”, register no. 23 383/08-24/924 according to the public notice of the Ministry no. 524/2004 about the accreditation of institutions to carry out re-qualifications of job applicants and those who are interested in being employed.

Anticipated project boons:

For members of the project team: creation of a new educational product which will create at least 1 million EUR in commercial incomes during 3 years, create a team of at least 20 top trainers for innovative Lean Leadership in the Czech Republic by training internal trainers.

For the target groups: strengthening of independence, pro-active approach and flexibility of employees/target groups/, enhancement of skills for the creation of innovations, better employability, better skills for motivating teams and leading other employees, increase of incomes due to a higher work productivity.

By means of „smart and active“ employees we aim to enhance the competitiveness of 50-60 mainly middle and smaller enterprises until 2011 through the fast implementation of Lean Leadership solutions, to preserve at least 3000 jobs in companies with a temporary lower work productivity and to foster the position of these employers of target groups on European, but mainly world markets, smart Lean solutions will bring in at least 1 million EUR in savings on the side of the employers, 15% of it for the increase in income of the target group which implements smart solutions in the framework of Lean Leadership projects.

Project implementation period:

Continually from October 2008

Resources for financing:

90% private resources of DC VISION, s.r.o, 10% EU - Leonardo da Vinci/ Mobility

Lean Leadership® - 3D model of competencies which combine Lean tools, creativity and soft skills

Project history

In 2008 12 top trainers of soft skills, lean tools and innovation management met in Copenhagen in order to discuss the innovation of current approaches with regard to the impending world crisis. The four-day meeting resulted in an agreement about the creation of a new complex educational programme for employees in the framework of the system of lifelong learning. During the year of 2008 the pan-European study „Operational and Lean Management Survey 2008“ was carried out which involved more than 650 European companies.

A whole range of conclusions was drawn. The most interesting one was the comparison of approaches to the issue of Lean between the individual EU countries. Whereas in Danish companies 82% of the employers had already implemented or were implementing Lean principles, in the Czech Republic it was only 23%! Another result of the study was that the sole implementation of lean principles which were approved in the automobile industry is not enough. This industry sector compared to other dynamic sectors is incredibly slow and not capable to react quickly to market changes, which the global recession demonstrated in practice.

Today a high-quality industrial production does not consist solely in technologies, not even the management ones, but relies mainly on the people – the quality of their work, productivity, ability to communicate with the customer and to stick to deadlines. Because not only during economic crises are competent, qualified and loyal employees the key factor for overcoming a difficult period.

The growing Asian competition and pressure on prices evokes an urgent need of the companies to increase productivity and performance by implementing lean manufacturing tools. The decrease in demand for industrial production and the economic crisis have even accelerated this trend.

Aims of the project Lean Leadership®

The project is focused on the need of employers to increase labour productivity and the competitiveness of companies by training employees in the framework of the implementation of lean manufacturing methods (lean production = production without waste). In the traditional production a large amount of waste and loss is produced. In companies, which have not implemented the principles of “lean thinking“, it is possible to identify up to 90% of waste. The basic principle of “lean thinking“ is to focus on operations and processes which add value for the customer, which have to be of the best quality. It is not only a matter of decreasing stock, the failure rate of machines, but above all a matter of managing the whole process according to the customer and his needs. This system is extremely demanding regarding the knowledge and flexibility of people and it necessitates regular trainings of employees. This is the traditional concept of Lean Manufacturing.

The Lean Leadership concept is the innovated concept of Lean Manufacturing, supplemented by the dimension of soft skills and creativity and innovation..

In the framework of the project 4 basic training modules were created, which were implemented in approx. 30 companies and more than 200 people participated in the trainings. The modules are focused primarily on the pillar „Lean Stability“, which contains basic tools for increasing labour productivity and tools for enhancing creativity and improvements for production supervisors and the lower management.

The training concept includes these 5 development pillars:

• Identification of added value
• Principle of waste identification "Go-Look-See"
• Principle of takt and time management
• Principle of customer pull system
• Improve your skills continuously

On the basis of these 5 principles 4 basic two-day training modules were created, moreover a distant support on an e-learning server, 2 videos for the training of workers and administrative staff.

Project sustainability

The basic problem of DC VISION since 2008 is not the lack of clients for the implementation of Lean Leadership trainings, but the lack of qualified trainers and the need to innovate the programme in the long term. With regard to the hitherto investment into the development of the product and the international study which came up to 85 000 EUR from the own resources of a middle sized Czech enterprise we were forced to apply for support in these areas from EU sources:

a)Training of trainers in 2009
in September 2009 the team of DC VISION took advantage of the programme Leonardo da Vinci – Mobility and sent 6 internal trainers to Denmark for Lean Leadership trainings and exchange of experiences with Danish companies. During the meeting with Danish experts and enterprises the experiences of 6 Czech Lean Leadership programme trainers were enhanced, the value of the mobilities reached 12 000 EUR (EU support) plus further costs from DC VISION’s resources.

b)further continuous development of the Lean Leadership programme in 2010 to 2012
DC VISION prepared an application for the programme Education for competitiveness for further significant innovations of education in the area of labour productivity, creativity and improvement (innovation) under the title "Akademie růstu produktivity a inovací prostřednictvím měkkých dovedností pro průmyslové podniky" („Academy of productivity and innovation growth by means of soft skills for industrial enterprises“), which aim is to expand the programme to further target groups, extension by new levels for advanced and professional managers in enterprises, creation of further purely Czech approaches in motivation and improvements. Particularly for the automotive industry in the Moravian-Silesian region it is necessary to bring new solutions every 2 to 3 years, which is in the environment of the Czech public educational system a too short period for efficient changes in the system.

Since 2008 already 30 companies and more than 300 course participants went through the basic Lean Leadership modules, improvement projects during the final module KBT brought in tens of millions of Czech Crowns in savings on the side of the employers. Companies and employees felt the consequences of the economic recession, further education is a necessity and old-fashioned approaches based on Japanese Lean tools or soft skills without relation to the practice will not suffice.

Also for this reason DC VISION joined the European Competence Centre “Operational and Lean Excellence” in which experts from further 12 EU countries participate beside DC VISION’s experts. The aim is to monitor the latest trends in the industry and to react swiftly with changes in the training modules of DC VISION:
http://www.ace-alliedconsultants.com/competencies.

Personal story:

In 2009, for the first time after 10 years, Karel, an assembly worker, got in touch with a Lean Leadership training at the shopfloor of a North-Moravian producer of boilers. The employer went through a tough time the preceding two years, when production decreased and more than 20% of manufacturing and non-manufacturing employees had to be dismissed and labour costs were cut inter alia by reducing the employees’ benefits. Karel’s disbelief and surprise about the fact that his employer aimed to resolve the crisis by training were evident since the first training module. The scepticism and prejudices which arose from stories of employees from the new companies located in the industrial zones in Bruntal provoked rejection to the word Lean and any foreign methods encountered sneers..

However, already in the middle of the Lean Leadership training programme Karel was among the most active course participants, he contributed a whole range of improvement ideas for increasing productivity at his workplace. In January 2010 he decided, with another 30 employees, to come for voluntary work on a Saturday, where he and his colleagues implemented new layouts of their workplaces, all during their leisure time. At the end of the first level of the Lean Leadership programme Karel developed and prepared a new innovative pilot assembly table which will bring about a further efficiency growth in the assembly of boilers in the upcoming period. The innovated assembly table became a model for the modification of other assembly tables and Karel continues, on a wholly voluntary basis, in Lean Leadership education programmes which are paid by his employer, he participates in other training modules.

These activities bring in measurable and fast results, without lengthy EU grants...



News