Lean Horizons Consulting

Lean Enterprise Transformation Since 2001

Lean Knowledge Suite

Instructor-led Training Suites

Our instructor-led offerings can be delivered by trained resources within your team or by Lean Horizons specialists. Through our Train-the-Trainer program, your organization leverages its investment as it develops a robust, self-administered and self-managed training program.

Customized Solutions

To accelerate knowledge transfer, we can customize our training suites to reflect your organization’s core values and incorporate company-specific examples and exercises. By blending Lean training materials your organization already owns with our offerings, we help you leverage your professional development expenditures.

Financial Rewards

We offer electronic licensing agreements to increase your return on investment when purchasing a Lean Horizons training suite. The license entitles your organization to receive material updates as they are published.

For pricing and terms, please contact one of our specialists.

Training Suites

Most of Lean Horizons’ Knowledge Suite modules are available in multiple languages.

Introduction to Lean

Provide your organization with a view of the journey ahead through a comprehensive, robust primer introducing the principles, tools and techniques of Lean as they relate to your organization’s unique audiences. [expand title=”Read More About Intro to Lean”]

By setting clear expectations and aligning executive commitment, your Lean journey stays focused on the task at hand – driving and improving business metrics.

Lean, as a business improvement system, provides a methodology for studying, analyzing and improving business processes in all areas of the organization. When aligned with the appropriate business case, Lean becomes a powerful strategic and operational capability to capture market share and leverage assets and profitability. But the road to success begins with people who understand their individual responsibilities and establish reasonable expectations appropriate to their organization. Introduction to Lean provides the benefit of sharing with your organization a view of the journey ahead…right from the start.

The Driving Force

Introduction to Lean contains four distinct modules that provide learning development specific to your company’s unique audiences from front line associates to middle management and senior- and executive-level leadership.

The Benefits

Introduction to Lean presents the fundamentals, based on more than 20 years of planning and executing Lean transformations in over 200 companies around the globe. By using an approach that is focused not only on the principles, but also on describing the tools and techniques used, this series addresses Lean from multiple perspectives at all levels. As a result, it appropriately aligns the organization to the process, methodology, scope and expectations of the Lean deployment.

Emphasis is placed at the executive level on (1) the tactical deployment of Lean–where and how to start and (2) managing the cultural impact, to provide a strong foundation for Lean leadership. For lower levels in the organization, the modules are used to introduce Lean concepts and to provide a framework for both implementation and deployment. In total, the series clearly defines the roles and responsibilities of each individual in the organization during a transformation period and is instrumental to outlining the infrastructure and commitment necessary for success.

Through Lean Horizons’ Introduction to Lean you receive significant benefits:

  • A standardized approach to understanding the basics of the Lean process, principles and tools.
  • The opportunity to provide a vision to the organization describing the What, How, When and Why of a Lean transformation.
  • The description and definition of the roles and responsibilities of the various levels of the organization during a Lean transformation.
  • An emphasis on the importance of not only learning the Lean tools, but more importantly on aligning the tool(s) with improving business objectives (metrics).
  • Professional, high quality material with examples and step-by-step instructions.

The Lean Horizons approach

As with all Lean Horizons materials, Introduction to Lean is designed with both implementation and deployment in mind. Our lessons learned from leveraging over 20 years of executive operations experience has resulted in a suite of modules, each focused on the audience at hand.

Executive Introduction to Lean (2-day commitment): An integral component of our Executive Boot Camp, this module is focused on the roles and responsibilities of leaders of a “single location” Lean transformation and of senior executives leading multi-site Lean transformations. This module includes all of the Management Introduction material, with additional hands-on simulations and practice exercises demonstrating the impact and intent of various Lean tools, and the beginnings of implementing the infrastructure, timeline and next steps in the Lean journey.

Management Introduction to Lean (1-day commitment): This module is often used as an initial introduction to a management team who may be expressing interest in engaging Lean as a methodology for improving a facility, operation or company. The information is presented with “site leadership” in mind, clearly defining business case, value stream focus, execution of Lean events, infrastructure and expectations for management or the executive team.

Middle Management Introduction to Lean (1/2-day commitment): Most often used to develop and integrate the local management team with Lean, the basic principles, approach, methodology and techniques for implementation are presented. This session can easily be sculpted to focus on various sub groups within a business (for example, all operations staff, all production supervisors, all buyers/planner or others).

Front Line Employees Introduction to Lean (2-hour commitment): This session covers the basic concepts of Lean and the value proposition, for the employee, when Lean is implemented and deployed with the proper structure in mind. This session introduces the fundamentals with many real examples used to illustrate approach as well as impact on the work area.

Front Line Employees Administrative Introduction to Lean (2-hour commitment): This session covers the basic concepts of Lean and the value proposition based on an administrative application. Your organization will gain a preliminary understanding of all aspects of Lean: how the principles originated and how they are applied. With this foundation it will be possible for you to move forward with the implementation of your Lean strategy.[/expand]

Strategic Deployment

Design the blueprint for deploying Lean, by aligning Lean with the organization’s critical few breakthrough objectives, and enable focused change. [expand title=”Read More About Strategic Deployment”]

In business, success derives largely from a robust planning and execution system, one that is focused by a vision and responsive to a market. To enact rapid continuous improvement and stay competitive, you need to be able to separate the important from the trivial, as it relates to your business. Strategic Deployment enables your company to clearly define corporate objectives and goals, disseminate and align these objectives throughout all levels of the organization and create plans of action for achieving the objectives. Stated another way, Strategic Deployment drives your business forward based on your company’s vision, not a temporary problem, and engages your people enterprise-wide.

Strategic Deployment helps your company to:

  • cement your vision and define critical objectives
  • maintain an unwavering focus on what matters
  • engage people throughout the organization in the planning and execution of your strategy
  • allocate resources based on factual, measurable objectives and outcomes
  • communicate in a manner that aligns all levels of the organization

The Driving Force

The Lean Horizons Strategic Deployment package targets the senior management team responsible for initially creating the vision as well as defining the critical few breakthrough objectives. As the deployment objectives cascade to the point of impact within the organization, management teams from various levels and functions within the company are engaged for the creation and execution of the plan.

The Benefits

Our Strategic Deployment program relies on a highly disciplined yet flexible platform that provides the structure required for success and the flexibility to adapt to a wide variety of businesses and industries.

During this program you will learn how to:

  • manage your organization’s focus
  • align your organization around critical business imperatives
  • tie Lean efforts to strategy and impact bottom line results
  • create a culture of ownership and accountability for problem-solving down to root-cause confirmation

Lean Horizons works with you to deliver a truly customized program that resonates with the target audience. A company’s strategic deployment plan is as unique as a fingerprint; there is no off-the-shelf, one-size-fits all solution. Moreover, the plan must be developed and deployed by internal leadership. Lean Horizons specializes in the core competencies of Lean, corporate strategic deployment, and instructional design. This fusion of expertise results in an unparalleled Strategic Deployment program that is specifically tailored to each learning audience. Immediately, you will notice the superior quality of the Lean Horizons Strategic Deployment program. With workshop deliverables and prerequisites clearly outlined, your team experiences a focused, forward momentum that enables them to accomplish the task at hand and lay the foundation for growth and success.

The Lean Horizons Approach

Lean Horizons’ comprehensive Strategic Deployment program employs a flexible, four-stage process designed to teach Strategic Deployment methods and demonstrate how to operationalize Strategic Deployment for consistent application and sustainable results throughout the enterprise.

Client Leader Workshop: Lean Horizons will impart the enterprise-requirements of Strategic Deployment and then evaluate the existing business strategy along with marketplace performance and customer expectations. During this session, the overall architecture for your business’ strategic deployment is created.

Top-Level Matrix Workshop: During this workshop, members of the executive team, now armed with the tools and concepts of Strategic Deployment, develop three or four critical breakthrough objectives for the business as well as the Annual Improvement Priorities that will be targeted to accomplish each breakthrough objective in the first year of the Strategic Deployment plan.

Second Level Matrix Workshop: During the next workshop, Annual Improvement Priorities are cascaded to point-of-impact (the specific processes that will be altered, modified or replaced in order to support and sustain breakthrough objectives) and detailed action plans are developed.

Process Management Workshop: This workshop discusses the management structure needed to facilitate the Strategic Deployment process in your organization including how to utilize and manage core Strategic Deployment tools such as progress tracking methods, root cause analysis and problem solving tools, countermeasure development, and executive progress review methodologies.[/expand]

Advanced Value Stream Mapping

Integrate and optimize extended, end-to-end value streams through expert guidance in applying advanced mapping practices, tools and analytical methods to complex, networked environments. [expand title=”Read More About Advanced Value Stream Mapping”]

A value creation perspective means seeing the big picture and taking action end-to-end; improving the whole, not merely optimizing the parts.

In The Lean Strategies Benchmark Report, the Aberdeen Group reported that when businesses applied a Lean strategy across their organization, had top management actively engaged, and integrated the sell and supply sides of the value chain, they were as much as three times as likely to be an industry best-in-class performer. Value stream mapping is one of the primary tools for applying a cross-functional Lean strategy and for integrating the organization’s objectives with the customer experience. It is relevant in manufacturing or service-related industries; in logistics, supply chain and product development; on the shop floor and in administrative areas. Engaged enterprise-wide, value stream mapping identifies and eliminates wasteful activities, ultimately defining the optimum flow for creating the product or delivering the service. Through a comprehensive approach for mapping the process and information flows, value stream mapping aligns all levels of your organization with your customer.

The Driving Force

The Lean Horizons Advanced Value Stream Mapping package is intended for the entire organization from the front line associates through senior management.

The Benefits

Lean value stream mapping is valuable on its own merits or can complement the process mapping of Six Sigma. By connecting the flow of information with the activities required to provide a product or service, an organization can see the closed loop of customer demand and the organization’s response. The organization gains a 360º view of value creation that incorporates the decision-making flow and the process flow. Beneficial on any scale, Lean Horizons’ Advance Value Stream Mapping provides the integrated tools to improve a simple process or the global product or information flow of an extended value stream.

Benefits include:

  • A consistent understanding of the Lean principles across the organization
  • The ability to identify the key value streams that are aligned with the overall organizational objectives
  • Proven techniques for mapping and analyzing product, transactional, and information flows
  • A common understanding of how current processes impact the customer experience
  • A shared vision of where the organization is going and how it is going to achieve superior performance

Value stream mapping becomes integral to strategic planning and change management as it informs the basis of an implementation plan tied to business objectives. It focuses future improvement projects and kaizen events to allow the enterprise to perform “kaizen with a purpose” and gain the best competitive advantage as it

  • prioritizes improvement efforts
  • identifies waste and the source of the waste
  • focuses on self-funding improvements
  • engages common tools and establishes a common language through which to communicate
  • bases decisions on objective, fact-based information

The Lean Horizons Approach

The Lean Horizons Advanced Value Stream Mapping suite includes:

Introduction to Lean: Associates on kaizen teams who have not had a formal introduction to Lean benefit from this overview course of Lean concepts, tools and methods.

Management Introduction to Lean (1-day commitment): This module is often used as an initial introduction to a management team who may be expressing interest in engaging Lean as a methodology for improving a facility, operation or company. The information is presented with “site leadership” in mind, clearly defining business case, value stream focus, execution of Lean events, infrastructure and expectations for management or the executive team.

Value Stream Mapping: This workshop provides participants with the skills necessary to identify, map, and analyze the product and service value streams that are integral to the overall organizational objectives. These capabilities are applied in a “hands-on” manner and result in a clearly defined six-month future state along with an implementation road map tied to real business results.

Front Line Employees Introduction to Lean (2-hour commitment): This session covers the basic concepts of Lean and the value proposition, for the employee, when Lean is implemented and deployed with the proper structure in mind. This session introduces the fundamentals with many ‘real’ examples used to illustrate approach as well as impact on the work area.

Value Stream Mapping Information Flow (VSMi): A Lean Horizons original methodology for applying the principles of value stream mapping to administrative information flows. The workshop covers the techniques for mapping information flows and assessing their impact on the decision-making process. Participants are guided in identifying ways to increase the value of information as it moves through the organization and to create a definitive plan to make it happen. Lean Horizons provides a VSMi solution for both transactional information flows and non-transactional information flows.[/expand]

Lean Problem Solving

Release your people’s hidden potential and enable a culture of continuous improvement by instilling the processes and invoking the tools of disciplined, team-based problem identification and resolution. [expand title=”Read More About Lean Problem Solving”]

Lean Problem Solving transitions your organization into a learning organization, the absolute obstacle for your competition.

A system of people, technology and processes that work together and create high value for the customer gives an organization the capabilities success demands: adaptation, innovation and flexibility. The linchpin in this system is Lean Problem Solving. It equips your people with a better approach, a scientific approach, to thinking through problems and solutions and changes the complexion of your organization from reactive to learning. It informs a culture that harnesses the creativity, knowledge and skill of team members who do the work to solve problems that affect the work. The company focuses on the real problems and resolves them, at the point of origin, with a countermeasure process that links improvement to root-cause analysis. Lean Problem Solving pairs learning with standardization and drives continuous improvement.

The Driving Force

Lean Problem Solving provides learning development for the entire organization and can be engaged by individuals as well as problem-solving teams

The Benefits

The power and reach of Lean Problem Solving knows no bounds. From strategic deployment to process transformation and human resource development, Lean Problem Solving builds in quality and reduces waste. Simple to understand and easily learned and practiced, Lean Problem Solving provides your company a disciplined, standardized, fail-safe method to solving problems, across the enterprise. It complements Six Sigma and provides the link to Lean transformation. By engaging the tools and techniques of Lean Problem Solving, your company releases the old way of doing business and empowers your people to:

  • Perceive the occurrence of a problem from a variation between the current situation and the recognized standard
  • Understand and prioritize the problem to bound creative thinking and innovation
  • Set targets for improvement so the problem solving is purposeful and measurable
  • Identify the root cause and communicate it effectively
  • Generate and implement a countermeasure based on fact, not theory
  • Evaluate the results
  • Revise the standardized approach, if the countermeasure is effective
  • Approach problem solving as a team who critically evaluates and analyzes what is going on and assumes responsibility

The Lean Horizons Approach

Through instruction and hands-on experience, associates gain a working knowledge of Lean problem solving while they work on an actual business problem, not a simulation. The Lean Horizons Lean Problem Solving suite includes:

Introduction to Lean (1-day, 1/2-day, 2-hour programs): Problem-solving teams who have not had a formal introduction to Lean benefit from this overview course of Lean concepts, tools and methods.

Lean Problem Solving: Work teams are introduced to basic Lean problem-solving tools and methods. Associates learn which tools are best suited for the particular problems they are trying to solve. This module may be incorporated into Lean kaizen events or may be used stand-alone.

CEDAC: Cause and Effect Diagrams with the Addition of Cards is a Deming prize-winning problem-solving methodology that is particularly applicable to solving complex business problems with cross-functional teams. Participants will learn about the tools and process in detail.

CEDAC Project: Associates engage in a structured, cross-functional team-based project to solve a real business problem using the CEDAC method. The project scope includes CEDAC training for the team members and consists of a CEDAC Planning Workshop, the CEDAC Event, and CEDAC Follow-on Workshops.

Process Mapping: Associates learn through instruction, examples and exercises how to properly document business and technical processes in a way that supports both Lean problem-solving and continuous improvement.[/expand]

Lean Administrative Process Transformation

Deploy a tailored application of Lean principles to administrative processes in information-, service- and manufacturing-based enterprises. Our industry-leading approach to Value Stream Mapping of information flows is the key. [expand title=”Read More About Lean Administrative Process Transformation”]

Accelerate your organizations’ ability to drive improvements and achieve breakthrough performance through the opportunity-rich environment of administrative processes.

By relentlessly identifying and reducing waste from your business processes, Lean drives down total cost, improves margins, enhances quality, and liberates capacity. Lean Administrative Process Transformation addresses the unique requirements for transforming administrative work. Instead of treating administrative areas as factory adjuncts or functional silos, we introduce an integrated view to optimize value streams and complement your organization’s strategy and goals. This is the key differentiator. Our Lean Administrative Process Transformation provides a tailored approach to improving administrative, service and transactional processes by:

  • Recognizing that traditional approaches to mapping value streams must be customized for the administrative environment and providing a novel mapping solution to map both transactional and non-transactional processes
  • Defining a methodology to systematically eliminate waste, allocating resources and achieving breakthrough objectives through cross-functional, fact-based decision making
  • Proven techniques for mapping and analyzing product, transactional, and information flows
  • Analyzing and acting upon the root causes that restrict overall organizational performance
  • Employing Lean tools and methods to foster and sustain a culture of continual improvement

The Driving Force

The Lean Horizons Lean Administrative Process Transformation learning development addresses the Lean learning needs of managers and staff engaged in all types of administrative roles throughout the organization.

The Benefits

Rather than apply a one-size-fits-all approach to Lean, Lean Horizons’ solution is different, offering an original approach precisely designed to:

  • Provide your administrative teams with a methodology for mapping transactional information flows tailored to their work context. Value Stream Mapping Information Flow (VSMi) enables definition and visualization of the current state and guides associates toward achieving an improved future state through Transactional Process Improvement (TPI). Through our program, your associates learn to map their processes, free from the burden of working around the gaps associated with force-fitted manufacturing approaches – and learn to implement as a team.
  • Include methodology for successfully expanding VSMi to “non-transactional” yet enterprise critical processes such as product development, contracts management, project management, test and evaluation, quoting, engineering, human resources management, estimating, scheduling, load planning and diagnosis. Virtually all processes employing information can benefit from VSMi. With our approach, a Lean transformation of your organization’s transactional and non-transactional administrative processes is attainable. Our approach delivers an integrated solution through which you realize the full benefits of Lean. No longer are the rewards of one area diminished by on-going waste in another. Moreover, needlessly complicated data flows and reporting outputs are made visible – and simpler.
  • Provide content-specific instruction. Lean Horizons’ Lean Administrative Process Transformation modules are exceptional in engaging your people via curriculum, terminology, graphic expressions, examples and activities that are consistent with administrative processes. Your people become knowledgeable practitioners of continuous improvement by establishing a homogeneous understanding of Lean principles as they relate to organizational objectives, conducting an authentic process improvement event and clearly defining their roadmap for Lean execution. Lean is empowering.

By applying Lean to administrative functions in the organization, your enterprise will:

  • Align administrative performance with strategy and operational objectives
  • Streamline support processes, remove redundant activity and decrease costs
  • Clarify roles and responsibilities
  • Improve cross-functional communication and workflows
  • Reduce response times and increase customer satisfaction • Improve the quality of your company’s customer interactions
  • Accelerate interactions between the enterprise, its customers and suppliers
  • Reduce paperwork, errors and rework
  • Allocate resources transparently and precisely

The Lean Horizons Approach

Our approach begins with an Introduction to Lean providing a foundation in the tools and principles required for success. Building on that foundation, the capability to identify, select, map and analyze the key value streams is imparted, enabling clear definition of both the current state and the desired future state of workflows. The concept and tools of kaizen, continuous and incremental improvement, are then conveyed. The package rounds out with a comprehensive curriculum in problem identification and solving tools – all intended to develop and sustain ever-improving and reliable administrative processes.

The Lean Horizons Lean Administrative Process Transformation package includes:

Administrative Introduction to Lean: A foundational overview of Lean concepts, tools and methods.

Value Stream Mapping Information Flow (VSMi): A Lean Horizons original methodology for applying the principles of value stream mapping to administrative information flows. The workshop covers the techniques for mapping information flows and assessing their impact on the decision-making process. Participants are guided in identifying ways to increase the value of information as it moves through the organization and to create a definitive plan to make it happen. Lean Horizons provides a VSMi solution for both transactional information flows and non-transactional information flows.

Transactional Process Improvement: Participants will engage in a rigorous Transactional Process Improvement event to attack and eliminate waste from the targeted transactional process identified from a value stream map. The TPI team will map the current process flow, also called the As Is Process, identify areas of transactional waste and create and establish the Should Be Process. The team will implement process improvements directly during the event and create a plan to implement any major tasks beyond the event.

Administrative Poka-Yoke: Poka-Yoke refers to mistake-proofing. Through hands-on application and examples, the program assists your staff in developing creative devices and procedures that make it nearly impossible to make administrative errors.

CEDAC: Cause and Effect Diagrams with the Addition of Cards is a Deming prize-winning problem-solving methodology that is particularly applicable to solving complex business problems with cross-functional teams. Participants will learn about the tools and experience the process in detail.

Administrative Standard Work: Participants engage in a thorough administrative standard work event, eliminating waste, improving quality, safety and delivery. The expectation is to learn and do, creating the best sequence between people and the environment when processing information or services. Produce to customer demand and improve predictability and response and cycle time.

5S for the Office: Sort, Straighten, Scrub, Stabilize, Sustain: a visually-oriented system for organizing the workplace to minimize the waste of time and non-value adding activity. Participants will engage in a rigorous 5S for the Office event to attack and eliminate waste from their work area. They will apply the first three components of 5S: Sort, Straighten, Scrub to achieve immediate, significant results – often in an enjoyable and “eye-opening” manner. The team will then create and begin to implement a plan to achieve the Stabilize and Sustain levels of 5S for lasting results.

Lean Accounting: This module provides an in-depth overview on why Lean Accounting is critical for a successful Lean implementation and how it differs from traditional managerial accounting.[/expand]

Lean Manufacturing

Improve and accelerate value creation with Lean manufacturing applications, as adopted from the Toyota Production System and evolved by global Lean leaders such as the Danaher Corporation. [expand title=”Read More About Lean Manufacturing”]

Applying Lean to improve existing operations or integrate acquisitions creates value for customers and investors, alike.

Lean as a system informs your organization’s culture and is the backbone to producing and selling quality products or services that customers need or want. Lean Manufacturing gives your company the flexibility to work with customers on their issues, improve internal processes to better your customer interfaces and generate cash, and improve the flow of products and services to the marketplace. Through the use of Lean tools and techniques, your organization thinks and responds differently and begins to build a “real-time” enterprise capable of delivering products, services, materials and information on demand.

The Driving Force

Lean Manufacturing provides talent and learning development to cross-functional, multi-functional teams throughout the enterprise. The series is especially beneficial to operators, work teams (cells), engineers, front line supervisors, management and continuous improvement teams.

The Benefits

Our lineage and diligence to the Taiichi Ohno Autonomous Study Group and our deep content knowledge and experience-based competencies result in a Lean Manufacturing training suite providing both knowledge transfer to employees and proper understanding to management.

Designed with both implementation and deployment in mind, the Lean Manufacturing suite includes:

  • A standardized approach to knowledge transfer, implementation and deployment that is easy to understand and simple to engage and integrate with your current Continuous Improvement program(s)
  • Emphasis, not only on the tool itself, but on aligning of the tool(s) with improving business objectives (metrics)
  • A set of recommended tools, selected from hundreds of tools and methods in the marketplace, that are most applicable to Lean implementation, eliminating the need for extensive research to pick the right tools to use
  • Professional, high quality materials with examples and step-by-step instructions

The Lean Horizons Approach

Lean Manufacturing educates your associates on the full spectrum of Lean tools and, more importantly, introduces each tool in the proper context and application – when and where to use the tool – along the Lean journey. The Lean Horizons Lean Manufacturing suite includes:

Introduction to Lean: This module introduces the basic concepts, approaches and benefits of Lean. Versions of this module are tailored to meet the learning needs of a variety of audiences. One-day and two-day programs are specifically designed for Senior and Middle Management, with separate modules available for the general population.

5S: Sort, Straighten, Scrub, Stabilize, Sustain: a visually-oriented system for organizing the workplace to minimize the waste of time. This module is a foundational tool that links workplace organization to visual management to drive improvement at all levels.

CEDAC: Cause and Effect Diagrams with the Addition of Cards is a Deming prize-winning problem-solving methodology that is particularly applicable to solving complex business problems with cross-functional teams. Participants will learn about the tools and experience the process in detail.

Cell Design: Integrating many of the principles of Lean Manufacturing, this module covers the basic principles of cell design including: Basic Fundamentals, Layout, Staffing, Standard Work in Process Inventory, kanban, Standard Work and Visual Management.

Kaizen Process: A focused methodology used for the implementation of Lean (office or factory), this module covers the structure of a kaizen event (preparation, execution, and follow up) and the keys to results-oriented execution and implementation. This is a disciplined process that is critical for Lean transformations.

Kaizen for Leaders: This session provides a viewpoint for leadership on the critical skills and actions required to lead change and continuous improvement in their organization. Under the guidance of our Lean experts, leadership will explore and discuss topics including roles, responsibilities and expectations when engaging Lean.

Kanban: Kanban is one of the methodologies in Lean that is commonly used during the transition ‘from batch to flow.’ In this module, the kanban development process is covered in detail.

Leadership Lessons from Toyota: Participants will take part in an interactive training session and discussion highlighting why Toyota is so successful and what leadership teams can learn from their experiences.

Lean Accounting: This module provides an in-depth overview on why Lean Accounting is critical for a successful Lean implementation and how it differs from traditional managerial accounting.

Lean Problem Solving: This module may be incorporated into any Lean kaizen event or may be used stand-alone to introduce teams to basic Lean problem-solving tools and methods. Participants will learn which tools are best suited for solving particular problems.

Poka-yoke: Commonly referred to as “mistake-proofing,” poka-yoke participants will learn the fundamentals about the role, use and function of poka yoke. This module includes examples from assembly, machine shops, office and warehouse operations.

Process Mapping: Participants learn through instruction, examples and exercises how to properly document business and technical processes in a way that supports both Lean problem solving and continuous improvement.

SMED: Single Minute Exchange of Dies, or SMED, is a critical tool to drive reductions in time when changing from one process or model to another, which maximizes return on investment and economic value added. SMED is a technique used to create both capacity and flexibility within operations. This module takes one through both the tools and methodology for implementing and sustaining SMED activities.

Standard Work: Encompassing the most comprehensive list of waste identification tools, this series introduces and illustrates each of the fundamental Lean tools: takt time, time observation, bar charts, standard work combination sheets, spaghetti diagrams, 5S, production control boards, standard work in process inventory, kanban and more.

Total Productive Maintenance: Total Productive Maintenance is an approach to maximize the uptime and efficiency of plant equipment while improving the quality of the product. As companies move forward on their Lean journey and inventory and work in process are reduced and throughput is improved, reliability of equipment plays a crucial role. This module goes beyond restoring and repairing equipment. TPM will drive out equipment-related waste through continuous improvement.

Visual Management: The ability to determine abnormal from normal is a fundamental capability. Building processes where visual management is the initial indicator of waste is how sustainable continuous improvement becomes a reality. Focused on operator, supervisor and management awareness, visual management becomes a core competency of any Lean transformation.

Value Stream Mapping (VSM): Establishing a reason for change and a roadmap for improvement are keys to gaining management and executive support. VSM (focused on material flow) is a technique and a methodology used to gain a common understanding of the current state and the opportunities for improvement. Included in the VSM module are: business case, current state VSM, future state VSM, and implementation plan.[/expand]

Kaizen Fundamentals

Experience the elemental building-block of Lean culture and continuous improvement, the kaizen event. The suite addresses both the explicit and implicit keys for maximizing and sustaining value. [expand title=”Read More About Kaizen Fundamentals”]

Improve safety, quality, delivery and cost with kaizen.

Introduce your associates to the culture of Lean and the essence of their involvement, and they will embrace the challenge to drive world-class business results. Kaizen Fundamentals communicates the philosophy that strives for perfection and sustains your Lean business system on a daily basis. It engages your people in a business-specific process improvement that returns performance results that cannot be ignored. Your company notches a win and your people see what’s possible. Complementary to Six Sigma, kaizen accelerates your efforts to make huge improvements to processes of the enterprise in manufacturing, production, administrative.

The Driving Force

Kaizen Fundamentals provides talent and learning development to work groups involved in manufacturing, production and administrative processes. This suite is especially beneficial to operators, work teams (cells), engineers, front line supervisors, management and continuous improvement teams.

The Benefits

Kaizen Fundamentals instills a disciplined, standardized method for the improvement of a process or activity to create more value and eliminate waste. The series clearly defines the roles and responsibilities of management and work groups and is instrumental to outlining the infrastructure and commitment necessary for success. It conveys the importance of integrating social systems – a culture of continuous improvement – with operational systems. By the conclusion of Kaizen Fundamentals your people are empowered and they have made a concrete, measurable improvement in your company.

The Lean Horizons Approach

The Lean Horizons Kaizen Fundamentals suite includes:

Introduction to Lean: Associates on kaizen teams who have not had a formal introduction to Lean will benefit from this overview course of Lean concepts, tools and methods

Kaizen for Leaders: This session provides a viewpoint for leadership on the critical skills and actions required to lead the change and improvement process in their organization. Under the guidance of our Lean experts, leadership will explore and discuss topics including roles, responsibilities and expectations when engaging Lean.

Kaizen Process: A focused methodology used for the implementation of Lean (office or factory), this module covers the structure of a kaizen event (preparation, execution, and follow up) and the keys to results-oriented execution and implementation. This is a disciplined process that is critical for Lean transformations.

5S: Sort, Straighten, Scrub, Stabilize, Sustain: a visually-oriented system for organizing the workplace to minimize the waste of time. This module is a foundational tool that links workplace organization to visual management to drive improvement at all levels.

Visual Management: The ability to determine abnormal from normal is a fundamental capability. Building processes where visual management is the initial indicator of waste is essential to making sustainable continuous improvement a reality. Focused on operator, supervisor and management awareness, visual management becomes a core competency of any Lean transformation.

Standard Work: A process that defines the interaction of people and their environment to maximize productivity in order to meet business and customer demands. Encompassing the most comprehensive list of waste identification tools, this module introduces and illustrates each of the fundamental Lean tools such as takt time, time observation, resource-loading charts, standard work combination sheets, spaghetti diagrams, 5S, production control boards, standard work in process inventory, kanban and more.

SMED: Single Minute Exchange of Dies, or SMED, is a critical tool to drive reductions in time when changing from one manufacturing process or model to another. SMED, a technique used to create both capacity and flexibility within operations, maximizes return on investment and economic value added. This module walks participants through both the tools and methodology for implementing and sustaining SMED activities.[/expand]

Lean Supply Chain

Expand Lean beyond the organization’s “four walls” by integrating customers and suppliers into a transparent, information-rich network of value creation driven by the “voice-of-the-customer.” Lean Supply Chain addresses Lean distribution, demand-driven operations planning, and the construction and integration of best-cost sourcing networks. [expand title=”Read More About Lean Supply Chain”]

Extending your Lean journey beyond the four walls of your operations into the supply chain maximizes customer service levels and removes waste across the enterprise.

Organizations often face their greatest struggles when converting factual demand signals into pull-based schedules for customers who are actively contributing to the growth and success of the business. An effective supply chain strategy must provide the disciplines, methods and tools necessary to segment the customer against growth and value-contributing factors, link trading partners through collaborative planning and forecasting regimens, match supply and demand for the most appropriate use of enterprise-wide capacity and drive the selection and integration of strategic suppliers who offer the skills necessary to augment the entire supply chain for the benefit of the ultimate customer.

Although Lean concepts and disciplines have long been associated with dramatic improvements in the manufacturing arena including waste elimination, throughput improvements, line changeover cycle time reductions and substantial quality improvements, supply chains today face enormous pressures linked to competitive forces, ever-exacting customer demands and “non-Lean” practices. Simply put, Lean supply chains are those where end-customer demand permits the smooth, synchronized flow of materials, information and physical assets (up or down) based on period-specific demand requirements.

Far too often, supply chain management programs focus on the optimization of intra-supply chain components such as inventory management, warehousing operations or production scheduling. In the Lean environment, such producers of waste are eliminated in favor of a universal supply chain mechanism that rapidly self-adjusts to the pull of end-customer demand through the use of three Lean Supply Chain concepts:

  • Demand-driven operations planning
  • Lean strategic sourcing and supplier integration
  • Lean distribution operations

Fact-based demand signals are required to plan supply chain capacity. Lean suppliers must provide the global capacity and high-quality goods and services required to execute, and distribution operations must provide profit center-quality capabilities in order to maximize margin capture. Without all three, the Lean Supply Chain cannot be realized.

The Driving Force

Lean Supply Chain provides talent and learning development to supply chain and operations professionals.

The Benefits

Lean Horizons’ Lean Supply Chain training materials and program guides employ an optimal mix of classroom instruction, hands-on workshop-oriented training and practical examples designed to familiarize supply chain and operations professionals with core Lean supply chain concepts and implementation requirements including:

  • Designing a clear roadmap to facilitate the most effective Lean journey beyond shop floor or administrative Lean practices into the broader supply chain
  • Applying key software-based tools as required to manage extreme complexity and enforce standard work in the Lean environment
  • Determining total supply chain flexibility requirements and aligning the organization to those suppliers capable of successfully operating in the same environment

The Lean Horizons Approach

Lean Horizons’ suite of Lean Supply Chain training and process development programs offer clients a comprehensive solution to designing, deploying and sustaining Lean supply chain capabilities across all key dimensions including:

Sales & Operations Planning Immersion Training Program: Comprehensive executive and process management-level training program designed to familiarize the organization with all fundamental aspects of deploying S&OP as an enterprise-wide business planning system. Core components include a detailed overview of S&OP disciplines and methodologies, consensus demand planning, capacity requirements planning, cost of capacity analysis, inventory deployment, level-pull scheduling and supply base management.

S&OP Operations Guidebook: Detailed operating manual outlining all required supply chain activities, communications, data collection and consensus management activities to manage and sustain an S&OP program. Includes operating procedures, routine communications management, software integration factors with Lean Horizons’ alliance partner Interlace systems and all other tasks required to generate a period-by-period S&OP plan linking global demand to enterprise-wide supply and then translated into a level-pull production schedule.

Lean Sourcing & Supplier Integration Program: Includes all necessary training, tools and methodologies to effect a global Lean supplier integration initiative including the definition and requirements of enabled Lean suppliers, joint delivered-cost reduction strategies, supplier selection criteria, best practices dissemination, deliver-cost reduction model development, buyer-supplier value stream integration and buyer go-to-market Lean messaging strategy development.

Customer Value Analysis: Comprehensive framework for evaluating market conditions, customer base dynamics and existing market offerings to determine the most appropriate alignment of manufacturing operations/product offerings to those customers capable of driving sustainable market growth and margin improvement.

Lean Distribution Operations Immersion Program: Provides detailed overview of the requirements to migrate Lean concepts and disciplines into the distribution arena including Lean distribution center operating requirements, kanban materials flow-enabled logistics capabilities, takt time applications to align and synchronize distribution requirements to production flow and, therefore, end-customer demand, and global inventory management practices in the Lean environment.[/expand]

Lean Supervisor

Give your front-line leaders a proven formula to empowering individuals and teams to deliver and sustain breakthrough performance. The engaged mindset and critical educational role of a Lean leader is conveyed, fostering a dynamic in individuals and groups that embraces challenge and learns to see – and act – with focus on the customer. [expand title=”Read More About Lean Supervisor”]

The real advantage is your leadership.

Supervisory skills honed to the rigor of the organization’s operations are essential to keeping the quest for improvement from stumbling. Providing capable, committed supervisors hands-on training in leadership speeds their ability to excel and boosts their effectiveness. The organization benefits from a balanced approach in which supervisors receive the focused direction provided to the process workers. The result: Maximized potential for cost and quality improvements and protection against investments in proven methodologies such as Lean production, office kaizen and Six Sigma being compromised.

Don’t be fooled into thinking the improvement initiatives are lacking when the real trouble spot can be erased through optimized supervisor-employee interfaces. A true lean culture transformation depends upon daily support, coaching and guidance for those charged with executing the business day-in, day-out. The Lean Horizons Consulting Supervisor Development and Training Suite provides supervisors with the knowledge, techniques and coaching that enable them to proactively manage their work groups with newfound focus and clarity. Led initially by a Lean Horizons expert in operational leadership development, supervisors are shown what to do and how to do it in real time, on-the-job in their actual work environment until outstanding supervision becomes second nature.

The Driving Force

The Lean Supervisor Suite is designed for supervisors at all levels of an organization. The Suite is most effective when used by front line supervision in offices and plants, as well as project leaders and new managers – essentially, anyone who has responsibility for improving the performance of an assigned group of employees.

The Benefits

The critical formula of the Lean Horizons Supervisory Development Suite is usability and sustainability. Leadership knowledge, by itself, has limited utility. So we help your organization improve performance through well-practiced skills applied hour-to-hour and day-to-day in the work environment until they become second nature. Experience shows this suite to be an integral component not only of day-to-day operations improvement but also as an enabler to the success of Lean Six Sigma methodologies. Benefits include:

  • A standardized approach to the day-to-day supervision of an employee group or team
  • The implementation of a proven method for establishing continuous improvement plans within groups
  • A means for developing employee ownership of metrics and results
  • A standard problem-solving process that can be used on a daily basis to quickly drive to root cause and create impactful countermeasures
  • A standard approach for metric design and tracking, both for individuals (when applicable) and for work groups
  • Professional, high quality material with examples and step-by-step instructions
  • Applied, closely coached experience in real time that develops supervisory skills that are customized to your workplace and your processes

The Lean Horizons Approach

The Lean Horizons Supervisory Development and Training Package includes a number of elements that work together as an integrated supervisory system:

Daily Work Group Operations: This module is the central organizing element for the entire Supervisory Development and Training Suite. It provides the supervisor with a powerful array of applied methods for workgroup (or team) structuring, priority setting and the maintenance of a daily focus on key success criteria. Supervisors are guided through establishing daily priorities, leading daily work group meetings, managing work flow cadence, hour-to-hour reality checks, designing visual metrics and tracking results, and generating and implementing improvement ideas. The module distills and condenses world-class practices for creating work group ownership, cohesion and results.

Lean Leadership Coaching In Real Time: The key to the success of the Supervisory Development and Training Program resides in the hands-on coaching provided by Lean Horizons experts or through your internal training resource. The coaches convey the essentials of outstanding daily leadership and imbue well-established practice, imparted in real-time. As required, the trainer will model the desired behavior so that the supervisor can observe, learn and then implement. Through consistent feedback, supervisors perfect their skills.

Visual Management: The ability to determine abnormal from normal is a fundamental capability. Building processes where Visual Management is the initial indicator of waste is how sustainable continuous improvement becomes a reality. Focused on operator, supervisor and management awareness, Visual Management is a core competency of any Lean transformation.

Meeting Effectiveness: While everyone talks about effective meetings, there are very few of them. This module, once implemented by real-time coaching and practice, enables supervisors (and team leaders) to plan, organize and conduct focused, effective meetings.

Problem Solving Process and Tools: This module is designed to provide supervisors with a standard process for identifying the root cause of a problem and leading a team in the development of an effective countermeasure that has sustainability as part of the goal.

Managing Conflict: Conflict is a natural result of change. This module illustrates to supervisors why conflict occurs and the best strategies to manage it constructively. Supervisors are shown how to turn the negatives of conflict into positive learning experiences for the individual and the work group.[/expand]

*Lean Horizons’ Knowledge Suite modules are available in multiple languages.