Flow in the Office: Implementing and Sustaining Lean Improvements is a how-to guide for conducting a successful office kaizen workshop.
The book addresses how to:
- Spot "invisible" office waste
- Handle improvements that involve computing systems.
- Move step-by-step through the office kaizen process.
Here's what you'll find in the book:
Chapter 1: The Case for Lean in the Office
If you automate a wasteful process, what you end up with is automated waste. Computers are found everywhere in non-factory environments, but they are only as effective as the processes set in place to facilitate their use. This book documents a method to improve processes, whether they involve computers or not, in office environments. You can have a Lean office.
Chapter 2: Finding Waste in the Office, So You Can Eliminate It
Eliminating waste allows value to flow with higher speed and quality through the business process. This idea is central to the Lean office approach. Waste is anything that does not add value to a product or service. Simply put, it is anything for which the customer would not be willing to pay. Some forms of waste appear obvious; others may be latent or intangible.
Chapter 3: Eleven Methods of Discovering and Optimizing Value in the Office
Office processes account for up to 80% of the lead-time in many manufacturing and service industries. The results of waste in the office such as delayed response to customer orders or incorrect accounting can be costly and often devastating. Thus, purging the office of wastes hastens the journey toward the Lean office: cost-effectiveness, customer satisfaction, and profitability.
Chapter 4: Mapping the Value Stream in the Office
Value-stream mapping provides a unifying plan that helps focus your Lean office efforts on the process issues that most impact your organization's strategic intentions. Implementing the Lean office requires investment and organizational commitment. Expending these resources and energy in a haphazard manner without a clear sense of direction is wasteful and counterproductive.
Chapter 5: Preparing for a Kaizen in the Office
In any intervention, adequate preparation is crucial for ensuring a successful outcome. This chapter discusses, in detail, the five preparatory activities that help enhance the success of your Lean office kaizen event. Those activities, listed below, are discussed in detail.
Chapter 6: Conducting a Kaizen in the Office
With the preparation in place, you are now ready to have a kaizen in the office. From the beginning kickoff to the final report-out, kaizen workshops can be exciting and productive for everyone involved. No matter what the outcome, it is a valuable learning experience and an opportunity for team development.
Chapter 7: Sustaining Office Kaizen Improvements
Sustaining and building on office kaizen improvements needs a support system. Because kaizen stands for continuous incremental improvement, sustaining the changes on a continual basis is at the heart of the kaizen philosophy” and the Lean office.
ISBN# 9781563273612
Author: Productivity Press Development Team
Published: Oct 25, 2007
Pages: 144
Binding: Paperback
Item#: 70B7068
