Lean for Office and Administration
Overview of Lean for Office and Administration
Lean is not just for the factory shopfloor. Lean is also applicable and should be implemented beyond the manufacturing floor – into the sales, admin, human resource, finance, support & other office functions.
Despite the latest information technology, computer upgrades, and office automation, the traditional administrative culture lagging behind a typical factory when it comes to efficiency. But interestingly, most people usually accept this inefficiency it as a way of life within an office and administrative environment.
The likely reason is that most organization do not give equal attention and focus when come to Lean implementation of the support, office and administrative functions, as compared to Lean implementation of the core functions.
Typical waste in an office and administrative environment
Typical waste in an office and administrative environment includes:
too many handoffs
too much paper work (unnecessary reports that nobody reads)
unproductive but endless meetings,
bureaucratic and unnecessary policies,
confusing and conflicting goals,
errors and rework
too much walking around
Importance of implementing Lean in the office and admin functions
While waste on the shop floor may be more obvious, waste in office and administrative processes can be more costly. When a large invoice is not collected, a sales proposal is delivered late, a quote contains errors, and these wastes translate into lost business and erode the bottom line. Millions of dollars can be at stake. This is important because as it will affect the cash flow an organization and may have serious consequences if not manage properly.
Hence, any organization implementing Lean should include office and administrative functions in their Lean implementation plan as early as possible.
Application of Lean Tools in the office and admin functions
The same set of Lean tools used on the shop floor can be applied to the office and administrative functions. We can apply the principles of value identification, waste elimination, and problem-solving – all the Lean principles – to the office and administrative environment. The method is the same -we still use Lean techniques ( although the techniques & focus is slightly different between office & manufacturing) such as value stream mapping, 5S workplace organization and error-proofing, etc., – to attack the underlying causes of waste in office and support functions and eliminate them.
A simple Illustration on the importance of Office and Administrative Functions
Let’s use an example to illustrate the importance of lean in office and admin functions. Imagine company ABC needs five weeks to deliver a make-to-order product or service. Detail analysis of the value stream revealed that actual production of the product or work takes only one of the five weeks. The other four of the five weeks are tied up in office & admin activities such as planning, scheduling, shipping coordination, documentation etc. It is obvious that the company ABC will not see much breakthrough if they just focus on Lean implementation on the manufacturing operation without considering leaning their office and admin operations. It is the entire end-to-end value stream that we are talking about, not just that of the manufacturing operation. This is also sometimes called Lean Enterprise.
Challenge of implementing Lean in the office and admin functions
The challenge of implementing Lean in the office and admin functions is that it is more difficult to see waste in these operations than on the shop floor. But once we know how to spot them, they are in every process and transaction, ranging from hand-off, inaccuracy waste, and all the way to leadership waste.
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