In the current economic climate, businesses of all sizes are routinely expected to do more with less. Eliminating waste, efficiency improvements and enhancing value for the customer can all help you transform your business.

1. OEE Consulting Become Better.
An introduction to Lean for
service organisations.
31 May, 2018

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In the current economic climate, businesses of all
sizes are routinely expected to do more with less.
Eliminating waste, efficiency improvements and
enhancing value for the customer can all help you
transform your business.

3. OEE Consulting Become Better.
An introduction to Lean for service
organisations.
3
Lean is a methodology that has evolved over centuries, from before the industrial age,
through the early 1900’s and the mass manufacturing of cars, to healthcare and e-
commerce in our present digital age.
However, while the principles undoubtedly have strong roots in manufacturing, they are
just as relevant in the context of service delivery.
There is much more to ‘Lean’ than the name implies.
When applied wholeheartedly, it's a mindset which unlocks the ability to engage and
motivate teams, provide continuous improvement and deliver increased value to your
customers, all necessary to realise seamless customer journeys and continued growth.

4. OEE Consulting Become Better.
The five core principles of Lean.
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1. Specify value
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This is specified from the standpoint of your customer. We live in
an age of empowerment, where customers can easily compare
against other offerings, often competitors.
A good rule of thumb here is to ask; if your product or service was
broken down into each component part, would they be happy to
pay for it?
Either negative experiences or non-value-adding elements can
easily cause inefficiency, unnecessary bloat, and in some cases
lead your customer to explore other options, often competitors.
Aligning with your customers early on ensures every deliverable
carries value.

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2. Identify the Value Stream
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Traditionally, the value stream began at the moment where a
customer raises an order and is completed when payment is
taken. In the digital era, this stream can begin much earlier in the
customer journey and continues with the ongoing relationship and
experience.
Understanding every touchpoint is crucial to understanding how
you can add value to your work.
Ideally, you should be able to map any product or service and
follow its path from beginning to end. Every customer touchpoint
needs to be visited to identify which non-value-adding activities
can be removed from your end-to-end process.
The ability to prevent wasting your customer’s time, as well as the
internal waste, will quickly prove to be invaluable.

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3. Create Flow
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There are few words more harmful to an organisation than “we
have always done it this way.”
Leaders need to delve deep and question all internal processes
and learn to think beyond a functional or departmental way of
doing things.
Silos should be removed to enable work to flow smoothly through
every team and department with a similar, achievable workload
throughout every day of the year.
Every product or service, from conception to completion should
be carefully examined to allow the process to flow continuously,
like a river. When obstacles have been removed, you should be
left with a step by step value-adding process, without any
interruption.

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4. Create Pull
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It wasn’t too long ago that over half of the books printed in the
USA were regularly pulped because the supply chain failed to
measure the customer demand for new books accurately. Today,
many books purchased through retailers like Amazon, only exist as
soft copies; printed on demand upon purchase.
Pull states that no-one ‘upstream’ should make something until
the ‘downstream’ customer asks for it. The act of creating flow
and pull allows businesses to respond faster and more accurately,
but with less effort and work.
Many frequently fall into the trap of rushing in to push work into
the process as soon as possible, to increase output. However, the
Lean methodology delivers productivity through controlling and
often slowing the release of work into that process.

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5. Seek Perfection
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The first four steps are the tools you need to embark on a journey
of continuous improvement and greater transparency.
The road to perfection involves continually analysing, measuring,
tweaking and making things better - all the time - for your
customer.
Only by creating a company-wide culture of constant change and
improvement will you be able to produce better quality products,
at a lower cost, that is also delivered on time.

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How Does Lean Impact the Service
Industry?
Customers expect more. Overall experience is just as valuable as the end product or
service purchased, with many even willing to pay more for increased value.
Approximately 65 million customers worldwide using Amazon's Prime subscription
service, enabling faster delivery and increased support, serves as an excellent example
of how consumers are flocking to services that deliver superior experiences, and more
importantly, are willing to pay extra for it.
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How Does Lean Impact the Service
Industry?
The service industry must evolve to meet
growing levels of customer demand, which
is only further highlighted by new, digitally
savvy organisations disrupting markets and
delivering smoother customer journeys, in
many sectors, established players are
finding themselves competing, not with
similarly sized players, but smaller, nimbler
entrants.
By applying Lean, businesses are enabled to
deliver outstanding service and long-term
business success. Critically, the Lean
principles also recognise the critical role
highly motivated teams play in achieving
change and ongoing improvement.
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Your next steps.
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Understanding the basic principles of Lean is not enough on its own to progress forward.
To be truly effective, service organisations must also understand the need for
different management techniques when processing high discretion work common in the
service industry, also known as the Lean Continuum.
Organisations will also need to undergo a culture transformation to ensure that all
employees strive towards perfection with their customers’ needs being at the top of
their agenda. Rather than blindly following a new set of processes, you need to
transform your business into a learning organisation too.
Our Lean Service training programme regularly welcomes individuals at all levels,
providing practical, hands-on insight into the transformative benefits of the
methodology, while equipping delegates with the tools to implement in the workplace.

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t: +44 (0) 1865 593911
info@oeeconsulting.com
oeeconsulting.com
OEE Consulting
8100 Alec Issigonis Way,
Oxford OX4 2HU
Become Better.