Lean is horizontal

Organisations tend to be vertical as many still follow the “command and control” style of management. It can mean that some customer-impacting decision might involve four different departments and three levels of sign-off located in two different countries. Our customers could care less about these inner power structures. Their view of an organisation is horizontal; they just want a problem solved, a question answered, or a product or service delivered as expected (preferably with a smile).

Lean requires us to think horizontally, just like our customers. Instead of seeing departments, levels of approval and physical locations, we need to see value streams. Anything on a value stream that is not creating value for the customer is to be challenged. The key lean tool for achieving this is value stream mapping.

Command and control-type thinking feeds into what we call the Voice of the Process; ways of operating that are dictated by the perceived needs of the organisation. The Voice of the Customer on the other hand quite often goes unheard.

Value stream mapping is not difficult. Start today with a customer request and track it through the organisation. Note the processing time (when something is actually happening to the request) versus the lead time (the total elapsed time). The difference is often dramatic. Start addressing the reasons for this difference.