Lean is a management strategy that seeks to improve operational performance in terms of cost, quality, delivery, and staff satisfaction by focusing on the customer and eliminating waste, variability and inflexibility. It is based on an operational strategy for manufacturing which originated in the Japanese automotive industry, and has now been successfully applied to a range of service businesses.
A Lean approach also provides a wide range of tools and techniques to improve performance. These may include kaizen, Just-in-Time, value stream mapping, standardised work and kanban.
Why Lean?
Reduced clearance times, increased quality and increased productivity by making life easier
Delivering in government has always been challenging. In the UK for example, Government Ministers expect a range of policies to be delivered on time and within budget. Central change initiatives and targets aim to deliver modernisation, policy outcomes and higher service standards - timeliness, accuracy and customer satisfaction. Furthermore the current efficiency backdrop, significantly reduced headcount and budget - make this tough job seem almost impossible.
Delivering headcount reductions is not the challenge, often this is simply fact. The real challenge is delivering the business with the staff remaining, and joining up ground level delivery with the strategic plans for modernisation and service targets coming down from above.
