1. Strategy-Driven Daily Management by José Ferro and Robson Gouveia (Brazil)
“Most organizations try to realize their strategy by simply dropping goals and expectations onto the different areas and levels of the business, giving them sole responsibility for ‘making the numbers’ and monitoring the actions they are expected to carry out,” write José Ferro and Robson Gouveia. Sound familiar? Then everyone wonders why despite strategic planning, results are not achieved, important decisions are made too late, and strategies don’t happen. So, how do you organize for different outcomes? Read why Ferro and Gouveia say you need a daily management system.
2. Continuous Improvement: How Iceland-based Prosthetics Manufacturer Össur is Using Lean Management to Stay Ahead of the Game by Guðbjörg Sæunn Friðriksdóttir & Viktoria Jensdóttir (Iceland)
“Our mission at Össur is to support a better quality of life for millions of people by improving their mobility, write Friðriksdóttir and Jensdóttir. The company is known for the Symbionic Leg, the world’s first complete bionic leg, among other innovations. With Össur employing 2,300 people in 18 locations, they say they have no doubt that lean thinking is contributing greatly to their success: “The quicker and better we are, the more time we have to focus on innovating.” Read more.
3. Six Common Problems You Experience During Lean Audits by Malgorzata Jakubik & Robert Kagan (Poland)
“In a perfect PDCA-based, lean environment, there would be no need for a formal audit as people would simply ‘check and act’ as part of their regular daily routine,” write Jakubik and Kagan. “But until you reach this future and ideal state, and therefore make lean a lasting deal in your organization, you will need to assess the status of your processes…
Be it 5S in your workstations, standardized work in a warehouse or a mitzusumashi system across a factory, you will need the same discipline and common sense to make an audit sustain good practices and identify what needs to be improved. How well you audit and what you do with the outcome of the audit will eventually (in the long term) determine the quality of your lean implementation and its sustainability.” Read more.
