Building Accountability into a Lean Enterprise

Building Accountability into Your Lean Deployment

Building accountability into a Lean Deployment is not so different to creating accountability into any organisation however, it is a critical component of building a problem-solving culture that is needed for a Lean Implementation to really thrive. Once the Lean plan has been established, the communication process completed and the trials implemented, the current standards and processes need to be documented.

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Documenting the Your Processes and Standards

It is critical that these documents outlining how each team is to work be simple and visual. They need to be accessible to every team member. Within this documentation, clear roles and responsibilities need to be outlined to help build accountability into the company processes.

You will also need to consider how to share the authority to act with the appropriate teams across the organisation, reinforced with the responsibility to accept logical consequences from the results of actions that are carried out. Evaluating the success of an ongoing Lean implementation, we need to consider how accountability is defined for both the individuals and for the teams. And, as previously mentioned, these defined roles need to be documented and communicated.

Defining Your Goals and Objectives

Each team needs clearly defined goals, as outlined through our policy deployment phase, and given ownership for results. The team needs the ability to influence and have some control over the inputs and outputs that are key to the workings of their production or support areas. Team members need to be trained and coached through problem solving techniques, as well as being given permission to evaluate, reflect and improve on all aspects within their teams.

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Conclusion

Collecting and resolving issues, and providing the appropriate level of support, needs to be the focus for the senior management team if you want to maintain the accountability you have built into your new Lean processes. Improving the focus on company culture will allow teams to grow. As they grow, their integrity and accountability needs to be nurtured to allow your company to perform to its full potential. Building accountability into every team will reenforce the basic principles of a Lean Enterprise.

Michelle Brown

Author: Michelle Brown

Michelle Brown is a Senior Lean Consultant at TXM Lean Solutions.