How to become Lean?

During late autumn 2010 Centigo carried out a major study in Sweden about Lean in the service sector. In the prestudy we defined 10 major challenges when implementing Lean. Challenges that often stops Lean programs from becoming successful. These challenges were:

1. What is Lean?
2. What are the driving forces to implement Lean?
3. Where and how to start an implementation?
4. Which roles and responsibilities are needed?
5. How is motivation among the employees created?
6. How to develop focus on the customer / citizen?
7. How to create flow (in service production)?
8. How to standardize ways of working?
9. How to create a culture of quality and continuous improvement?
10. How to measure the results?

We then asked 63 identified Lean practitioners with 3 to 20 years experience from implementing Lean about challenges and success factors for each of these 10 challenges. The industries and sectors represented in the survey were:

The study was carried out as an explorative survey with 90% open questions. The answers were analysed by grouping answers with similar meaning together and counting the frequency for different anwers. We have also done a very detailed analysis of each quote to draw the right conclusions.

Exactly one year after the project started the study is completed and we would like to share and discuss the findings with all Lean thinkers - expert, beginner or just curious people. In the coming weeks we will post the answers and key findings here.

Many thanks to Dan Spinelli Scala and Eric Andersson-Forsman, students from the Stockholm School of Economics, who did all the ground work.