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Class Is Now In Session
(Part 1 of a 2-part article on Lean Certification)
Lean is today’s accepted business model for enterprise-wide process improvement, but for many organizations there continues to be both confusion and misapplication when it comes to actual implementation. People have different ideas and perceptions of what Lean is and the varied skills and tools needed to help their business improve productivity and reduce waste. Some start with kaizen events, others introduce Lean in pilot areas without an implementation plan, and still others develop a plan, but don’t have a firm concept on how to deploy time and resources.
When Lean and Six Sigma began to really catch on in the early 1990s, many organizations ran with what they felt constituted a Lean process – however they may have defined it – and began turning their Lean responsibilities over to people who may or may not have been trained to implement the most appropriate Lean methodologies. The trend was to learn a Lean skill, attempt to incorporate it into the workplace, and then, if time and resources permitted, move on to the next round of tool applications. For the most part however, these organizations failed to develop a real Lean plan or strategy, and far too often lacked the leadership and motivation to influence their organization company wide. More importantly, what was missing was a systematic process that first and foremost could help organizations better understand the “top down” philosophy of a well crafted Lean plan or that took advantage of both real world practicality and an in-depth education of the basics behind Lean leadership.
To that end, in the mid-90s Productivity Inc. stepped in with the hopes of filling this Lean leadership void. By then, companies were seeking a better-defined process to complement their existing Lean initiatives, and Productivity Inc. recognized that although there existed a variety of tools and training programs, the missing element was a lack of leadership training to instill confidence in Continuous Improvement personnel and help guide them along their Lean journey.
Productivity’s response was their Lean Manager Certification (LMAC) program, a carefully planned educational and interactive program designed to show immediate results as well as long-term and lasting benefits. LMAC’s primary goal is to provide middle and top-level executives with the knowledge and hands-on know-how to help them drive Lean principles throughout their organization – the very principles needed to maximize efficiency and company profits on a continuous basis.
A Successful Hybrid
LMAC is recognized among Lean professionals as truly unique in this industry. It is neither the traditional training program most commonly seen today, nor is it simply a series of classroom exercises or extended seminars. Rather, LMAC is based on an in-depth, strategic plan crafted by Productivity Inc. and the prestigious Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University (OSU). The goal was to create a unique instructional environment that brings together the successes of the business world with academia’s critical research and teaching resources, a level of expertise and instruction that help participants “experience” the Lean philosophy and its implementation methodologies. LMAC is the first of its kind to utilize the instructional expertise offered by seasoned business and management educators combined with the real world, hands-on experience that only accomplished business practitioners can bring to an academic institution.
Since 1916, OSU’s Fisher College of Business has produced exceptional leaders who continue to meet the challenges of a changing global business environment through creative and effective solutions. Over the years the college has been known for recruiting leading faculty and placing a renewed emphasis on experiential learning. Faculty and staff have created innovative academic and corporate partnerships with the result that Fisher's international reputation continues to rise and is reflected in rankings which place the college among the top 25 business schools in the nation at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. In the LMAC program, participants are taught by both Fisher College professors and experienced Productivity Inc. consultants. Class size is strictly limited due to the interactive approach used in these sessions and the level of one-on-one interface between attendees and OSU professors and Productivity Inc. practitioners. This “partnership” has since graduated scores of Lean Managers with the practical knowledge and certification that enable them to command the respect and commitment from both executives and employees back at their workplace.
“LMAC is able to tap into the best of both worlds,” says Fisher College professor, Peter Ward. “Its primary objective is to provide candidates with the knowledge and leadership confidence to immediately begin creating a Lean environment back at their workplace, one that links Lean strategies to manufacturing, finance, logistics and even to their supply chain.” Ward is extremely proud of the results over the past 5 years, and points to LMAC successes by well known organizations including Coca-Cola, The U.S. Mint, Duracell, Volvo, Snap-on Tools and The Boeing Company, among many others.
The uniqueness of LMAC is best seen through its structural design, a program that includes one week of intense classroom instruction, followed by a three-week intercession where participants return to their place of business to begin the Lean process. Then it’s back to an Ohio State classroom for another week, and then another three-week intercession. All together, there are four weeks of OSU/Productivity Inc. education, with attendees taking what they have learned and adapting it to their specific work environments. Research has confirmed that the “one week on, three weeks back at work” schedule is the perfect structure for promoting a successful learning and implementation atmosphere.
“Before LMAC, there was a “pick and choose” attitude in the Lean marketplace, with a broad cross section of individual and mostly unrelated tools offered,” states Productivity’s Managing Partner, Mike Kuta. “This often forced people to decide on their own – almost in a vacuum - what to implement, with a tendency to attack problems individually and without ever seeing the overall need for a systematic improvement process. With LMAC, we wanted to maximize the learning experience and, most importantly, provide attendees with the leadership strength and know-how that was needed to view Lean as a true company-wide process and take their Lean initiatives to the next levels.”
A Curriculum That Breeds Success
LMAC’s four non-consecutive weeks of classroom instruction is broken down into learning modules representing the four key phases of Lean implementation, Plan, Pilot, Deploy and Integrate. The first week focuses on creating strategic objectives; the second week concentrates on early methods used in implementing a Lean environment; Deploy week introduces system-wide process improvement methodologies; and the final week of Integration focuses on support tools and methods that allow Lean to find its way into every segment of an organization. During each week of the program, participants spend time on site at a local plant in order to experience first hand how Lean methodologies are applied in the workplace.
For each three-week period between classes, participants continue the learning process by applying the methods taught to operations in their own company. These in-depth homework assignments enable participants to immediately begin implementing Lean tools within their own organizations, after which they present the results during the next phase of classroom training. It is required that each participant in the program have a corporate sponsor to attest to the participant’s qualification for the program and to validate the results achieved through the homework assignments. Participants must successfully complete the four-week training and mentoring program, pass the two-hour certification exam and demonstrate successful implementation in their own facility before they are certified as Lean Managers by Productivity Inc. and the Fisher College of Business.
“Both the short- and long-term benefits have been significant,” Fisher College’s Ward goes on to say. He notes that one of the things that can’t be measured is the new insight the certified Lean Managers discovered in their own businesses. The Lean Manager Certification Program provides participants with a uniquely different approach to uncovering opportunities for change that contribute to the bottom line in a sequence that maximizes the positive effects of the change process. Yet at the same time, real cost savings and dramatic improvements in efficiencies have been achieved after every LMAC session. (See Achievement Chart)
Mike Kuta at Productivity Inc. feels that the ancillary benefits of the LMAC program are just as important as the immediate savings in time and costs. “As certified Lean Managers, graduates have a better understanding of the variety of improvement options available to their businesses, and they can more accurately assess which have the best chances of succeeding. They take with them the ability to immediately link their improvement methods with their organization’s value stream, and fully appreciate that Lean is a system that requires a strategic plan supported from the top down.”
As the LMAC program continues to evolve with fresh classroom material and evidence of continued and dramatic implementation success, the goal remains that of graduating certified Lean Managers who have the confidence and leadership traits to help develop and maintain a strategic focus on improvement initiatives that offer organizations the greatest return. These managers are not only well equipped to handle new responsibilities, but can pass on valuable information to their peers and help keep American business competitive in the 21st century.
(In our next issue, we talk with three Lean Manager Certification graduates about the program and their Lean implementation progress.)
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