RISHABH TANDON

By improving an "operating system"the configuration of assets, material resources, and staffa lean approach can cut costs dramatically, typically by 15 to 30 percent. Lean aims to optimize costs, quality, and customer service constantly. It does so by engaging and equipping employees to focus on creating and delivering value in the eyes of the customer and eliminating whatever doesn't contribute to this goal.

A major European telecommunications company, successfully applied lean techniques to a problem that was leading many of its customers to switch to competitors: the repair of faulty telephone lines. The company found that its call center operators, diagnostics experts, and repair technicians operated as though they actually worked for rival employers. As a result, it took an average of 19 hours to repair a line. Using lean principles, the company realigned its organization and invested in the development of team leaders. In the first few months of its pilot project, productivity increased by 40 percent and recurring failures fell by 50 percent. The program was then rolled out across the company's national network, where it achieved similar success.

A major European bank used lean techniques to reduce the processing time for mortgage applications to 5 days, from 35. Because fewer applicants dropped out of the process, the bank's revenues grew by 5 percent even as processing costs fell by 35 percent.

Lean services is the application of the lean manufacturing concept to service operations. It is distinct in that Lean services are not concerned with the making of hard products.
Lean principles of Continuous Improvement and Respect for People have been applied to all manner of services including call center services, health care, higher education, software development, and public and professional services

The wastes for service operations by Bicheno and Holweg (2009) is as follows: 1. Delay on the part of customers waiting for service, for delivery, in queues, for response, not arriving as promised. The customers time may seem free to the provider. 2. Duplication. Having to re-enter data, repeat details on forms, copy information across, answer queries from several sources within the same organisation. 3. Unnecessary Movement. Queuing several times, lack of one-stop, poor ergonomics in the service encounter. 4. Unclear communication, and the wastes of seeking clarification, confusion over product or service use wasting time finding a location that may result in misuse or duplication. 5. Incorrect inventory. Being out-of-stock, unable to get exactly what was required, substitute products or services. 6. An opportunity lost to retain or win customers, a failure to establish rapport, ignoring customers, unfriendliness, and rudeness. 7. Errors in the service transaction, product defects in the product-service bundle, lost or damaged goods.

Lean IT is the extension of lean manufacturing and lean services principles to the development and management of information technology (IT) products and services. Its central concern, applied in the context of IT, is the elimination of waste, where waste is work that adds no value to a product or service. For example, whereas the manufacturing function manufactures goods of value to customers, the IT function manufactures business services of value to the parent organization and its customers. Similar to manufacturing, the development of business services entails resource management, demand management, quality control, security issues, and so on.

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Lean software development (LSD) is a translation of lean manufacturing and lean IT principles and practices to the software development domain Origin: The term lean software development originated in a book by the same name, written by Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck. Everything not adding value to the customer is considered to be waste (muda). This includes: unnecessary code and functionality delay in the software development process unclear requirements insufficient testing, leading to avoidable process repetition bureaucracy slow internal communication

In order to be able to eliminate waste, one should be able to recognize it. If some activity could be bypassed or the result could be achieved without it, it is waste. Partially done coding eventually abandoned during the development process is waste. Extra processes and features not often used by customers are waste. Waiting for other activities, teams, processes is waste. Defects and lower quality are waste. Managerial overhead not producing real value is waste. A value stream mapping technique is used to distinguish and recognize waste. The second step is to point out sources of waste and eliminate them. The same should be done iteratively

Lean Government refers to the application of lean production (also known as "Lean") principles and methods to both identify and then implement the most efficient, value added way to provide government services. Government agencies have found that when Lean methods are implemented, they see an improved understanding of how their own processes work, that it facilitate the quick identification and implementation of improvements and that it builds a culture of continuous improvement. Some examples of federal government organizations with active Lean Government initiatives include: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency U.S. Department of Defense

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Common methods and approaches: Value stream mapping(VSM) Kaizen 5S- Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain.

Inventory = Backlog of Work, Excess Materials or Information Defects = Data Errors, Missing Info Overproduction = Unneeded Reports, Doing Work Not Requested Complexity = Unnecessary Process Steps Waiting = Unnecessary Approval Cycles Excess Motion = Trips to Remote Printer or Files Moving Items = Report Routing, File Storage

Lean Start-up, how to start a company in a lean way Lean construction is a translation and adaption of lean manufacturing principles and practices to the end-to-end design and construction process Lean Laboratory, application of lean manufacturing principles in a laboratory Lean Integration, application of lean manufacturing principles to data and systems integration Lean Higher Education, application of lean manufacturing principles in Higher Education Lean Six Sigma, combination of lean and six sigma approaches. Lean accounting, move away from traditional accounting methods to a system that measures and motivates excellent business practices in the lean enterprise.