Lean Services

INTERVIEW – Ahead of the Lean Global Connection 2024, we hear from Kruk S.A. in Poland to learn how they leveraged “centres of excellence” to break down company silos.

BOOK EXCERPT – These are the opening paragraphs of Chapter 1 of the new Lean Global Network book about applying Lean Thinking in a resort hotel.

INTERVIEW - Faced with the difficulties of a project that didn't go as planned, this Finnish telcom turned to Lean Thinking. Ahead of their presentations at the LGC 2024, they tell us about their journey and how Kata became instrumental to their transformation.

CASE STUDY – To bring consistency to the service provided to customers across their network of workshops, this Brazilian company has turned to Lean Thinking. Along the way, they found in it a different approach to leadership.

WEB SERIES – In the second episode of our docuseries on lean in Chile, we learn how, with a clear purpose and strong commitment from leadership, SKC is transforming its processes and mindset and building a competitive advantage.

VIDEO INTERVIEW – This hotel in the Canary Islands is bringing lean to its Kitchen Department, hoping to streamline the process and provide a better service to diners.

CASE STUDY – By leveraging Daily Management (DM), Supergasbras was able to change its trajectory and add more value to the customer in a critical sector for society.

FEATURE – A senior executive of a Spanish hotel chain shares an example of how the organization’s management system and visual tools have changed over time.

CASE STUDY – This Shared Service Center in Poland has leveraged lean, technology, and automation to completely transform itself and provide an ever-better customer experience.

INTERVIEW – This metalworking company based in Poland has leveraged the cultural change brought by Lean Thinking to significantly improve its processes. Ahead of his presentation at the LGC, their lean manager tells us how they did it.

INTERVIEW – General Electric’s Angie Norman talks to our editor about the lean journey of the company’s Finance department and how the area became a driver of GE’s overall transformation.

CASE STUDY – The transfer of a patient from one care setting to another is a delicate time. Insurance company SulAmérica has used its extensive lean experience to improve transitional care, and here’s how they did it.

CASE STUDY – This transport and logistics company in Colombia has turned to Lean Thinking to become more adaptive and ensure an easier post-acquisition integration of new cultures.

CASE STUDY – Hotels of the Palladium Group are implementing Lean Thinking in their housekeeping departments to improve efficiency and service quality.

CASE STUDY – A Chilean company selling and servicing vehicles and equipment for a variety of industries has made of humility the leading trait of its cultural transformation, with great results.

FEATURE – A former ops manager now tasked for improvement across IKEA looks back at what she learned in one of the company’s stores and explains how she hopes to take lean to the whole group.

FEATURE – To consistently identify new and better ways of doing things can breathe new life into a lean journey, but only if the knowledge developed can be effectively shared across the organization.

FEATURE – Using the example of a chain of pizzerias, the author explains why “slicing the elephant” is the approach you want to follow when it comes to deploying strategic metrics in operations.

INTERVIEW – Our editor chats with Lean Houses for Dragons author Sharon Visser. They discuss her book, what fear can do to a transformation and the power of storytelling.

FEATURE – This global designer and manufacturer has leveraged a remote kaizen initiative to keep the flame of continuous improvement burning during the Covid-19 pandemic.

FEATURE – A leader’s creativity and care for her people can lead to extraordinary results even in the most challenging of environments. As the latest LGN book comes out, the author reflects on one of the most impressive lean transformations you will come across.

FEATURE – Sharon Visser shares her leader’s standard work from when she ran the Ngami car dealership and encourages us to use what we see at gemba to shape our own.

FEATURE – As she gets ready to publish a book on her experience running Halfway Toyota Ngami, the author looks back at one of the best visuals the team implemented during the transformation.

CASE STUDY – The reimbursement department of the largest independent insurance company in Brazil has brought together lean and digitalization to improve its service to customers.

FEATURE – As she packs before leaving Botswana, the author tells us of a wonderful example of Lean Thinking that resurfaced from her past working in the Botswana tourism industry.

FEATURE – Fourteen months after the beginning of the pandemic, the author reflects on the challenges and opportunities that remote working has brought to this insurance company.

FEATURE – What does it really mean to listen to the “voice of the customer”? This article discusses how lean marketing can help us to truly understand customer value and, therefore, increase our sales.

FEATURE – A lean retail experiment: Carrefour Group in Brazil has started a lean journey to rapidly adapt to market changes and reach excellence in the delivery of value to customers.

FEATURE – What does it take to support a lean transformation from within? The author reflects on the role of the lean team in the turnaround of Brazilian insurance company SulAmérica.

CASE STUDY – Not even a pandemic can prevent a lean organization from learning: this hotel in Tenerife has decided to make the most of its forced closure to review and improve its processes.

FEATURE – To lean out a training organization means to both transform its internal processes and integrate Lean Thinking in its educational offering: the story of ZingTrain.

CASE STUDY – This insurtech venture has found in Lean Thinking a way to tackle its many scaling issues. It’s grown from two to fifty-five people in less than four years, ultimately thanks to a strong focus on quality.

INTERVIEW – Today’s story takes us to Iceland, where a senior leader in a utility company introduced cellular thinking to her team in a bid to improve flexibility and better working conditions.

FEATURE – To speed up the issuance of insurance policies, a SulAmérica department decided to move away from big batches and start working in flow.

CASE STUDY – The author, who leads the CI team in a large real estate company, discusses the lean transformation of the business and role of the improvement team in it.

NOTES FROM THE (VIRTUAL) GEMBA – Throughout the lockdown, this car-selling business has never lost its focus on people development. The author learns how this approach is helping the firm make the most of the crisis.

FEATURE – A simple lean tool can help us create safer flows in our businesses, a critical challenge as we plan our return to work with new physical distancing measures in place.

NOTES FROM THE (VIRTUAL) GEMBA – This week, the author chats with an innovative insurance company as it relies on its lean learnings to ensure business continuity and switch to remote working during the Covid-19 crisis.

FEATURE – With the Covid-19 emergency, people across the world have been stockpiling on household products, exposing the shortcoming of batching-prone supply chains.

FEATURE – It is a common misconception that our work is too unpredictable to fit into a standardized approach. The author debunks this myth.

NOTES FROM THE GEMBA – How do you kick off a lean journey? This French company has chosen to begin by analyzing and tackling each customer complaint.

CASE STUDY – Here’s the story of a mature lean company from Michigan. The author tells us about Zingerman’s Mail Order’s lean transformation, their challenges and their successes.

CASE STUDY – A boutique law firm in Milan has initiated a lean transformation to turn around its processes, improve service to its clients and make life easier for the team.

CASE STUDY – From client and supplier to partners-in-lean: how solving a problem together transformed the relationship between a Dutch hospital and the laundry supplying clean garments to it.

NOTES FROM THE GEMBA – The author visits the Parisian airport of Orly to learn about a pilot project (pun intended) that aims to tackle the late departure of flights using lean thinking.

INTERVIEW – This moving company in Singapore has taken its first steps down the lean road, reminding us that translating your strategy into small, actionable improvements people can make at the gemba is the way to a transformation.

CASE STUDY – Logistics can be the key to achieving success and creating a competitive advantage in a company. This case study tells the story of a port terminal in Brazil that has used lean to achieve significant gains in managing its road flow.

INTERVIEW – Rose Keanly discusses the role of lean in a strategic business transformation in the financial services sector and the dos and don’ts of bringing lean to a large organization.

CASE STUDY – This Dutch company awards social benefits to the unemployed. Thanks to lean thinking, they were able to radically transform the service they offer them.

FEATURE – The author looks back at her time at Starbucks Coffee Company and reflects on the role of leadership in facilitating the spread of lean thinking across the organization.

FEATURE – What a Brazilian bank has learned from its first few steps in adopting hoshin kanri through structured problem solving and people development.

INTERVIEW – What skills do coaches need to successfully support lean transformations in the service sector? Our colleagues from Australia tells us about their experience.

FEATURE – In this intimate, moving account, the author shares her journey of personal transformation that caused her mindset and her attitude towards employees to dramatically change.

FEATURE – Dreamplace Hotels in Tenerife have been on an improvement journey for several years, but only recently did they find a way to truly become a learning organization: lean thinking.

NOTES FROM THE GEMBA – After re-insourcing its bike repair workshop, a distribution center of France's La Poste has begun to recover long-lost knowledge about the work of mailmen and using it to innovate.

PROFILE – In an industry dominated by star chefs and big egos, meeting a humble leader who has made people development his battle cry is a breath of fresh air. PL interviews Legal Sea Food’s Richard Vellante.

FEATURE – How an amusement park in Norway is using lean visual management to support actors during their busy schedule and to give visitors an experience they will never forget.

FEATURE – The lean mindset Legal Sea Foods has developed is allowing the company to run bold, aggressive experiments that might some day reinvent the way their restaurant kitchens work.

FEATURE – A laboratory testing services firm in Istanbul has turned to lean management to reduce complexity, shorten lead-times, and make its growth sustainable.

VIDEO – The director of a hotel in Tenerife explains the first steps the team is taking to develop a lean daily management system, and how this connects to the organization's hoshin.

VIDEO - The director of a hotel in the Canary Islands explains the hoshin efforts taking place in the organization and takes us through the lean strategy deployment boards she uses to track progress and highlight problems.

INTERVIEW – We have come to dread having to interact with customer support representatives, and quite rightly so. Basecamp has made it a mission to bring humanity back to this interaction.

FEATURE – When Praktiker decided to turn to lean thinking, they were faced with the challenge of rolling out its principles and practices to 20 DIY stores. Here’s how they are trying to make it work.

INTERVIEW – With a long history of improvement efforts and a commitment to giving divisions the time to really grasp lean thinking, American Family Insurance is laying the foundation for real and lasting change.

THE LEAN BAKERY – In the last episode of our video series, we learn how 365 is using an impressive visual management system to manage the accounting and human resources functions.

THE LEAN BAKERY – In this episode of our video series, we visit 365's super-lean workshop, where small batches and a clever use of space allow for unprecedented levels of flexibility in manufacture.

PROFILE – The leader we profile today has a holistic view of the digital world. He brought Agile to Australia, and after embracing lean thinking he has helped to make REA Group one of the country's best digital brands.

THE LEAN BAKERY – In this video, a shop coordinator explains how the 365 bakeries were able to speed up service to customers and ensure product quality by reorganizing work and responsibilities.

CASE STUDY – How do you keep up with a market changing at the speed of light? The Chief Inventor of an Australian digital company explains how they are using lean to safeguard their future.

CASE STUDY – An insurance company in São Paulo is experiencing a complete turnaround driven by a very capable Lean Office that understands its role is to gradually make people autonomous.

THE LEAN BAKERY - For the past decade, lean has fuelled the growth of a chain of cafes/bakeries in Barcelona. With 100 now open, the Retail Manager explains how lean helps them manage a booming business.

FEATURE – This story from Cape Town car dealership Halfway Ottery shows just how much eliminating stock can contribute to turning around a business by freeing up cash.

CASE STUDY – One-piece flow and a focus on lean leadership and kaizen have allowed the Halfway Production Centre in Johannesburg to turn itself around in just 14 months.

FEATURE – You have never seen a workshop like this before: Halfway Ngami in Botswana has creatively transformed car servicing and repairs by making problems visible and introducing flow.

FEATURE – For the first article in our series on the Halfway transformation, we asked the Sales team to tell us about how they apply lean to selling cars in a challenging social context.

DOCUMENTARY – In PL’s first ever documentary, we share the story of a chain of car dealerships in Africa. Watch and learn how people development and lean leadership made for one of the best turnarounds you’ll ever encounter.

FEATURE – An approach based on coaching and experiments is transforming the way restaurant chain Xibei works with its people to improve service and dishes: the story of Chef Liang and his Kongfu fish.

FEATURE – Lean encourages us to go to the gemba as much as we can, but what should we actually do when walking the workspace? It turns out it’s not so much about doing as it is about thinking.

CASE STUDY – Over the past few years, DBS Bank in Singapore has undergone an extraordinary turnaround inspired by lean. Here, the COO explains how the company has become the world's "best digital bank".

NOTES FROM THE GEMBA - We follow the author on a visit to a train maintenance center in France. Through practical examples and pictures from the gemba, she explains how the center is transforming itself.

FEATURE – When market changes caused operational problems in their firm, two top managers decided to stick to lean thinking (and a set of specific practices) – learning to focus on what truly matters and letting their people embrace problem-solving.

FEATURE – A Dutch company that maintains and overhauls train bogies has realized that in order for lean to work, a focus on continuous learning must be established. Here is how they are trying to get there.

INTERVIEW – At the recent Lean Transformation Summit in Las Vegas, our editor sat down with Nationwide to hear more about the mutual company’s application of lean thinking to IT and how they are working towards getting 9,000 people onboard.

FEATURE – Faced with long lead-times to hire new people and with tens of millions paid in sick leave every year, the HR department of Dutch railway operator NS has turned to lean thinking to set them on the right track for the future.

FEATURE ARTICLE - Sometimes, introducing lean thinking in an organization can make you feel lonely and hopeless. This article, which draws on the author's experience working with a chain of supermarkets in Siberia, offers some tips on what to do to start off a lean transformation.

CASE STUDY – An entire restaurant chain going lean is not something you see every day. Coming all the way from China, Xibei's story of cultural change will inspire you to never forget the fundamentals of lean, from standardization to quality.

CASE STUDY – A very lean system that runs like clockwork and constant attention to customer service enable Barcelona-based 365.café to achieve the impossible: supplying 55 bakeries out of a 650-sqm factory.

INTERVIEW – Lean for social good may sound new to many, but to the CEO of one of America’s largest food banks, the partnership between her organization and Toyota to defeat hunger in the Big Apple seems just natural.

CASE STUDY - The Italian branch of Tokheim services about 3,000 gas stations in the central and northern parts of Italy. The general manager shares the story of how lean thinking changed everything, for the better.

INTERVIEW - As the use of lean continues to grow in the service industry, questions abound on how this sector can use the principles and practices effectively.

INTERVIEW - Having to adapt to changing customer needs, KLM Catering Services decided to turn to lean thinking, reducing its changeover times and recycling more.

INTERVIEW – How do you communicate a consistent message to thousands of employees working across a fragmented and extremely diverse network? Catherine Blay, from French postal service La Poste, tells us.