Application » Lean Service

Lean Service
The number of success stories of applying lean in a service organization is increasing rapidly. Similar to their counterparts in the manufacturing world, lean champions throughout the world have been busy promoting lean thinking, organizing Kaizen events to eliminate wastes by introducing continuous work flow, level pull work orders and installing mistake proofing systems in place. Here are some of the finest examples:

IT service provider
Wipro, the Indian Leading BPO and IT service provider, first launched its lean initiative in 2004 with a core team of managers. The small group visited lean manufacturing companies and discussed the concept's basic principles before each manager adopted a project in order to implement this new approach to software services. Of the projects, 8 out of 10 showed greater than 10 percent improvement in efficiency. With those results in hand, the core team decided to roll out the approach across the firm. By the end of 2006, Wipro had 603 lean projects completed or in the works (the company typically had 1,100 projects under way at any one time). The concept of "kaizen," or continuous improvement, for example, resulted in a more iterative approach to software development projects versus a sequential, "waterfall" method in which each step of the process is completed in turn by a separate worker.

Lean Dealership
Grupo Fernando Simao / Autopartner in Oporto, Portugal began their Lean journey in 2000. Their first project was a Lean used car preparation centre where they can prepare up to 2 year old ex-rental cars to order in 2 days. Their latest Lean project: a 30 minutes, while-you-wait, appointment-slot service and repair offer for cars under 4 years old and 40,000 miles. They now have a centralized parts warehouse which can deliver parts from any one of their 14 brands just-in-time to the group’s outlets and their ‘heavy damage’ body-shop has a throughput time of 2-3 days for any type of repair. After the baptism of lean, all their service workshops have more space to put in new sales and after-sales franchises. All this has made Simao/Autopartner the most profitable dealer group in Portugal.

Lean Supply Chain
A walk through Tesco's supply chain is an eye-opener. Quite simply, Tesco is getting more of its customers exactly what they want, where and when they want it, and at lower costs. The good news is that none of this is a secret; competitors can follow their example. It is not an exaggeration to call Tesco the Toyota of the grocery business. Tesco is by no means perfect, however, and, like Toyota, it has not lost the drive to keep improving all of its processes. Tesco has developed a superior lean business model that is exposing the cracks in the Wal-Mart equivalent.

Pamalex Consulting provides Lean Service Transformation program. Interested in turning your business into a lean service provider, contact us at enquiry@pamalex.com.