From lean to lean digital, what are the stakes and what are the steps?

Lean management is looking for performance through the elimination of any waste (time, energy, breakdowns, superfluous...) and the continuous improvement of processes. At a time when companies and industries are being forced to digitize, what are the stakes in the transition from classic lean to digital lean? What are the main steps in the implementation of a visual lean digital? Explanations.

What are the differences between traditional lean and digital lean?  

Traditional Lean Management

Traditional lean management (understanding before the digital age) focuses solely on the in situ implementation of improvements. This method does not envisage the simultaneous implementation of several scenarios, which excludes the possibility of discovering through experience which one gives better results. On the other hand, the increasing complexity of today's value chains is disrupting the application of traditional Lean, which is handicapped by a lack of suitable tools.

Lean digital

Lean digital uses advanced digital tools to identify problems in production, such as lean manufacturing or machine scrap. From numerical modeling of flows, equipment and production sites, to big data mining, to virtual analysis and evaluation, Lean Digital adopts a wide range of innovative tools to improve a company's production value chain, such as flow simulation, test scenarios, digital planning, and virtual financial evaluations.

What are the stakes of lean digital?

Improving communication

Digital innovations are now part of employees' habits. As today's generations are digital natives, the company must take advantage of these new skills to implement modern, intuitive and more efficient communication solutions than simple e-mail. An application such as Teams, for example, can replace obsolete or inefficient software in the industry. This type of tool allows employees tobe up to date on flows. Sharing information in real time motivates teams and is a real guarantee of performance.

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Optimize productivity

Improving the productivity of employees, processes and equipment remains at the heart of lean manufacturing. The digitalisation of companies should make it possible to achieve substantial gains inproductivity through the implementation of :

• standardization of manufacturing processes, controls and alerts,
• simple, intuitive and collaborative applications in order to have a global vision of the flows, 
• operational data collection,
• measures of adequate performance indicators for effective problem solving,

to make your teams proactive thanks to the transparency of information in the tool and the Short Interval Animations.

Achieving Operational Excellence

The use of more digital data, more precise, configurable and easier to compile should allow managers to :

• to have an overview of the workflows at a glance and how your teams work,
• to develop monitoring routines, 
• to set up the perpetuation andhistorisation of inter-teamknow-how,
• to make quick and effective decisions, in particular thanks to SIM,
• to standardize manufacturing processes.
  

Ultimately, Lean Digital enables us to aim for operational excellence throughcontinuous improvement.

What are the steps to set up a digital visual management system?

The initial idea is to set up a pilot in order to test a concept in real conditions but in reduced dimensions. The results will allow to generalize it on several lines or within a site or to abandon it.

Define a pilot team ⚙️

The lean approach transgresses interdepartmental boundaries: your team must be made up of people from all walks of life, to benefit from 360° points of view. The challenge is to build a representative team with a limited number of people. For example, you can set up a pilot team with a representative of the quality / maintenance / logistics team etc.

Define your objectives to be achieved 🎯

It is important to define precise objectives in order to be able to organize your daily or weekly monitoring on the indicators you choose:

• saving time,
• reactivity of the teams,
• autonomy in problem solving, etc.

Identify your performance indicators to monitor 📊

Choosing the most appropriate KPIs to optimize problem resolution is a key step. They must be prioritized to retain only the essential indicators in order to avoid over-information. For example: the machine scrap rate, the number of days without accidents, etc.

Integrate this management into daily routines and rituals 🗓

Have you set up a performance stunt ? When will your teams use visual management information ? The more points of contact your teams have with the tool, the better the level of information transmission will be, both horizontally (management committee) and vertically (workshop).

Measuring, analysing, progressing 🔍

Finally, after a few weeks, it will be time to learn from your lean digital approach. The analysis of the measures carried out should make it possible to clearly identify its positive and negative aspects, in order to improve the concept, to renew it, to generalize it or to abandon it. Thanks to lean digital, you will have a global vision of the objectives targeted and achieved at the end of the pilot phase.

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