Lean Training

This Hub will cover the following areas about Lean Training;

Why do you need training?

What training is available?

How to find a lean Trainer

Hire the right lean trainer

But first of all, what is lean manufacturing and why do you want to implement it, what are the benefits of lean manufacturing and what is the history of lean manufacturing?

Lean Manufacturing is a business improvement philosophy and a vast collection of efficient tools for improving your business. It focuses on defining customer value then making that value flow at the pull of the customer without it being held in inventory or being delayed at any point. It requires continual improvement through involving all members of an organization.

Lean has developed from many different ideas, from fords original production lines through to becoming the Toyota Production System (TPS). It is now a very well proven set of ideas that has many benefits, it can reduce your inventory, improve quality, increase delivery performance, reduce costs and improve your profit to name just a fraction of the benefits. Lean Training will help you on your way to realizing these benefits

Lean is like any other skill in the work place, it needs to be learnt before you can implement it. After all you cannot do something if you do not know how! Even if you have been trained in lean techniques before it often beneficial to be retrained periodically to gain insights as to how things have changed, what new tools are available, how things have been successfully implemented and so on.

Continual training is something that can benefit everyone at any level in an organization, it is not just about learning new skills, it is also about the employees knowing that they are valued as an important part of the organization and that you are willing to invest in them.

The benefits of lean manufacturing are too big to ignore, do you want to increase profits by reducing waste within your manufacturing or even service processes? Then you will need to train up your people.

Some companies look at the expense of training and fear that once they train their employees that they will leave and take their skills elsewhere, but which is worse, continuing with untrained employees or have some that leave?

Training is available for the overall philosophy, from executive overviews lasting an hour or two explaining the benefits and basic philosophy, to day long workshops explaining the mechanisms and benefits at all levels in the organization.

There are training courses for all of the different tools that are used, 5S, Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), Seven Wastes, Kaizen, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Kanban, Just in Time (JIT) and so on.

The best type of training in my mind is not the sort of training that takes place in the conference room of your local hotel chain, the best is the interactive workshop/project based training. This is where the trainer comes onto your premises, trains your people in the background, the tools and techniques, then sends your people out to implement the lean manufacturing ideas live in your own organization under the guidance of the trainer.

This is the best way to get lean training, it can be more expensive than sending one or two people off on a training course to come back as experts, but it means that a significant group can be trained and benefit gained within your organization at the same time. People learn more by doing, hence why most training courses have a “workshop” element to them, but translating a generic concept from a workshop environment can be very difficult, applying it in your own workplace is a very powerful and effective method of training.

There are many places you can look, the internet is a good source of leads, ensure that you search using your location as well as using a general search and you may turn up more local lean manufacturing trainers than the national ones that are likely to show up on a general search. Also search for business directories, national and local, as many businesses fail to promote their websites with regard to their business, they tend to have a website with their business name which may not be relevant to what you are searching for, after all how can you find them if they are listed as bill blogs inc, not lean training by bill blogs inc!

Use local contacts, join networking groups, local chambers of commerce and so on, you can often get good recommendations regarding training providers and other services. Ask your business manager at the bank, again they make many contacts and hear about effective training and so forth. Speak to local government business support agencies, they may also be able to provide funding as well as point you in the direction of good providers.

Also look at trade, industry and local publications where they may advertise as well as potentially having articles regarding their work.

For more help and advice look at "find a lean trainer" and "hire a lean trainer", and if you would like more information about the types of training available look at lean manufacturing training.

Hiring a trainer is like hiring any other employee, you need to check that he has the right skills and knowledge. Don’t just take recommendations that you may receive at face value, you are going to invest money, check that you will get the best return for your money.

It is important to ensure that the provider of your lean training has the right skills and experience, check their CV or resume, look at the history of their training company and so on.

Get a list of companies that they have trained for, contact those companies for feedback as to how they have performed and what benefits they have realized from the training.

Don’t hire someone to perform training unless you are confident in their skills and ability to provide value to your organization, lean training is a very important step in your implementation of lean manufacturing, don’t get it wrong!

The following are useful links for business support and lean manufacturing resources.

http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/ Institute for Manufacturing

http://www.thecqi.org/ Chartered Quality Institute

http://asq.org/ American Society of Quality

http://www.nam.org/ American National Association of Manufacturers

http://www.bis.gov.uk/ UK Department for Business Innovation and Skills

http://trade.gov/ International Trade Administration USA

http://www.mas.bis.gov.uk/ UK Manufacturing Advisory Service

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/home UK Business Link

http://www.business.gov/ US Business Link

http://www2.toyota.co.jp/en/vision/production_system/index.html Toyota

http://www.smmt.co.uk Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders

http://www.aiag.org/scriptcontent/index.cfm Automotive Industry Action Group

These Links will help you to find more information regarding lean training to help you improve your business.