Thank you for joining us on our journey through the Lean Process. We are now rounding third and heading for home! We have done a tremendous amount of work understanding our customers and translating their desires into our process. Hopefully, at this point, you are seeing better results and happier customers and employees.
The next step, notice I said next and not final, is to pursue perfection in our process. The reason we call this the NEXT step is that this is a process that never ends. At this point, we should be thinking of customer desire again. How do we continue incorporating the voice of the customer into our process?
So how and why do we pursue perfection? The "why" is definitely the easiest to address. The more we perfect our processes, the better we will meet our customers' needs. We will reduce costs by eliminating wasted effort and the additional operating costs associated with over-production. Employee engagement increases as our workforce begin feeling the pride that comes from winning for their company. We can go on all day talking about the why! So let's look at the "how." This is where the rubber meets the road. There is a myriad of methods you can use to work toward perfection. We won't cover the tactical methods in this article. The best way to learn the tactical is to seek out training such as our Lean & Six Sigma Certification courses.
So let's look at this principle through the lens of strategic action. As we pursue perfection, we pull our entire workforce into the process. Our employees understand their role in the success of the company as well as the "why." They start to hold each other accountable for the "way" they do things.
At this point, you are creating a culture of continuous improvement. More importantly, you are building a culture with a dogged determination to deliver on customer desire! The pursuit of perfection is also a pursuit of learning. You and your team should be thirsty for learning all you can to improve your process.
From a tactical perspective there is rarely one tool that works best for every team. You should always gravitate toward simple easy to implement solutions first. You don't need to overcomplicate things!
At StonePath Business Solutions, we love helping companies be their absolute best! We partner with our clients to build Better Leaders, Better Teams & Better Process through Lean & Six Sigma tools & techniques along with Talent Strategy Solutions and Leadership Training and Coaching. Drop us a line at mystonepath.com and let us know how we can meet your customer's desire!