Many business functions have been significantly improved through the use of a variety of quality techniques, but for the most part office and administrative functions have not kept pace. Most companies find it difficult to reduce costs in the office without noticeable sacrifices in performance. Some progressive companies are seeing improvements in their office environments through the use of Office Kaizen™, which emphasizes making continuous improvements over the long haul. Office Kaizen: Transforming Office Operations Into a Strategic Competitive Advantage presents a unified, consistent approach that enables businesses to establish a strategic competitive advantage by significantly improving the efficiency, quality and productivity of their office and administrative processes. |
Review
After nearly 4 years experience as a 6 Sigma Black-belt leading projects centered on the commercial side of a Fortune-500 enterprise---sales, marketing, marketing services, customer service, HR, etc.-I was pleased to see the emphasis on implementation tactics at the level where most of the detailed work of an organization gets done. It fills the gap left by bigger programs.
It is not so much a "How to" book as it is a "WHY to" book of logic meant to motivate and provoke thought. It fills a gap where other, bigger name programs can fail to deal with the sustaining power of changing human behavior. But with Office Kaizen there appears to be a proven path forward.
Much of the 6 Sigma work I have seen in transactional projects often fails to meet expectations and truly improve outputs in ways that last longer than the `official' measurement period. Such projects often encompass arenas of business activity in which no formal process map has ever existed, even less the mere idea that a process exists. Lacking a consensus understanding of work flow, it follows that NO standards for output exist; NO metrics are captured to qualify those standards; little consideration for the customer's expectations of quality is built into the process; and clearly NO discipline is needed where there is NO process structure. Not surprisingly, little sense of ownership is evident. It's a steep slope that only leads to status quo and mild, but constant chaos!
Modifying the human aspects of process change is often challenging for 6 Sigma methodologies that better fit finite manufacturing, logistical and similarly tangible processes. In my experience of completing `soft' projects, 6 Sigma methods simply don't have as many tools for dealing with the level of granularity and immediate application at the individual behavior level as are found in Office Kaizen. The proposed methods directly treat the realities of getting work done at the molecular level. Regardless of all else done to improve business process, there is still a key implementation step remaining- changing the human behaviors embedded in work processes.
Visual displays (PVD's), Lean Daily Management Systems (LDMS), 20 Keys and the whole treatment of `surface waste' are very instructive for the business leader seriously pursuing process improvement. That leader will greatly benefit by reading the logic, described by Mr. Lareau in "Office Kaizen", that clarifies the reality that the enabling key to all change in business process is leadership.
Sustainability only derives from leadership---leaders who understand that improvement really comes from the bottom up; and that procedure by procedure, paper by paper, person by person, load by load, part by part, and day by day improvements converge to yield sustainable gains. The LDMS assures that change endures. And leadership assures that LDMS and other LEAN office procedures endure. Their focus on reducing waste via correct structure, discipline and power of ownership, all fixed first at the granular level of an enterprise, will produce sustainable gains. And that is the detail most difficult to implement in other programs -- the human behavior at the core of business activity. Changes to machines, flow patterns, wire diagrams, office layouts, floor arrangements, schematics, etc. all can help; but changing the human processes is most difficult. From page 7: "Office Kaizen is an implementation path, management philosophy, leadership structure, and set of tools, all wrapped into one consistent package." That is a great recipe for sustainability.
I recommend the book highly, especially for application in business functions not traditionally viewed through `process eyes'. While it seems to have plenty of strength to stand alone, PVD's, LDMS and the other adminstrative LEAN ideas could also be great companion pieces to the more general tools like 6 Sigma. At least that's the opinion of one who has practiced some of the popular methods and only now has read about Office Kaizen. I look forward to seeing it first-hand. It fills a serious gap. By ACC.
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