Every company wants a smart factory that takes its business to the ‘next level’ and to creates

transparency on the shop floor. When a company is trying to move from the old way of doing
things, it can be said that they’re going through a ‘lean transformation.’

Lean transformation covers all the strategic, tactical, and operational improvements that
organizations undertake to create more value for their customers. The improvements can be seen
as an example shift from conventional practices. It is generally understood that lean
transformations involve eliminating ‘waste.’ However, this doesn’t cover the full picture.
Lean transformation in the 4.0 industry represents a fundamental or complete shift from
traditional or conventional business mentalities or practices toward a more value-oriented
approach. This involves changing the work culture, work ethic, or work plan. As an all-inclusive
approach, the lean transformation also necessitates a change of relationship with your customers
and business partners. All in all, it can be said that what lean transformations stands for is the
sustainable development of value-oriented products for your customers.
Why is lean transformation important?
Businesses are getting more competitive every day. Organizations are continuously looking for
more ways of providing more and more quality products for lesser costs. The ability to deliver
better products at a lesser price to consumers is becoming more important than ever. That
explains the reason you need lean manufacturing. With lean manufacturing, you’ll be able to
eliminate the organizational structures, practices, or business mentality that hinder the efficient
delivery of value-oriented services or products.

The lean transformation model

Another fact should be known: lean transformation is a lengthy and active process for any
organization. But the end justifies the means, though.
Even though it has been said that different organizations have various approaches to lean
transformation, five critical principles cut across all methods. These five (5) principles include:
1) Lean thinking and mindset
If the goal is to implement new methods, it requires changing the old way of thinking. It
can no longer be business as usual. A fully effective lean transformation necessitates a massive
changeover in thinking, mindset, and work culture. The change in the organization requires time
and cannot be done overnight. It requires the systemic and consistent implementation of the other
lean transformation principles.
2) A value-driven purpose
As identified, lean transformation is required because organizations want to consistently
create and deliver more value – at a lesser cost. The value here refers to all the activities,
processes, or products that serve your consumers’ or customers’ interests. This first principle is
the fundamental purpose of lean transformations. As such, as a business owner, you have to
apply this principle in your organization. If a thing doesn’t add value to your business or
customers, it is considered a waste. And it has to go!
3) Continuous process improvement
Your business requires continuous improvement. It will most likely not happen if you
don’t implement the ‘continuous process improvement’ principle of lean manufacturing. This
involves what is now known as a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. The PDCA cycle, like the
scientific method, involves:
Plan: In the first stage, it is vital to hypothesize what should be improved.
Do: After that, it is about creating a plan to test that hypothesis. The change is not yet confidently
implemented, and the effects on the processes are closely measured and documented.
Check: The documentation helps analyze the actual results and guides the decision if the planned
test is rolled-out.
Act: If the test has positive results, the change will become the new standard or be implemented
confidently. So it is about implementing the outcomes.
4) Sustainable capability development
Lean transformation is not just about ‘theoretical strategies.’ Building sustainable capacities
is one of the major ways you can add more value to your organization. Some identifiable popular
strategies include:
 Hiring an enthusiastic or diverse workforce.
 Promoting good values within the organization.
 Creating opportunities for professional development within the organization.
 Promoting diversity of thinking.
 Promoting healthy competition within the organization.
5) Lean management system
The importance of good leadership to any organization cannot be overstated. If lean
transformation should show its maximum effectiveness, the management must show good lean
leadership examples. Lean transformation follows a principle called ‘lean leadership.’ Lean
leadership is about workable ‘servant leadership. Getting the most out of lean transformation
objectives requires that the leadership doesn’t just give orders or follow instructions. It requires
the management to roll up its covers and join the employee “in the trenches.” It means that the
management system must make time to get itself directly involved in the business. It will boost
the workforce’s morale, but it’ll also help create and deliver real business value.
The roadmap to lean transformation
An organization needs to follow the essential steps to initiate lean transformation: evaluation,
initiation, training, tooling, value stream mapping, and continuous improvement.
Evaluation: The first step to take is to assess your organization. Going about this would require
evaluating your business’s needs, taking inventory of your organizational structures, and
considering the right approach to go about lean transformation.
The evaluation process should answer the following questions:
 What are the fundamental problems in your organization that need to be solved?
 Why do you need to go lean to solve the problems?
 What are your goals and objectives or expectations for going lean?
Initiation: After the evaluation process, the next step is to take proactive actions. The initiation
stage involves:
 Securing executive buy-in.
 Identifying lean champions.
 Launching sensitization programs to get all hands on deck.
Training: Adequate training of the workforce is essential to tapping the full potential of lean
transformation. The purpose of going lean is that your current workforce does not already utilize
the principles of lean transformations. The training should be able to address managerial aspects
of your organization. For one, it’ll help to highlight and address what, where, and how lean
transformation is going to affect the day-to-day operation of the business. For training, it is best
to choose what works best for you. In most cases, organizations look outward to bring in
specialists in lean methods. Whatever mode is employed, the training must cover principal
sections of your organization.
Tooling: There’s less one can do without the right tools or infrastructure. For example, if an
organization wants to move away from time-wasting manual machines to fast and cheaper
automated technology, the right tools must be provided. Without the right tools, the
implementation of lean transformation becomes difficult.
Value stream-mapping: If the goal of going lean is to attain more value, it will create value.
The right way to go about this is to:
 Identify how value flows (or fails to flow) in the organization.
 Determine how to channel all industry efforts towards creating value or blocking the
weaknesses.
Continuous improvement: As described earlier, lean transformation is not a ‘definite’ journey.
It is a continuous process. As such, constant analysis and optimization of the new value streams
are required. This requires always exploring ways to adapt, improve upon, and evolve existing
practices, processes, and structures to enable more value creation. In all, learning the essentials
of a lean transformation is very important if you’re thinking of significantly improving the
efficiency of your production line.
Three criteria for a successful lean transformation
1) The Lean Transformation must be Strategy-Driven
The question facing all companies is not which processes can be improved (the answer is:
all), but which methods need to be improved. Therefore the question for Lean Transformation is:
Where are the performance gaps that are important for achieving competitive advantages? These
must be identified and analyzed and must be the focus of improvement. When managers delegate
“Lean” to employees, the process is no longer strategy-driven and is often only used for
improvement for the sake of the will to improve. Therefore, the central issue in the process setup
should be how managers are involved in the Lean Transformation on a long-term basis.
2) Take Managers to Task
A real transformation comes not only from Kaizen Events, Six Sigma training, or the use
of lean tools. Instead, it is the responsibility of managers to ensure that all activities promote the
lean strategy. Therefore, only a leader who exemplifies the Lean philosophy can convince other
employees of the common goals.
3) Engage Managers in their Responsibilities
Improvements must be made by the people who are directly involved in the production.
After all, the people who carry out the activities know best. We can achieve better results in the
long term if we support employees in understanding the overall system (value stream) and the
impact of their activities on it. This is the only way they can identify opportunities for
improvement. This means taking time for people and not promptly imposing on them any
measures that are only more actions. Hand on heart: Most of us are only too happy to take a
shortcut to achieve any changes quickly and then to be able to check the matter off. But such
changes are not successful in the long run. The important thing is to give all employees involved
the feeling that their ideas support the changes through well-planned change management and
active involvement in the overall process.