Firms love to learn lean

Kaizen, 5S, BIT. The language of lean training is a little like blending a martial arts class with civil service memos.

It's easy to be cynical, but if you're willing to persevere, strip away the jargon and distil it, you'll arrive at principles that save companies thousands of pounds.

That's got to merit a closer look, especially in today's wintry economic climate. Yep, lean, which at its most straightforward is about eliminating as much flabby inefficiency as possible, is taking off right now. But Justine Fosh, director of the National Skills Academy (NSA) for Food & Drink Manufacture reckons there's more to it than just the economy.

"I don't think it's just down to the recession - it's partly down to the consolidation that's been happening in the industry. There's only so far you can take things before it becomes about driving value in the companies purchased." It's not just the small to medium-sized businesses that are catching on. Lean specialist Business Impact UK's clients include everyone from General Mills to Greencore. Fosh quickly dismisses the misconception that firms with the most complex production processes benefit the most from lean thinking.

"In one example I know of, a company that slices and dices leeks - you would have thought you can't get less complicated than that - saved £150,000. Don't be put off lean because you don't have the classic manufacturing profile." So what, exactly, are some popular areas of lean training, and how does it work in practice?

"The main areas that tend to benefit from lean are engineering and automation," says Melvyn Parr, operations director for the southern region at Business Impact UK. Often this revolves around whether companies are using the best kit for a job or are operating it at optimal levels. In fact, Fosh says lean boosts the whole production process.

"There are benefits around how raw materials come in and the logistics at the other end, but 80% are around how companies operate the production area. "Loads of examples revolve around changeovers - how do you do a changeover, where is there downtime or wastage?" Parr says: "There are many styles of lean. 5S for food is key, which is about making sure the working environment is clean, everything has its place and waste is removed."

The acronym is derived from Japanese words, translated into English as Sort, Set, Shine, Standardisation and Sustain. The first stage, Sort, determines the optimum operating layout. The second stage implements it, the third cleans up the area, on the basis that a shiny workplace encourages better working. The fourth stage ensures systems are in place to keep up the first three steps and the last step concerns the discipline of sustaining the other stages.

"Process flow - the way products are taken through the line - is always key," adds Parr. He gives one example where workers were constantly having to walk back and forth through one production area to take products to a door. Moving the door to a more logical place in the production process stopped this from happening.

"It cost £800 to move the door, but the time saved trimmed off £15,000-£16,000 a year." Kaizen is literally translated from the Japanese 'change' and 'good'. It's a form of continuous improvement that aims to encourage groups from different stages of production, sometimes even from different industries, to collaborate, offering fresh perspectives to solve problems.

The hope is also that by involving everyone in the production process, employees are empowered by taking ownership for the part they play. True, all the fancy terms amount to is common sense and the ideal of how every business should be operating. Nevertheless, the strength of so much lean training lies in the fresh, objective perspective and the level of detailed analysis it provides.

Naturally, decision makers will be concerned about the money and time lean training involves. In the first instance, Fosh says: "One of the complications larger companies operating in sites across the UK come across is that most funding is dispersed on a regional basis. We will work with the company and the training provider to identify funding streams. Potentially up to 100% of some types of training is subsidised."

Among its wide portfolio of courses, Business Impact UK specialises in Business Improvement Techniques (BIT) Level II NVQs, which are fully funded through the government's Train to Gain programme. A surprisingly small amount of staff time is involved, given the returns.

Business Impact UK, for example, takes groups of 12 through 16 hours of lean techniques in a format to suit them, possibly two eight hour sessions or four four hour ones. In this way it has recently dealt with more than 100 staff at two Bernard Matthews processing sites. In the process it has tackled everything from reducing weigh check times by relocating layout and check stations to redesigning a packaging machine spindle to stop slipping and wasted material.

"We take groups through three projects linked to what they want to look at, such as the causes of machine down time," says Parr. "You're talking about five days in total, but that could be stretched over 12 weeks." Levels of administration are kept to a minimum. "People hear the words NVQ or training and think, 'oh my god, what about all the paperwork?' What we do is very hands on."

As Food Manufacture went to press, the NSA published 'Lean Times Call for Lean Solutions', providing an overview of lean concepts for businesses. Given all the hype, it would be perverse not to review the literature. The NSA is directly linked to three major lean training providers, Peter Rowley in Grimsby, CQM Training & Consultancy in Sheffield and Industry Forum in Birmingham.

The NSA website, http://www.foodanddrink.nfacademy.co.uk, provides a detailed list of lean courses available from these and other consultancies and providers.