Value Stream Management for Lean Office—A Case Study
- 1 Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and Technology, Bradley University, Peoria, USA
- 2 College of Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, USA
Abstract
This paper presents a look at the concept of Lean Manufacturing as applied to the office environment. Lean Manufac- turing, which is often referred to as Lean, is a philosophy of manufacturing process improvement through the elimina- tion of waste. As Lean developed since its origins in the automobile industry, it has been extended to apply to various enterprises and organizations, and has achieved a renowned reputation for reducing waste while adding value to prod- ucts and services. Lean has also been applied in the office environment; however, participants in the implementation of Lean Office face more difficulties because of higher variation in office processes, less foundation information for par- ticipants, and lack of references in literature. This paper addresses these issues by proposing, a systematic proce-dure for conducting Lean Office techniques, along with a case study at a local company. The case study demonstrates a step by step procedure to help more participants in Lean Office understand its benefits and how to get started.
- M. Jenkins, “Across the Enterprise Boeing Is Attacking Waste and Streamlining Process. The Goal? Cost Competitiveness,” 2002. http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2002/august/cover.html
- M. Poppendieck, “The Principles of Lean Thinking,” ITC, Winnipeg, 2002, pp. 1-7.
- IMEP, “Principle of Lean Manufacturing,” 2000.
- T. Ohno, “Toyota Production System: Beyond Large- scale Production,” Productivity Press, New York, 1988.
- M. Corrie, “Lean Success in an Admin-istration Environment,” Waukesha Bearings Ltd., Northwood Hills, 2004.
- L. A. Tonkin, “Lear Office: Mapping Your Way to Change,” Target, Minneapolis, 2004.
- E. P. Ev Dale, “Lean Enterprise: Minnesota Showcase,” Target, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2002, pp. 50-53.
- IMEP, “Principles of Lean Manufacturing with Live Simulation (Participant Workbook),” 2003.
- H.-D. Wan and F. -F. Chen, “Leanness Score of Value Stream Maps,” Proceedings of the 2007 Industrial engineering research conference, Nashville, 20-23 May 2007, p. 1515.
- M. Rother and J. Shook, “Learning to See,” Lean Enterprise Institute, Cambridge, 2003.
- IMEP, “Office Value Stream Mapping. Iowa Manufacturing Extension Partnership,” 2008.
- W. Lareau, “Office Kaizen: Transforming Office Operations into a Strategic Competitive,” American Society for Quality, Milwaukee, 2002.
- J. Womack and D. Jones, “Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation,” Simon and Schuster, New York, 2003.