Over the years I have often pondered what to call our continuous improvement interventions. Personally I have always favoured Lean as that is what operational excellence is based on. However I am pretty sure that this is a loaded term for many people. To me, it means a whole shed load of ideas that lead to continuous improvement but for many people it signifies cuts and another corporate programme being imposed on employees.

Why is that? Well I have some thoughts on that. First of all its the use of language. I often encounter teams that say we are already lean because we have been cut to the bone or “we are lean and mean”. Of course both these usages do not describe what lean is about in the context of continuos improvement.

Another favourite of mine is “oh I have done lean”. A little more probing usually elicits participation in one or two rapid improvement events.

I encountered perhaps the best example of this problem on a recent visit to an RAF base looking at the implementation of continuos improvement within the RAF. The RAF have a significant lean programme now, that dates back a number of years. This programme was launched at the time of significant defence cuts. One talking to the mechanics who were explaining about their use of 5S, Visual Management, Problem Solving they made it clear they did not like Lean as that was about cuts. I said what your doing looks a lot like Lean to me. Oh no came the response this is continuous improvement we don’t do lean anymore!

Ok I give up, from now on I am probably going to try and eat myself off using lean and try and use continuous improvement more!

However this story poses a deeper question that naming. How do we implement continuos improvement in a time of austerity and is it doomed to be seen as a top down imposed tool to save money?

A subject I will return to………