ABSTRACT

One of the primary goals of the Lean transformation inside an organization is to look at the value streams that span the departments and functions. Every organization has several important business value streams that repeat in the customer-facing process over and over again. Lean in the office involves searching out problems in a value stream across the departments in order to make the needed changes and improvements. The goal of a Lean office culture is straightforward: The Lean office optimizes the value that the customer receives from the value stream, while removing the wastes or problems in delivery the product or service. Since the value stream crosses multiple organizational silos, the organization of the Lean initiative needs to account for the difficulties of working across multiple silo-ed individuals or departments. However, the conventional organization is structured into functional areas. The senior leadership needs to provide the focus on the most troublesome value stream problems.