Common Lean Pitfalls

Lean Thinking has become a proven and effective strategy for improving organisational performance, profitability and capability, and whilst most Lean improvement programs almost always deliver some level of improvement (small or large). The majority of businesses still struggle with Lean transformation and creating a real step change in performance.

After being involved in numerous improvement journeys from a variety of business sectors, we have started to develop a picture of the common pitfalls to Lean transformation and change. Over the years, we have learnt that while there a number of approaches to Lean transformation there is also no single right way, Lean transformation needs to be tailored to the specific business problems and the culture and mind-set of the business. With that said, we have found there to be an order of approach that supports effective transformation and a number of common pitfalls that must be avoided.

So far, apart from a handful of businesses all others seem to have fallen or still struggle at one of three stages, some spending decades, expelling massive amount of energy and millions in trying to deliver improvement without progressing to the next level towards organisational excellence and to real breakthrough performance.

At BreakThrough Improvement, we say don’t wait another 25 years for someone to show you the right way, stop doing what doesn’t work and start developing your very own example of best practice.