Where to Start with Lean

Good morning, David. This is Yogesh from Bangalore, India. I have joined a small shirt manufacturing company as an Industrial Engineer. We manufacture about 2,000 shirts per day for Peter England & Wrangler. We have approximately 340 employees. I just want to know what, where, and how to start to do things systematically here... P.S: I have no industrial experience as such in this field. This is my first job and also this is the first time that an Industrial Engineer is being appointed here in this firm.

Implementing Lean must begin with building an understanding and acceptance of Lean principals in your senior management. That's a big challenge given the fact that you are a new employee in a role that has been newly created in a company with no history of embracing Lean principles. You are indicating that you are expected to be an agent of change in your organization; but Lean requires strong support from the top down. This means that you must devise a strategy to begin to educate your senior management in Lean concepts and to generate their strong commitment to implementing Lean strategies going forward. Once you have built a senior management consensus to adopt Lean strategy, you will need to move incrementally to implement Lean in the context of your own business.

Given your own inexperience with Lean, you will definitely need Lean-experienced professional consulting assistance to implement your first programs, which will likely start with mapping your value stream(s). Selection of the right person to fill this roll will likely be critical to your success.

Good luck -- but remember that "Luck favors those who are well prepared."