Want ideas? –Ask your workforce!

“These are all common-sense ideas that anybody with half a brain could have figured out years ago. Instead of spending beaucoup bucks on consulting and design, the hospital administrators could have done what they should have done in the first place, and simply asked the nurses for their suggestions.” – Unknown

The best solutions to problems encountered in the daily work can most often be found with the experts involved in actually performing the daily work. We spoke of constraints and standards. Now we need to consider trust for a moment.



How many managers would trust their workforce to design the daily work?

Would you be comfortable in allowing a front line worker to alter a process?
How would you feel about having a component design altered by an assembler?
What if a material handler redesigned how the warehouse was laid out?

Chances are the concept has some fear attached to it for you. To make these kinds of changes, we would typically rely on experts, like; consultants, suppliers or process/design engineers. Truth is they may offer some excellent ideas. To do so though, overlooks the expert resources right there in your own organization. The people, who perform the work every day, probably have some creative insights.

That material handler may prefer to have the fastest moving items close at hand to make picking and stocking faster.
The assembler may have recognised a small change to a component can eliminate the need for an additional fastener, making assembly less complex, reducing the number of parts and speeding the process.

Before the workforce starts changing things, there needs to be some learning, procedures, disciplines and trust.

The workforce will need some tools, standard disciplines to trial changes, communicate results with all affected, obtain test results, analyse the effectiveness and impact of the proposed change; all before implementation. In this way the downstream customers will know that care has been taken to ensure any change implemented has been well thought out.

Management doesn’t really need to do the thinking for everyone. Think of the weight off your shoulders if the entire workforce has a shoulder to the wheel and is working daily to create and deliver the highest possible customer value through relentless innovation.

Want to learn more about fully engaging your entire workforce?

Email me leanthoughtstarter@gmail.com

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