What is the objective behind organizing the Lean Management Institute of
India (LMII)?
The Lean Management Institute of India is a first of its kind institute. It
has taken professor James P Womack, chairman and founder, Lean Enterprise
Institute, USA, and S Sandilya, chairman, LMII and Ravikumar Achanta, VP, LMII.
We aim to bring to India some ideas and philosophies on different ways of
designing, building, and operating organizations. Most often modern businesses
do not meet the needs of modern customers. And this is because they work in
silos and believe in pushing products to various sectors, and customers and
employees are designed out of the process. On the other hand, the Lean approach
designs customers and employee productivity back into the process.
What is the level of adoption of Lean management in the IT industry? How
do you see it change?
The Lean model allows IT companies to understand how their technology works
within the business context, and whether it generates business value for their
clients. One of the few early adopters in India is Wipro.
How can the Lean approach help companies brace themselves against the
long-term impact of recession and global inflation issues?
The present global economic issues serve as an ideal condition for Lean to
prove its effectiveness. They try and improve their internal efficiencies using
Lean as an optimization tool. The Lean approach will prove to be the best tool
to derive more out of the workforce, get better connected to customers, and
drive waste out of the business.
How much waste does any normal IT company produce, and how much of it can
Lean help in cutting down?
A company is basically faced with two types of demands. First, a customer
asking for a service or product when nothing is wrong. Second, when a product or
service has gone terribly wrong and it needs to be improved. So, a company needs
to ask itself, how much of the demand is for products that they have done right,
and how much is because they have gone wrong. I have observed that in the IT and
telecom industry anywhere between 40-90% of the demand is for things that have
gone wrong. The industry needs to get out of the failure management mode and get
into delivering business value.
Priya Kekre
priyak@cybermedia.co.in