What does this mean?

Well often the first improvement is the worst improvement! We’re taking a bad process (or no process!) and improving upon it. But when we share it with others then they can often improve on this improvement and so it goes. One improvement begets another.

There were numerous examples of this at Seating Matters but we were seeing the result of 10 years of implementing lean, so instead I thought I’d share an example from our business.

Locking up the office was a pain! Now you might be thinking, what has this got to do with running an accountancy firm and this example seems “superfluous” to day to day operations – but it ties in with a few of the other lean phrases (how you do anything is how you do everything and fix what bugs you – more on those in later weeks) and so actually had a positive impact.

If you were last in the office, it was probably because you had a meeting that overran downstairs in the meeting rooms, or because you had a bit of work that you had your head in and you overran. Either way, the last thing you wanted to do was do a full check of the office – but that’s what you ended up doing. Going through all 4 floors, checking all the lights were off, checking windows were closed, locking up. Or even worse, locking up and getting out to the car only to see that there was a light still on and having to go back in and sort it. (Or not noticing a window was open and coming in to a freezing cold room the next morning….which did happen!).

So we set up a system. A simple process to follow when you left your room

Check the windows are closed

Check the heaters are off

Turn off the lights

Close the door behind you

The next improvement was to actually print this out and add it to the back of each door so it is visible when you leave. (Visual cues are a huge part of lean)

That way when someone leaves the building they just need to check that the doors are closed and they can lock up (rather than going into each room). Sweeping a floor takes seconds rather than minutes. Again – very visual. Door closed – the room has been locked up.

But what it the door was closed because you were on a call? Or it was cold and so you had the heater on?

So the next improvement was to add sliders to the doors to show if someone was IN or OUT. Again very visual.

Unfortunately the sliders were a pain and didn’t slide across effortlessly so we improved on it again and made it easier by adding a button to grip.

We’ve come up with a further improvement (that we are yet to implement) – whereby there are further sliders on each floor so you don’t even have to go up the stairs to check that the doors are market as out, the last person on that floor will mark the floor as being clear.

And that’s just the start, we’re now looking for more and more ways to improve.

Take care until the next time

Russell + Russell