Lean and IT systems. Is there a conflict?

In my work I have come across a few energetic debates on whether or not to implement an IT system to solve a process problem or put up a simple manual paper based system. In the increasingly connected world we now inhabit I feel it is important that I weigh in on this issue.

The scene is typical. Somewhere out there a business is struggling to deliver on competitive lead times, flexible service or stick to its customer commitments because of a broken order management process. People want to know how they can fix this process as soon as possible.  The Lean purists state that overly complex ERP systems, used to run the business in the first place, are to blame. The MRP engine needs to be switched off and replaced by simple manual visual controls such as cards / squares on the floor etc. After all, has this not been a rallying cry of the Lean movement? The IT guys hit back. In their opinion a manual visual system for managing operations is absurdly inadequate for the demands of the business. How will people ensure information stays live? How will multiple people get to the same information at the same time? How will such a system be administered? The Lean purists counter by saying that IT systems hide information by making it accessible only to the few who have the hardware to access the data. Worse, they remove managers from the place of where value is added in the workplace by neatly boxing up the many frustrations and conversations behind a delivery failure into one neat statistic, stripped of most of its meaning and combined with reams of other data. Whether its a kanban system, a shop floor control system, a front end order management system or any other process, I have seen this debate take place many times.

In my opinion there is no conflict. The solution comes in examining the core principles behind Lean management and integrating that into our 21st century understanding of Information Technology. There are three questions you need to answer:

1. What do you need to do to create a lean culture? David Mann, in his book "creating a Lean culture"  speaks of creating process focus through standard work, visual management and daily accountability. I recently visited a fast food soup/salad/sandwich outlet during the peak lunch hour rush and saw these three elements in action. There were standards in place. The order entry line was well defined. Salads / Soup / Toppings etc were well identified and demarcated. Severs knew what work they needed to perform. There were order entry standards laid out on a well defined menu to prevent me from giving the servers confusing or conflicting information. There were visual controls in place. Orders appeared on screens in front of the servers first in first out. The length of line indicating peak demand was demarcated by a sign. Inventory levels of the toppings were operating using simple reorder point systems. There was daily accountability. A team lead was walking the process and helping out when servers were overloaded as well as managing any issues that prevented the line from flowing. The whole operation ran smoothly for such a busy time of day. In this system the visual controls were mostly manual. I have seen the same level of process excellence in an online service process. One popular online retailer I buy from maintains excellent front end ordering processes globally by making sure that the workflow is standard. You have to checkout using a predefined step by step process, which they make easier and easier every time. Th make the process visual. You (the user) know what is going on by being showed where you are in the process and what you need to do to complete the transaction. the install accountability. You are responsible for ensuring you place the right order within a specified time limit. Through this millions of people, with vastly different backgrounds and levels of tech savvy, can be a part of their order entry process and allow them to have order entry quality levels that are almost flawless. So my advice is to start with understanding how you will create process focus through standard work, visual controls and daily accountability before galloping off on what IT or manual system solution will work.    

2. How can you solve your problem with the least amount of waste? Once you have an understanding of how you will create process focus, start looking at the least wasteful way to create standard work, visual controls and daily accountability. For example if you are swarmed with late deliveries in a single business in one location, a simple war room created using cork-board and paper tickets representing orders can be put up in 2 weeks or less, cost next to nothing and create both an order flow standard, visual control (everyone can see what it late) and daily accountability (a standard daily meeting sets the expectation about who should do what). On the other hand a pull based system operating across multiple locations and driven via QR or barcode scanning for data entry may be easier to manage using a live digital dashboard sent to managers and followed by a daily video conference. Increasingly the cost of creating these digital dashboards is dropping and in this case the overall administrative overhead for managing this system may be far less than manual paper based systems operating at each site. If you are managing thousands of items on a pull system, adjusting levels manually may actually create waste and make work a struggle. I have seen a well laid out, visual, live IT developed dashboard used to clearly show what location needed to invoice what product and displayed in a daily invoicing call dramatically cut lead times across a multi national enterprise.  So long as standard work, visual management and daily accountability are in place the process will work

3. Is your solution keeping pace with the 21st century? The face of data management has been changing and continues to change. If you think of data management and IT purely as large structured data tables, hidden in ERP systems, inputted via keyboard or barcode and accessed via terminals through SQL reports or direct graphics interfaces then you are behind the BIG DATA revolution. Data is now far more than this in terms of volume, variety and velocity. By 2020 it is estimated that over 4 billion people will have internet access, mostly via smart phones and other mobility devices. That is 4 billion people uploading their experiences and downloading the experiences of others. Unstructured data in the form of cell phone videos, social media commentary, GPS signals etc will be fed real time into applications designed to clean them and then onto applications designed to richly visualize the data emerging from the information. All accessible via an array of applications on mobile devices. A process that uses cell phone video, commentary and GPS feeds to visually manage, application software to manage the standard data shown to users and visual alerts sent to accountable people to drive responses is not beyond us. While you do not want to implement a complex solution to a simple problem you need to look at what is happening in the world around you. 

In conclusion and in my opinion asking these three questions should help you and your team reframe the old IT versus manual system when trying to solve a process problem.