A Study of Lean Management and Lead-Time

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3

Lean management and lead time.....................................................................................................4

Concepts of lean management.........................................................................................................5

Kanban.........................................................................................................................................5

5S.................................................................................................................................................6

Kaizen..........................................................................................................................................6

Review of Unilever..........................................................................................................................8

Impacts of one of the Concepts on Unilever...................................................................................9

Applications of lean time on BMX Bike.......................................................................................10

Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12

Reference list.................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
Organizations always want to perform well. Being a productive organization is not that much
easy. Working together with co-workers and managing every obstacle with great responsibility is
needed here. Every work organization wants to ensure the best quality and gain the trust of its
consumers. But these criteria are not easy to achieve. To make the path smooth, some experts or
in the language of TQM gurus have made some concepts and processes that were proved handy
from various perspectives. Lean management and leadership are two of them.

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Lean management and lead time
Providing values to the consumers is the main and basic concept of lean management.
Nowadays, industries have adopted that management system from a broader perspective.
Besides, delivering the best to the consumers, eliminating things which are causing zero or no
effect in the end and as all useless accessories will be removed, every step will be a movement
toward improvement regularly (Pawel Gorecki and Pautsch, 2018). Lean management is getting
in the limelight because of its internal strategies of the working process. It does not focus only on
the organization's welfare but also on sharing & caring. Which organizations are practising lean
management are also practising sharing the same platform of having the same opportunities &
equal distribution of the workforce.
Now, another major part of lean management is lead time. Lead time indicates the time that
starts from the beginning of any process and ends with the final act of it. In the case of the
manufacturer company, it can be said that starting from the production to delivering it to the
consumers can be called the lead time (Wills, 2016).

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Concepts of lean management
There are so many concepts of lean management. It means, that by following those processes,
higher authorities can develop a harmonious & employee-friendly environment in the
organization. A lean management system concentrates on the perfect value distribution to the
consumers. But other than this job, it does not even cover the expenses of the employees. Lean
has the dedication to sovereignty, unity and group work which helps employees on the
motivational side and make themselves aware (Eike-Hendrik Thomsen, 2014). Lena can be
practised anywhere & any kind of organization and that will lead to the enrichment of the value
proposition and increasing quality by beautiful coordination of work. Many concepts can be
followed to apply to lean on a company. Among them, three concepts are stated below:
Kanban
Kanban is made to increase the efficiency of work by visualization and other processes.
Everything is all about giving the least input and getting the highest output (Brechner, 2015). So,
the included processes that introduce Kanban properly are given below:
 Task Visualization
Task visualization means showing the tasks on a board that each employee has to finish. This
type of visual representation of responsibilities can make work easier. Employees can never
forget about those works and that board can make them aware of their awaited work on time.
 Establishing flow
By the Kanban, board employees can notice their work and a sequential process. Thus,
working flow can be established.
 Limited work option
On the Kanban, system work is limited and employees can make themselves enthusiasts to
complete those works without any monotonous situation. Limited options enable employees
to improve their concentration on a single work and can be done accurately in this manner.
Now, on a consideration of an intelligence and media decisions company ‘Captify’ Kanban
concept can be described. Captify was founded by Adam Ludwin and Dominic Joseph. Starting
from 2011 it grew into a healthy shape by applying these lean management concepts (Mohamad
Zairi Baharom and Nazdah, 2012). They are gaining much more profit by joining on partnership
and applying Kanban to their organization. Investing in technology is a much more profitable

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way to think big while staying within the limit. So, this technology and advanced consultation-
based company are just doing great by applying these to their purpose.
5S
The development of this concept 5S was based on the waste management and improvement
process. When an organization improves on its internal procedures it also helps employees
improve their personal achievements (Atwood and Sharon Lane Holm, 2012). There is a saying,
“courtesy begets at home’. It means, that if anyone wants to start a new thing or implement a
new idea, he/she should better start it from home or in the other sense from himself/herself. Now,
the 5s stand for:
 Sort: sorting is the working process that allows the necessary thing in the organization and
unnecessary things out of the organization.
 Straighten: this says that the useful things should be in someplace that can easily be located
and can be used when it is needed.
 Shine: shining and hygienic working place is the motto of the part.
 Standardize: learning new things while working in various places and then implementing
those in the personal working place.
 Sustain: sustaining in the market of this competitive world. Evolving day by day and being
effective & efficient is the only mantra of sustaining work life.
From the discussion over 5s, it is clear that even in a house this concept can be fruitful.
Implementing this on Captify allows them to detect the unused accessories in the organization
and eliminate them. To have the fluency of work, the company should throw out the unwanted
items and make the environment handy.
Kaizen
Kaizen is another part of the concept of lean management and this also spreads the same flavour
that improving consistently and maximizing the total output. Getting better by nurturing the
skills and improving the working process that reflects one's own visions and missions are the
parts of Kaizen (Ortiz, 2014). It can be developed by PDCA problem-solving.
 Plan: to complete any task, planning can be considered at the heart. Without proper
planning, work can be found hard to be completed. Planning helps employees or the
personnel of the organization to remember every process step by step and also it can show
the probable results of the outputs.

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 Do: so, according to the plan, the work has to be done. If everything goes fine by following
the plan then employees can proceed to the next level.
 Check: after doing the work, experts have to take a quick test. Otherwise, any defects can
occur and can vandalize the whole planning and working process. Thus, the output won’t
come as expected.
 Act: to make an act, checking was important. In case of an ineffective result after checking
authorities can make some changes to the main planning and the whole process. On the other
hand, if the work goes according to the plan then authorities can approve. These relative
actions are included in this part.
Applying Kaizen is one the important facts for any kind of company. This process is related to
the core concept of business. People have to implement the business ideas after planning, cross-
checking and approving those. The same goes for the intelligence on advanced technology-based
company Captify. When it was the very beginning time of the company, they did a thorough
research about the foundation of the company (Coimbra, 2013). Planning was a must thing for
this kind of job. They had to plan the whole process and had to gather all the materials and
accessories that were a must for their start-up. After that they did a cross-check to ensure about
all the things were accumulated according to the planning. And they ran tests. After some failure
on the primary tests they succeed.

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Review of Unilever
Unilever is one of the largest multinational consumer goods brands in the whole world. It is
situated in London. The United Kingdom. It was founded on 2 nd September 1929. From then to
now, it has established a big empire of goods that they will receive as the manufacturing
company’s finished goods. They have a big supply chain management. The main products and
services that are produced by Unilever are, food, ice creams, minerals, cosmetics & beauty
products, hygiene products, breakfast products, tea, coffee, milk, cereals, etc. (Unilever, 2016).
Again, Unilever has the honour to make a show about the largest customers base of bathing soap.
This is a huge production cycle that Unilever has. 400 brands with the issue of 2020 turnover,
Unilever is running at a stunning speed.
Now, those were all about Unilever's products and services. But there is another portion of a
company that supports the consumers. The huge coverage of the customers using the brand
Unilever from the whole world. Unilever has consumers in more than 190 countries on this
planet earth. Unilever has made the targeted market starting to form the children and ending with
the senior citizens of every country. Especially household chores are so much available and
famous on Unilever brand. So apart from the age range of the consumers, they targeted to enter
every house silently and profitably.

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Impacts of one of the Concepts on Unilever
As it is explained before, there are likely 8 concepts of lean management. But earlier three of
them were reviewed. Now. One of them is the Kaizen concept. From the history of Kaizen, it
came to be known that, it was invented in Japan during the 2 nd World War. It came on the
implementation with the assistance of American businesses, some Total Quality Managers &
Toyota Car company (Reinhard Stockmann, 2017). This concept is known as the Toyota
Concept sometimes. After the 2nd World War, this concept was spread like a bullet and every
company & organization started to grow circulating that. Now, this kaizen concept can also help
Unilever to make its customer base bigger than before. Helpful perspectives are given below
which can help Unilever make no 1 trusted brand and give the best competitor advantages:
 Quality development
Implementation of lean management process or more precisely, implementing kaizen will
result in the development of utmost quality of the organization. As one of the developers of
the Kaizen was the TQM manager, so improving the total quality and specifications has to be
one of the helpful impacts.
 Managing lead time
As it was told before, lead time is the coverage time that a company spends from producing
the product to delivering those to consumers. Improving lead time is another part of lean
management. By Kaizen, one company can make all employees work together on a parallel
responsibility, so the productivity will increase in no time. So, it becomes easier to conduct
this production & supply system comfortably.
 Response to customer service
Consumers are the life of a business. If a product can not satisfy the consumers then the
consumers will go away and the company will not be able to expand on the market (Brennan,
2017). So, responding and improving on consumer service can be another step ahead toward
the top level.
 Minimizing inventory cost
If lead time reduces then products don’t have to stay in the warehouse for a long time. Thus,
inventory costs go down. This is a vital point of using Kaizen or lead management concepts
in the company.

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Applications of lean time on BMX Bike
BMX Bike owner, Alex decided to make a new design for his bike and contacted one
manufacturer company. She keeps the flexibility of defining and customizing the bike’s
specifications for the consumers. So, for the new manufacturing and designing scope, there has
to be a perfect lead time. By that time Alex should be able to display the bike in her showroom
and can set the sale price. Lead-Time between Alex placing the order with her manufacturer and
being able to display the item for sale in her shop is pointed out below:
Bike Lean Time Weeks
Start week- Order placed on week 26 26
Designing the bike 2
Bike order parts 1
Manufacturing & delivering the parts 4
Assemble the Bikes 2
Delivery of finished products 1
Total lead times in a week 10
Received items (in weeks) Display within 36th week
Chart 1: Lean Time on BMX Bike
Source: Author
So, in the first step, it can be seen that it will take two weeks on designing the bike. As it was
something new on designing perspective, so it will take a little extra time. The second one is
ordering the parts for the bikes. Individual parts are to be accumulated and make the whole one.
This collecting part would take one-week maximum. After that, it comes to the manufacturing
delivering the parts. This is the longest part of the lean management table of Bike. It will take
four weeks because the total amount of bikes has to be manufactured and delivered to the final
destination. And the manufactured parts have to be assembled to make a new and well-
functioned bike. Lastly, delivering those products will take one week. In total, it will take 10
weeks and previously, it was 26 weeks. So, Alex can display her Bikes to sell them in the 36 th
week.
Now, if bike parts of Alex came from Italy or China it would increase the lead time. Doing
business with Italy and China is doing business overseas. It includes storing the parts after
manufacturing and transferring the information on a clear basis, which would take time. In the
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time of sending the parts to the company of Alex's, it will take extra charges or TAX on the
boarders (R Heuts, Lieshout and Tilburg, 2018). For these kinds of reasons, the lead time would
have gotten bigger if the Bikes were to be imported from Italy or China.

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Conclusion
Lean management in any workplace and lead time on delivering and regulating consumer trust
are some of the useful stuff in the business world. Maintaining hostility and acceptability on any
business premises is to be taught by a lean management system and maintaining lead time.
Unilever is one of the leading consumer goods brands. Unilever collects or gets their raw
materials which are the manufacturing company’s finished goods. By using these concepts, this
company become great than others and also can do this prosperity. Working in a symbiosis
environment, devising the responsibilities to everyone, not taking all the complements by oneself
but giving the credit to everyone, etc. are the major concerns of the lean management process.

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Reference list
Atwood, M. and Sharon Lane Holm (2012). Busy beavers : counting by 5s. Minneapolis, Mn:
Magic Wagon.

Brechner, E. (2015). Agile project management with Kanban. Redmond, Wash. D.C.: Microsoft.

Brennan, C.D. (2017). Proactive customer service : transforming your customer service
department into a profit center. New York: Amacom.

Coimbra, E.A. (2013). Kaizen in Logistics and Supply Chain. New York: Mcgraw-Hill
Education.

Eike-Hendrik Thomsen (2014). Lean Management Arbeitsbuch. Sternenfels Wissenschaft &

Mohamad Zairi Baharom and Nazdah, W. (2012). Application of Kanban, work study and
simulation to reduce high WIP : a case study on veneer lamination line. Saarbrucken, Germany:
Lap Lambert.

Ortiz, C.A. (2014). Kaizen and kaizen event implementation. Prentice Hall.

Pawel Gorecki and Pautsch, P. (2018). Lean Management. München Hanser.

R Heuts, Lieshout, V. and Tilburg (2018). An implementation of an inventory model with

Reinhard Stockmann (2017). Evaluation and quality development : principles of impact based
quality management. Frankfurt, M. ; Berlin Bern Bruxelles New York, Ny Oxford Wien: Lang.

Unilever (2016). Unilever and the Third World food problem. London: Unilever Tld.

Wills, G. (2016). Lead time : a journalist’s education. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

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