Gina Temple on Lean Management: Definition and Principles

Companies might implement lean management if they want to increase their productivity and reduce waste. This strategy can help enhance an organization’s operational efficiency by implementing employee and customer feedback to streamline processes.

Gina Temple defines lean management and describes the principles of this approach.

Lean management is also called lean production or lean project management. It is a business strategy that uses a system of operations to improve daily processes using a minimalist approach, explains Gina Temple. It helps improve workflow efficiency and maximize profit without exerting more effort. This management style can help leaders achieve these goals by encouraging teams to reduce waste while still ensuring production quality.

The primary goal of this method is to identify and eliminate activities that don’t add value to the production process. It may include eliminating unnecessary product movement, repairing defective products, and minimizing project tasks.

A production manager may consider different elements when implementing lean production management, including:

• Production amounts: Overproduction often leads to wasted time and materials, so a crucial element of this management strategy is accounting for the amount of production the market requires and how much the company is actually producing.

• Motion: This approach considers what happens when the movement of people or materials is more frequent or time-consuming than necessary. Continuous movement is one of the essential elements of a lean strategy, as it emphasizes ongoing production, notes Gina Temple.

• Product defects: Identifying defective products can help to minimize or eliminate the manufacturing of products that don’t meet the company’s standards.

• Over-processing: Over-processing occurs when elements or features of a product don’t add value to the customer or profit to the company.

• Employee potential: Lean project management considers team potential. It means that team leaders can identify and use their team members’ competencies and skills to ensure they’re a good fit for their roles.

Lean management principles

According to Gina Temple, there are five key principles of lean you can use to help you implement and maintain lean strategies effectively. They are the following:

Define value: The first step involves specifying the value consumers want, which includes what they’re willing to pay for a product.

Identify the value stream: Mapping a value stream allows your organization to eliminate activities that don’t add value to consumers.

Create flow: Once waste is removed from the value stream, you can create a new process for allowing the remaining steps to flow smoothly in a way that minimizes or eliminates delays.

Introduce pull: Implementing a pull-based system allows you to produce products that customers currently need to avoid inventory waste or overproduction.

Aim for perfection: After establishing the first four principles, you can encourage teams to adopt lean production as an organizational philosophy and work toward consistently improving lean processes.

Gina Temple has served in the healthcare community for over 30 years with experiences ranging from for-profit to not-for-profit organizations, unionized to non-unionized facilities, and acute care settings to outpatient centers. Read more of her insights on healthcare and leadership by subscribing to this page.