Lean Management is more often than not associated with the manufacturing sector. It’s true that the Toyota production system’s principles immediately bring to mind the industrial production.

The application of Lean methods in the service sector has the same objectives: improve customer service, productivity, reduce risks, increase employee satisfaction and improve profitability.

In practical terms, Lean methods provide access to a multitude of advisory services to the management team (strategic and annual planning, management training and coaching, training of managers on employee management, etc.).

In a factory, the workstations are improved.  In services, it’s meetings, paperwork, managing agendas, customer service, etc.

As an entrepreneur, you are both a conductor and a musician. You are constantly in action and have little time to devote to improving your business processes.

The Toyota method

Here is how Lean management can help you in your service business, based on Toyota management principles:

• Base your decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals.
• Organize unit flow processes to update issues.
• Create a culture of immediate solving problems as they appear.
• Standardize tasks; this is the foundation for continuous improvement and employee accountability.
• Use visual checks to avoid problems remaining hidden.
• Use only reliable, long-proven technologies that serve your people and processes.
• Train leaders who know the work, live the philosophy and teach it to others.
• Train exceptional individuals and teams who apply your company’s philosophy.
• Respect your network of partners and suppliers by encouraging and helping them grow.
• Go out and understand the situation.

External resources can help you find ways to be more effective and efficient.

“Effectiveness is doing the right thing, and efficiency is doing the right thing.”

An external diagnosis addresses both aspects at once. It makes it possible to identify the right actions and to optimize the actions already taken so that they achieve better results or demand less resources.

Feel free to ask for help!