One of New Zealand's most established Lean providers, having worked with over 50 companies in multiple sectors, the Lean Group has a proven track record in achieving long term improvements.
Since its creation in 2007, the Lean Group has focused on providing companies with Lean training that generates long-term sustainable benefits – not only in terms of quality, cost and delivery performance, but also people development and engagement.
Lean Group owner Ian Lines has spent more than 20 years working in improvement environments, initially in the automotive industry in the UK, and then in NZ, where he has worked with more than 30 companies.
Formally trained through the Lean Enterprise Research Centre, Ian has developed a Lean skill set that works at all levels of a company. The Lean Group believes Lean sustainability comes from training people at all levels of the organisation, achieving shop-floor improvements while improving office processes and breaking down barriers between departments. Leadership training is a specialty of the company’s approach, generating the skills sets required for long-term success.
The Lean Group has worked in many environments – from manufacturing, to agriculture, to web design, to the justice system.
Lean Service Delivery Methodologies
A typical implementation starts with the analysis phase, which involves two to five days on site to identify the potential opportunities, meet the team and develop an implementation plan. The plan can last for three to 12 months depending on the size of the business, number of staff and training requirements.
During the implementation phase organisations can expect to see their challenges resolved, improving customer quality, cost and delivery. Activities include 5S workplace organisation implementation, creation of a measurement and problem-solving framework, value stream mapping activities, and advanced tools such as TPM and SMED if required. All staff complete the famous Lego Lean Simulation.
A recent Lean Group customer has seen a 260% productivity increase, and a reduction in lead times from 14 to three days, freeing up two staff to work on other projects. A manufacturing customer has reduced its quality issues by 95%, and gained greater staff engagement. And a local agribusiness customer improved delivery performance from 81% to 100% through better problem solving and staff engagement.
