Introduction
Lean management is an approach to managing an organization that is aimed at reducing the spent time for the less important and non value adding tasks and to provide more efforts for generating maximum values for the stakeholders. For this reason, Online Assignment Help Manchester lean management principles are applied to manufacturing and managing various types of projects of an organization (Mousavi Isfahani et al. 2019). The main purpose of the lean management principles is to reduce the overall time in delivering projects, to reduce costs and to generate maximum values for the project stakeholders (Abuhejleh et al. 2020). The main objective of the essay is to discuss the lean management principles and techniques and their application to different areas related to project management.
Main body
Importance of lean management
In these days, the popularity of lean management approach has increased in these days because proper application of lean management principles to various areas of managing projects can helping reduce the total time required for completing the project (Duarte and Cruz-Machado, 2017). Along with that, write that essay , the lean management approach is aimed at avoiding the less important and non value adding tasks and to make enough efforts to generate maximum values for the project stakeholders. For this reason, proper application of the lean management principles can help an organization to satisfy the project stakeholders (Shou et al. 2021). Along with that, effective incorporation of lean management principles to project management can help reduce wastage of valuable resources and therefore, it becomes easier for the organization to reduce the overall cost of the project as spending time and funds for non value adding tasks reduces by implementing lean management principles (Kadarova and Demecko, 2016).
Due to the decrease of costs, it also becomes easier for the organization to earn more profit from certain projects. On the other hand, as the lean management approach helps generate maximum values for the project stakeholders, reputed organizations also use the approach in order to keep their stakeholders satisfied. The lean management pimples are mainly applied to manufacturing tasks in order to reduce the cost of production so that the products can be sold at comparatively lower prices and maximum values can also be generated for the customers for keeping them satisfied (Kumar et al. 2022). Considering all these facts, it can be said that proper application of lean management principles to manufacturing and other types of projects can help an organization to reduce costs and to remain competitive for long term.
Five main lean management principles
It has been revealed in studies that there are mainly five principles related to lean management process. Dissertation Assignment Help, value, mapping value stream, creating flow, establishing pull and seeking perfection.
Value
Value of a project or any product or service is defined by the need of the users or the customers. In case, an organization is successful in satisfy needs of the customers, then it can be said that the organization is successful in generating values for the customers (Ghanem et al.2019). For this reason, it is essential for an organization to identify the needs of the customers in order to take necessary steps for generating maximum values for the customers (Mikhailovsky et al. 2020). As the main purpose of the lean management approach is to reduce waste and to generate values for the stakeholders, therefore, identifying the value adding tasks is important and similarly, the value adding tasks can be identified when an organization can understand the needs of the customers.
Mapping value stream
After determining the values, it is important to map the value stream. The value stream refers to the pathway to generating values for the customers. Many of the organizations identify the needs of the customers and try to analyze how these needs can be satisfied and the tasks that are dependent on each other and can together help the organization can generate values for the customers or other important stakeholders can be considered the value stream (Sinha and Matharu, 2019). The value stream is often created as a flow chart that shows the connection between various tasks that ultimately generates value for the customers or other stakeholders (Kadarova and Demecko, 2016). The principle is associated with developing a map that shows the flow of materials and goods through the processes to the goal of generating values for the customers.
Creating flow
From the value steam or map, the value adding tasks and the non value adding tasks or wastes, it is important to develop a new flow chart or a new stream of actions that flows smoothly without any interruption. The Flow shows mainly the value creating actions.
Establishing pull
After creating smoothly flow, it is important to establish pull. In this stage of lean management, it is important to implement or perform the actions that can help generate maximum values for the customers or the important stakeholders of a project (Mousavi Isfahani et al. 2019). However, in this context, it is also important to determine the timelines of performing and completing those value creating tasks. In order to determine the timelines of the actions, an organization or an individual can use various tools like Gantt chart, Work Breakdown structure or any specific project management software (Abuhejleh et al. 2020). Determining the timelines is important also for avoiding wastage of time and to ensure successful completion of the project within the provided deadline.
Seeking perfection
The fifth step of lean management is very much important as it is associated to implementing continuous improvement strategies. According to the principle of lean management, an organization needs to analyze the effectiveness of the value creation process at the end of the project (Cano et al. 2022). The organization needs to analyze if all the tasks have been completed perfectly or there are opportunities of further improvement (Wu et al. 2019). In case, any continuous improvement opportunities are identified, the organization needs to take initiatives for implementing continuous improvement strategies.
Lean management techniques
Different tools and techniques can be used in different stages of the lean management process. In the first stage of implementing lean management process, it is important to identify the needs of the customers in order to determine the values. In this stage, reputed companies prefer conducting surveys and interviews with the customers or other important stakeholders for identifying their needs so that the value can be determined effectively (Sinha and Matharu, 2019). Sometimes, organizations also gather online feedback from customers in order to identify their needs and to determine values. The second stage of lean management is to map value stream. Organizations usually develop diagrams and flow charts in this stage for identifying the processes that are related to value creation (Mousavi Isfahani et al. 2019). After creating the value stream, the most important and value adding tasks are identified along with the less important tasks and wastes.
Later, the flow chart is modified and the wastes and less important tasks are omitted and the most important tasks that re related to value adding process are provided with the utmost importance in the flow chart. This is called establishing pull (Thakur, 2016). Brainstorming and decision tree analysis are common techniques that are often used by organizations for identifying the most important and value adding tasks. Besides identifying the value adding and most important tasks, it is also important to determine timelines. Different organizations use different tools and techniques for determining timelines of the actions and the sequence of the works (Wu et al. 2019). Different types of project management software like MS project. Jeera, Asana and others can be used for defining the sequence of the actions, the interdependencies between those actions and the total time required for completing the tasks (Cano et al. 2022). The softwares can also be used for checking the current status of the works and therefore, the timelines can be modified and works can be arranged accordingly for completing projects timely. The lean management process also provides enough scopes of implementing continuous improvement strategies.
Conclusion
The study discusses about the lean management principles and the commonly used lean movement techniques. From the above discussions, it can be concluded that the main purpose of lean management approach is to reduce wastage of resources and the cost of projects and to maximize values for the customers. For this reason, the popularity of the lean management approach is increasing continuously. There are mainly five principles related to lean management and these are determining value, mapping value stream, creating flow, establishing pull and seeking perfection. The tools and techniques that are used for value determination are surveys, interviews, market research, feedback gathering and others. After determining value, flow charts are used for mapping value streams. After that, brainstorming, mind mapping, decision tree analysis and other techniques can be used for establishing pulls and creating flows. Further different types of project management software can be used for managing value adding tasks effectively and at last continuous improvement strategies can be implemented for generating maximum values for the customers and other important stakeholders.
References
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