How to Identify and Remove the Barriers for a Successful Lean Implementation

This article discusses the issues with moving forward with lean manufacturing or learn repair. Once there is executive awareness and an understanding of the basic principles with significant momentum, there is knowledge and experience that may ensure your path of success. What are the barriers or obstacles to implementation, and what are the realities? Companies are differentiated by their various personalities, characteristics, and pools of knowledge, skills, and abilities. The barriers to change and reasons for failure among them, however, are very similar. The typical obstacles are underestimating the cultural and managerial impacts, the illusion of progress, conflicting measures, believing the excuse list, not remaining principle based, and using lean as a set of tools rather than a way of doing business. The countermeasures include embedding the lean principles in strategy, recognizing the realities of change, focusing efforts and getting immediate results, and assessing, acknowledging, and resolving cultural and managerial constraints.