House of Lean

If your roof was deemed unstable or your walls had signs of mold, you wouldn’t think twice about remodeling or fixing what’s necessary. Knowing whether a single component in your house is unstable could send the whole thing crashing down, making it crucial that everything is well taken care of. This is the core of the concept of the house of lean. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of lean thinking, this article covers all the essential components to help you get up to speed.

What is the Toyota House of Lean?

The Toyota House of Lean is a framework designed to help you understand the core principles and practical implementation of lean thinking. It uses the analogy of a house: the roof, foundation, walls, and floor to help lean thinkers systematically arrange the necessary concepts to attain a specific goal. Which can be either providing value to customers using fewer resources and time, or designing an efficient management system within your organization to enhance progression.

Here’s a breakdown of each component in the Toyota house of lean concept:

The Foundation

The foundation is undoubtedly the most crucial component of the house of lean. Without a proper foundation, no goal can be achieved, and no organization can function. Concepts like heijunka, standardized work, and kaizen can be adapted to create a stable foundation.

• Kaizen: This is a philosophy of continuous improvement. Kaizen concepts can be applied to both the production and quality optimization in many ways.
• Standardized Work: The Toyota house of lean uses standardized work to ensure predictable results through established, consistent tasks. Organizations can systematically generate revenue by establishing standards that specify the best way to perform tasks and attain profit.
• Heijunka: Adopting heijunka is an excellent strategy to avoid wasting resources and uneven production. This form of lean thinking proposes that individuals should produce value by receiving orders rather than anticipating customer demand.

The Pillars

On-top of the foundation rests the two pillars of Toyota House of Lean manufacturing, which are Jidoka and Just-In-Time (JIT) Production:

• Jidoka: Jidoka is a way for an automated system to identify problems in the quality of individual products. When a problem, or defect, is found the production is halted until the cause of that issue is found and addressed.
• Just in Time (JIT) Production: Just in time manufacturing has the parts and equipment become available as close to the time that it is needed as possible. This will help to reduce downtime and reduce costs associated with warehousing items before they are needed.

The Walls

The walls of lean manufacturing, and lean in general, are going to optimize the processes that are in place. Improving efficiency, eliminating waste, and improving quality helps to ensure a company is producing the best quality products, at the lowest prices, possible. This is how lean can help to improve profitability, which will allow the company to grow and succeed for years to come.

Depending on the specific company, there are many ways that things can be optimized within any facility. In this sense, the 'walls' of the house of lean are going to be made from different lean tools and strategies.

The following are some of the most popular options to choose from, but there are others available as well. A company implementing lean will want to evaluate all its options and use the strategies that will work best for its particular situation. When looking at the house of lean, the walls are often split up into production optimization and quality optimization

The Roof

In the house of lean, the roof is customer focus. Keeping the customer's specific wants and needs in mind at all times is what will protect the rest of the structure from running into problems. Product optimization in the previous step is essential, but if a product is optimized only for the sake of improvement even though the customers don't want or need the new feature, it is a form of waste.

In the house of lean manufacturing, the roof is customer focus. Keeping the customer's specific wants and needs in mind at all times is what will protect the rest of the structure from running into problems. Product optimization in the previous step is essential, but if a product is optimized only for the sake of improvement even though the customers don't want or need the new feature, it is a form of waste.

When implementing the roof of the house of lean, a team must consider all of the following things:

• What do Customers Value: Every feature and option on a product should be there specifically because customers are willing to pay for it. If they aren't, then it is simply a form of waste and should be eliminated in order to reduce costs.
• Value Stream Mapping: Value stream mapping is a useful strategy in determining where the value is needed in any product.
• Creating Flow: Having products flow through the established systems will ensure the systems are efficient and always focused on the desired outcomes for the customers. A properly flowing production line will continuously deliver exactly what the customers want.
• Reducing Variation: Customers want a specific product, and they want it to be of predictable quality every time they make an order. Finding ways to identify variation in production, and eliminating it, will help to reduce variation and improve customer satisfaction.

These concepts help to form a barrier of protection that can offer guidance to the other steps in the house of lean. By focusing only on what the customers actually need, processes are able to be crafted that are focused on attaining the right goals. Without the roof, the rest of the house will eventually fall and crumble down because of having the wrong focus.

SAFe House of Lean

Much like the Toyota house of lean, which provides an approach to achieve customer-oriented goals with fewer resources, the SaFe house of lean takes it up a notch. Developed by the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), this framework is designed to help complex, large-scale organizations implement effective practices to drive profitable results.

Here’s a closer look at each pillar in the SaFe house of lean:

The Foundation

When starting any type of lean implementation, a company must build a firm foundation that will support the rest of the process. The following are the best places to start any foundation:

• Leadership: Lean methodologies don't have a chance at succeeding if the leadership team isn't on board. This starts at the very top of the organization and must work its way all the way down to the front-line supervisors.
• Employees: Employees must also be on board. Lean helps to bring employees into the fold by accepting their input and listening to their suggestions. It is also helpful to use lean to show employees how increased safety and efficiency can help them with their day-to-day jobs.
• Trust: Trust is necessary in order to avoid problems in any process. The trust must exist between employees and management, between each department, and even between individual employees. Making an effort to ensure everyone knows they are all working toward the same goals can help to build the trust that is needed for a solid foundation.
• Goals: Having clear goals in place for any lean project is essential. Without knowing what the desired outcomes are, it is impossible to ensure everyone is working toward them.

The Pillars

The SaFe House of Lean consists of four essential pillars, which are the key drivers of the lean-agile methodology. Here they are:

• Respect for People and Culture: Employees make up an organization. Treating employees with respect and showing care and compassion towards their goals and lives empowers them to perform their work more diligently.
• Flow: The second pillar pushes organizations to move towards a systematic flow. This involves continuous feedback, improvements, and control to managing tasks more effectively.
• Innovation: Part of lean thinking is development and growth. Organizations and companies are always driving towards growth, inviting new ideas and changes to ensure continuous improvement.
• Continuous Improvement: The final pillar emphasizes relentless improvement, encouraging them to move from a standard mindset to one with change. It allows them to adapt to future trends and better practices to drive efficiency and productivity.

The Roof

The roof symbolizes the reason why companies adopt lean thinking practices, much like this one. Whether it be customer satisfaction, company development, or growth, or a combination of two, the house of lean cannot function without a structured goal.

Difference Between The Two Houses

While both concepts provide insights on how to establish and achieve goals and sustainable practices that drive success, there is one key difference between the two. The Toyota House Of Lean primarily focuses on driving organizational success and growth by achieving customer-oriented goals with fewer resources and time.

On the other hand, SAFe's version promotes leadership, agile lean thinking practices, and other key concepts like boosting employee engagement for value delivery. Whether you adopt Toyota’s version of the house of lean, SAFe’s approach, or a combination of the two, you’ll find yourself with results revolving around your designated audience.

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The house of lean is an effective strategy designed to help organizations excel by delivering value to their customers, ensuring profit and results. But with so many intricacies like lean methodologies, it’s easy to get lost in the Lean process. That’s where we come in. Creative Safety Supply offers teams a platform to learn the best lean practices to ensure quick and efficient understanding.

Resources

• https://www.isixsigma.com/cause-effect/determine-root-cause-5-whys/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_stream_mapping