Lean Business Processes: What is Lean Office?

Lean for Administrative Processes. Lean Office. Can Lean Principles and Tools be applied to non-manufacturing processes? Presented by EMS Consulting Group, Inc.:

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Welcome to today’s edition of the OpEx Minute, presented by EMS Consulting Group. Today we will be talking about applying Lean to Administrative processes.
You have probably already heard that Lean is not just for manufacturing. For years it has been used in healthcare, insurance, service industries, and just about any other business you can think of. Let’s talk about how lean applies to administrative or business processes.
Lean is multi-faceted. In one sense, we can say that Lean is about providing a defect free product or service to the next downstream customer when they need it and in the right quantity. We would also say that Lean is about creating a culture of continuous improvement utilizing scientific thinking or problem solving to eliminate waste. This is how we would keep moving toward the ideal state of providing defect free products and services. In terms of administrative processes, the same definitions would apply.
We at EMS Consulting Group have worked with many clients on administrative improvement. This includes analyzing and improving insurance claims processes, purchasing processes, customer service processes, administrative healthcare processes, and many similar processes. The one thing that all of these have in common is waste. Eliminating waste is possible for any process, no matter the type.
Now, the so-called tools of lean are going to be different depending on the situation. Administrative processes might not have a need for Total Productive Maintenance in the same way that a production facility would, but the same key principles and methodologies of Lean work for administrative processes. We can create lean value streams and eliminate waste just as we would if we were manufacturing cars or baking bread.