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Plenert</h4> <p class=text> Lean is a methodology that is focused on the elimination of &#034;waste.&#034; Introducing Lean into an organization that likes to think of themselves as leading edge innovators and as the masters of efficiency and improvement, like Information Technology (IT), is often considered to be offensive and demeaning. There is often resentment by the implication that there may be &#034;waste&#034; in their IT process. That is why IT has become one of the last frontiers for the introduction of Lean tools. </p> <p class=text> Lean is a tool that facilitates the elimination of waste. And waste can be identified in a multitude of resource areas, including organizations, processes, and systems. Lean is not focused on making anyone work harder. Rather, Lean is focused on reducing the amount of time spent on &#034;non&#045;value&#045;added&#034; activities that add nothing to the timing or the quality of the output. For example, filling out redundant paperwork, whether it&#039;s electronic or on actual paper, is a plague that everyone deals with, including IT professionals. And it does not make the end product any better, nor is the customer any happier. </p> <p class=text> Any, and probably all, of the resource areas identified as part of the IT world contain waste. Lean is the methodology that identifies the waste and then utilizes a bag of tools to attempt to eliminate this waste. The more waste is eliminated, the greater the value&#045;added time, resulting in greater throughput, lower costs, increased capacity, and reduced cycle times. In the end, utilizing Lean principles provides an IT environment that is more efficient and more response to the customer, and therefore more competitive over all. </p> <p class=text> Let&#039;s take a quick look at a graphic example of how Lean works. In Figure 1 we see an example of a typical process that we all experience at one time or another; a visit to the doctor. In this process we encounter both value&#045;added and non&#045;value&#045;added activities. Value&#045;added and non&#045;value&#045;added will be defined in detail in Chapter 6 and beyond. For now, think of value&#045;added as something that has an impact on you the patient, and non&#045;value&#045;added as the time you spend sitting around waiting for something to happen. Lean looks for these non&#045;value&#045;added opportunities, referred to as waste. Rarely do we find less than 90% of a process is non&#045;value&#045;added. Therefore, most of the time we spend in a process or working on a process adds no value to the outcome of the process. </p> <center> <img src="http://ittoday.info/ITPerformanceImprovement/Images/2011-08PlenertFigure1.jpg" border="0"> </center> <p class=text> <b>Figure 1.</b> The Lean Focus on a Visit to the Doctor </p> <p class=text> Moving on to Figure 2 we see an example of the effect of Lean on the typical process. If we assume a process to be 95&#037; non&#045;value&#045;added, and 5&#037; value&#045;added, then Lean searches for and identifies opportunities for improvement in the 95&#037;, and does not necessarily focus on driving increased performance in the 5&#037;. In our example, if we reduce the non&#045;value&#045;added content of this process from 95&#037; to 90&#037; and increase the value&#045;added content from 5&#037; to 10&#037;, we really haven&#039;t had very much of an effect on the over&#045;all non&#045;value&#045;added pieces of the process. However, the impact on the over&#045;all performance of the process is enormous. The impact includes: </p> <center> <img src="http://ittoday.info/ITPerformanceImprovement/Images/2011-08PlenertFigure2.jpg" border="0"> </center> <p class=text> <b>Figure 2.</b> The Effect of Lean </p> <ul class=text> <li>Double the throughput &#151; twice as much time is now applied to value&#045;added activities </li> <li>Double the capacity &#151;twice as much time is spent on throughput generating activities </li> <li>No one has to work harder at production activities, they just spend more time doing productive activities and less time on waste activities </li> </ul> <p class=text> Applying these principles to IT is easy. IT includes numerous functional processes, which will be explored in the next few chapters. These include activities like software development, software implementation, software upgrades, hardware upgrades, user training, quality control, piloting, etc. Each of these needs to be looked at as an IT process. And each of these processes are repeated regularly during the lifetime of an IT organization, which makes them prime targets of Lean waste elimination. </p> <p class=text> Taking this thought process to a higher level, IT finds itself in a world that is saturated with data, and starved for information. Shortcomings in IT have evolved an environment where the systems, process, and organizational perspectives do not balance. Each of these three seems to have their own agenda when it comes to what is value added and what is waste. The integrated, optimized balance of these three, if achieved, can increase the value of information for the entire enterprise. The synergy of balancing these can bring about the elimination of waste, which is the fundamental goal of Lean systems. &#9830; <br> <br> <b>Read more <a href="http://ittoday.info/ITPerformanceImprovement/index.htm"><i>IT Performance Improvement</i></a></b> </p> <!--DISCLAIMER NOTICE AND COPYRIGHT--> <p class="copyright"> <br> <br> Certain names and logos on this page and others may constitute trademarks, servicemarks, or tradenames of <a HREF="http://www.crcpress.com" TARGET="_parent">Taylor & Francis LLC.</a> Copyright &#169; 2008&#151;2011 Taylor & Francis LLC. All rights reserved. </font> </p> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> <td width="300"> <table> <tbody> <tr> <td> <table style="background-color:#E0E0D1;" cellpadding="10" margin="5" border="0" valign="top"> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <h4>About the Author</h4> <p class="text"> <b>Dr. Gerhard J. Plenert</b> has more than 25 years of professional experience in IT quality and productivity consulting and in working on manufacturing planning and schduling methods. He has 13 years of academic experience and has over 150 published articles and nine books. <br> </p> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan=2> <h4>This article was excerpted from:</h4> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td> <center> <img src="http://www.ittoday.info/catalog/images/covers80w/AU7860.jpg" Border=0> </center> </td> <td> <p class="text"> <a href="http://www.crcpress.com/shopping_cart/products/product_detail.asp?isbn=9781420078602&AF=WAUER" target="blank"><b>Lean Management Principles for Information Technology</b></a> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <p class="text"> This text reviews the major management challenges facing IT and illustrates solutions with stories, examples, and case studies of how Lean IT has led to unprecedented improvements in the private and government sectors. Demonstrating how to structure the components of your IT system in accordance with Lean, the book details the measures required to achieve and sustain a world-class Lean IT supply chain management system. </p> <br> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </table> </body> </html>