In today’s economy, the ability to run a lean organization is indispensable in today’s market. At its core, lean business focuses on maximizing value while minimizing unnecessary effort or expense.
Whether you’re starting with lean business planning or auditing current operations to uncover inefficiencies, adopting lean process management can lead to improved efficiency, cost savings, and increased scalability. Explore the essentials of how to run a lean business, from planning strategies to execution techniques, to help your company achieve its full potential below.
Key Principles of Lean Business Operations
Effective lean business operations are organized around streamlining processes to deliver maximum value with minimal waste. This methodology prioritizes identifying inefficiencies, optimizing workflows, and fostering a culture of adaptability and improvement. By focusing on continuous enhancement and aligning operations with customer needs, lean practices drive both productivity and long-term sustainability.
In today’s fast-paced economy, businesses must focus on controlling costs, maximizing productivity, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Lean practices, inspired by the renowned “Toyota Production System,” have been refined over the past 50+ years and successfully applied across industries. These principles offer valuable insights for software projects, with one of the most impactful being the elimination of waste. By adopting lean strategies, businesses can streamline operations and drive sustainable growth, tailored to their unique needs.
What is Waste?
Waste, simply defined, is an act of consuming more resources than are necessary to produce the goods or services that your customer wants. When evaluating a process through the lens of Lean, waste can be anything that consumes resources and creates no resultant value. Uncovering and eliminating the waste in your business will have an immediate impact on productivity and ultimately your bottom line.
Types of Waste
Lean practices advocate looking for specific types of waste. While, again, the school of thought was created for a manufacturing world, there are obvious analogs in software development. Some of the types of waste defined by Lean are:
- Over-Production – Producing more than what the customer needs.
- Waiting – Employees waiting, idle, for another person, process, or equipment.
- Motion – Extra physical/mental motion that doesn’t add value.
- Transportation – Moving products from one place to another.
- Inventory – Building and storing extra services/products the customer has not ordered.
- Defect – Reprocessing, or correcting work stemming from production failures.
- Over Processing – Adding excess value when the customer does not require it.
- Intellect – Not using employees’ full intellectual capacity or talent.
How Technology Supports a Lean Business
Waste can be hidden in any process within your business. For example, “waiting”, if you eliminate 20 minutes per day of “waiting” by the end of the year you will have gained two weeks of time. Using Claris FileMaker to help you identify and eliminate waste can be a powerful way to begin the Lean transformation of your business. Each type of waste can easily be captured and tracked within a custom FileMaker solution. Some examples of custom “waste eliminating” solutions are Inventory Management, Job Tracking, Productivity or Parts Per Labor Hour (PPLH), Takt Time, Cycle Time/Count, Shipping and Receiving, Supply Chain, Document Management, 5S and Safety, Incident Management, Scheduling, Time Tracking, Process Automation, Employee Management, and Accounting.
Examples of FileMaker solutions that eliminate waste
Productivity Tracking
During one of my roles as an in-house FileMaker developer, I was tasked with replacing a manual process for tracking how many parts an operator could produce each hour. The manual process required the operator to stop every hour, walk to a dry erase board, manually tally and total the parts they made, and write that on the board for the corresponding hour. At the end of the day, the supervisor would capture a picture of each board and then manually compile the data in excel. The solution I created leveraged FileMakerGo, iPads, and IoT devices called Phidgets. At the beginning of each job, the operator would scan a barcode into the iPad, and FileMakerGo would pull up the details of the parts to be produced. Using the Phidgets, FileMaker automatically captured when a part was made and recorded the data in the database. Above each work area were FileMaker dashboards that displayed totals and productivity statistics. By eliminating the hourly stops for manual data collection and end-of-shift manual data entry, we could put several hours per day back into the production process. Allowing the operators to have more time on task and provide real-time feedback on performance. Waste: Waiting, Motion, Intellect, Over Processing, Over Production.
Automated Order Entry
I worked with a client that ran a seasonal business where all customer purchases were made online. The existing process required the client to manually transfer order data from an email they would receive when an order was placed into their FileMaker solution. Due to the seasonal nature of the client’s business, the owner had to complete this manual process, taking them away from other business-critical tasks. Using the FileMaker Insert Form URL feature, I was able to connect to the ordering website and retrieve order data automatically for the client. Scripts within the FileMaker solution completed the order entry process. Automating this process gave the client several hours per day back to focus on business-critical tasks. Waste: Waiting, Over Processing, Intellect.
Once you begin the process of waste elimination, you will quickly begin to reap the rewards of a fundamental component of running a Lean business. Lean business practices are centered around adding value to your business. At Codence we believe that we add value to your business through well-crafted, rightly-sized FileMaker solutions and lasting partnerships with our clients.
The Benefits of Running a Lean Business
Running a lean business unlocks more than just cost savings—it’s a strategic approach to driving efficiency, adaptability, and long-term growth. By adopting a customized lean strategy, businesses can streamline operations, prioritize customer value, and stay competitive in today’s fast-paced market.
Key practices like lean process management and business planning allow you to target areas for improvement, ensuring resources are optimized and waste is minimized. A lean approach improves efficiency by identifying and eliminating bottlenecks, enabling your business to scale and adapt quickly to changing market demands.
A well-structured lean business plan also promotes a culture of continuous improvement. Teams are empowered to innovate while staying aligned with core objectives, creating a foundation for sustainable growth. With a strong focus on customization and operational excellence, lean businesses are better positioned to thrive in a competitive economy.
How to Create a Lean Business Plan
A lean business plan is a streamlined approach to achieving clarity and focus. It prioritizes setting clear goals, outlining actionable steps, and defining measurable success metrics—eliminating the need for lengthy, complex documents. Start by identifying your business objectives and understanding your customers’ needs. Then, apply lean process management to pinpoint and address inefficiencies in your operations, ensuring your business runs smoothly and effectively.
Your plan should focus on a lean strategy that promotes improved efficiency, cost savings, and increased agility. This means making the best use of resources and preparing for growth with scalability in mind. With the right lean plan in place, your business can achieve sustainable growth and long-term success.
Embrace Efficiency with Claris FileMaker
Running a successful business means working smarter, cutting waste, and improving efficiency—and Claris FileMaker makes it easy to do just that. With FileMaker, you can create customized tools to streamline workflows, manage resources, and track progress in real-time. Its flexibility helps businesses implement lean strategies, like simplifying processes and staying agile, while also promoting continuous improvement.
Want to see how FileMaker can help your business run leaner? Contact Codence for a free consultation and learn how we can get you started.
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