1. What are critical sucess factors while implementing lean in an SME'S.

2. Is there any way to check that the factors that we pre determined as critical while we were implementing lean in an enterprise...is it actually critical or no.

If any would like to share any power point presentation or information kindly eamil to [email protected]

Regards

Top Management Support and Commitment is critical for the success of Lean within any enterprise. A couple of other things to consider are:

a) Deployment of Enabling Infrastructure (Deployment champions, lean coordinators)

b.) Formation & Training of Lean Teams with Generation of Buy-in from Workforce

c) Use of VSMs to identify opportunities and institution of a culture of continuous improvement culture

d) Enforcement of the right behaviours through audits, reviews etc.

SJ

In addition to the points already raised in this forum I would like to add following.

The most important factor is conviction of top management. In case of SMEs typically run by enetrpreneurs the empowerment is restricted  to one or two persons of the top. Unless they are convinced, improvment process will not start.

The top management need to be very clear about "what to change" and "what to change" to with action plan and convinced about the impact on business drivers.

seondly in SMEs business processes are very vaguly defined and same is about authority and responsibility. Responsibilities in the team should be clearly defined. The team need to be empowered to excute the plan. This is many times a constraint. Data based analysis may not be a culture and  many times decisions are taken on gut feeling. Challenging the decisions taken on gut feeling will hurt egos. This is cultural a change and may be another constarint.

 VN