LM practices should be thought of like a big toolbox filled with different tools to uncover and fix problem areas in your company. Better yet, LM helps you improve areas you did not know that could be improved upon. These important tools have names—5S, just-in-time, kaizen (continuous improvement) and much more. What is more important is the philosophy and culture change that happens within every organization. Most companies that fail to embrace LM do so because they truly cannot let go of their ingrained ways of thinking and management practices. Failure of implementing LM principles to garner real, positive results starts at the top and ends at the very bottom of the organization.

LM principles are more than your tools. LM changes the culture of the company because management and the employees are embracing continuous improvement in every area beyond the manufacturing. Every area such as employee retention, communication, management, training, sales and project processes are all constantly refined and improved for the company. In other words, you may not be able to use one of the coined LM terms, such as 5S, but your company can refine and improve a previously un-improvable area. A common example is when a company human resource department stands in the way of a needed pay scale change for the manufacturing group. Too often a company policy for the lumberyards may somehow be keeping the CM division from offering a pay scale adjustment or an incentive program. LM does not allow such short-sighted rulemaking to affect needed improvements.

Here is something that is not often stated openly about LM or the application of Six Sigma. (Six Sigma is an offshoot of LM.) These LM philosophies and practices, which include Six Sigma, apply common sense to overcome the egos that have been preventing needed changes. Six Sigma allows companies to display statistical data to prove or disprove a given idea for a particular area. An example is stated in the January 7th 2015 ProSales article, “US LBM uses technology and training to blaze its growth path.” The article shows how this company had great results because their mindsets were changed by LM. One example is rearranging the lumberyard so that trucks could be loaded quicker: “A redesign of facilities according to lean management techniques that, at one yard, have reduced forklift driving distances by 30% for most loads, improved traffic flow, and cut labor distribution costs as a percentage of yard revenue by 23%.” Does this seem like common sense? See link: 

http://www.prosalesmagazine.com/benchmarks/dealer-of-the-year/2015-dealer-of-the-year-us-lbm_o.